SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(a) The Unsafe Handgun Act is an essential consumer and public safety measure that was designed to ensure that handguns sold and manufactured in this state function properly and come equipped with lifesaving features that protect lawful users and aid law enforcement in identifying individuals who have criminally misused firearms to endanger the public.
(b) Data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Fatal Injury Reports indicate that California’s rate of unintentional shooting deaths has fallen
substantially since the Unsafe Handgun Act’s initial provisions went into effect in 2001. In the preceding five years, between 1996–2000, nearly 400 Californians died as a result of unintentional shooting injuries. By 2014–18, the most recent five years of data available from the CDC, the rate of unintentional shooting deaths in California had fallen by two-thirds.
(c) Among the Unsafe Handgun Act’s critical safety standards is the requirement that a new semiautomatic pistol model
includes a chamber load indicator and magazine disconnect mechanism. These features alert a person handling a handgun that the weapon is loaded and ensure a handgun cannot fire a chambered cartridge if the magazine has been removed. Researchers have determined that these features are capable of saving many lives by preventing unintentional shootings.
(d) Another standard that is critical for public safety is the Unsafe Handgun Act’s requirement that a new semiautomatic pistol model includes a mechanism to imprint a unique microscopic array of characters onto the casing of each round fired by the weapon, that can be used to identify the weapon’s make, model, and serial number and assist law enforcement in identifying those who have criminally used firearms to endanger the public.
(e) Recent research indicates that across the nation, large numbers of shootings are never reported to law enforcement, and large numbers of fatal and nonfatal shootings go unsolved and undeterred. An in-depth investigation by The Washington Post found that across 52 of the nation’s largest cities, 53 percent of murders of African Americans never led to an arrest, let alone a conviction. Other investigative reports have indicated that homicides and attempted homicides involving firearms may be even less likely to lead to an arrest. Research reported by The Trace found that across 22 cities, 65 percent of fatal shootings involving an African American or Hispanic victim never led to an arrest. In California, the Department of Justice reported that from 2007–16, an average of 39 percent of homicides went unsolved annually. When shootings, homicides, and other firearm crimes are unsolved and
undeterred, retaliatory cycles of violence, trauma, and vigilantism are more likely to erupt instead, leading to increased interpersonal gun violence and injury, and weakened trust in the justice system.
(f) Incorporating a chamber load indicator and magazine disconnect mechanism in more handgun models sold in California would likely reduce unintentional firearm deaths and injuries in this state, and help encourage the development and sale of handguns incorporating these basic product safety features nationally.
(g) Incorporating microstamping features in more handgun models sold in California would likely reduce interpersonal gun
violence in this state by aiding law enforcement efforts to solve and deter shootings, homicides, and other gun-related crimes, and prevent cycles of retributive violence from occurring.
(h) Unfortunately, firearm manufacturers claim it is impossible or impractical to implement the safe Unsafe Handgun Act. The Legislature rejects these claims for reasons including the following:
(1) Microstamping is feasible and reliable, as has been shown during live demonstrations at the California Highway Patrol testing range in Sacramento and the Los Angeles Police Academy, where legible microstamped characters were visible on all cartridges tested.
(2) Implementation costs are minimal: between $1.50
and $5.00 per firearm.
(3) The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute concedes that “microstamped characters that identify the make, model, and serial number of a semi-automatic pistol can be etched or imprinted on the tip of the pistol’s firing pin” and tests have shown it is feasible to do the same on the firearm breechface.
(i) The Legislature continues to believe that the requirements of the Unsafe Handgun Act serve consumer and public safety and are feasible and necessary. To further implement this lifesaving law, the Legislature has considered and adopted the amendments contained in this act, including a provision to require that new semiautomatic pistol models have microstamped characters on one location on the interior surface or internal working parts of
the pistol instead of two. The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute concedes this can be done on the pistol’s firing pin, and tests have shown that such imprints allow for successful identification of microstamped characters in 97 percent of cases.
(j) The Legislature adopts these and the other provisions in this Act in order to better implement the goals of the Unsafe Handgun Act, ensure that firearm manufacturers responsibly incorporate lifesaving features into more handguns sold in California, expedite the manufacture and sale of new semiautomatic pistol models equipped with microstamping features to help solve more firearm crimes and prevent cycles of interpersonal gun violence, and continue to protect Californians from interpersonal shootings, gun crimes, and unintentional shooting death and
injury.