AB 28: Paying the Price for Protection

Summary of AB 28

Assembly Bill 28 is known as the Gun Violence Prevention and School Safety Act, and it went into effect on July 1st of this year. The bill implemented a new 11% excise tax on the sale of guns and ammunition within California.[1] It was introduced by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel of the 46th district (covering Anaheim, Santa Ana, and other parts of Orange County) and it made California the first state to impose an excise tax on firearms and ammunition.[2]

The revenue from the tax is meant to fund school safety and violence prevention programs. The bill’s analysis estimates it will generate $160 million in revenue each year. This revenue is to be allocated among four main programs:

1.     $75 million will go to the California Violence Intervention and Prevention (CalVIP) program,

2.     $50 million will go to school safety initiatives,

3.     $15 million will go to a firearms relinquishment program, and,

4.     The remaining $15 million will go to firearm investigations. [3]

Gabriel described these programs upon the bill’s passage by saying, “AB 28 is based on a straightforward premise – that we should prioritize the safety of our kids over gun industry profits…. AB 28 will fund critical violence prevention and school safety programs that will save lives and protect communities across the State of California.”[4]

Background – California’s Gun Laws

This bill comes as no surprise given the fact that California has the strictest gun laws in the nation. In 2020, the median number of gun laws across all 50 states was 20 laws; California had 111.[5] The earliest gun laws in our state go back as far as 1863, when concealed carry weapons were banned in the state.[6] Since then, over 100 laws have compounded to require background checks, introduce concealed carry permits, create waiting periods to take custody of purchased guns, require licensing for vendors, introduce minimum age requirements, cap the number of guns purchased at one time, ban assault weapons, introduce gun safety exams, and now, introduce new taxes.[7] That sounds like a lot of requirements for wanting to own a gun, and that’s because it is a lot of requirements!

Just what does it take to buy a gun in our state? Let’s look at all the steps you must follow to own a simple handgun here.

First, you need to be over 21 years old, a California resident, and be able to show your identification.[8] You also have to have a valid Firearm Safety Certificate, which is a test administered by the California Department of Justice and is valid for five years after obtaining it.[9] Then, you have to wait ten days from the time of purchase to actually receive the gun. This is to create a “cooling off period” to prevent impulsive acts of gun violence and complete a thorough background check.[10] There also used to be a limit to purchasing one handgun per 30 days, but that law was just overturned by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August of this year.[11]

There are also laws in place that restrict certain individuals from ever owning a gun – known as lifetime bans. These include individuals who have been convicted of certain violent felonies or domestic violence misdemeanors. It also includes anyone who has been involuntarily admitted into a mental health treatment program twice in the same year. Then there are bans that are temporary. For instance, there is a ten-year ban on buying a gun for individuals subject to restraining orders, as well as anyone charged with domestic violence who doesn’t immediately fall into the lifetime ban category.[12]

That’s not all, because there are also laws restricting the purchase of ammunition for the firearms. For example, you can only buy ammunition from a licensed dealer, and you cannot buy it online for delivery to your address. Purchasing ammunition also requires a background check, and you can’t buy magazines with more than 10 rounds.

Handguns themselves must be listed on the California Department of Justice’s Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale for buyers to purchase them. This is so that the DOJ can verify that guns include safety mechanisms and other mechanical features.[13] There are also certain weapons or accessories that are banned across the state. For instance, all assault weapons are banned – which are defined as “semi-automatic firearms without a fixed magazine and at least one suspect feature such as a protruding pistol grip.”[14] Other banned items include guns that don’t have a registered serial number, sound suppressors, bump stocks, and semi-automatic handguns without microstamping[15] – which allows law enforcement to identify which firearm discharged cartridge cases found at a crime scene.[16]

Believe it or not, that’s not all! There are even more laws about where you can carry a gun, how you can carry a gun, and who can sell guns. Yet, even with all these laws in place, far more than any other state has, our legislature is still calling for further reform and more gun laws.

Financial Implications

Assembly Bill 28 doesn’t change or even add to gun restrictions; what this new law does is impose a tax on purchasing guns and ammunition, adding to the lengthy gun purchasing requirements we just discussed. It does this by imposing an excise tax. According to the Internal Revenue Service, “Excise taxes are taxes imposed on certain goods, services, and activities. Taxpayers include importers, manufacturers, retailers, and consumers, and vary depending on the specific tax. Excise taxes may be imposed at the time of sale or use by the manufacturer.”[17] Usually, excise taxes have the purpose to generate revenue for specific causes. For example, there is an excise tax on cigarettes, which goes to fund initiatives that discourage smoking.[18] Excise taxes may be imposed directly on consumers, or they may apply to manufacturers; either way, the cost is passed down to the consumer through higher prices.

