gun-fucious
Member
Descent into Madness
48 Hours in the California Legislative System
Michael Marks
Executive Director
The Fifty Caliber Policy Institute
Stereotypes are a common part of American culture. Often as not they
are based on a grain of truth wrapped in a mile of exaggeration. While
most of us enjoy a good laugh at the wacky world of California
politics, a rational man might think that accounts of strange thinking
on the Left Coast, like any good bass fishing story, were a little
larger than life. After spending two days in the halls of California
state government in Sacramento, it is apparent that the inmates are
running the asylum.
California is struggling with the biggest budget crisis in its history.
Take note, we are not talking about your run-of-the-mill budget
shortfall where teachers and medical services are cut as a first-line
response. California is so awash in red ink that on the day I arrived,
the Sacramento District Attorney’s office filed a proposal with the
state under which it will simply stop prosecuting misdemeanor crimes
because it cannot afford the staff. A subsequent component of that
proposal will cease supervision of all paroled criminals, misdemeanor
and felons alike, for lack of parole officers. Jails are releasing
prisoners they can’t afford to house. The implications of this are
staggering. The message to criminals is clear-- hunting season is open
on law-abiding Californians because the government can’t afford to
prosecute you!
With the state budget coughing up blood like a bad horror movie, you
would think that legislators would be focused on the urgent task of
fixing the economy. Issues like tax-relief come to mind, or paring down
excessive government waste. That would be the agenda of any competent
legislator, but not for those who govern the land of Oz. Given all of
the options open to the Democrat-led Assembly on Public Health, the
best idea they could come up with to help the citizens of California
was to dump time, resources and money into banning a bolt-action target
rifle.
The catastrophic failure in judgment is California bill AB50, authored
by Paul Koretz of the Hollywood area. In his bill, Mr. Koretz expressed
a sky-is-falling need to ban .50 caliber target rifles by including
them in the ever-changing definition of “assault weaponâ€. The strident
urgency driving this bill was Mr. Koretz’ claims that these bolt-action
rifles are a terrorist superweapon which have the ability to shoot
planes out of the sky, punch holes through tanks, and kill people in
armored limousines from four miles away.
Mr. Koretz should send his report to the Pentagon. Apparently the
greatest assembly of military minds and experience on earth has
universally overlooked the earth-shattering power of the humble target
rifle. Perhaps they missed “superweapon day†in basic training. The
more likely answer is that Assemblyman Koretz took on an ultra-liberal
cause that most Democrats would have been ashamed to author, having no
real idea what he was doing. During questioning on the floor of the
committee, Koretz admitted, “I don’t understand much of this gun stuff,
I just think they are bad.†Well, Koretz was half-right... he clearly
doesn’t understand gun stuff.
Thankfully, there were some people on the Public Safety committee who
do understand, people who made an effort to demand a few facts before
signing another blank check for a bill listed as “fiscal impact not yet
determinedâ€. On the forefront of this group was Assemblyman Jay La
Suer. Drawing on an extensive experience in law enforcement, La Suer
knows a great deal about crime in California. He conferred with
recognized experts on terrorism to either confirm or rebut the
emotion-packed claims set forth in the bill. With a prosecutor’s focus
on hard fact, La Suer began to grill the small handful of AB50
proponents. The facts he revealed told a very different story.
How many years have .50 caliber rifles been in civilian hands? Over
80 years.
In that time, how many people in America have been killed by these
rifles? Zero.
How many aircraft have been shot, on the ground or in the air? Zero.
How many limousines have been shot through? Zero.
How many oil refineries have been blown up? Zero.
One by one La Suer dissected the claims of what was soon exposed as
just another myopic gun ban pushed to center stage while the economy
burned. At one point, La Suer’s growing disgust crossed its limit. The
Assemblyman vehemently expressed his outrage that the time and
resources of the state were being diverted from the economy to even
consider such a blatant sham and he called on Koretz to pull the bill
so they could get on with real work. Koretz simply smiled and refused,
knowing the fix was in. His fellow Democrats on the committee seemed
all-too eager to rubber-stamp the bill in spite of the facts.
But wait, you say! Government is a collective process; there are checks
and balances to weed out the quacks, right? Well, sadly for
Californians, the government seems to have a lot of checks and very few
balances. That would certainly explain the thirty billion dollar budget
crisis that threatens Governor Gray Davis with a growing prospect of
being recalled.
