Jerry Brown was actually a pretty strong guy on our side despite official stances and passing some legislation.
He may have been crazier back in moonbeam days, but his recent time as governor from 2011 on was a lot more independent. He made decisions from a practical standpoint, and since the state was already really anti-gun and had so many restrictions already he became a bit of an ally in realizing this and refusing to cater to the anti-gunners which always push for more restrictions irregardless of the number that exist.
He also recognized and said the needs of different parts of California are so different that making decisions and running it all as one place was becoming unmanageable.
He gave in and signed some bad stuff, but only after vetoing similar stuff previously which easily passed through the state legislators.
He finally started to go along with them after the much publicized San Bernardino shooting attack by the Islamic couple, and passed legislation that he previously vetoed and was similar and overlapped with some propositions passed by voters. So to be fair you had both the voters through the ballot box and the legislator made up of elected officials all telling him to pass what he wanted to veto and already did veto before he finally passed it.
He was actually holding back a lot of legislation the state was trying to pass because even he felt it was overstepping common sense. All while playing the loyal Democrat and working with an extremely anti-gun legislator that he had to work with regularly on many different issues.
That is done now, and the new guy is a lockstep San Francisco made ultra progressive politician.