When purchasing a gun, there are several fees involved beyond the base price of the firearm. First, there is sales tax. The base sales tax in California is 7.25%, but it can vary based on locality. In Los Angeles, our sales tax is 9.5%. This is applied to the price of the gun. Then, there is a Dealer’s Record of Sale fee of $31.19. This covers the cost of administrative processing and running the background check. There is a firearm safety fee of $1.00 and Firearm Safety Enforcement Fee of $5.00 for a total fee at the time of Dealer Sale of Record of $37.19. Next, there may be a Private Party Transfer Fee, which is an additional $10 to $50 per firearm. The buyer also must pay the fees associated with obtaining the Firearm Safety Certificate that they are required to have at the time of purchase, which is $15 for the new certificate fee and $10 for the test fee, for a total of $25.[19] AB 28 would add another fee by imposing the 11% excise tax.

Let’s take a hypothetical situation. Say you want to buy a gun that costs $1,000 in Los Angeles. First, add the 9.5% sales tax, which would be $95. Add the DROS fee for $37.19, let’s say a $10 private party transfer fee, and the Safety Certificate of $25, and the total cost amounts to $1,167.19. Now, with AB 28, add an additional 11% excise tax, for a total cost of $1,277.19. So, you wanted a gun for $1,000, and you’re paying an additional $277.19 – that’s 27% of the original base cost added in taxes and fees.

Purpose of AB 28

What precipitated AB 28? Why was it proposed in the first place? The author of the bill is the Chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Working Group. This group was founded in 2019 by a group of legislators who felt that the Trump administration wasn’t taking enough action to prevent gun violence. Since then, they have worked to pass numerous laws related to gun safety, funding for violence prevention, and cooperate with other states on gun violence measures.[20] In 2024, the number of mass shootings in California has risen back to pre-pandemic levels, with a total of 400 mass shootings between 2015 and 2023. Unfortunately, Los Angeles County is once again the main culprit of this problem, as the shootings per one million residents per year was 40% higher on average in LA County than any other county in the state.[21] It is interesting to me that as we continue to pass more and more laws to prevent gun violence, we continue to see an upward trend in mass shootings.

But it isn’t just mass shootings that are the problem, there is also everyday violence using guns in committing crimes. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, 59% of the overall increase in violent crime across the state since 2019 has involved firearms.[22] Once again, I find it interesting that even after the creation of the California Legislative Gun Violence Prevention Working Group in 2019, violent crime with firearms has still trended upward.

Advocates for AB 28 describe the purpose of the bill this way, “Taxing guns and ammunition sales will enable us to fund more school safety measures and expand proven violence prevention programs. We can and must do more to protect our kids and our communities.”[23] This comes in the wake of several mass shootings that occurred last year, leaving Californians feeling worried about more to come in the future. Seven in ten adults in California say they are concerned about the threat of a mass shooting occurring where they live.[24] The widespread sentiment among Californians is a preference for the state to control gun ownership and implement even further gun control over protecting gun ownership rights in line with the second amendment. A recent statewide survey found that two in three adults in California “prioritize controlling gun ownership, while one-third believe protecting gun ownership rights is more important.”[25]

To summarize so far, we have seen rising crime with use of firearms and mass shootings, rising concern from citizens about mass shootings, and several statewide initiatives, programs, and laws enacted to address gun violence. How would AB 28 actually address these trends, and would it be different from the over 100 gun laws already in place?

Funding What?

To answer that question, but I want to dig deeper into each of the four programs the revenue from AB 28 is supposed to fund, and where the money will actually go.  

CalVIP

First up is the California Violence Intervention and Prevention, or CalVIP, Program. This Program was established by the Legislature in 2017, and it replaced the previous California Gang Reduction Program. The purpose was outlined as such, “to improve public health and safety by supporting effective violence reduction initiatives in communities that are disproportionately impacted by violence, particularly group-member involved homicides, shootings, and aggravated assaults.”[26] That sounds great, but it is vague and highlights buzz words like violence reduction and disproportionate impact. What does the Program actually do?

