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California Lawmakers Aim to Restrict Gun Rights
Reason ^ | Dec. 21, 2012 | Steven Greenhut

Posted on 12/23/2012 2:51:37 PM PST by neverdem

Golden State legislators join the gun control chorus in the wake of Sandy Hook.

It took only days before California’s lefty legislators reacted to the horrific Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy with a fusillade of bills designed to take California closer to Democratic leaders’ unstated but obvious goal: making it essentially illegal for citizens to own firearms in California.

I write “essentially” because the strategy isn’t to ban guns outright, but to mire ownership in so many layers of regulation that owning a gun becomes even more frustrating and costly than operating a business in this state. Legislators aren’t stupid. Direct assaults on gun ownership generate pushback, but killing this right through a thousand cuts works fine.

California already has the toughest gun regulations in America, yet legislators (including a numbskull Republican) have introduced a long list of new proposals at press conferences where they used the Connecticut tragedy to grandstand.

“They were mowed down,” said Los Angeles Democratic Sen. Kevin de Leon. “I think that viscerally it will give a lot of political officials around the country the political courage to do the right thing.” But it’s not clear what de Leon means by the right thing. California has passed 45 gun-control laws in the last 23 years. (Liberal Connecticut has tough gun laws, too.)

California has long waiting periods, background-check requirements, limits on the number of gun purchases, bans on gun sales to people with mental illnesses and felony convictions, bans on high-capacity magazines, and on concealed carry. The governor recently signed a law banning the open carrying of unloaded long guns. The list goes on. That’s in addition to myriad federal restrictions.

If you think we’re safe from gun violence because of all those rules, check out the murder rates in Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Bernardino.

Now de Leon is targeting ammunition. “We don’t think about the fuel that feeds the violence, and that’s ammunition. If you want to fish, you have to secure a license to fish. If you want to cut down a Christmas tree in California—this is legally factual—you have to secure a permit at a cost of $10. Yet anyone who walks into any gun store in California can buy all the ammunition they want.”

That statement is more of an indictment of the kind of society we’ve become—so regulated and taxed that one isn’t allowed to cut down a Christmas tree without getting government permission—than about firearms. But I digress.

Like everyone, I’m still shaken by the school-shooting. I’m all ears when it comes to finding real solutions to violence, but am tired of cheap, predictable attempts to turn tragedy into another assault on our liberties and wallets.

After this week’s legislative frenzy, I headed to one of the largest Sacramento-area gun dealerships to purchase that 12-gauge shotgun I’ve been considering only to find the shelves virtually bare. The Daily Beast reports on a similar situation throughout the country.

Americans realize that an assault on private gun ownership is coming and it’s best buying a weapon now while they still are available at a store rather than only on the black market.

Perhaps de Leon and others might ask constituents why they would want a gun. This morning, my wife handed me the local newspaper with a story about three men who were arrested for murdering one of my neighbors in October during a robbery. Is it unreasonable to want the wherewithal to defend one’s family? The cocking of the shotgun—the international sound of “you’re not welcome here”—would be all it takes to dissuade most intruders.

Gun-control advocates are utopians. Their perspective is that if guns no longer are readily available, that violence will evaporate. But there are so many guns in circulation it would take decades to reduce their availability—unless legislators adopt the police-state policy of sending cops door-to-door to confiscate them. Even then, there would be black markets and other methods for evil folks to commit mayhem (bombs, knives).

It’s better to let people arm themselves. An operator of a private school told me that California’s 1995 Gun-Free School Zone Act banning guns within 1,000 feet of schools is making it difficult to hire an armed security guard.

There’s a reason criminals are more likely to ply their trade in “gun free” zones than in heavily armed neighborhoods. There’s no better check on a diabolical gun owner than decent gun owners. I personally don’t like guns and wish everyone were peaceful and kind, but it’s better to be realistic than to pursue a fantasy world.

Gun-control laws exempt groups of government officials. Anyone who believes working for the government relieves people of the tendency to do bad things has never heard the phrase “going Postal.” There are endless stories of authorities misusing their firearms on- and off-duty, which is a reminder of the main reason the founders gave gun ownership the second spot in the Bill of Rights.

Californians crazy enough to believe these new proposed laws will make them safer ought to be happy. The rest of us should find a well-stocked gun store as soon as possible.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: banglist; guncontrol; secondamendment
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1 posted on 12/23/2012 2:51:47 PM PST by neverdem
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; goldstategop; CAluvdubya; CyberAnt; Syncro; Citizen James; BurbankKarl; ...
BANG!
2 posted on 12/23/2012 2:55:46 PM PST by neverdem ( Xin loi min oi)
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To: neverdem

Yet another reason I am leaving this putrid state and going back to my beloved Texas.


3 posted on 12/23/2012 3:02:28 PM PST by piytar (The predator-class is furious that their prey are shooting back.)
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To: neverdem

San Francisco has a bill up for the banning of hollow-points and police must be notified if anybody buys over 400 rounds of ammunition.
All pointless but it makes the liberals feel good about themselves until they move onto something else..


4 posted on 12/23/2012 3:02:32 PM PST by GSP.FAN (Some days, it's not even worth chewing through the restraints.)
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To: neverdem
Clearly, Liberals are following the path of smoking. Can't make it illegal, but can restrict it out of practical existence.

