Column: California lawmaker motivated by text from daughter during school shooting threat
Freshman Sen. Catherine Blakespear was at the state Capitol in the Senate chamber when her ninth-grade daughter, Ava, texted. She was at school hiding under a desk.
Ava was trying to protect herself during a mass shooting threat at her public high school in Encinitas, a picturesque beach town north of San Diego.
Blakespear, a Democrat who represents a very competitive district, briefly mentioned this scary story Tuesday at a Sacramento news conference where Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 23 bills aimed at reducing gun violence. Two of the measures were Blakespear’s.
“Thousands of families are going through this,” she told the gathering of legislators, gun control activists and reporters. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to normalize gun violence.”
Later, I called Blakespear for more details about her frightening experience as a mom who lived the nightmare of a daughter possibly becoming another mass shooting victim.
Turns out, the senator is a former colleague, a Times reporter in the Ventura bureau for two years around 2000. She left to cover the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics for the Associated Press. Then she wised up and went to law school.
Blakespear returned to her hometown of Encintas and practiced law, got involved in local politics, won a city council seat and became mayor. In November, she was elected to the Legislature, edging out a Republican.
She was on the Senate floor in spring when her daughter texted.
“She’s saying, ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’” the senator recalls. “I’m saying all the things you say as a fearful parent, mindful that guns are the biggest killers of kids. You can hear helicopters flying, sirens blaring.”
Among more than 20 gun-control laws California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed are one to tax ammunition and firearms, and another limiting who can obtain a concealed-carry permit.
A teacher was at the door yelling into the corridor, “You get in this classroom. If there are gunshots, I’m locking the door and not opening it for anyone,” Blakerspear says. “Another teacher was pointing to low bushes in the dirt as places to hide.
“It was like ‘Lord of the Flies’ — society breaking down.”
“This is what our society has become, even in California” she continued. “This is what school is today. It’s horrifying.”
Ava’s school had received what it deemed “a credible human threat.” But there was no shooter.
It inspired the new senator, however, to become even more of a ardent gun control crusader.
One of her bills signed into law is significant. It will require, starting in 2028, that all semiautomatic pistols sold in California — new or used — be equipped with microstamping technology. That technology will enable law enforcement to more easily trace bullets and cartridges to guns used in crimes.
The Legislature thought it achieved this several years ago by requiring microstamping — unique traceable markings — on all new models of handguns. But gunmakers got around the law by not introducing any new models in California. The new law will require microstamping of any semiautomatic model that is sold.
The senator’s other bill is less ambitious. It merely requires gun dealers to post warnings about the danger of having a firearm at home. Research has shown it’s more dangerous to have one than not due to accidents, suicides and domestic violence.
Blakespear is among the growing number of Americans who are touched by gun violence — or the threat of it.
The Public Policy Institute of California reported in July that, based on polling, nearly two-thirds of Californians are concerned about the threat of a mass shooting in their community. And one-quarter of people worry almost every day that they or a loved one will be a victim of gun violence.
These numbers are bound to escalate, increasing pressure on lawmakers to control weapons. Regulating types of firearms, who can obtain them and requiring substantive background checks are needed controls many gun owners can support.
But the latest batch of new laws seems to be the first time that the California governor and Legislature, in one particular case, have targeted law-abiding gun owners, not criminals.
A new law to impose a first-in-the-nation 11% state excise tax on firearm and ammunition sales may further drive a wedge between practical gun owners and reformers.
And without compromise there probably will never be an end to gun violence in America.
At the bill signings, a reporter pointed out to Newsom that he’d opposed tax increases in the past. So why did he agree to impose a new gun tax?
Aiming for more gun safety, the California Legislature fired away with hits and misses in its recently concluded annual session.
“Well, this is for me a little different,” the governor replied. “There’s not a general income tax, not a corporate tax. This is, from my perspective, more of a sin tax…. The cost borne by the taxpayers for gun violence is off the charts.… So it’s a small price to pay. This is pretty de minimis.”
Owning a gun is not a sin. Newsom may have difficulty explaining his comment in 2028 if he runs for president in such hunting-culture battleground states as Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
The gun tax will finance some very worthy, proven gun violence prevention programs. But as I’ve previously written, they’ll benefit all Californians and should be funded by everyone.
Newsom notes that the biggest current obstacle to reducing gun violence is the federal court system, especially the highest court. Several major California gun controls — on large capacity magazines and assault weapons — are in danger of being killed by federal courts.
“Don’t get me started about how corrupt the Supreme Court of the United States is,” Newsom said.
The gun lobby already has filed a lawsuit challenging one of the biggest bills Newsom signed: A law to resume restrictions on carrying concealed loaded weapons.
California can keep cranking out more gun controls. But until the courts change — and the gun haters and gun addicts agree on practical solutions — mothers such as Blakespear will keep being texted by their children hiding under a desk.
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