On this day, the only other balance to help protect the California
economy was Assemblyman Todd Spitzer. Like La Suer, Spitzer seemed very
concerned that the Assembly was being fed a bag of lies. It was also
clear that Spitzer had done his homework. He asked pointed questions
regarding the basis of allegations made by Koretz, pointing out that
numerous statements made in the bill were prefaced by “it is said
that...â€. Spitzer wanted to know who said it, and what tests had been
run. He demanded facts in place of innuendo. As before, supporters of
AB50 could point to no document, no experience, no test or study to
support their claims. A representative of the Los Angeles Police
Department with 26 years on the job admitted that in all that time he
had never run into a single .50 caliber rifle involved in any way with
any criminal activity. Not once.
The farce became even more apparent when La Suer asked the LAPD officer
what weapons he had seen used in violent crimes. The answer ranged from
handguns to knives, tools and the ever-popular “blunt objectsâ€. La Suer
asked if all of these items used to commit murder were presently
banned, to which the officer answered no. “Do you think they should be
banned?†La Suer asked calmly, and again the officer firmly answered
no. It was then that La Suer cut to the chase. “Well then explain to me
Officer, how is it that you don’t want to ban things that have killed
people, yet you want to ban something that you admit has never killed
anyone and has never been used in any sort of crime?†Speechless, the
officer mumbled and backed away from the microphone.
The small handful of supporters for AB50 included the usual suspects;
the Violence Policy Center, which survives by scaring unwitting
citizens into making donations, as well as their ill-disguised
offshoot, the Trauma Foundation. There was a representative of the
Brady organization, a member of the Million Mom March and a handful of
others. Their entire presentation lasted a few short minutes. This came
as no great surprise-- armed with no facts and only a handful of tall
tales, even hardcore fanatics can only tap dance for so long.
In contrast, the line of opponents to AB50 filled the front table, ran
down the length of the room and out into the hall. They ranged from
industry representatives to shooting enthusiasts to military
memorabilia collectors. Mr. Bill Ritchie, owner of EDM Arms, spoke
passionately as the only rifle manufacturer left in the state of
California. He explained that he could be forced to relocate if the
bill became law. He spoke of the employees who would lose jobs, of the
tens of thousands of tax dollars the state would lose, not to mention
the hundreds of thousands of dollars annually funneled to California
machine shops, case manufacturers and other suppliers who rely on EDM’s
business. But those were facts that went to the economy; those facts
meant jobs and revenue. The Democrats on the Public Safety Committee
made it all too clear that financial issues were not their concern.
They were on a political agenda.
Ritchie was followed by Ronnie Barrett, President of Barrett Firearms,
Inc., who elaborated on the critical role that the civilian firearm
industry plays in developing technologies that are vital to the
military. He demonstrated with clear evidence that several of the
characterizations regarding the fifty-caliber rifle were based on
exotic military-grade ammunition that has never been available to
civilian marksman. By this point, Committee Chairman Mark Leno was
beginning to sweat. The overwhelming evidence against the bill was
threatening to erode the party-line support that everyone expected.
While many politicians don’t mind selling out, few prefer to look like
imbeciles on public television. As the hearing rolled on and on, core
supporters of the bill were increasingly looking like the next
rendition of the Three Stooges.
The suffering of Koretz and his ilk wasn’t over. Ed Worley of the
National Rifle Association spoke up, drawing a very different parallel
to the Committee’s attention. The term “assault weaponâ€, he noted, was
coined to label a group of guns, which were deemed bad because they
could spray a lot of bullets in a rapid, inaccurate fashion. Yet now a
target rifle was being deemed an “assault weapon†because it could fire
one bullet at a time in an accurate fashion. “So which way do you want
it?†Worley demanded of Chairman Leno, “Am I the only person who finds
this bizarre?†The Chairman did not have an answer to a very good
question.
