California Legislature sends Active Shooter Protection Act to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature

Sept. 16, 2015

Last week the California State legislature sent to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature SB 707, the Active Shooter Protection Act.  A modification to the School Victim Disarmament Zone Act.

When the School Victim Disarmament Zone Act was first introduced in California it was considered one of the toughest guarantees that an Active Shooter (or as many in the gun lobby prefer to call it Active Murderer), would have uninterrupted access to victims for a minimum of five to seven minutes.

With the large number of Concealed Carry Permit holders now in California the reaction time has potentially shortened to the point that the Active Shooter might be stopped by someone else with a gun before they are able to carry out their full vendetta against students and teachers.

“We simply did not account for CCW holders when we first crafted this law.”  Said State Assemblyman Richard Castrati-Rodriguez.

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“We had two separate goals in mind when we crafted that law.  1) Make the gun a symbol of violence not the individual, 2) Allow the Active Shooter as much time as possible to cause as much mayhem as possible so we in Sacramento would have an easier time passing stricter gun control laws.”

Castrati-Rodriguez sited “emotional impact” as one of the chief goals of the legislation.

“Look, when someone shoots or kills with a handgun and is stopped before they can do anything else we have a missed opportunity.  We have seen time and time again, when one person is able to have uninterrupted killing sprees we in the legislature, both here and in other states, and even on a federal level, are given the political capital we need to push for restrictions on regular gun owners.”

The law has had mixed results.  While there have been highlighted cases of Active Shooters establishing high casualty rates in their acts, the response times of law enforcement as well as victims themselves fighting back has lowered over all killings, and by extension removed some of the impetus for new gun control measures.

Chief among these counter measures against active shooters are concealed carry licenses.

California Senator Misty Rose-Ginsberg stated,  “We just never envisioned it.  We could not have predicted that despite all of our efforts to demonize guns and gun owners people would still want to buy these things, let alone carry them.”

“The fact that the law, the way it was written created an unintended exemption for CCW holders was an oversight.  The last thing we need when we are so close to finally getting a casualty count that might take us over the top for more gun control is some cowboy being on the school campus and messing the whole thing up.”

When the School Victim Disarmament Zone act was first passed both on a federal and state level, there were certain exemptions built in.  Law enforcement was one, but so were individuals that have permission to carry issued by local law enforcement.  This exemption has been read as covering Concealed Carry Permits issued by local sheriffs.

“It was just never intended to be that way.” said Senator Rose-Ginsberg.  “When we crafted the law we need to make the public believe that the only way to stop an Active Shooter were for highly trained law enforcement personnel to make contact with the shooter and end his rampage.  The exemption to the law was meant to protect them not regular civilians.  You just need to study our intent.  We want to make firearm ownership and use more difficult for civilians, not easier.”

The bill is now on Governor  Jerry Browns’ desk and is expected to be signed into law.