California Gun Laws are so evil, why?.......

[mtravinski]

I'm constantly hearing about California gun laws and the evil liberals in "Californistan" trying to take away my guns and freedom and everything else. What exactly is so bad about California gun law? Precisely which laws are the ones everyone hates so much?

Is it not being able to have an assault rifle or a .50 BMG, or a big-ass clip? I'd love to have a BMG. I'd love to have hand grenades too, and a tank, but it ain't gonna happen. I still get my shotguns, rifles, all sorts of handguns and accessories, ball & cap with no FFL, etc... Is there not a line to be drawn between guns for civilians and military-grade weapons? Or should we all be allowed to have ANYTHING our troops get to have?

Seems to me a line does have to be drawn somewhere, it's just a question of where.

 

[bigfatdave]

Is there not a line to be drawn between guns for civilians and military-grade weapons?

ever hear of "shall not be infringed"?

CA's laws treat citizens at potential criminals and allow criminals free rein among disarmed victim pools, so perhaps you should take a good hard look at how you feel about your fellow law-abiding citizens armament options.

 

[Sam1911]

Mtravinski, you might want to put on your fire-proof underwear as you're likely to get a few heated responses. (That's a warning ... let's keep it CIVIL, guys!)

For the most part, CA simply seems to choose to restrict, limit, or prohibit just about every aspect of gun rights a step (or six!) farther than almost every other state. I'll leave it to the many others who will shortly chime in to explain what those laws are specifically, but most of us fervently believe CA's level of restrictions to be in violation of the 2nd Amendment, and an insult to our rights as human beings.

I'd love to have a BMG. I'd love to have hand grenades too, and a tank, but it ain't gonna happen.

And why not? Those things are not prohibited to be owned by an American citizen.

As to your second question:

Is there not a line to be drawn between guns for civilians and military-grade weapons? Or should we all be allowed to have ANYTHING our troops get to have?

The framers' intent in enumerating the right to keep and bear arms in the 2nd Amendment was to try to ensure that the American PEOPLE would hold sufficient force of arms to resist the military force of a tyrannical government. Consider that, at the time of the Revolution, a large portion of the heavy ordinance (cannons and such) were provided by certain wealthy private citizens. And that the average soldier in the Continental Army supplied his own musket (or rifle).

So... where again does that line have to be drawn? And why, exactly?

 

[Walkalong]

Sam stated the main reason. California is quite oppressive to gun owners rights compared to other states. Folks think if it can be done there, the gun grabbers will try here next, (Wherever here is for them) and they are right, they will try.

Yes, we must draw a line. The line is here and now.

Most of us who have been gun owners for a while (36 years for me) understand that there is nothing we can give up that will be the "last" thing. The gun grabbers will just continue to erode our rights by restricting more and more until they have outlawed and confiscated eveything. And do not fool yourself, they want everything.

Yes, EVERYTHING, PERIOD.

I am done comprimising. AC

 

[Geno]

I got cho back, mtravinski! Got the fir' exting'isher righ' cher'. Good luck there ol' buddy. Take it gentle on this one fellas and ladies. He ain't yet bin edjamated. But I rececken he fixin' ta get schoolin' here 'bouts.

Geno

 

[.378 Wby]

Put your high-cap Glock under your shirt and walk around Los Angeles . . . Then get back to me.

 

[mtravinski]

So... where again does that line have to be drawn? And why, exactly?

So hand grenades and tanks are okay. How about nukes? If not, then you acknowledge that a line does have to be drawn somewhere, and that not ALL arms apply to the 2nd amendment. And once you acknowledge that, then it is a matter of opinion as to where that line should be drawn.

Sorry, not trying to be a smart-ass, but times have changed form the framers day. I support 2A and don't want our RKBA to be infringed upon, but I can also see the other side of the argument.

BTW: Nobody has explained to me exactly which laws it is, in California, that are so much worse than anywhere else.

 

[AKElroy]

I agree completely with the two earlier posts. Asside from the clear framer's intent expertly described above, there is the additional issue of the presumption such restrictions imply.

Look up the excellent research performed by John Lott & others that show clearly how much safer more heavily armed communities are when compared to areas of greater gun restriction.

The implication that high-cap mags, assault weapons, 50's, etc. pose a risk to the public is not only demonstrably false, it is offensive to the responsible people that choose to own & enjoy them.

It is not their place to medal in my affairs. Period.

 

[NavyLCDR]

Seems to me a line does have to be drawn somewhere, it's just a question of where.

I am satisfied with the line drawn exactly where it is at - the western borders of Arizona and Nevada and the southern border of Oregon, thank you very much. East and north of that line, I prefer to be able to actually carry a gun that can be used to defend myself in public against criminals. You can keep your gun control laws AND your criminals inside those lines for all I care.

And, btw, in case you need a history lesson, the Constitution was written to protect the citizens against the powers of the Federal government. And if it comes down to it, and I mean REALLY SHTF down to it, how are the citizen's going to be able to protect themselves against the Federal government (which is their right to do) if they are not allowed to possess arms equal to those the government is allowed to have?

 

[AKElroy]

As for specifics per your request, how about this: I live in Texas, and I carry a glock everyday. Both the gun and my desire to carry it are illegal in your state. If you do not see that as an infringement of your God given rights, then what would be exactly?

