Activism
California Pushes Back on Judge’s Decision to Outlaw State’s Ban on Assault Weapons
According to Statista Research Department, California had a total of 22 mass shootings between 1982 and 2021.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta announced last week that the state has appealed a federal court’s decision that declared California’s ban on assault weapons unconstitutional.
Several state officials, including San Francisco Mayor London Breed, also shared their disagreement with the court’s ruling during a press conference held at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. The state partnered with a number of gun control advocate groups for the event, including the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Giffords Law Center.
“We can agree that the decision was disappointing,” said Bonta. “In many ways, the opinion was disturbing and troubling and a big concern, but we cannot be, and we are not, deterred by this,” he said.
Federal Judge Roger Thomas Benitez presided over the decision in Miller v. Bonta. The case was heard at the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.
Bonta said his office has appealed the decision, requesting that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit leave the current laws in effect for 30 days.
California’s gun laws are some of the strictest in the nation under the Roberti–Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 (AWCA) which bans the use of specific models of firearms classified as assault weapons.
In the pending court case Miller v. Bonta, James Miller, a lawyer who serves as a board member of the San Diego County Gun Owners, advocated for the use of the AR-15 rifle. However, the semiautomatic rifle with certain features is an illegal assault weapon according to California gun laws.
Miller argued that AR-15 rifles can be used for self-defense under the second amendment. Miller, who also serves on the Cajon Valley School Board, initially challenged former Attorney General Xavier Becerra on California’s criminalization of AR-15 rifles in April this year.
The ongoing case, which Bonta inherited, sparked heated debates about gun laws in the wake of increasing gun violence and mass shootings.
Breed recalled her personal experience with gun violence growing up in the Bay Area.
“We’re here at San Francisco General Hospital. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been here after a friend that I grew up with was shot,” she said.
Breed was joined by Mattie Scott who lost her son to gun violence. The mayor grew up with Scott’s son who was killed in 1996 at a graduation party in San Francisco.
“We don’t want to see another person, another child lost to gun violence in this city in this state in this country,” said Breed.
“We’ve had a law on the books in the state for over 30 years, and a judge decides that our law is no longer constitutional. That law has saved countless numbers of lives,” she said.
According to Statista Research Department, California had a total of 22 mass shootings between 1982 and 2021. In the court decision, Benitez compared the effectiveness of an AR-15 rifle to a Swiss Army Knife. Based on the federal court’s ruling, the semiautomatic machine gun is, “Good for both home and battle,” said Benitez.
“Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment,” the federal judge said in favor of Miller.
Although the murder of Scott’s son remains unsolved, she is an avid activist for social justice related to gun violence.
“The judge who issued this decision is wrong,” said Scott. “It is insulting to read his decision when he called the kind of weapon that killed my son akin to a pocketknife,” she said.
“Pocket knives don’t tear families apart. They don’t shoot up schools, churches, movie theaters, and street corners,” she said in reference to the recent mass shootings across the country.
Contrary Benitez’s belief that AR-15 rifles can be compared to pocket knives, trauma surgeon Dr. Andre Campbell said that the semiautomatic rifle is a lethal assault weapon designed for the battlefield.
“An AR-15 is a weapon of mass destruction. It is used in the battlefield to kill the enemy. It’s a gun that is used in warfare and should not be available or used in the streets of the United States,” said Campbell.
Campbell has treated many bullet wounds on the frontlines of trauma care for more than two decades and has witnessed the devastation a single bullet can cause to the human body.
“It is as if a bomb went off in the tissues of patients,” said Campbell describing the impact of an AR-15 bullet in patients he’s treated over the years.
Giffords Law Center Executive Director Robyn Thomas said that the federal judge’s decision to give civilians access to military-grade weapons sets California’s gun laws back by 32 years.
“The decision is not based on the correct interpretation of the law,” said Thomas. “The comprehensive gun regulation which we have pioneered here in the state is protecting the lives of Californians. It is making us safer,” she said.
In its budget for 2021-22, the state has allocated $200 million for the California Violence Intervention and Prevention Grant Program. The investment was set up to prevent gun violence in high-risk communities statewide.
“Folks that wax on about public safety and (then) they sit back passively and say nothing about this outrageous decision. Shame on them. What frauds,” said Newsom.
The governor urged lawmakers to evaluate the absurdity of the court’s decision to justify the personal use of a rifle that is, “nothing more than a weapon of war,” he said.
The governor said that gun control has always been a bipartisan issue that helped California lawmakers enact, “progressive and aggressive,” gun safety laws that regulated the people’s right to bear arms for over three decades.
Activism
How the Crack Cocaine Epidemic Led to Mass Sex Exploitation of Black People PART 3: The Case Against SB357: Black, Vulnerable and Trafficked
Although California Senate Bill 357 was intended to alleviate arrests of willing sex workers under anti-loitering laws, it opened up a Pandora’s box loophole that hinders the ability of law enforcement to halt human trafficking, especially of young Black and Brown girls. This segment continues to explore the history that led to this latest form of exploitation in Oakland.

