Election day jammed California citizens into an untenable position: Proposition 57 releases violent criminals for budgetary reasons, while Proposition 63 drastically restricts residents’ ability to defend themselves.
This feature appears in the January ‘17 issue of NRA America’s 1st Freedom, one of the official journals of the National Rifle Association.
Last November, the American electorate stunned the press and coastal elites when we chose Donald Trump as our 45th president. While half the country celebrated the conservative sweep of the federal government—and Trump signaled his desire to represent people of all political stripes to truly make America stronger—citizens in some areas of our nation actually became more vulnerable.
In particular, Californians face a bleaker and more dangerous future with the passage of ill-advised state ballot initiatives—two of which will likely work in tandem to increase crime rates and endanger law-abiding citizens, according to law enforcement officials.
The first—Proposition 57, authored by Gov. Jerry Brown—seems at first blush to reveal a seemingly logical, practical and even kind-hearted change intended to slow the ballooning prison population of “non-violent” offenders by reducing their sentences for good behavior. According to the voter guide, the initiative was endorsed by “California public safety leaders and victims of crime.” The language is nebulous, to be sure, but is worded so as to inspire a typical voter to simply trust those presumably authoritative “leaders” or heart-wrenching “victims” and vote “Yes.”
by Natalie Foster
