It's amazing that it was not already a law. Yesterday, Governor Jerry Brown signed the
new safety measure.
The legislation - the first such measure in the United States - was introduced after police near Santa Barbara said they were unable to confiscate weapons from a man who later went on a rampage and killed six people, despite concern from his family he was in poor mental health and might become violent [...]
immediate family members and law enforcement agencies could ask a judge to order guns temporarily removed from certain individuals.
The restraining order would last 21 days, and could be extended up to a year, after a notice and a hearing.
The original proposal for the law can be
seen here: Amongst the many obvious reasons put forward in the proposal for having such a statewide law (safety, safety and safety) there was also this very telling part:
Reduce public confusion
The committee reviewed existing procedures and noted that many courts have no procedure to review whether the restrained person relinquished his or her firearm as ordered. The public’s confusion over the court’s responsibility and lack of court follow-up on the firearm relinquishment order could pose a serious threat to the safety of the public at large and the protected persons. A statewide rule would also provide consistent information to the restrained person regarding compliance with the court’s order.
"The public's confusion" is the diplomatic way of saying something more honest and inflammatory like
the public's disbelief or
the public's anger or
the public outcry for sanity. It is just a part of the whole but, it speaks to the importance of people organizing–even around tragedy–even in anger and disbelief.
It frequently takes extreme, and sometimes terrible, things to happen before the public knows what is working or not working in our federal, state and local infrastructure. We would all love to be able to get out ahead of these tragedies and many of us can point to more conservative segments of our communities and government and say I told you so; but we cannot lose sight of using these moments for positive movement forward. This way the memory of those taken by injustice will not be lost to us as we slowly trudge up that mountain.