The Program primarily allocates funding to different organizations, and then those organizations are the ones that specifically work to address gun violence within communities.[27] CalVIP is a middleman. The Program gets funded by the California Board of State and Community Corrections, which allocates around $9 million annually to it[28], then the Program decides which community organizations to pass that funding along to. The Program itself isn’t tackling approaches to lowering gun violence, it is just in charge of distributing state funding to initiatives that it thinks will be most effective.

For example, in 2022, CalVIP awarded the City of San Diego $3.65 million in grant money to implement their proposed Peacemaker Project. The Peacemaker Project is a community intervention program, wherein teams respond to violent incidents to de-escalate the situation, as well as provide the community with trauma counseling, employment assistance, mentoring, parenting classes, and other informational services to help support families and young people within the community.[29] Another example is the Pasadena Public Health Department, which was awarded $2.5 million in grant funding, to be broken out over a period of three years. This is for the Pasadena Intervention and Prevention Project (PIPP), the main strategy of which is to provide multidimensional family therapy to young people between the ages of 10 to 24. This program focuses on youth who are at risk of joining gangs. Outreach workers build relationships with youth across the city and encourage them to participate in the counseling services, with the hopes of reducing gang participation, and therefore, gun violence.[30]

These are just a few examples of the types of organizations that CalVIP is responsible for evaluating and awarding grants to, with the hopes of creating change by starting within local communities. When it comes to the actual effectiveness of these programs, both the Peacemaker Project and the Pasadena Intervention and Prevention Project are still being evaluated for real impact of their communities. In fact, community programs as a whole are still in question as to their overall effectiveness. Social Policy Research, a group that analyzes data and statistics on a wide range of organizations, launched a project in 2020 to examine the outcomes of the CalVIP Program; their findings have not yet been published.[31]

Some organizations have credited CalVIP with reducing homicides anywhere between 34 to 79 percent, making it a model for the rest of the country to follow.[32] However, that is a broad range, we’re talking a 45 percent spread, which seems to indicate there isn’t solidly agreed upon evidence of effectiveness. Additionally, the American Journal of Public Health published a study on Community Based Interventions where they describe the available data on these types of programs as such:

“Theories of community change are the least explored and offer the greatest promise for documenting the effectiveness of and improvements in community-based health promotion. To achieve this, we need to make explicit our program assumptions about the causal relationships among an intervention’s activities and the mediating factors that lead to desired outcomes, as well as the effect of potential confounding factors.”[33]

They go on to say:

“In addition to more rigorous designs for outcome studies, community change theory would benefit from qualitative research that explores the various factors affecting community change, linkages among the factors, and the conditions under which those linkages occur. Program assumptions must be made explicit so that data collection and analysis can be undertaken to track performance.”[34]

While the intentions of the programs are admirable, and their cause seems worthy of support, it’s hard to link the work that they do to real change in the communities. It’s hard to say how much of a decrease in violence is actually attributable to the work of these programs, or if it is a result of a combination of other factors.

School Safety

The second category of spending that the revenue from AB 28 will go toward is school safety initiatives. The bill language describes this as including: “physical security improvements, physical safety assessments, school-based or school-linked mental health and behavioral services, including training for teachers and employees, and before school and after school programs for at-risk pupils.”[35] Physical security improvements include features like fencing, advanced surveillance, controlled access points, and limited entry using badges or ID. For instance, in Oxnard, Del Sol High School opened in August of 2023 and was built with security as its top priority. There is 8-foot fencing around the perimeter, centralized entry through the school’s lobby, camera surveillance, an emergency door-locking system, and visitor screening from behind bulletproof glass.[36]

Physical safety assessments include safety overview activities, like crisis response strategies, active shooter drills, or working together with local law enforcement. Los Angeles Unified School District just implemented the Integrated Safe School Plan to coordinate communication with local law enforcement as well as emergency response teams. It provides a framework for handling emergencies with a variety of first responders.[37]

Mental health and behavioral services mostly consist of schools implementing on-campus counselors or psychologists, assisting students in dealing with trauma they’ve endured because of gun violence, as well as helping to provide behavioral strategies to prevent violent behavior and support vulnerable, at-risk student populations. This strategy isn’t new, as California invested $4.7 billion to overhaul the state’s mental health system. One prime example is the Fresno Unified School District, which increased its mental health staffing from 50 to 200 professionals in 2021.[38]

As you can clearly gather, these school safety initiatives cover a wide range of activities, including anything from installing locking doors to hiring social emotional counselors.

