ALERT: Retired cops get special treatment back in Calif. Senate Bill 707 amendment
As predicted, Senator Lois Wolk has caved to pressure brought by lobbyists for numerous law enforcement associations. Senate Bill 707 was amended to restore the “Gun-Free School Zone Act” exemption for retired police officers, while maintaining its attack on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding carry licensees.
The peace officer groups told Sen. Wolk and members of the Senate’s Public Safety and Appropriations Committees that they would support the anti-gun bill as long as it only affected law-abiding people, like carry licensees.
Firearms Policy Coalition has been and remains strongly opposed to SB 707, especially in a form that would criminalize law-abiding people while giving special favors to retired peace officers. In our recent letter of opposition sent to the Appropriations Committee, we said that “[b]y treating those who hold a valid license to carry a firearm different from retired peace officers authorized to carry a concealed or loaded firearm, the bill would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution….And if SB 707 is enacted in a form that treats retired peace officers differently than those licensed to carry by county sheriffs and municipal police chiefs, we will immediately sue the State in federal court, and we will win—costing State taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more).”
FPC encourages all California gun owners to contact the Senate and express their opposition to the unconstitutional Senate Bill 707.
