California 'Literacy Tests' for Gun Buyers an Assault on Civil Right, Says Foundation

1/20/2003

From: Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation, 425-454-7012; Web: http://www.saf.org

BELLEVUE, Wash., Jan. 20 -- A new state law requiring what amounts to a "literacy test" for handgun buyers is a slap in the face to firearms civil rights to the same degree that such tests required of black voters in the South were an attack on their voting rights, the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) said today.

"On the day our nation celebrates the life of one of the leading civil rights activists of the 20th Century, Dr. Martin Luther King, it is an outrage that California law now treats gun buyers in much the same way that African Americans were treated in the South to prevent them from voting," said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. "The right to own a firearm is no less important than the right to vote. California is treating gun owners like cracker racists treated black citizens in the South during the days of Segregation."

Literacy tests were outlawed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

"Social bigotry against gun owners," said Gottlieb, "is just as insidious today as racial bigotry was a half-century ago in the South. Yet, here it is, in all of its raging demagoguery, alive and well in the State of California, fueled with the same anti-civil-rights mentality that is always at the core of discrimination."

Under a new California law that took effect Jan. 1, handgun buyers must pass a 30-question "written test" and pay what amounts to a $25 "poll tax" for a five-year Handgun Safety Certificate, replacing the less-expensive basic safety certificate that was good for life. Gone are exemptions for military veterans and Hunter Education graduates. They must also demonstrate their dexterity with the gun, and endure a 10-day waiting period.

"Dr. King reminded us all that a right delayed is a right denied," Gottlieb observed. "Yet California not only delays the right to own a firearm, they charge law-abiding citizens for the 'privilege' of this affront. Regardless how 'easy' or 'hard' the test questions may be, this new requirement amounts to the same kind of literacy test used to intimidate would-be black voters when Dr. King was alive and fighting for their civil rights.

"Anti-gun prejudice in Sacramento is just as wrong as white prejudice was in Selma," Gottlieb added. "Those who hate guns will bury themselves in denial, but hatred is still hatred, whether the target is a black citizen or an armed citizen. How is it, in California and elsewhere, that we renounce one form of bigotry while encouraging another?"

The Second Amendment Foundation is the nation's oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners. Current projects include several concealed carry lawsuits, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers & an amicus brief & fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.