Except that we have a 2nd Amendment so a defacto ban through deliberately cumbersome regulation is unconstitutional.

5 posted on 12/23/2012 3:03:23 PM PST by Obadiah
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To: neverdem
We don’t think about the fuel that feeds the violence, and that’s ammunition.

Settles that, I guess. I always thought criminals cause crime, but apparently not.

6 posted on 12/23/2012 3:04:01 PM PST by Standing Wolf
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To: neverdem

Imagine if these tactics were applied similarly to the so-called ‘right’ to vote.

Talk about disenfranchised!


7 posted on 12/23/2012 3:08:37 PM PST by Blueflag (Res ipsa loquitur: non vehere est inermus)
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To: neverdem

No matter.

CA is going to go down the tubes financially.

The feds will not be able to bail them out because at about the same time, the bond market balloon with burst.

CA will eventually end up voting out all of the nut cases they have in their government and clean house.


8 posted on 12/23/2012 3:13:50 PM PST by old curmudgeon
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To: GSP.FAN

I would never buy 400rounds at once.

A box, every couple of weeks, will do. :)


9 posted on 12/23/2012 3:15:04 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults.)
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To: neverdem

“It took only days before California’s lefty legislators reacted to the horrific Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy with a fusillade of bills designed to take California closer to Democratic leaders’ unstated but obvious goal: making it essentially illegal for citizens to own firearms in California.”

So they are taking another shot at it. They have been attempting it for a long time. Sandy Hook is just their latest excuse.


10 posted on 12/23/2012 3:16:08 PM PST by Lurkina.n.Learnin (Superciliousness is the essence of Obama)
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To: old curmudgeon

bond market balloon will burst.


11 posted on 12/23/2012 3:16:46 PM PST by old curmudgeon
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To: neverdem
More gun laws = more Californians leaving the state. Who will pay the taxes that run this state then?

We are already looking to retire out of Cali. If they enact more laws now, we will retire sooner!

Pretty soon there won't be anyone left in this state.

12 posted on 12/23/2012 3:23:17 PM PST by CAluvdubya (We're doomed....)
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To: neverdem

Now de Leon is targeting ammunition. “We don’t think about the fuel that feeds the violence, and that’s ammunition. If you want to fish, you have to secure a license to fish. If you want to cut down a Christmas tree in California—this is legally factual—you have to secure a permit at a cost of $10. Yet anyone who walks into any gun store in California can buy all the ammunition they want.”


Yet anyone who walks into any grocery store in California can buy all the food they want.

Good grief, 500 rounds of plinking quality .22 lr is only twenty bucks, when it use to be available, where I live.


13 posted on 12/23/2012 3:26:22 PM PST by paint_your_wagon
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To: neverdem

“If you want to fish, you have to secure a license to fish. If you want to cut down a Christmas tree in California—this is legally factual—you have to secure a permit at a cost of $10.”

SO...rather than challenge the abject idiocy of those two “fees”, only the commies can use them as grounds to add yet another infringement on our Constitutional rights.

These nutcase do-gooders will NEVER understand that the Second Amendment does NOT grant any ‘rights’. It merely recognizes our God-given right to self defense, from our own government every bit as much as from the home invader, the car jacker, or the mental case that shoots up a school, killing 20 innocent children.


14 posted on 12/23/2012 3:29:41 PM PST by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. 01-20-2013: Still seeking change.)
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To: neverdem

The blood of the Sandy Hook massacre victims stains the Democratic party legislators of California along with all those who deny victims the right to self defense.

Shame on them!


15 posted on 12/23/2012 3:31:11 PM PST by TheDon (Criminalizing self defense contributed to the Sandy Hook massacre.)
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To: neverdem


Compton/Inglewood says "what the f*ck eveah, cracka".
16 posted on 12/23/2012 3:32:44 PM PST by VanDeKoik
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To: old curmudgeon

“CA will eventually end up voting out all of the nut cases they have in their government and clean house.”

Man I sure hope you are right. I’ve been trying to vote the bastards out for most of my 72 years! But, I do think that the RATS have seriously overplayed their hand this time. They are out of control and people are beginning to notice. Watching the state go bust would be a welcome sight. It will not be without pain, but nothing worthwhile usually is.


17 posted on 12/23/2012 3:33:00 PM PST by vette6387
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To: neverdem
"I write “essentially” because the strategy isn’t to ban guns outright, but to mire ownership in so many layers of regulation that owning a gun becomes even more frustrating and costly" for the peasants of the near future (including the remainder of the middle class about to be laid off and bankrupt). Only the the government-connected (portion of which is now trying to outlaw our Second Amendment) will have weapons.


18 posted on 12/23/2012 3:59:15 PM PST by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of rotten politics smelled around the planet.)
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To: neverdem

In 1982 Cali voters rejected a handgun ban law.

The state has been trying to get around that ever since, one step at a time.


19 posted on 12/23/2012 4:07:33 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (REOPEN THE CLOSED MENTAL INSTITUTIONS! Damn the ACLU!)
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Comment #20 Removed by Moderator


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