The government of San Jose, California, has taken a big step in becoming the first American city to demand that firearm owners lock their guns up in safes when they are not home.
The city council will hear a proposal in a month or so concerning the possibility of requiring the city’s gun owners to buy gun safes and keep their firearms locked up when not home- all in an effort to reduce gun violence.
“We actually are doing this not only to protect our community from gun violence and guns falling into the wrong hands, but ultimately it protects the guns of the firearm owners, because they get to keep their guns,” said San Jose City Council members Ash Kalra.
The lockboxes needed to satisfy the proposed law would likely start from $150 and go up from there, depending on the size and number of firearms a homeowner has, according to A-A Locksmith manager Richard Acosta.
“You want to secure the gun, so somebody can’t steal it, but you still want to have access to the gun in case your family is at risk for some reason,” Acosta said.
Due to stringent gun laws in California requiring locals to register their firearms into a database (as well as providing an approved list of guns Californians are allowed to own), the laws would be easier to enforce than in other states.
Kalra says the plan received input from SDPD Chief Eddie Garcia and local gun ownership advocates.
Still, not everyone sees the law as reasonable.
Joe Castello, the owner of Castello Guns in San Diego, says the law will do nothing to keep guns out of criminals hands and may hamper the citizen in their time of need.
“This won’t prevent anything. If a burglar breaks in and the gun is locked up, he’s going to get the gun no matter what. Is that going to prevent anything? Can’t,” Castello said
According to ABC News 7, the original proposals called for even stricter gun control requirements, but were deemed redundant due to existing proposals that would overlap each other on different governmental levels.
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