While speaker after speaker took the floor in opposition of the bill,
Democratic members sat in dull disinterest. Just an hour earlier,
Assemblywoman Goldberg found ample passion to debate a law that would
make it illegal for a sports-event spectator to hurl his cellphone at
an athlete, but she sat through the AB50 presentation with barely a
peep. Assemblyman Longville, who earlier was casting votes
self-admittingly having no idea which bill he was voting on, was
likewise indifferent to the concerns of La Suer, Spitzer and most of
the assembled audience. When asked on the sidelines how he was leaning,
Longville rather blithely explained, “I don’t know. I’ll vote which
ever way the speaker tells me to.†Not what he thinks, or God forbid,
not what his constituents think, but what the Speaker thinks-- a
Speaker who is not even present to hear the facts. It must be
disturbing to the voters of San Bernardino to learn they elected a
Muppet to represent them.
The only Democrat who appeared to grasp the gravity of AB50 was Rudy
Bermudez, who focused not on the ban of target rifles but the
accompanying ban on any form of .50 caliber ammunition. “I have a .50
cal round on my mantle,†he explained, “given to me at the funeral of a
friend killed in Viet Nam. By my reading of this bill, having that
round is a crime.†A befuddled Koretz blustered that this was not his
intention, but the wording was undeniable. The bill would treat
possession of each round of .50 cal ammunition as a separate crime,
even if you didn’t own a .50 cal rifle. One can only imagine the scores
of pointless arrests that would follow passage of AB50. Californians
wrongly made into criminals overnight could only hope that the criminal
justice system would go bankrupt completely before they were hauled
into court.
There was only one statement made by Koretz during the day that made
any sense, although it was spoken two hours before the AB50 discussion.
Arguing against criminalization of a specific act of personal violence,
Koretz very rightly pointed out that laws would only deter law-abiding
citizens. “The kind of people who will hurt someone else won’t be
deterred by a law.†It was a momentary spark of human insight that made
the very foundation of AB50 all the more insipid. We need to ban these
rifles, he repeated ardently, to keep them out of the hands of
terrorists. To suggest that a terrorist would be deterred from getting
a rifle because it is banned is like suggesting that he would be
deterred from parking his car bomb in front of a building because of a
No Parking sign.
At the end of the day, partisan politics once again proved stronger
than right or reason. Down the line the five Democrats on the committee
cast their obligatory yes votes and AB50 moved one step closer to
becoming law in California. Even staunch liberals in attendance were
stunned. One woman leaving the proceeding stated, “I’m not a big fan of
guns but right now I’m ashamed to say those people are from my party.
What are they thinking?â€
What indeed? While the tired, alarmist mantras of gun-control advocates
have all but run their course across the nation, a handful of die-hards
have no better thought process to offer Californians than a
regurgitation of old lies. Their true motivation, it was revealed, fell
into the most reprehensible bucket of political stereotypes. One member
of the voting majority, who asked to remain nameless, set it out in no
uncertain terms. “Everyone on the committee thinks he [Koretz] is an
***. He put up four bills this term and they were all idiotic. Three
went down in flames so the Democratic caucus had to throw him a bone to
keep him voting the right way on other bills. AB50 was the bone. It had
nothing to do with facts.â€
So there it was, the bottom line. It was as simple as it was ultimately
believable, the only answer that made sense. In literally the same days
and weeks that the world watched citizens of Iraq take to the streets
in celebration of their first chance to vote in over 30 years, America
has legislators willing to throw away the votes entrusted to their care
as some sort of booby prize so the village idiot will continue to play
ball. The word “disgusting†doesn’t begin to adequately describe this
betrayal of the public trust.
Climbing aboard a plane headed back to reality, I could not but pity
the citizens of California who find themselves hurtling towards the
cliff of bankruptcy while their driver is asleep at the wheel. What
will soon follow will make the closing scene of Thelma & Louise look
like a minor fender-bender. Hospitals won’t have beds, criminals won’t
have to worry about courts or jails, unemployment will soar and
Californians will be left to warm themselves by the dying embers of a
once-thriving economy. But hey, at least they won’t have to worry about
a crazed terrorist shooting at their armored limousines from four miles
away.
The brush with California legislation was revealing and truly
saddening. Californians are hard working and creative-- they deserve
legislators with the same traits. In spite of thoughtful and realistic
efforts by true leaders like Mr. La Suer and Mr. Spitzer,
business-as-usual prevailed in the Democratic majority. With people
like Gray Davis, Koretz, Goldberg, and Longville running the show,
Californians are well-advised to become acquainted with the motto of
the U.S. Navy SEALS: the only easy day was yesterday.
