BRADY VOWS TO CONTINUE THE JUDICIAL PROCESS WITH APPEAL

BRADY BLASTS TRIAL COURT RULING HALTING CALIFORNIA’S LAW ON BACKGROUND CHECKS FOR AMMUNITION PURCHASES

Washington, D.C., April 23, 2020 - Today, a federal district judge stopped enforcement of California’s law requiring background checks for ammunition sales. The unprecedented and controversial decision was issued by United States District Judge Roger T. Benitez, who granted the preliminary injunction in Rhodes v. Becerra.

Brady opposes this decision and vows to support the law on appeal.

Brady President Kris Brown explained:

“This decision is patently wrong and we expect that it will be reversed on appeal. The Second Amendment does not provide felons or domestic abusers with the right to buy ammunition or firearms, and it does not prevent states like California from requiring background checks that screen out prohibited purchasers. An unelected judge has — temporarily — deprived Californians of an important public safety law that they want and need, claiming an unprecedented, radical revision of the Second Amendment that is contrary to what the Framers intended, and to basic principles of democracy. While this judge suggests that purchasers who must simply undergo a background check to buy ammunition are the 'casualties,' of this law, the true victims will be the people endangered by this ruling. As we saw last August, this law stopped over 100 individuals from illegally purchasing ammunition and likely deterred many more. This law works. It is constitutional. And it protects Californians.

While this injunction is a disappointment, Brady remains dedicated to ensuring the safety of Californians. We are heartened that the judicial process will continue and optimistic that the judge’s error will be corrected on appeal. In recent years, gun laws in California that have been initially struck down, including by Judge Benitez, have been upheld later on appeal. This setback is concerning, but decades of precedent and public safety laws are on our side.”

###

Brady has one powerful mission — to unite all Americans against gun violence. We work across Congress, the courts, and our communities with over 90 grassroots chapters, bringing together young and old, red and blue, and every shade of color to find common ground in common sense. In the spirit of our namesakes Jim and Sarah Brady, we have fought for over 45 years to take action, not sides, and we will not stop until this epidemic ends. It’s in our hands.

COVID-19, Gun Sales and Guns in Homes

Dr. Griffin Dix, a Brady Leader, OpEd published in The Hill:
April 11, 2020

In March an astounding 3,740,688 background checks took place, according to the FBI.

While this does not correlate exactly with gun sales, it is close and tells us that more guns were sold than any time since the background check system began in 1998.

This purchasing of firearms is not surprising now that the COVID-19 virus is causing unpredictable health and financial disruption. People are afraid a desperate person will break into their home. President Trump has called COVID-19 “the Chinese virus” as if we were being attacked by foreigners.


Even before this, for decades, the gun industry marketed guns as the best defense against home invasions. But there is scientific research on the use of guns for self-defense and on the risks of having guns in homes.

Dr. David Hemenway, a professor at Harvard’s school of Public Health, summarized the research studies on the risks vs. the benefits of owning firearms and found, “there is no credible evidence of a deterrent effect of firearms.” Defensive gun use is rare, and “it does not appear that self-defense gun use is more effective at preventing injury than many other methods of resistance,” Hemenway found. (On the myth of guns for defense see this summary.)

But here’s the big problem. According to Hemenway’s work, “[T]he evidence is overwhelming that a gun in the home increases the likelihood not only that a household member will be shot accidentally, but also that someone in the home will die in a suicide or homicide.”

When couples are sheltering at home together in anxious and financially difficult times, tempers can flare and — if a gun is present — disputes can become lethal. “When there is a gun in a home with a history of domestic violence, there is a 500 percent higher chance that a woman will be murdered,” according to a Brady summary of research.

More than a dozen studies examined the link between guns in the home and suicides. All of them found that “firearms in the home are associated with substantially and significantly higher rates of suicide,” said Hemenway in his summary. A meta-analysis of studies found that access to guns in homes increases the risk of suicide by more than three times.


Another risk is unintentional shootings. During this pandemic many families will have children at home all day. Those bored, antsy children are likely to get into everything. If a gun is in the home and not stored locked and unloaded, the likelihood of an unintentional gun death or serious injury will increase. Already, every year there are 450 to 500 unintentional gun deaths and over 20,000 unintentional gun injuries. With more homes with guns and more people staying at home with kids for long periods of time, these numbers could rise.

People who choose to have firearms in their home now more than ever should keep them locked up, with the ammunition locked separately. Before this pandemic came along, eight children or teens were being killed or injured every day due to unlocked or unsupervised guns in the home. Safe gun storage will now be especially important. Storing firearms locked and unloaded is associated with a 73 percent lower risk of youth “family fire” suicide and unintentional gun death or injury in the home, according to a study led by Dr. David Grossman.

In order to slow the spread of COVID-19, 42 states have required nonessential businesses to close, but at least 30 of those states have designated gun shops as essential businesses and allowed them to stay open. A recent Department of Homeland Security advisory named gun shops as “essential” to suggest they can stay open. All of the above considerations strongly argue that the Department of Homeland Security’s advisory is fatally misguided. Fortunately, it is only an advisory.

Keeping gun shops open during the pandemic will not only contribute to the spread of the virus, it will increase its deadly toll. Now is the worst time to be buying a gun and bringing it into the home.

I strongly urge state and local officials to require gun shops to remain closed temporarily during this pandemic, like other nonessential businesses. Local and state authorities can still enforce their regulations. We should not let gun shops (or other nonessential businesses) re-open until the COVID-19 pandemic has ended.

Griffin Dix, Ph.D., is president of the Oakland/Alameda County (Calif.) Brady chapter and served on the Brady Board of Trustees from 2006 through 2008. He was research director at MacWEEK. His 15-year-old son was shot and killed in 1994 in an unintentional shooting with a gun that was stored unlocked and loaded. Since his son was killed, Dix has worked with a coalition that has helped to pass many state laws to prevent gun violence, including laws establishing semiautomatic handgun product safety standards. He is writing a memoir about the loss of his son, his lawsuit against Beretta USA and his work on gun violence prevention. Follow him on Twitter @griffindix.