Senator Roth’s Landmark 2024 Animal Protection and Gun Violence Prevention Act Unanimously Passes Senate’s Public Safety Committee on a Bipartisan Vote

Sacramento—A landmark package of bills, titled the 2024 Animal Protection and Gun Violence Prevention Act, authored by Senator Richard D. Roth (D-Riverside), passed the State Senate’s Public Safety Committee on a unanimous, bipartisan vote.

“Our Animal Protection and Gun Violence Prevention Act is a comprehensive legislative package to address the problem of animal cruelty in our state, as well as to further our state’s gun violence prevention efforts,” said Roth. “Our bills not only increase penalties for animal cruelty, they further ensure that firearms will not be possessed by violent criminals.”

SB 902 introduced by Roth and Senator Anthony Portantino (D- Burbank) adds persons who are convicted of severe animal cruelty laws to the state’s firearm prohibition list as other violent criminals are. Animal cruelty is a known predictor of current and future violence, including crimes of assault, rape, murder, arson, domestic violence, and sexual abuse of children. To ensure that people with a history of violence are unable to hurt others, a misdemeanor animal cruelty conviction for maliciously and intentionally maiming, mutilating, torturing or wounding a living animal, or maliciously or intentionally killing an animal, must result in a 10-year firearms prohibition, joining the other 50 misdemeanor charges that result in the same prohibition.

“I’m proud to be a joint author of SB 902, along with my colleague Senator Roth. This is a critically important common-sense gun violence prevention measure that will help keep guns out of the hands of violent convicted criminals,” said Senator Anthony Portantino (D-Burbank).

“SB 902 is a much-needed bill to prevent future violence because empirical evidence shows that abuse towards animals as being strongly associated with violence against other persons,” said a statement in support by the California District Attorneys’ Association. “By imposing this prohibition of firearms for those convicted of qualifying crimes, this bill directly removes one such tool that an abuser can use to inflict violence on others. This problem was similarly identified federally, which prompted Representative Katherine Clark during the 115th Congress to introduce H.R. 6278, which would have also extended the federal firearm prohibition to those convicted of misdemeanor animal cruelty. While the attempt in Congress was unsuccessful, SB 902 is this Legislature’s opportunity to address this problem in California.”

“Given the link between violence against animals and violence against humans, a single year of probation is not enough time for a convicted animal abuser to be barred from lawful access to firearms. SB 902 seeks to restrict these offenders’ ability to purchase or possess guns for ten years after a conviction of misdemeanor animal abuse to ensure a safer community for us all – people and animals alike,” said Michael A. Hestrin, District Attorney of Riverside County.

“There is a direct link between acts of cruelty to animals and violence toward humans, including child abuse, domestic violence, elder abuse, and other violent behavior. A 2017 study showed that 89 percent of women who had companion animals during an abusive relationship reported that their animals were threatened, harmed, or killed by their abusive partner. In one study of families under investigation for suspected child abuse, researchers found that pet abuse had occurred in 88 percent of the families under supervision for physical abuse of their children. For these reasons, GIFFORDS supports SB 902, as amended, and we thank you for your work to pass this bill into law to make California safer from gun violence,” said Lindsay Nichols, Policy Director of GIFFORDS, the national gun violence prevention organization founded by former Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

SB 921 closes the current loophole in the law that does not prohibit the mistreatment of an animal that one does not own unless there is a serious injury or death, and changes the law to include anyone who maliciously and intentionally maims, mutilates, tortures, wounds, poisons, or otherwise abuses or subjects a living animal to needless suffering, or maliciously and intentionally kills an animal.