# # #
48 Hours in the California Legislative System
Michael Marks
Executive Director
The Fifty Caliber Policy Institute
Stereotypes are a common part of American culture. Often as not they
are based on a grain of truth wrapped in a mile of exaggeration. While
most of us enjoy a good laugh at the wacky world of California
politics, a rational man might think that accounts of strange thinking
on the Left Coast, like any good bass fishing story, were a little
larger than life. After spending two days in the halls of California
state government in Sacramento, it is apparent that the inmates are
running the asylum.
California is struggling with the biggest budget crisis in its history.
Take note, we are not talking about your run-of-the-mill budget
shortfall where teachers and medical services are cut as a first-line
response. California is so awash in red ink that on the day I arrived,
the Sacramento District Attorney’s office filed a proposal with the
state under which it will simply stop prosecuting misdemeanor crimes
because it cannot afford the staff. A subsequent component of that
proposal will cease supervision of all paroled criminals, misdemeanor
and felons alike, for lack of parole officers. Jails are releasing
prisoners they can’t afford to house. The implications of this are
staggering. The message to criminals is clear-- hunting season is open
on law-abiding Californians because the government can’t afford to
prosecute you!
With the state budget coughing up blood like a bad horror movie, you
would think that legislators would be focused on the urgent task of
fixing the economy. Issues like tax-relief come to mind, or paring down
excessive government waste. That would be the agenda of any competent
legislator, but not for those who govern the land of Oz. Given all of
the options open to the Democrat-led Assembly on Public Health, the
best idea they could come up with to help the citizens of California
was to dump time, resources and money into banning a bolt-action target
rifle.
The catastrophic failure in judgment is California bill AB50, authored
by Paul Koretz of the Hollywood area. In his bill, Mr. Koretz expressed
a sky-is-falling need to ban .50 caliber target rifles by including
them in the ever-changing definition of “assault weaponâ€. The strident
urgency driving this bill was Mr. Koretz’ claims that these bolt-action
rifles are a terrorist superweapon which have the ability to shoot
planes out of the sky, punch holes through tanks, and kill people in
armored limousines from four miles away.
Mr. Koretz should send his report to the Pentagon. Apparently the
greatest assembly of military minds and experience on earth has
universally overlooked the earth-shattering power of the humble target
rifle. Perhaps they missed “superweapon day†in basic training. The
more likely answer is that Assemblyman Koretz took on an ultra-liberal
cause that most Democrats would have been ashamed to author, having no
real idea what he was doing. During questioning on the floor of the
committee, Koretz admitted, “I don’t understand much of this gun stuff,
I just think they are bad.†Well, Koretz was half-right... he clearly
doesn’t understand gun stuff.
Thankfully, there were some people on the Public Safety committee who
do understand, people who made an effort to demand a few facts before
signing another blank check for a bill listed as “fiscal impact not yet
determinedâ€. On the forefront of this group was Assemblyman Jay La
Suer. Drawing on an extensive experience in law enforcement, La Suer
knows a great deal about crime in California. He conferred with
recognized experts on terrorism to either confirm or rebut the
emotion-packed claims set forth in the bill. With a prosecutor’s focus
on hard fact, La Suer began to grill the small handful of AB50
proponents. The facts he revealed told a very different story.
How many years have .50 caliber rifles been in civilian hands? Over
80 years.
In that time, how many people in America have been killed by these
rifles? Zero.
How many aircraft have been shot, on the ground or in the air? Zero.
How many limousines have been shot through? Zero.
How many oil refineries have been blown up? Zero.
One by one La Suer dissected the claims of what was soon exposed as
just another myopic gun ban pushed to center stage while the economy
burned. At one point, La Suer’s growing disgust crossed its limit. The
Assemblyman vehemently expressed his outrage that the time and
resources of the state were being diverted from the economy to even
consider such a blatant sham and he called on Koretz to pull the bill
so they could get on with real work. Koretz simply smiled and refused,
knowing the fix was in. His fellow Democrats on the committee seemed
all-too eager to rubber-stamp the bill in spite of the facts.
But wait, you say! Government is a collective process; there are checks
and balances to weed out the quacks, right? Well, sadly for
Californians, the government seems to have a lot of checks and very few
balances. That would certainly explain the thirty billion dollar budget
crisis that threatens Governor Gray Davis with a growing prospect of
being recalled.
