Uh, not so fast.
I talked to Priscilla Ocen, the staffer for Ridley-Thomas who's handling AB992. She says that they're not "pushing" AB992 so that matches what Mike says re: inactive file, but she would NOT commit to the bill being utterly dead this year...even when I offered to repeat such a committment by her to the Internet to take some heat off.
So we can't quite consider this one dead. I'd continue doing POLITE pressure, folks.
In talking to Ms. Ocen on the matter, she says Ridley-Thomas was motivated primarily by a desire to fund trauma centers (esp. county hospitals). And it's true that they lose a ton of money, often to victims of violence of one sort or another.
I explained that the average crook shoots about a dozen rounds a year, while the serious target shooter can crank out 10,000 or more rounds a month (which means $1,000 a month or more to what will be seen as a "fine'). The people shooting those volumes are the LEAST likely people to do violence of any sort, never mind shoot somebody.
I countered by saying that if the goal is to fund trauma centers, the people to go after are drug dealers. At present, when cops do asset forfeiture it's seen as a "conflict of interest" - divert that money from the cops to the hospitals, and you'll be a LOT closer to "billing the people that really cause the violence" versus going after competitive shooters.
That got her attention.
(Yes, we know that asset forfeiture needs massive reforms, as does the "war on (some) drugs". Fine. Let 'em go wrassle with that. The first issue is that most asset forfeiture goes through the Feds, specifically BECAUSE the Feds have rules that pass a "bounty" back to the local agencies...in effect, the Feds have bribed local law enforcement, therefore the money goes to Feds and local cops. Even short of major reforms to drug/asset laws, we need to get this Federal bribery under control...we can halt that whole bribery scam, for starters.)
Anyways. Hats off to Ms. Ocen for at least listening - we had a very pleasant conversation.
So even with her boss's office: BE POLITE.
We have to at least be able to talk to these people.