Gun Bill

After Attack Near Campus, California Weighs Gun Bill

By JENNIFER MEDINA

Just days after a 22-year-old killed six college students and himself near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara, state lawmakers are championing legislation that would permit law enforcement officials and private individuals to seek a restraining order from a judge that would keep people with a potential propensity for violence from buying or owning a gun. The process would be similar to the one currently used for restraining orders in cases of domestic violence.

The legislation is being introduced this week in response to the attack on Friday by Elliot O. Rodger, who was able to buy three guns and go on a rampage despite warnings from his family and mental health professionals that he was unstable and possibly dangerous. It is unclear, however, if the measures contained in the bills could have prevented his actions if they had been law.

Although mass shootings have not translated into stricter gun control laws nationally, they have prompted changes on the state level — largely limiting access to guns, but in some cases loosening existing laws, which gun advocates say give people more leeway to arm themselves against criminals. After a mass shooting at a school in Newtown, Conn., Connecticut and New York passed bans on assault rifles and created stricter background checks.

But California, which already has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, could go even further. The legislation, known as a gun violence restraining order, would allow people to notify courts or law enforcement officials if they are concerned that a family member or friend is at risk of committing violence.

Gun control advocates have recently started pushing for such restraining orders in statehouses across the nation, expanding on similar laws that have passed in Connecticut, Indiana and Texas.

“Always after a mass shooting, the question comes up: How could we have prevented this?” said Dr. Garen J. Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.

“In most cases, my response has to be there isn’t anything we could have done. In this case, this law might have prevented this from happening, and it will absolutely be useful for the future. This addresses the question of what do we do about the people who have not faced some diagnosis and who might just fall through the cracks.”

But even in California, with an overwhelmingly Democratic majority in both houses of the Legislature, it could prove difficult to get the bill passed and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown. In addition to expected opposition from the National Rifle Association and other gun rights advocates, the bill is also likely to face challenges from those concerned about limiting civil liberties of those dealing with mental illness.

A spokesman for the N.R.A. declined to comment because he had not seen the bill language.

And Mr. Brown, a Democrat and gun owner himself, has vetoed gun control legislation in the past, including bills last year that would have done more to limit the sale of semiautomatic rifles and further limited gun ownership.

Darrell Steinberg, president pro tem of the California Senate, said in an interview on Wednesday that he was not familiar with the details of the restraining order legislation, though he foresaw concerns being raised about civil liberties. Such a bill “would have to be very carefully crafted, because you do not want the law to get into the middle, or just to be used as a pretext or excuse for leverage in an intergenerational family fight,” he said. “You could see the potential for abuse.”

On the other hand, Mr. Steinberg said: “There might be circumstances where it is appropriate for this additional protection. I think this is worthy of a real serious conversation.”

In other developments on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the Santa Barbara County sheriff said that the department was investigating whether Mr. Rodger — who stabbed to death three people in his apartment before shooting his remaining victims from his car — may have drugged the initial victims before he stabbed them.

Since the attack on Friday, Richard Martinez, the father of one of the victims, Christopher Ross Michaels-Martinez, has become a vocal and emotional proponent for gun control legislation.

At a memorial service on Tuesday at the university, Mr. Martinez led thousands of students gathered in a chant of “not one more,” which has become a rallying cry in social media for gun legislation.

“The problem with piecemeal legislation is it’s like building a car out of parts from different manufacturers, and expecting it to run effectively,” Mr. Martinez said in an interview on Wednesday. “That’s not an effective way to approach such a complicated problem.”

Mr. Martinez has said he wants to meet with Peter Rodger, the father of the attacker, and work with him to push for more gun control. A spokesman for Mr. Rodger said Wednesday that the two men were trying to arrange a meeting.

Backers of the California legislation say that the law would work in much the same way domestic violence restraining orders do — with a petitioner directly requesting a restraining order from the courts, or asking law enforcement officials to do so. A judge would be required to have a full hearing to decide whether to grant the restraining order within seven days and then rule on the length of time it would be in effect. Law enforcement officials would then be able to temporarily seize any firearms the person owned and place him or her on a list of people prohibited from purchasing weapons.

Nancy Skinner, a Democratic assemblywoman from Berkeley and the author of the legislation, said she had been working to shape the legislation for months, but the attack on Friday gave urgency to the effort, particularly because Mr. Rodger’s mother had alerted the authorities about her son a month earlier.

“We’ve heard that she was very aware about her son’s well-being, and so concerned that she asked the police to go to him,” Ms. Skinner said. “She should have been able to go to law enforcement and say, ‘Here’s the evidence and — sadly — my son is a threat and could create violence.’ Knowing that in this case a parent tried to intervene and didn’t really have an effective tool is tragic.”

After the shooting in Connecticut, New York passed a legislative package that included expanding an assault weapons ban, doing more to keep guns away from people with mental illnesses and imposing tougher sentences on people who use guns in crimes. Connecticut also toughened its gun laws, requiring buyers to pass a national criminal background check, banning high-capacity magazines and expanding the list of banned weapons.

Still, California has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and is one of the few states to prohibit anyone from buying guns if a psychiatrist reports to law enforcement officials that the individual has made a credible threat to a “reasonably identifiable” individual.

“This is a relatively new area of legislation aimed at prevention, with details still being fleshed out,” said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, which lobbies for stricter gun control across the country. “Generally we see this discussed and enacted in response to violence that could have been prevented. We need to prevent access for individuals who are at an elevated risk, regardless of whether the cause is mental illness or drug abuse or something else.”

The legislation will have its first hearing in the State Senate’s public safety committee next month. If it is approved by the committee, the Legislature is likely vote on the bill before it adjourns at the end of August.