In San Jose, a Different Approach to Gun Control
California Today
Tuesday: The city’s mayor suggests requiring gun owners to buy liability insurance. Also: A run-down of legislation; and an Otis Redding classic.
while federal and other states’ rules are less stringent
Thomas Fuller
Sam Liccardo, the mayor of San Jose, has spent the past two weeks attending memorial services and vigils for the victims of last month’s Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting. Two people who were killed in Gilroy were from San Jose, both of them children. The mayor says he has stumbled for words — all that he could muster sounded like “trite pablum,” Mr. Liccardo said in an interview.
On Monday, he proposed what he hopes will be a more substantive response, a proposal to require gun owners to buy liability insurance. The idea has been around for a number of years but Mr. Liccardo’s office says it would be the first time it is actually put into practice.
It will be months until a bill is ready for a vote in the City Council, but the mayor says he is counting on San Jose, as the nation’s 10th largest city, to inspire other municipalities to take similar steps.
The idea behind the proposal is that insurance would incentivize gun safety in the same way that car insurance encourages better driving. Gun owners who have taken a safety course might receive a discount, whereas someone with a prior domestic violence conviction would be forced to pay a higher price for insurance.
“I would be lying if I said to you that the insurance companies are enthusiastic about this,” Mr. Liccardo said.
Those who cannot obtain insurance would be forced to contribute to a public fund to help defray the public costs of gun violence.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, has in recent days signaled that he might be open to bipartisan legislation on background checks or other forms of limited gun control. Mr. Liccardo is skeptical.
“I have zero confidence that Congress will get anything done,” Mr. Liccardo said, “so it’s up to the rest of us.”
Here’s what else we’re following
— State Here’s the legislation they’ll be looking at. [CalMatters]
— with a gunman who was also killed in Riverside on Monday. There wasn’t much detail about a possible motive, and the suspect wasn’t immediately identified. [The New York Times]
— An 8-year-old boy is afraid to go to a park where he once took martial arts classes. A young woman with a bullet lodged in her liver replays the moment she was shot whenever she’s awake. [KQED]
— which were based on a range of factors that point to value and quality of education over prestige. Seven other U.C. campuses, Cal State Long Beach and Caltech also ranked highly. [Money]
— From changes to chains of command to halting acquisitions, here’s how the company is changing to deal with it. [The New York Times]
— Another reminder to never leave valuables in the car: while he was broadcasting a game at Oracle Park. [The San Francisco Chronicle]
Fixations
— is headed to Broadway. [The New York Times]
— Forgive Lucas Kwan Peterson, a food columnist for The Los Angeles Times, They were delicious — so sweet, and probably not so cold. (They don’t ship well.) They’re also kind of hard to grow, which is why they’re tough to find. But they’re in season now. [The Los Angeles Times]
— If you missed it, Now, he’s a real one — but having trouble finding somewhere to treat patients. [The Los Angeles Times]
— Before Google Maps and Waze told drivers how to get around Los Angeles, thousands of families kept Now, with the apps’ “egocentric” routing, have we lost the ability to see L.A. as a whole? [CityLab]
And Finally …
Today, we’re adding a song to the California Soundtrack that at once evokes an earlier time in the Golden State and serves as a timeless ode to the meditative pleasure of just sitting and staring at water.
I am, of course, talking about Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay,” the monster hit recorded not long before the singer’s tragic death in a plane crash.
Mr. Redding started writing it while he was staying on a houseboat owned by Bill Graham, the San Francisco rock promoter, in 1967, according to Rolling Stone.
For Christa Hall, who emailed from the South Bay, it’s her favorite California song because it traces her own journey.
“I had literally left my home in Georgia after separating from the military in 2007 and drove with a friend to S.F., hung out in the Bay, and ultimately arrived back in Sacramento where I’m from,” she said. “It speaks (to me) about the pain and bone-deep loneliness of leaving something that you cared for so much to seek out something bigger and better for yourself even if you don’t know what it is yet.”
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