Firearms Relinquishment

The third category of spending is funding a firearms relinquishment program. These programs occur in light of Proposition 63, passed by voters in 2016, which “requires all people convicted of firearm-prohibiting crimes to provide verification to the courts that they sold or transferred their firearms after conviction.”[39] What happens is that when a person is convicted of a crime that disqualifies them from owning a firearm, they are given a Relinquishment Form at the time of their conviction. This informs them that they must surrender their firearms and requires them to provide receipts showing they have transferred them either to law enforcement or a licensed dealer. The individual’s probation officer must notify the prosecutor once relinquishment has occurred, and the court should verify relinquishment before closing the case. If an individual refuses to hand over their guns, then the court must order law enforcement to search probable locations where they might be and remove the weapons.[40]

Each district or county needs to implement its own firearms relinquishment program and is responsible for carrying it out in accordance with the law. Los Angeles County won an achievement award from the National Association of Counties in 2018 for its Firearms Relinquishment Project Implementation. In January of this year, LA County was awarded a grant to further help investigators track convicts who are in violation of their firearm relinquishment orders, especially as it relates to those convicted of domestic violence.[41]

Firearm Investigations

The last category the money generated by AB 28 will go to fund is firearm investigations. The language of the bill describes this category by saying it includes:

“…Hiring and training detectives dedicated to investigating [firearm homicide and firearm assault investigations], hiring and training personnel or other partners to coordinate with victims and witnesses or to collect, process, and test relevant evidence, improving data analysis, forensics, and technological capacities, and promoting recurring and trauma-informed engagement with victims, witnesses, and other impacted community members in a manner that builds trust, safety, and collaboration.”[42]

These types of investigations are tied specifically to firearms, meaning the funds will go toward detectives tracking illegal firearms used to commit these types of crimes, enforcing compliance with gun control laws to obtain firearms, and building more robust systems through data analysis and technology to track firearms that are either unregistered or obtained outside of legal avenues.

Response

What do you think? Do these initiatives sound worthy of support to you? What I found while researching AB 28 is that there are things that I agree with and support, there are parts I have questions about, and there are premises I disagree with and oppose.

Points of Agreement

Let’s start with what I think is good in this bill. I agree that gun violence is a horrible occurrence. I hate that it’s a part of our society, and I especially hate when it impacts our communities through something like a mass shooting. I’ve told my husband several times before that I was nervous to go to an event where there was a large crowd – like a concert, or even our local Christmas tree lighting – because you just never know if someone is going to show up with a gun and open fire on the people there. Just a few months ago, a man shot into our local Whole Foods at 7 o’clock in the morning. That’s a store I frequent, and especially at times I deem as “safe,” like early in the morning. It’s a scary thought that you could be anywhere, and someone could walk in with a gun and just start shooting. I would imagine it is especially terrifying for parents who send their children to school, trusting they will be safe, but also seeing headlines so frequently that they are not. Just 5 days ago, a gunman walked into a religious private school in northern California and shot two kindergartners.[43] You think that by sending your kids to a small religious school in your community that they will be safe, that they won’t be a target for violence, but then the tragedy hits your community – affects your kids – and suddenly you have become a victim of gun violence.

The problem is real, and the problem is devastating. I agree with lawmakers that we should work to reduce gun violence, in the same way that we should work to reduce all violence and crime. A safe, civil, and ordered society cannot operate under chaos, and crime causes chaos. Criminals should be punished, and violence should be deterred. If we are believing the best about what our legislative representatives are trying to achieve, then I can understand and agree with their motives. I don’t want to see little kids shot just as much as they don’t want to see that happen either.

I also admit that I like some of the strategies included in this bill. After all, I advocate that change starts in your community, that sometimes the best thing you can do is work to address and solve the problems directly around you. If each community and local government can tackle the issues in front of them, it can create widespread change that is often more effective than a statewide, top-down, big-government approach. Community initiatives to help at-risk youth, to bring them into mentorship and counseling programs, to move them away from gang influence and the patterns that perpetuate gun violence, I believe are good ideas. They are boots on the ground, community-specific initiatives doing the hard work of trying to break the cycle of crime and violence in their neighborhoods, and I applaud that.

