A 10-year-old was killed by his father; proposed California law aims to close gun loophole
LA Times | April 15, 2025
Victor Gomes bought a Glock 17 semiautomatic pistol from a licensed gun store in the Central Valley city of Hanford in May 2017. He used that gun to shoot his 10-year-old son, Wyland, in the head. Then he killed himself.
Gomes had passed the California Department of Justice’s background check required for the purchase — despite being under a domestic violence restraining order that prohibited him from buying a firearm. The restraining order from the Kings County Superior Court, it appeared, had not yet been entered into state law enforcement databases that should have flagged Gomes as a prohibited buyer. The delay allowed him to purchase the murder weapon even though his previous threats to kill his son were well-documented in court records.
Now, a proposed law by Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, a San Francisco Democrat, aims to bolster and speed up the process by which courts report restraining orders to the state. It would require county courts to keep records proving they submitted the orders and to make those records accessible within one day.
The goal, Stefani said, is to stop people subject to restraining orders from being able to buy guns before the paperwork has been filed — and to allow families and victims to be able to track the process.
“Wyland’s Law ensures that courts and the Department of Justice maintain clear, trackable records of restraining orders, and that families, survivors and law enforcement can confirm those orders were properly transmitted,” Stefani said Tuesday during a news conference about the bill outside San Francisco City Hall. “It’s about accountability, transparency and safety.”
She added: “It is unthinkable that someone subject to a restraining order could still gain access to a firearm because of a bureaucratic failure. Let me be absolutely clear: Our laws are only as strong as our systems to enforce them.”
Camara’s attorney, Joseph M. Alioto Jr., a former federal prosecutor, said the Kings County Superior Court “never communicated that restraining order to the Department of Justice.” In an interview Monday, he said of AB 1363:
“It seems like such an obvious law to ask the court to prove that it did what it is supposed to do.”
During the news conference Tuesday, Camara described her son as “funny, smart and polite,” with a “quiet, kind soul.”
“It’s sad it’s a law in my son’s name because I’d rather my son just be here than have a law in his honor. But in the grand scheme of things, the reason we’re doing all of this is, hopefully, to save children and save families the heartache that myself and my family have been through.”
Since 2021, Alioto has been tirelessly pursuing the Department of Justice, the State of California, and the Superior Court of Kings County to discover how and why the State allowed a man to arm himself while he was under an active court order preventing him from buying guns. Alioto has sued the Department of Justice for refusing to provide records that would explain the government’s error. (Christy Camara Gomes v. Dep’t of Justice (S.F. Superior Court), case no. 22-CPF-517886 [access the case by inputting the case number into “Civil Case Query” here].) Alioto has also sued the Superior Court of Kings County, the State of California, and the Department of Justice for Wyland’s wrongful death. (Christy Camara Gomes v. State of California, et al. (Kings Co. Superior Court), case no. 23CU0424 [access case records here].) Together, Alioto and Christy seek to hold the government accountable and ensure the errors that led to Wyland’s tragic death are never repeated.