If there’s an anti-gun notion humanly possible, someone in California will come up with it and try to make it law. However, not every anti-gunner is that creative. Sometimes, they just focus on pushing what we’ve already heard of.

Orange County is, in theory, not as likely to do such a thing as the rest of the Los Angeles area. That doesn’t mean they won’t, though, and it seems someone had a bright idea to do just that.

It seems the board of supervisors is considering a mandatory storage law.

A majority of Orange County Supervisors want to require gun owning residents to keep their firemans in a lock box or disabled by a trigger lock when stored at home.

It’s sparking questions on how such a law would be enforced and if it’s constitutional.

At their Tuesday meeting, Supervisors voted 3-2 along party lines to draft and bring back a safe gun storage law proposal at the request of Democratic Supervisor Katrina Foley. 

The two Republicans on the dais, Board of Supervisors Chairman Don Wagner and Supervisor Andrew Do, voted against the proposal.

Foley said it’s an effort to prevent suicides, to keep kids from accessing guns at home and address loopholes in current state law.

“The ordinance would not restrict the right for a gun owner to buy or own a gun nor does it impact the ability of an owner to carry or bear these arms; rather it simply seeks to regulate safe gun storage,” she said.

If approved, the county’s law would apply to residents living in unincorporated OC, including the rural canyons – an area Wagner described as having some of the county’s most well-armed residents.

According to a memo from Foley on her request, the ordinance would allow exceptions if the gun is being carried on the body of the registered owner to or at arms-length.

This is a common exception to mandatory storage laws, and but it’ll only benefit a small number of people at most, and those were people who were probably going to ignore the law anyway.

First, for those who might read this who aren’t gun people, let’s start from square one.

There are these things called guns…

What? Too basic? Alright, fair enough.

Seriously, when people buy a gun, they generally buy one for self-defense. Most people who buy a gun aren’t really gun people. What I mean is that they see value in owning a gun, and maybe support the right to keep and bear arms, but they’re not enthusiasts.

It’s kind of like the mechanical computer keyboard crowd in that way. Some people are really into mechanical keyboards while others just want something to use on their computer.

Likewise, many are into guns but most just want something to have available if someone breaks into their house.

They’re not going to carry the gun everywhere they go, especially in California where there are so many places considered “sensitive.” That means they’re going to leave their guns “stored” most of the time.

What mandatory storage laws do is tell them that they need to include a barrier between them and their gun, which will inhibit them from gaining access when they need it.

See, most people aren’t going to walk around with a gun in arms reach. They think of that as a little extreme or whatever. Sure, your garden-variety gun nut might, but not your regular, everyday gun owner.

The thing is, your gun nut type is going to make their own determination of how and when to lock their gun up, regardless of the law. They’ll figure that if it’s on their body, it’s safely stored because someone’s got to go through them to get it. They figure “in arms reach” is pretty much the same thing. 

Regardless of the law on the books, that’s what they’d do anyway.

Meanwhile, the people who keep the guns in the nightstands are the ones who are going to get hurt by this. They’re the ones who are going to scramble for a gun in the middle of the night upon hearing the sound of breaking glass and who will pray they can access their gun before it’s too late.

So yeah, it’s not a creative idea, but it’s still a terrible one.