California Gov. Jerry Brown (D.) signed a number of new gun control initiatives into law on Friday.
Among the initiatives are new rules requiring photo ID and a background check to purchase ammunition, an ammunition owners database, a ban on the possession of magazines which are capable of holding more than ten rounds of ammunition, require homemade firearms to be registered with the state, and restricted how gun owners lend guns to one another.
"We certainly have a lot of laws here," Brown told the Sacramento Bee before the bills reached his desk. "Of course, that’s my general view. We could probably have fewer, but we’ll look at them."
Though Brown did veto a number of other gun control measures, he did sign six new bills into law. "My goal in signing these bills is to enhance public safety by tightening our existing laws in a responsible and focused manner, while protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners," Brown said in a statement on the new laws.
Gun rights proponents in the state said the new laws make gun owners second-class citizens. "Law-abiding people are not second-class citizens and we do not submit to being left with second-class rights," Craig DeLuz, the director of public and legislative affairs for the Firearms Policy Coalition, said in a statement. "The level of compliance with gun laws in California is becoming directly inverse to the volume of statutory hoops that gun owners are expected to jump through to exercise a fundamental right."
"The legislature’s manic attack on law-abiding gun owners, democracy, and the legislative process jeopardizes not only civil rights but public respect for the law and our governmental institutions."