I also agree with certain school safety initiatives. I don’t agree with all of them, but I certainly do with ones that work to increase physical security around school campuses. We need stronger security for all schools, public and private, across our country. Other states have taken steps already to implement stronger security measures. In May of 2023, the Governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, signed school safety legislation into law, investing $230 million into enhancing physical security at public and private schools across the state.[44] This was in response to the Covenant School shooting, which claimed the lives of three children and three adults at a private, Christian elementary school.[45] I think this is a right, and common-sense response, to tragedies like the Covenant shooting. Anecdotally, my husband grew up in Amman, Jordan, and he tells me all the time how when he went to school as a kid, they had high outer walls, bulletproof gates and windows, and an armed security guard stationed 24/7 outside the building. Everyone had to check in through a security booth, and visitors were checked with a metal detector before being allowed to enter. Advocates for gun control often claim that these security measures will make children feel like they are in prison, or that they are kept in a cage, but my husband notes often just how safe he felt going to school and playing with his friends, and how unsafe he would feel as a child if he went to American schools where there is often little to no security, open campuses, and without security guards. When we go on walks around our neighborhood, we pass schools where the campuses are just completely left open; he often comments how uncomfortable he would be as a parent to send our kids there, knowing anyone could walk right up to a classroom door, and stroll right in.

Schools are full of young children and often a large female population of teachers. These are our most vulnerable groups, deserving of protection and security. It is insane to me that we wouldn’t react to school shootings by immediately funding a mass overhaul of our schools across the state to ensure that no child or teacher has to face the terror and endure the trauma of a shooter threatening their lives.

All that is to say, I generally agree with the goal of AB 28, and the purposes of the programs that it funds.

Questions About AB 28

Then, there are parts I have questions about. For instance, with the CalVIP Program – while I agree with the idealistic view of funding community-based organizations to help reduce violence, gang affiliation, and misuse of firearms, the reality is that all groups will vary when it comes to their purpose, effectiveness, and use of the funds. One program might genuinely be helping troubled teens break the cycle of violence that they were raised in, others may be misappropriating government funds with no results to show for themselves.

Critics of community-based programs argue that they lack oversight and accountability, leading to the misuse of taxpayer funds. In fact, in a 2024 study conducted by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, they found that, “nonprofits have the lowest implementation rate of fraud awareness training.” The top three causes of nonprofit embezzlement that they have identified in past reports are a lack of internal controls, a lack of oversight of existing internal controls, and overrides of existing internal controls.[46]

Critics also argue that community-based programs should operate in conjunction with law enforcement, not in place of it, but programs like CalVIP prioritize community-based programs and divert funding away from policing and prosecution.

I think this criticism is valid and needs to be considered. It might sound good to say all the phrases like “gun violence prevention,” “trauma counseling,” and “emergency de-escalation,” but with no oversight and no solid data, there is no way for us as the taxpayer to know where the money we are paying in taxes is actually going, and if it’s making the differences we want to see.

After all, funding these types of groups and programs isn’t new. In fact, CalVIP has been funded since it was established in 2017. It was funded at $9 million per year, until 2021 when the Legislature approved a one-time, $200 million appropriation to the program, spread from 2022 to 2025.[47] This means the program has been getting $67 million, plus the annual $9 million every fiscal year since 2022. Yet, with AB 28, the argument is that California needs to do more, provide more funding, to programs like these. The implication is that we aren’t doing enough, that we have to throw more money at the problem. Yet, as I mentioned earlier, we are still seeing gun violence rise – despite the hundreds of laws and the literal hundreds of millions of dollars that we have poured into prevention and intervention.

I just have questions on what is happening if we have poured so much money into these programs, yet gun violence is still being touted as an increasing threat. I don’t see how the answer is to continue taking even more money from taxpayers to fund the exact same programs that aren’t giving us results. I think the government and the CalVIP Program that is funding these organizations need to clearly define the outcomes they want to see and require every organization it funds to report on those outcomes. If they don’t meet the benchmarks, they shouldn’t receive funding; if they do meet the benchmarks, then they should receive a greater share of the funding. If ultimately none of these groups can show improved outcomes, then we should scrap the program entirely and try different approaches that will actually make change.

Areas of Disagreement

Lastly, there are strategies and assumptions that I flat out disagree with.

As I just mentioned, our state already pours an enormous amount of money – which are from taxpayer dollars – into gun violence prevention efforts. The idea of adding an 11% excise tax on top of an already expensive process due to fees imposed by the state government, to me comes across as insulting to the taxpayer. The government can just mismanage money and spend itself into billions of dollars in a deficit, but then it has the gall to require more of your money on programs it has already allocated money in the annual budget to fund? That is unacceptable.

