California’s Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the Office of Gun Violence Prevention (OGVP) on Wednesday, making California the first state to establish such a group.
“This moment of crisis demands more than thoughts and prayers — we need action now,” Bonta said in a press release. “That is why as California Attorney General, I am doubling down on California’s gun safety efforts: I am defending our commonsense gun safety laws in court and cracking down on the surge of untraceable ghost guns. I am proud to lead a team of special agents that remove firearms from the hands of dangerous individuals.”
“And today, I am establishing the Office of Gun Violence Prevention to advance a strong, statewide, public health-focused effort as we continue working together to put an end to this crisis once and for all,” he added.
In a vague description of the new office, the press release said the group will be “dedicated to developing strategies and working with stakeholders statewide to address the gun violence epidemic.”
The office will reportedly assist the Department of Justice’s continuing attempts to decrease gun violence, “including the Department’s seizure of firearms from dangerous individuals using the Armed and Prohibited Persons System (APPS), prosecution of firearms trafficking cases, and defense of California’s commonsense gun laws.”
Specifically, the release noted that Bonta supports those in California who will keep trying to reduce gun violence by taking guns from banned individuals in the Armed and Prohibited Persons System, as well as carrying out multiagency sweeps in Los Angeles County and the San Francisco region.
The goal of the OGVP will be to “reduce and prevent gun violence, firearm injury, and related trauma,” according to a government site for the office. The office will also look at various factors “from firearm availability to effective resources for crisis prevention” in order to cut down on the pain allegedly caused by guns.
Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, told The Daily Wire that “all the gun violence that they’re talking about is being committed by people that they either don’t want to put in prison or have let out of prison, and then they use all of the numbers to argue their case, not by using the numbers honestly, but by mixing them together in order to present a false narrative that achieves their goal.”
“This is Attorney General Bonta putting his quest to destroy the Second Amendment on steroids in the state of California and just making official the commentary of every group and organization that wants to destroy the Second Amendment, period,” he said.