Posted on 02/27/2014 4:35:31 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
California has long been on a sickening, spiral path toward flushing all individual rights down the toilet. Few states have such a powerful and overreaching state government and nowhere is that overreach more apparent than in the state’s gun laws.
Back in 2000, California legislators instituted a system supposedly intended to protect the state’s citizens from cheap, poorly made, unreliable handguns – you know, the kind poor people can afford and that you would prefer criminals to have as opposed to accurate and reliable ones.
They called them “junk guns” and said they should be banned because they were disproportionately being used in crime. Instead of trying to make a list of “evil features” like they’ve done with “assault weapons,” the legislature went the opposite route, creating a roster of approved, “safe” handguns, and banning as “unsafe” any handgun that is not listed on the roster.
In order for a gun to be included on the roster, it must be submitted to a panel of “experts” who test and evaluate it in accordance with a long, convoluted list of criteria. Gun companies are charged for this “service,” and must pay thousands of dollars for evaluation of each model and minor variation they wish to sell in the state. Even cosmetic features such as a gun’s color and finish are included in this requirement, resulting in idiotic situations where one gun is declared “safe” while an identical gun of the same make and model is listed as unsafe simply because it has a nitride, rather than a blued finish and the manufacturer didn’t pay to have the nitride version evaluated. In the real world this would be called extortion.
In 2003, legislators passed a law adding requirements for a loaded chamber indicator and a magazine disconnect. They followed those requirements with a new edict in 2008 mandating that semi-auto handguns include Microstamping technology to transfer identification marks to shell casing when fired. This provision was only supposed to go into effect after at least 2 companies were offering the technology without patent or licensing issues, but California Attorney General Kamala Harris activated the provision last year.
No major handgun manufacturers currently use Microstamping in their handguns – none. Furthermore, Ruger, Glock, and Smith & Wesson have all declared that they have no intention of adding the expensive technology. Handgun models currently on the roster can continue to be sold in the state as long as the company makes no changes to the design or features, and continues to pay the annual re-certification fees. But any gun that is changed or improved in any way, and any new models that come out, will be illegal for commercial sale in California.
Gun companies have already incurred significant expense developing and producing “California compliant” versions of their guns, and they say Microstamping could cost an additional $100 to $200 per gun. On top of that, no one knows what would be required to get Microstamping functional in a full-production factory setting; it has only ever been applied in a laboratory environment.
Last year, there were almost 820 different models and variations of semi-auto handguns on the California Roster of Safe Handguns. The Calguns Foundation estimates that number will go down by approximately 125 guns per year as manufacturers make routine changes to their existing models and it becomes impractical to continue manufacture of older, obsolete versions. At that rate, it is expected that virtually all semi-auto handguns could be illegal for commercial sale in the state within the next ten years. And that decline rate could be accelerated precipitously if the California legislature decides to require some change to existing models – forcing them to be reevaluated for the roster.
Currently no mainstream gun manufacturer could comply, nor is any likely to be able to within the next decade.
The Calguns Foundation, along with the Second Amendment Foundation, has filed a federal lawsuit challenging California’s Safe Gun Roster. That case is pending a ruling on summary judgment in Federal District Court and, regardless of the outcome, is expected to continue through the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and possibly the Supreme Court. The legal team includes Donald Kilmer, Jason Davis, and Alan Gura, who was lead attorney in both of the landmark Heller and McDonald cases before the Supreme Court. A separate suit has been filed on behalf of manufacturers by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute.
As always with gun control laws, the laws in California are having no effect on their disproportionately high crime rates – representing 68% of all “gun murders” in the nation – but are seriously impacting the ability of honest citizens to acquire the firearms of their choice. California’s insane laws have already driven up handgun prices in addition to limiting consumers’ options and availability.
Now they are resulting in more and more guns being completely removed from the marketplace – but not from criminals.
The sheep in California must approve of it.
They keep voting for it.
Either flush them or move.
All gun companies need to stop selling to CA law enforcement.
Thugs gangs and mexicans will be the only armed peeps in CAL. Lots of victims there will be
The simple solution is to stop selling any firearm or ammunition or accessory to anyone in California.
Oh well got mine. But they fell off my boat!
As I’ve pointed out many times, back in 1982, the voters of California voted DOWN Prop 15 which would have banned the sale of new handguns in California.
Since that time, the politicians have been working overtime finding out all the ways to get around THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE and still get handguns banned. Now it is rifles along with the handguns they are working to ban.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/democrats_should_fear_the_brad.html
http://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_15,_Handgun_Registration_Initiative_%281982%29
Ask and Ye Shall Receive:
VLTOR no sale policy to anti-2nd Amendment states
Please support VLTOR in this movement by doing business with them.
This is not news. They have been forcing guns off the CA market for many years now.
With 68% of all gun murders in the nation they’re really doing a great job of showing what gun control is really for: enabling and facilitating violent crime in the most effective way possible. Even their large minority population of blacks and Hispanics isn’t enough to explain it since other states with more sensible gun laws have far lower murder rates. None of us should ever admit gun grabbing has any legitimate purpose or motivation, it doesn’t.
bkmk
Donald Kilmer just helped me with an issue and I’m seeing that hippie again next week.
Good man.
I highly recommend anyone with a gun issue in CA see him.
I think all manufacturers should follow Barrett.
They should just announce they aren’t selling or servicing anything in CA and be done with it.
I would support that kind of forward thinking and when CA got right in the head I’d blow money on stuff I don’t need just to express and demonstrate my approval....
Please don’t leave those of us behind the iron curtain out in the cold. This roster is killing us. I was going to purchase just a few days ago and the Ruger I was going to pick up expired on the roster and just like that not available for purchase. I have hope that this roster is ruled unconstitutional.
Yeah but it’s a business like everything else. CA is so big that they would lose too much $.
I live here. I hate it.
I sometimes think about moving back to Mureakuh.
These laws make no sense.
I’d buy an AR for fun but, who knows if I wake up one day and they are outlawed or they demand I register them like they already tried in the 90’s.
I just buy regular weapons and call it good....
Is there still objection to breaking up the state? Then certain parts of it could have guns, and other parts, not.
Here is what the gun grabbers should do to test the safety or the guns using terminology even a gun grabber understands).
Load the automag assault clip with cop killer teflon dum dum bullets
Rack the glock slide
Point barrel directly in to ear.
Listen carefully as you squeeze the trigger
The problem sorts itself out...
This is why I left the state of California in 1973 and would never move back. This is sad as it was a great place to grow up but that is all gone.
Can you buy at a Nevada dealer and have it shipped to you? Buy what you want on vacation and mail it to yourself....
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