By Tanya Dennis and Vanessa Russell
Although California Senate Bill 357 was intended to alleviate arrests of willing sex workers under anti-loitering laws, it opened up a Pandora’s box loophole that hinders the ability of law enforcement to halt human trafficking, especially of young Black and Brown girls. This segment continues to explore the history that led to this latest form of exploitation in Oakland.
It was 1980: The beginning of the end for the Black family and Black community as we knew it.
Crack cocaine was introduced to the United States that year and it rendered unparalleled devastation on Black folks. Crack is a solid smokable form of cocaine made by boiling baking soda, cocaine, and water into a rock that crackles when smoked.
The tremendous high — especially when first smoked — and the low cost brought temporary relief to the repeatedly and relentlessly traumatized members of the Black community.
What was unknown at the time was how highly addictive this form of cocaine would be and how harmful the ensuing impact on the Black family when the addicted Black mother was no longer a haven of safety for her children.
The form made it easy to mass produce and distribute, opening the market to anyone and everyone, including many Black men who viewed selling crack as their way out of poverty.
These two factors — addicted Black women and drug-dealing Black men — would lead to the street exploitation for sex as we know it today.
Encouraged to try it free initially, most poor, Black women in the 1980s used crack cocaine in a social setting with friends. When the free samples disappeared the drug dealer offered to supply the women crack in exchange for allowing him to sell their bodies to sex buyers.
The increase in the supply of women willing to exchange sex for crack — a.k.a. the “sex for crack barter system” — caused the price of sex to decrease and at the same time increased the demand for sex because more buyers could afford it.
The desperation of the women to get their hit of crack made them willing to endure any form of abuse and treatment from buyers during sex, including unprotected and violent sex.
It also pushed desperate Black women onto the street to pursue sex buyers, flagging down cars and willing to have sex anywhere actively and desperately. Street prostitution grew and buyers were able to buy oral sex for as little as $5.
This sex-for-crack barter system resulted in a dramatic increase in sexually transmitted diseases including HIV and AIDS, both of which are disproportionately represented among Black people.
It also resulted in unplanned pregnancies by unknown fathers, which then resulted in children born addicted to crack who were immediately placed in the foster care system where they were often abused and/or neglected.
For his part, the Black man who engaged in the mass production and distribution of crack was often killed by gun violence while fighting over drug territory or incarcerated for long periods of time as use and sales and distribution of crack carried longer sentences than powdered cocaine.
Crack unleashed an entire chain of new trauma upon the Black family which then all but collapsed under this latest social attack that had started with chattel slavery, followed by Jim Crow, redlining, school segregation, food deserts, et. al.
Exploitation was and is at the root of the crack cocaine epidemic. It is the latest weapon used to prey upon Black people since the beginning of our time in the United States.
The sex industry and legislation like SB357 have only increased harm to Black people who have been historically oppressed with racist laws and epidemics including crack. More must be done to restore the Black community.
Tanya Dennis serves on the Board of Oakland Frontline Healers (OFH) and series co-author Vanessa Russell of “Love Never Fails Us” and member of OFH.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tanya-Leblanc/publication/236121038_Behind_the_Eight_Ball_Sex_for_Crack_Cocaine_Exchange_and_Poor_Black_Women/links/0c9605162c8f362553000000/Behind-the-Eight-Ball-Sex-for-Crack-Cocaine-Exchange-and-Poor-Black-Women.pdf?origin=publication_detail
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of March 22 – 28, 2023
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March March 22 – 38, 2023

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Activism
Oakland Post: Week of March 15 – 21, 2023
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 15 – 21, 2023

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