It isn’t just about adding a tax, it’s about who the tax affects. This tax, even if paid by gun manufacturers, is really passed onto and paid by law abiding citizens, who are going through the proper legal channels to obtain a firearm in accordance with the requirements imposed by the state of California. These are people who want to purchase a gun, have the right to do so within the second amendment of our constitution, and yet they are the ones who must fund initiatives for gun violence prevention?

This is where the Legislature exposes its underlying assumption: it assumes that gun owners are perpetuating the issue. It assumes the if you want to buy a gun then of course you are responsibility for funding efforts to stop gun violence prevention, because if everyone just stopped buying guns, then there would be no gun violence. But that is blatantly false, and it’s a bad assumption to make.

People buy guns for all sorts of reasons, but in a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, 72% of gun owners cite protection as their main reason.[48] The majority of criminals who are perpetuating gun violence are not purchasing their weapons through legal means. In a study conducted by the Department of Justice in 2019, they found that:

“43 percent of criminals had bought their firearms on the black market, 6 percent acquired them via theft, and [only] 10 percent made a retail purchase. In 11 percent of cases, the criminal had someone else buy a gun for them – known as a straw purchase – while an additional 15 percent got guns from a friend or relative. Some 12 percent of weapons found on a crime scene had been brought there by someone else.”[49]

This means that the people who show up to buy a handgun legally, who pay all the taxes and fines associated with it and who have the correct safety permits as required by law, in most cases are doing so for the purpose of protection, rather than for the purpose of committing a crime. My question then is, why are we making those people, the law-abiding citizens, pay the cost?

On top of that, why are we creating barriers to exercising their second amendment rights? If California legislators believe that requiring ID to vote puts a poll tax on citizens exercising their constitutional right – when obtaining a photo ID costs $39 at the DMV in California[50] – how can they believe that adding an 11% excise tax to firearms, which could add easily over $100 to the purchase of a handgun, is not overburdening citizens who are trying to exercise their second amendment rights? It’s inconsistent.

The cost of these programs should not be funded by American citizens who are acting in line with their rights. You shouldn’t be punished because you want to buy a gun by having to pay exorbitant taxes and fees to do so, while others who may not pay the costs to buy a gun, but who illegally obtain guns and then commit gun violence, don’t have to pay anything at all. The state of California once again does not get to mismanage it’s money, then turn around and take more from the average citizen. It’s just wrong. We need our representatives in government to take their responsibility to balance a budget and to appropriately allocate our already high number of tax dollars toward programs that are effective and make our communities safer. We need them to prioritize law enforcement, to actually put criminals in prison to help deter gang violence and the criminality that ends up creating gun violence from happening in the first place. As always, we need them to stop bailing out their own failures with our hard-earned money.

Takeaways

What can you do? With an issue like gun violence and gun control, the most important thing we can do is refuse to be manipulated and uninformed. You can agree that gun violence is horrific, and still own a gun yourself for means of self-protection. You can want to see gun violence reduced in your community, and still oppose laws that restrict law abiding citizens without having real impacts to make positive change. Don’t think that to be truly empathetic and compassionate on this issue means that you have to support whatever our government says it’s doing in the name of “gun violence reduction” and “school safety.” Be informed, come to your own conclusions, and push back on the lie that preparing yourself for acts of self-defense perpetuates a society of crime. It’s untrue, and it’s time we make it unacceptable.

References:

[1] California Legislative Information, “Bill Text - AB-28 Firearms and Ammunition: Excise Tax.,” September 26, 2023, https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB28.

[2] Thomas, Selin. “Seven States Move to Tax Guns and Ammo.” The Trace, March 4, 2024. https://www.thetrace.org/2024/03/maryland-tax-bill-guns-ammo/.

[3] Marty, Noah. “Governor Newsom Signs Historic Tax on Gun Manufacturers to Fund School Safety and Violence Prevention Programs.” Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel | District 46, September 26, 2023. https://a46.asmdc.org/press-releases/20230926-governor-newsom-signs-historic-tax-gun-manufacturers-fund-school-safety-and.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Christopher, Ben. “California Gun Laws, Explained (2024) - CalMatters.” CalMatters, July 15, 2024. https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-gun-laws-policy-explained/.

[6] Robinson, Karen. “Gun Control in California: How Laws Have Evolved Since Days of Gold Rush.” Newsmax, April 1, 2015. https://www.newsmax.com/fastfeatures/gun-control-california-gun-laws/2015/04/02/id/635871/.

