Santa Clara County

NBC Bay Area's Stolen Guns Investigation Leads to New Law

The law requires any person, including state, local and federal law enforcement officers, who leaves a gun in a car unattended to lock it in a trunk or secure it in a container that is permanent to the vehicle and out of plain sight.

Sen. Jerry Hill says the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit’s stolen guns investigation led him to write Senate Bill 869, legislation that was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last week.

The law requires any person, including state, local and federal law enforcement officers, who leaves a gun in a car unattended to lock it in a trunk or secure it in a container that is permanent to the vehicle and out of plain sight.

“Thanks to the great investigative journalism that we saw that gave us a better idea of the magnitude of the challenges that we were faced with regarding this issue of unattended handguns in vehicles,” he said at a press conference on Thursday.

The bill is set to take effect in January.

The press conference was held in conjunction with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department, which together with Sen. Hill announced its new gun vault program. That program will require vaults to be installed in deputies’ personal vehicles.

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