Tax Guns Instead of Arming Teachers, California Lawmaker Proposes

By Alexei Koseff, The Sacramento Bee

17 April 18

 

ollowing the February school massacre in Parkland, Fla., California legislators responded as they often do after a mass shooting, with proposals to further tighten the state's strict gun control laws.

But the killings – and a national protest movement that they inspired – have also raised questions across the country about how best to keep children safe in school.

Assembly Bill 2497, unveiled last month by Assemblyman Jim Cooper, would create a tax on firearm and ammunition sales to fund grants for high schools that want to hire police to provide campus security. The money would also pay for a counselor at every middle school, whose primary responsibility would be to detect and report potential threats of violence.

"It sickens me to think about all the kids who have lost their lives in the school shootings that are plaguing our country," Cooper, an Elk Grove Democrat, said in a statement when he introduced the measure. "Arming teachers is not good public policy and shouldn't be considered."

Cooper has yet to determine how much the tax would be, so it will be an incomplete proposal going before the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee for its first hearing, 2:30 p.m. in Room 126 of the Capitol. The bill faces an uphill climb in the Legislature, where it will need a two-thirds vote in both houses.

Gun rights groups are already lining up against the measure.

Craig DeLuz of the Firearms Policy Coalition said he supports efforts to improve school safety, but it is unfair to target gun owners to pay for a service that will benefit all students.

"Who should be bearing that burden? It should be all taxpayers, not one specific group of law-abiding taxpayers that are just trying to exercise their Second Amendment rights," DeLuz said.

He added that he's been expecting a firearms and ammunition tax at the Capitol since Democrats regained their supermajority in 2016: "I was honestly surprised that it took them this long to come up with this idea."

NEW FACES: The Legislature will welcome its newest member today when Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon swears in Democrat Sydney Kamlager to represent the 54th Assembly District. Kamlager, who previously worked as the district director for Sen. Holly Mitchell, won a special election earlier this month for the Los Angeles-based seat vacated in December when Sebastian Ridley-Thomas stepped down citing "persistent health issues." Two other special elections held that day, both in Los Angeles-area Assembly districts where lawmakers resigned last fall amid sexual harassment scandals, advanced to runoffs in June. But Democrats Luz Rivas and Jesse Gabriel, who will face Republican opponents, are likely to win those Democratic-leaning seats.

BUILD, BABY, BUILD: It may be controversial, but there's no denying that the California Chamber of Commerce's annual "job killer" designation is an effective lobbying tactic. So who can blame the California Building Industry Association for trying to get in on the action? The organization representing homebuilders, contractors, architects and other developers has announced its inaugural "housing killers" and "housing creators." The lists highlight two bills that the association says will exacerbate California's housing crisis and seven that it says will help increase affordability, including the contentious Senate Bill 827, which strips cities of some of their zoning authority to unleash an enormous amount of new construction.