[7] Christopher, “California Gun Laws, Explained (2024) - CalMatters.”

[8] Ibid.

[9] State of California - Department of Justice - Office of the Attorney General. “Firearm Safety Certificate Program FAQs,” October 30, 2014. https://oag.ca.gov/firearms/fscpfaqs.

[10] Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence. “Waiting Periods | GIFFORDS.” GIFFORDS, July 31, 2024. https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/gun-sales/waiting-periods/#:~:text=BROWSE%20STATE%20LAWS,including%20gun%20homicides%20and%20suicides.

[11] City News Service. “Appellate Panel Allows Californians to Buy More Than One Gun per Month.” CBS8, August 17, 2024. https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/appellate-panel-allows-californians-to-buy-more-than-one-gun-per-month/509-4c899ae8-6b80-444b-a0dc-0f3f17356e91.

[12] Christopher, “California Gun Laws, Explained (2024) - CalMatters.”

[13] Searson, Mike. “California Handgun Roster: What Is It, and What’s It’s Status.” Inside Safariland, December 6, 2023. https://inside.safariland.com/blog/california-handgun-roster/#:~:text=According%20to%20California%20law%3A%20Federally,a%20set%20of%20laboratory%20tests.

[14] Christopher, “California Gun Laws, Explained (2024) - CalMatters.”

[15] Ibid.

[16] The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. “Microstamping - the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence,” November 15, 2021. https://efsgv.org/learn/policies/microstamping/#:~:text=Microstamping%20is%20a%20ballistics%20identification,into%20the%20gun's%20firing%20pin.

[17] Internal Revenue Service. “Excise Tax.” IRS.gov, October 1, 2024. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/excise-tax.

[18] American Lung Association. “Cigarette & Tobacco Taxes,” September 10, 2024. https://www.lung.org/policy-advocacy/tobacco/tobacco-taxes#:~:text=Federal%20Level%3A%20On%20the%20federal,Health%20Insurance%20Program%20(CHIP).

[19] CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE. “Department of Justice Fees.” STATE OF CALIFORNIA, 2020. https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/firearms/pdf/firearms-fees.pdf.

[20] Alpert, Dana. “California Legislators Meet With Moms Demand Action Founder to Discuss New Gun Safety Laws.” Official Website - Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel Representing the 46th California Assembly District, August 24, 2022. https://a46.asmdc.org/press-releases/20220824-california-legislators-meet-moms-demand-action-founder-discuss-new-gun.

[21] Harris, Heather. “Mass Shootings in California.” Public Policy Institute of California, July 16, 2024. https://www.ppic.org/blog/mass-shootings-in-california/.

[22] Loftstrom, Magnus, and Brandon Martin. “Gun Incidents Drive a Climb in Violent Crime Rates.” Public Policy Institute of California, September 25, 2023. https://www.ppic.org/blog/gun-incidents-drive-a-climb-in-violent-crime-rates/.

[23] Alpert, Dana. “Legislators Introduce New Firearm Tax Measure as Part of Trio of Gun Violence Prevention Bills.” Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel Representing the 46th California Assembly District, December 5, 2022. https://a46.asmdc.org/press-releases/20221205-legislators-introduce-new-firearm-tax-measure-part-trio-gun-violence.

[24] Lawler, Rachel. “Californians Prioritize Controlling Gun Ownership.” The Public Policy Institute of California, February 7, 2023. https://www.ppic.org/blog/californians-prioritize-controlling-gun-ownership/.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Board of State and Community Corrections. “California Violence Intervention & Prevention Grant - CalVIP.” CA.gov, 2024. https://www.bscc.ca.gov/s_cpgpcalvipgrant/.

[27] The Health Alliance for Violence Intervention. “Statement on California Assembly Bill 28.” The HAVI, September 14, 2023. https://www.thehavi.org/havi-statement-on-california-assembly-bill-28.

[28] Board of State and Community Corrections, “California Violence Intervention & Prevention Grant - CalVIP.”

[29] City of San Diego Official Website. “City of San Diego Secures $3.65 Million Grant for Gang and Gun Violence Prevention Program,” September 13, 2022. https://www.sandiego.gov/mayor/city-san-diego-secures-365-million-grant-gang-and-gun-violence-prevention-program.

