For a guy who claims to support the 2nd amendment, Jim Cooper sure has a funny way of showing it. In fact, the language in AB 2497 tells me that Assemblymember Jim Cooper‘s claim is an outright lie.
Last legislative session (2015-2016) he authored a bill that addressed “ghost guns” requiring anyone who previously built one to apply for a serial number and requires anyone planning to build one to apply for the serial number before completing one. There were other requirements in it as well, but rest assured, the bill did nothing to stop criminals from getting “ghost guns” and only adds all sorts of additional hoops for law abiding gun owners to jump through.
Now, this session, he just gutted and amended a bill, AB 2497, one that originally was related to the Food and Agriculture code, but now specifically penalizes firearms owners and retailers who have “the privilege of selling firearms and ammunition” (direct quite from the language of the bill) in order to fund some school safety programs, programs that would benefit ALL of California, not just law abiding gun owners who are being tasked with funding it.
Sure seems like a long way from supporting the 2nd amendment to me. In fact, it seems much more like punishing people who dare to exercise a constitutionally guaranteed right.
To say I am disgusted by this is a colossal understatement! For a man who spent a long career in law enforcement, it saddens me to see him do astoundingly stupid shit like this. He damn well knows that the 99% of the people using guns to commit crimes are not buying them at retail stores. This bill does nothing to punish criminals, and absolutely, without a doubt, penalizes millions of law abiding Californians who have done nothing wrong.
(Disclaimer: The hypothetical that follows is absurd and is only used to show how stupid this proposed bill is. Anyone making racist comments based on this hypothetical, no matter their skin color, will be banned. I have zero tolerance for racists.)
Let’s take a moment and use the logic behind AB 2497 and apply it to a completely hypothetical bill. Say we propose a new bill aimed at lowering the overall murder rate, reducing jail and prison crowding, and to pay for damages caused by rioters (“protesters”). Since the vast majority of the participants of all the recent anti-cop riots across the entire country are members of this group, and since the overall jail/prison population consists of 40% of people who are members of this group, and since on average, 52% of all murders annually are committed by members of this same group, a group who only constitutes 13% of the US population, it only makes sense that we should tax that group specifically instead of passing the costs for that onto the whole of society, right? Therefore, I recommend that we levy additional taxes on all black Americans.
Makes sense, right? Of course it doesn’t! That is completely, utterly absurd, yet that is exactly the same logic that is behind AB 2497. FFS, stop writing stupid laws that punish law abiding people for the actions of criminals!
-Matt