On this day, the only other balance to help protect the California
economy was Assemblyman Todd Spitzer. Like La Suer, Spitzer seemed very
concerned that the Assembly was being fed a bag of lies. It was also
clear that Spitzer had done his homework. He asked pointed questions
regarding the basis of allegations made by Koretz, pointing out that
numerous statements made in the bill were prefaced by “it is said
that...â€. Spitzer wanted to know who said it, and what tests had been
run. He demanded facts in place of innuendo. As before, supporters of
AB50 could point to no document, no experience, no test or study to
support their claims. A representative of the Los Angeles Police
Department with 26 years on the job admitted that in all that time he
had never run into a single .50 caliber rifle involved in any way with
any criminal activity. Not once.
The farce became even more apparent when La Suer asked the LAPD officer
what weapons he had seen used in violent crimes. The answer ranged from
handguns to knives, tools and the ever-popular “blunt objectsâ€. La Suer
asked if all of these items used to commit murder were presently
banned, to which the officer answered no. “Do you think they should be
banned?†La Suer asked calmly, and again the officer firmly answered
no. It was then that La Suer cut to the chase. “Well then explain to me
Officer, how is it that you don’t want to ban things that have killed
people, yet you want to ban something that you admit has never killed
anyone and has never been used in any sort of crime?†Speechless, the
officer mumbled and backed away from the microphone.
The small handful of supporters for AB50 included the usual suspects;
the Violence Policy Center, which survives by scaring unwitting
citizens into making donations, as well as their ill-disguised
offshoot, the Trauma Foundation. There was a representative of the
Brady organization, a member of the Million Mom March and a handful of
others. Their entire presentation lasted a few short minutes. This came
as no great surprise-- armed with no facts and only a handful of tall
tales, even hardcore fanatics can only tap dance for so long.
In contrast, the line of opponents to AB50 filled the front table, ran
down the length of the room and out into the hall. They ranged from
industry representatives to shooting enthusiasts to military
memorabilia collectors. Mr. Bill Ritchie, owner of EDM Arms, spoke
passionately as the only rifle manufacturer left in the state of
California. He explained that he could be forced to relocate if the
bill became law. He spoke of the employees who would lose jobs, of the
tens of thousands of tax dollars the state would lose, not to mention
the hundreds of thousands of dollars annually funneled to California
machine shops, case manufacturers and other suppliers who rely on EDM’s
business. But those were facts that went to the economy; those facts
meant jobs and revenue. The Democrats on the Public Safety Committee
made it all too clear that financial issues were not their concern.
They were on a political agenda.
Ritchie was followed by Ronnie Barrett, President of Barrett Firearms,
Inc., who elaborated on the critical role that the civilian firearm
industry plays in developing technologies that are vital to the
military. He demonstrated with clear evidence that several of the
characterizations regarding the fifty-caliber rifle were based on
exotic military-grade ammunition that has never been available to
civilian marksman. By this point, Committee Chairman Mark Leno was
beginning to sweat. The overwhelming evidence against the bill was
threatening to erode the party-line support that everyone expected.
While many politicians don’t mind selling out, few prefer to look like
imbeciles on public television. As the hearing rolled on and on, core
supporters of the bill were increasingly looking like the next
rendition of the Three Stooges.
The suffering of Koretz and his ilk wasn’t over. Ed Worley of the
National Rifle Association spoke up, drawing a very different parallel
to the Committee’s attention. The term “assault weaponâ€, he noted, was
coined to label a group of guns, which were deemed bad because they
could spray a lot of bullets in a rapid, inaccurate fashion. Yet now a
target rifle was being deemed an “assault weapon†because it could fire
one bullet at a time in an accurate fashion. “So which way do you want
it?†Worley demanded of Chairman Leno, “Am I the only person who finds
this bizarre?†The Chairman did not have an answer to a very good
question.
