To make guns ‘as safe as possible,’ San Diego County lawmakers’ bills make appeals to owners’ responsibility

Amid a spate of high-profile shootings around the country, San Diego County Democrats in Washington and Sacramento are pushing new gun-safety legislation that aims not to restrict the sale of guns, but to encourage owners to take their dangers seriously.

Gun safety bills by U.S. Rep. Mike Levin and state Sen. Catherine Blakespear, who both represent coastal North County districts, aim to reduce the risk of guns in homes and hold owners accountable for their use.

“This deluge of mass shootings we’ve seen on a weekly basis or even daily basis, we don’t have to live like this,” Levin said, while acknowledging the challenges of passing gun legislation in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. “So we have to do everything we can to find common ground on the gun-safety issue.”

Levin’s bill, which he introduced Friday, would offer gun sellers a tax credit to promote safe gun storage devices. It is intended to reduce “family fire” — shootings by someone who obtained a gun stored unsafely at home.

He cited statistics from the gun control advocacy group Brady indicating that 4.6 million children live in homes where there is a gun stored loaded and unlocked and that three-quarters of school shootings over one recent decade were committed with guns obtained at home.

In order to promote secure gun storage, his bill proposes tax credits to retailers that would total 10 percent of the cost of the device, for a maximum credit of $40 per item. The goal is to make locking firearm cabinets, racks or safes more accessible and affordable, he said.

“We expect retailers to pass the tax savings down to customers, to create more competitive prices and generate more business,” Levin said.

The bipartisan bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Young Kim, R-La Habra, Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., and Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas.

While Levin said he favors more ambitious measures such as an assault weapon ban, he tried to find common ground with Republican colleagues.

“The area I kept coming back to was the area of safe storage devices,” Levin said. “Just being able to safely store a firearm is actually quite significant in preventing gun-related accidents.”

In Sacramento, Blakespear is sponsoring separate legislation to require gun shops to post signs with warnings on the danger of guns in homes, compel owners to buy insurance for their guns and require semiautomatic pistols to use microstamping technology to identify spent cartridges.

Her bill would mandate signs in gun shops carrying information on a suicide hotline, along with a message to customers: “Access to a firearm in the home significantly increases the risk of suicide, death, and injury during domestic violence disputes, and the unintentional death and traumatic injury to children, household members, and guests.”

The goal is to encourage them to consider the risks, she said.

“It’s a public health model,” Blakespear said. “How do you make something that’s inherently dangerous as safe as possible, in the same way of cigarette warning labels?”

Another bill would require gun owners to buy insurance for each gun. That would provide compensation for potential crimes or accidents associated with the weapon, and also create a rate structure to encourage gun safety.

“One of the points is that insurance companies would ask questions that would drive safer handling of guns,” she said.

Her third bill calls for all semiautomatic pistols sold in California to incorporate microstamping technology that would mark bullets with a signature pattern as they exit the casing.

“It’s basically a fingerprint that ties the bullet to a gun,” she said.

An existing law mandating microstamping capabilities and other safety features on new handgun models sold in California was struck down last month by a federal judge.

Blakespear’s bills have already passed the Public Safety Committee of the state Senate and must pass the Senate in June before going to the Assembly.

Levin introduced his bill Friday. It must be considered by the House Ways and Means Committee.