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.”
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.”
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist.