While speaker after speaker took the floor in opposition of the bill,
Democratic members sat in dull disinterest. Just an hour earlier,
Assemblywoman Goldberg found ample passion to debate a law that would
make it illegal for a sports-event spectator to hurl his cellphone at
an athlete, but she sat through the AB50 presentation with barely a
peep. Assemblyman Longville, who earlier was casting votes
self-admittingly having no idea which bill he was voting on, was
likewise indifferent to the concerns of La Suer, Spitzer and most of
the assembled audience. When asked on the sidelines how he was leaning,
Longville rather blithely explained, “I don’t know. I’ll vote which
ever way the speaker tells me to.†Not what he thinks, or God forbid,
not what his constituents think, but what the Speaker thinks-- a
Speaker who is not even present to hear the facts. It must be
disturbing to the voters of San Bernardino to learn they elected a
Muppet to represent them.
The only Democrat who appeared to grasp the gravity of AB50 was Rudy
Bermudez, who focused not on the ban of target rifles but the
accompanying ban on any form of .50 caliber ammunition. “I have a .50
cal round on my mantle,†he explained, “given to me at the funeral of a
friend killed in Viet Nam. By my reading of this bill, having that
round is a crime.†A befuddled Koretz blustered that this was not his
intention, but the wording was undeniable. The bill would treat
possession of each round of .50 cal ammunition as a separate crime,
even if you didn’t own a .50 cal rifle. One can only imagine the scores
of pointless arrests that would follow passage of AB50. Californians
wrongly made into criminals overnight could only hope that the criminal
justice system would go bankrupt completely before they were hauled
into court.
There was only one statement made by Koretz during the day that made
any sense, although it was spoken two hours before the AB50 discussion.
Arguing against criminalization of a specific act of personal violence,
Koretz very rightly pointed out that laws would only deter law-abiding
citizens. “The kind of people who will hurt someone else won’t be
deterred by a law.†It was a momentary spark of human insight that made
the very foundation of AB50 all the more insipid. We need to ban these
rifles, he repeated ardently, to keep them out of the hands of
terrorists. To suggest that a terrorist would be deterred from getting
a rifle because it is banned is like suggesting that he would be
deterred from parking his car bomb in front of a building because of a
No Parking sign.
At the end of the day, partisan politics once again proved stronger
than right or reason. Down the line the five Democrats on the committee
cast their obligatory yes votes and AB50 moved one step closer to
becoming law in California. Even staunch liberals in attendance were
stunned. One woman leaving the proceeding stated, “I’m not a big fan of
guns but right now I’m ashamed to say those people are from my party.
What are they thinking?â€
What indeed? While the tired, alarmist mantras of gun-control advocates
have all but run their course across the nation, a handful of die-hards
have no better thought process to offer Californians than a
regurgitation of old lies. Their true motivation, it was revealed, fell
into the most reprehensible bucket of political stereotypes. One member
of the voting majority, who asked to remain nameless, set it out in no
uncertain terms. “Everyone on the committee thinks he [Koretz] is an
***. He put up four bills this term and they were all idiotic. Three
went down in flames so the Democratic caucus had to throw him a bone to
keep him voting the right way on other bills. AB50 was the bone. It had
nothing to do with facts.â€
So there it was, the bottom line. It was as simple as it was ultimately
believable, the only answer that made sense. In literally the same days
and weeks that the world watched citizens of Iraq take to the streets
in celebration of their first chance to vote in over 30 years, America
has legislators willing to throw away the votes entrusted to their care
as some sort of booby prize so the village idiot will continue to play
ball. The word “disgusting†doesn’t begin to adequately describe this
betrayal of the public trust.
Climbing aboard a plane headed back to reality, I could not but pity
the citizens of California who find themselves hurtling towards the
cliff of bankruptcy while their driver is asleep at the wheel. What
will soon follow will make the closing scene of Thelma & Louise look
like a minor fender-bender. Hospitals won’t have beds, criminals won’t
have to worry about courts or jails, unemployment will soar and
Californians will be left to warm themselves by the dying embers of a
once-thriving economy. But hey, at least they won’t have to worry about
a crazed terrorist shooting at their armored limousines from four miles
away.
The brush with California legislation was revealing and truly
saddening. Californians are hard working and creative-- they deserve
legislators with the same traits. In spite of thoughtful and realistic
efforts by true leaders like Mr. La Suer and Mr. Spitzer,
business-as-usual prevailed in the Democratic majority. With people
like Gray Davis, Koretz, Goldberg, and Longville running the show,
Californians are well-advised to become acquainted with the motto of
the U.S. Navy SEALS: the only easy day was yesterday.
# # #
