Councilwoman Richelle Noroyan has introduced a proposal to the Santa Cruz, Calif., city council making it a crime to have a handgun that is not locked away, disabled with a trigger guard or on the owner’s person. In this manner, Santa Cruz is following the example of Los Angeles, which recently enacted a so-called “safe storage” law. The legislation proposed in Santa Cruz would also require gun owners to report missing firearms within five days.
The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports Noroyan’s motivation for the proposal: “After I saw Obama give his comments about the community college shooting in Oregon … it just hit me kind of in an emotional way to want to do something to address this.” While this may grant her emotional satisfaction, empirical evidence suggests that such a measure would curtail the freedom and safety of gun owners without cutting crime or accidents.
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