[30] City of Pasadena. “Pasadena Public Health Department Awarded Grant to Implement Violence Prevention and Intervention Program – Public Health Department,” August 2, 2022. https://www.cityofpasadena.net/public-health/news-announcements/pasadena-public-health-department-awarded-grant-to-implement-violence-prevention-and-intervention-program/.

[31] Social Policy Research Associates. “Evaluation of the California Violence Intervention and Prevention Program - Social Policy Research Associates,” September 5, 2022. https://www.spra.com/project/evaluation-of-the-california-violence-intervention-and-prevention-program/.

[32] Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “Learn More About CalVIP and Additional Best Practices to Keep Our Communities Safe From Gun Violence.” Brady United, n.d. https://ca.bradyunited.org/press/learn-more-about-calvip-and-additional-best-practices-to-keep-our-communities-safe-from-gun-violence.

[33] McLeroy, Kenneth R., Barbara L. Norton, Michelle C. Kegler, James N. Burdine, and Ciro V. Sumaya. “Community-Based Interventions.” American Journal of Public Health 93, no. 4 (April 1, 2003): 529–33. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.93.4.529.

[34] Ibid.

[35] California Legislative Information, “Bill Text - AB-28 Firearms and Ammunition: Excise Tax.”

[36] Gordon, Larry. “Schools Take on New Designs for Extra Security in Era of Campus Shootings.” EdSource, October 30, 2023. https://edsource.org/2023/schools-take-on-new-designs-for-extra-security-in-era-of-campus-shootings/699321.

[37] Los Angeles Unified School District. “Integrated Safe School Plan.” LAUSD Unified, n.d. https://www.lausd.org/issp.

[38] Governor of California. “Governor Newsom Unveils New Plan to Transform Kids’ Mental Health | Governor of California,” June 17, 2024. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/08/18/governor-newsom-unveils-new-plan-to-transform-kids-mental-health/.

[39] Giffords Law Center. “Firearm Relinquishment Laws in California.” GIFFORDS, September 26, 2024. https://giffords.org/lawcenter/state-laws/firearm-relinquishment-in-california/.

[40] Ibid.

[41] The Antelope Valley Times Staff. “Officials Announce Firearms Relinquishment Grant for LA County Law Enforcement.” The Antelope Valley Times, January 30, 2024. https://theavtimes.com/2024/01/29/officials-announce-firearms-relinquishment-grant-for-la-county-law-enforcement/.

[42] California Legislative Information, “Bill Text - AB-28 Firearms and Ammunition: Excise Tax.”

[43] Chea, Terry, and Stefanie Dazio. “Gunman May Have Targeted California Religious School in Shooting  | AP News.” AP News, December 6, 2024. https://apnews.com/article/butte-county-california-school-shooting-1a183fcd1670d47dedeff81d9f1ce492.

[44] Office of the Governor Tennessee. “Gov. Lee Signs Strong School Safety Measures Into Law.” tn.gov, May 10, 2023. https://www.tn.gov/governor/news/2023/5/10/gov--lee-signs-strong-school-safety-measures-into-law.html.

[45] Ebrahimji, Alisha, Nouran Salahieh, Christina Zdanowicz, Sharif Paget, and David Williams. “Young Children, a Substitute Teacher, the Head of Their School and Its Custodian. These Are the Victims of the Nashville School Shooting.” CNN, March 31, 2023. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/28/us/victims-covenant-school-shooting-nashville/index.html.

[46] Auritt, Rita. “Nonprofit Embezzlement Cases: Examples to Learn From.” BoardEffect, September 5, 2024. https://www.boardeffect.com/blog/nonprofit-embezzlement-cases/.

[47] Jackson, Katrina. “Agenda Item C- CalVIP Funding Recommendations.” Board of State and Community Corrections. State of California - Board of State and Community Corrections, June 9, 2022. https://www.bscc.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/Agenda-Item-C-CalVIP-Funding-Recommendations-FINAL.pdf.

[48] Pew Research Center. “For Most U.S. Gun Owners, Protection Is the Main Reason They Own a Gun,” April 14, 2024. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/08/16/for-most-u-s-gun-owners-protection-is-the-main-reason-they-own-a-gun/.

[49] McKay, Holly. “Where Do Criminals Really Get Their Guns?” FOX 10 Phoenix, February 19, 2020. https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/where-do-criminals-really-get-their-guns.

[50] State of California Department of Motor Vehicles. “Licensing Fees - California DMV.” California DMV, December 6, 2024. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/driver-licenses-identification-cards/licensing-fees/.