California May Relax Gun Control Laws

The MMMs loves them­selves a good pan­ic­gasm. They’ve had lots of fun things to pan­ic over late­ly, so this lit­tle nugget of good news has­n’t got­ten much atten­tion:

A few weeks ago, Cal­i­for­nia Assem­bly­man Alex Lee (no-rela­tion!) is push­ing a sen­tenc­ing reform bill that would, among oth­er things (bet­ter sit down for this), dial back sen­tenc­ing for gun-relat­ed crimes.

If you’re check­ing your cal­en­dar, it’s not April Fool’s Day. The Assem­bly Pub­lic Safe­ty Com­mit­tee vot­ed 6–2 to approve Lee’s Anti-Racism Sen­tenc­ing Reform Act, but there are oth­er hur­dles it will have to clear before it becomes law.

If you think Cal­i­for­nia is suf­fer­ing a bout of com­mon sense and wants law-abid­ing folks to be able to defend them­selves, sor­ry. The bil­l’s intent is to roll back sen­tenc­ing “enhance­ments”: If a firearm is used dur­ing a crime, cur­rent laws add up to 25 years to the sen­tence. Lee’s con­tention is that gun-relat­ed sen­tenc­ing enhance­ments dis­pro­por­tion­al­ly pun­ish peo­ple of col­or.

Well, that’s okay. I’ll cel­e­brate any step in the right direc­tion, no mat­ter who’s tak­ing that step.