Republican legislators are known for their support of gun rights, yet a letter they sentregarding state Attorney General Kamala Harris last week has a man-bites-dog quality about it. A dozen state GOP senators called for an oversight hearing to examine why Harris has been too slow to confiscate the firearms of so-called “prohibited persons.”
California is the only state to have what is known as the Armed Prohibited Persons System— a database created in 2007 that cross-references lists of firearms owners against lists of people who no longer are allowed to own firearms (e.g., those with criminal histories, mental illness or are subject to restraining orders.)
The state Department of Justice then sends agents to the homes of those who are on the list to take away their guns. Following the murders at a Connecticut elementary school in 2013, the Legislature authorized an audit of the program. It also appropriated $24 million after DOJ said the money would enable it to hire more agents and clean up a backlog.
Two years after the passage of that law (SB 140), the department just released its first report. “Unfortunately, the report reflects the failure of the attorney general and the DOJ to address the APPS backlog and meet the commitments they made to the Legislature,” according to the GOP letter sent to Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles.
Instead of hiring 36 agents as promised, the DOJ hired only 18. “In the six-year period prior to SB 140, DOJ confiscated an average of 1,673 firearms per year,” the senators wrote. “In 2014, after the additional $24 million was provided, DOJ confiscated 3,288 guns, a net increase of only 1,616 firearms seized out of over 40,000 thought to be illegally held.”
by Steven Greenhut
