First, before I get to the point of this post, before people who don’t know anything about me begin calling me a gun grabbing lefty, let me clarify something: I am a very pro-gun California cop who absolutely detests the anti-gun politicians that continue to pass law after law that keep whittling away at our constitutionally guaranteed second amendment rights. If you read any of my other writings or watch any of my YouTube videos, I think you will find that blatantly obvious.
Now, on to the point of this blog post…
I’ve been seeing this tidbit of completely bogus information shared for several years now, and for a long while, I would comment every time I saw it correcting the person who shared it, but I have given up. It is a completely bullshit internet rumor that just won’t die. Sadly it continues to be pushed by a website for whom I once wrote, Joe for America*, and traces back several years further to a Washington Times opinion piece from 2011, the year the law in question was passed.
The claim that California legislators exempted themselves from gun laws is an outright lie that has even been debunked many places, including in the forums on CalGuns. The original language of SB 610 from 2011 included the following:
(b) The good cause requirement shall be deemed met for either the following:
(1) Any applicant who is a member of Congress, a statewide elected official, or a Member of the Legislature, for protection or self-defense.
(2) The licensing authority fails to make a determination of good cause within 30-days of the application.
That was the original version of the bill, but that whole section was dropped from the bill before it was passed, which is why it is in red and stuck out (see screen grab). The final version of that bill can be found here.
While it does indeed appear that whomever originally wrote that bill did attempt to exempt the members of the California State Legislature, among other elected officials, from one particular aspect of that one particular gun law, other members thought better of that and dropped that portion from the bill.
Please, for the love of God, stop spreading this horse hockey around! The anti-gunner’s arguments are easy enough to disprove without needing to resort to easily debunked lies.
In the future, do yourself a huge favor. Anytime a source, especially an internet source, is claiming a law was passed, especially one that seems quite unbelievable, but fails to provide either the actual bill name and number or a link to the bill, just assume it is a lie, which in this case, it most definitely is.
* Ironically, I stopped writing for Joe For America when they began running story after story, loosely based on partial truths, that painted law enforcement in a negative light and pushed the whole “militarization of the cops” narrative.