SACRAMENTO — Less than two weeks after 14 people were fatally shot in San Bernardino, a US representative from California hosted a hearing Monday aimed at finding ways to reduce gun violence.
It’s the latest step by backers of stricter gun laws who say Congress must do more after a series of shootings had killed dozens across the country.
The hearing at the state Capitol fell on the third anniversary of the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut that left 20 first-graders and six educators dead.
Representative Mike Thompson of St. Helena, chairman of House Democrats’ Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, led the hearing. His office said the discussion was scheduled a month ago, before the San Bernardino shootings by a married couple who authorities say were inspired by a foreign terror group.
California has some of the nation’s strictest gun control laws, including universal background checks for buyers of guns and limits on assault weapons.
Thompson is co-sponsoring a House bill that would require nationwide background checks at gun shows and for those who buy guns from individuals online. He called for Congress to end its 19-year ban on federal research into the causes of gun violence.
Witnesses at the hearing included a gun show dealer from Arizona and a gun club owner, along with police officials and gun control advocates.
In a separate development authorities investigating the San Bernardino rampage said Enrique Marquez, a friend of the suspected gunmen, checked himself into a mental-health facility.
Marquez has been cooperating with the investigation of the massacre, which officials say was carried out his neighbor, Syed Rizwan Farook, and Farook’s wife, Tashfeen Malik.
Officials said Marquez has told the FBI he and Farook had discussed mounting some sort of attack in 2012, but he got spooked.