Ban applies to local, state and federal officers
California has enacted a law prohibiting local, state and federal law enforcement officers from using electric-shock gloves — wearable devices designed to deliver painful electric shocks to gain compliance from combative individuals. The ban takes effect next year and expires in 2030.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill on Tuesday. In a statement, Newsom said “Trump has put his political interests above the health, safety and livelihood of American families” and that “California is taking action to strengthen transparency, accountability, and oversight around immigration enforcement in our state.”
The law was passed weeks after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement moved to equip its officers with the gloves. Last month, the agency awarded a nearly $17 million contract to buy 6,000 pairs of the devices.
Sponsor’s rationale and the safety review
Assembly member LaShae Sharp-Collins, a Democrat who introduced the shock-glove legislation, said the bill was intended to “put a pause” on law enforcement’s use of the devices while the state examines their potential risks. The law requires the California Department of Justice to study the safety of shock gloves and report its findings to lawmakers by 2029.
“There’s a lot of unrest and a lot of uncertainty,” Sharp-Collins said in an interview. “A lot of people are scared.”
The assembly member said ICE’s plan was the catalyst for the ban, but she also cited the use of the devices by other officers — including a case in which a Kentucky family alleged a man died after being tased and shocked with the gloves dozens of times while in law enforcement custody in 2024.
Question of authority over federal officers
The new measure will again test California’s authority to restrict federal agents operating within its borders during the Trump administration’s stepped-up immigration enforcement. Earlier this year, a federal judge blocked the state’s first-in-the-nation law barring federal officers from wearing face coverings, ruling it too selective because it applied to local and federal law enforcement but exempted state officers. Lawmakers passed a revised bill this year to apply the mask ban to all officers, and Newsom signed that measure as well.
Kevin Johnson, professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis School of Law, said courts are likely to ultimately rule that California cannot bar federal officers from wearing shock gloves or face coverings. The laws are well-intentioned, he said, but probably conflict with the supremacy clause of the US Constitution, which generally sets federal law as supreme over conflicting state law.
“The state has very limited, if any, powers in dictating to the federal government how its officers are armed,” Johnson said.
Sacramento Sheriff Jim Cooper, a Democrat and former state lawmaker, said banning shock gloves “really makes no sense” because they are among the non-lethal tools officers can use if necessary.
“When the federal government does something, the state legislature wants to ban it,” Cooper said at a news conference. “They’re making our job harder.”
Broader pattern of state legislation targeting federal enforcement
State Senator Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who authored last year’s mask ban, also authored this year’s measure to expand the mask ban to state officers. “California must use every available tool to stand up for our communities under attack from ICE’s secret police terror campaign,” Wiener said in a statement after the legislature passed the bill.
The shock-glove law is the latest example of how Democratic-led states have pushed back against President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts since he took office last year. California lawmakers passed at least two dozen bills this year seeking to fortify immigrants’ rights, restrict cooperation with federal immigration agents and tighten regulations on immigrant detention facilities.
Nationwide, 17 states with Democratic-led legislatures have passed a total of more than 100 pro-immigrant bills this year, according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill tracking software Plural. The most common purpose of those bills is to limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agents.