While I agree with you in principle (in particular on the LEO exemptions), let me spin the argument a different way: To buy a gun, you have to do a background check. That background check can be done after you buy the gun. There is a fee for that background check. To save time, you can instead do the background check beforehand, and pay the fee beforehand. If we think of licenses such as CoE and CCW just as a "prepaid background check", then it is much less of the "objectionable fee-based licensing scheme".
Unless, of course, you are in the economic bottom 50%tile of the state. The COE will run $120; the CCW upwards to $1k. The lower economic citizens are then disproportionately barred from participation due to their inability to afford such a luxury pass.
No, because rights have tradeoffs, as described above. If infringing SLIGHTLY into everyone's right to buy a gun (for example with a half-hour background check, and a 3-day cooling off period for the first gun a person buys) happens to save MANY lives, then the infringement is reasonable.
That seems to lean toward interest balancing, no? And, as the statistics seem to suggest, a cooling off period won’t help suicides which seem to be about 50% of the gun fatalities.
The problem here is the terms "slightly" and "many" need to be defined, and that's always going to be a judgement call. Today's legislation in California certainly has those terms being used backwards, as your example of Mr. Portantino shows. In our society, that value judgement is embodied in the legislature, and in the courts. Don't like the results you are getting today? Try to convince representatives and judges, or use the power of the ballot to replace them.
I always like this argument. I’ve been voting R in this state for over 50 years and lobbying my reps almost as long. Now, all of my state reps are Ds in a super majority. Prop 63, Ammunition Control, passed with a 63% “Yes” from the voters. The ballot box in CA is closed.
In any case, California's 10 to 30 day waiting period for all guns is nonsense, and needs to be reformed. Getting completely rid of it for the first-time purchase is probably neither desirable nor viable in today's political world.
Remember, the issue being contested in CA is not background checks or 10 days or 30 days, it’s
any days in excess of the completion of the background check. The federal check through NICS takes less than 2 days…sometimes just hours. But DOJ holds approval until the 10th. Unless, of course, they have other things which delay that. The State has developed so many esoteric reasons
(Here’s the 2025, 6-page list*) to deny possession of firearms to its residents as to create an unmanageable clearance process. The results of these prohibitions are lodged in various ancient computer systems (AFIS, APPS, CII, etc.) which don’t “talk” to one another, so the information must be manually reviewed.
*Any person who has been convicted of a felony, certain misdemeanors, certain firearms offenses, who is addicted to narcotics, who is the subject of a domestic violence restraining order, or has been committed to a mental institution pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 8100, may not possess or have under his or her control any firearm. This doesn’t include certain statutory conditions which exist that allow for the possession of firearms but preclude the acquisition or purchase of additional firearms, such as the subjects of certain restraining orders and those under state or federal indictment. DOJ Source.
Reform is needed, but it won’t come through policy work; it will come through court mandate.