 

[bigfatdave]

So hand grenades and tanks are okay. How about nukes?

Until this silliness I would have trusted YOU with a nuke.

A responsible citizen is no danger to anyone else, once again you are assuming that after some "line" a citizen becomes a criminal.

 

[BHPshooter]

Is there not a line to be drawn between guns for civilians and military-grade weapons? Or should we all be allowed to have ANYTHING our troops get to have?

That is exactly what the founding fathers wanted. They wanted to guarantee that the populace was at least as well armed as the military. The founding fathers were also strongly against a standing army. They HATED the concept, due to the British abuses thereof. Therefore, if the military was needed, congress had to charter the Army and Navy every 2 years, citing good reason to keep them around. If they could no longer justify that need, they were to be disbanded. The founding fathers wanted the security of the country to rest on YOU. That is what is meant by "militia" in the second amendment -- every able-bodied American citizen IS a soldier.

As to California's socialist laws: we're sick of being trampled on. For over 50 years, we've tried it their way. Federal paperwork, background checks, waiting periods, licenses, de facto registration, prostate checks, limits to how many guns you can buy in a certain time period, bans on materials bullets are made out of, bans on certain "hobgoblin of the week" calibers, EPA badgering and bankrupting shooting ranges (evil, toxic lead), firearm micro-stamping, ammo micro-stamping, 8*10^6 percent punitive ammo taxes...

And you know what? None of it has helped, not one little bit. Why? Because the only people who obey these asinine laws are the ones who aren't the problem in the first place. Bad guys don't buy their guns from gun shops. They buy them from the trunks of cars, or steal them.

Who then, do these laws punish? Criminals, who by definition, don't obey the law? Or the rest of the class (none of whom have done anything wrong, I might add)?

We've tried it their way, and it's not working. I suppose what we all despise most about California is that they're not just content to create their own totalitarian utopia, they are adamant about ramming their laws (gun laws especially) down our throats.

Wes

 

[Walkalong]

So hand grenades and tanks are okay. How about nukes?

A common anti line. What about nukes then, huh..... They always want to go to the extreme to debate.

Fortunately, you are just curious and want some more specific answers, right?

 

[rm23]

You've been infected by the liberals, but use your brain here guy; the right to keep and bear arms means firearms, not ordnance.

The dumbest thing about gun laws is that we already have laws against murder, robbery, assault, etc. Anti-gun legistlators expect people to follow new laws while at the same time are expecting people to not follow old laws. Makes a lot of sense.

The only gun law I'm in favor of would be something like, 'Possession of firearm while committing x' or 'Use of firearm to committ x.' That's it.

 

[Jon_Snow]

BTW: Nobody has explained to me exactly which laws it is, in California, that are so much worse than anywhere else.

Ok, I'll get this ball rolling.

RANT ON

1) Assault Weapon Ban, or should I say Ban on anything that looks scary as defined by people who know nothing of the practical uses for the features they are regulating. Ca-defined AW's are used in what percentage of crimes? Less than 15% you say? But that can't be! They're so scary looking! We have to restrict them even though they are perfectly legitimate hunting/HD/SD/3-gun/etc rifles. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

2) Handgun list. California requires that all handguns been deemed safe by an independent lab in order to be sold in Ca. Sounds almost reasonable? Keep in mind that manufacturers have to sumbit every model to this testing. Oh, you changed the color of that gun and gave it a new model number? Has to be re-tested. Also, they have to pay Ca every two years in order to keep their guns on the list. Sounds like extortion to me. Manufacturer went out of business? Gun drops off the list.

2a) Microstamping. In 2011, Ca wants to further restrict the handgun ban by only allowing new guns to be submitted if they mark spent brass with a unique stamp, allowing them to better trace it. Too bad the technology doesn't work as intended and even if it did any criminal with a file and an IQ over 5 would be able to defeat it. Revolvers are exempt because as we all know, criminals never use revolvers.

3) 50 BMG ban, similar to the AWB. How often are these used in crimes? Exactly.

4) High-cap mag ban. Don't even get me started.

5) May issue CCW. While in many counties the sheriff will grant a CCW for self-defense, the majority of the more urban counties (which have the highest crime rates and arguably the best reasons for a CCW) restrict the permits to friends and financial backers of the sheriff. Here in Santa Clara county almost anyone can get a CCW, for a $25,000 donation to the sheriff's re-election campaign. 14th Amendment? Why would you want that? Did I already mention extortion? Damn I did, oh well, you get the idea.

6) Open carry only if unloaded. Because heaven forbid you actually need to USE a gun to protect yourself. And now that's under attack. There's a bill up for vote as we speak that would make open carry illegal.

7) New ammunition restrictions. Can't buy ammo online, have to give a thumb print to buy ammo. Well at least local gun shops will benefit right? Sure, after they jack up their prices to cover the costs of having to certify and train all their employees according to the new state regs. And what effect is this going to have on crime? I don't know but it'll do a damn good job of pissing off all the Ca gun-owners.

8) 10-day waiting period. I love hearing people who support this one. "It will keep someone from getting mad, buying a gun and killing someone else." You are correct, instead they will get mad, buy a hammer at home-depot, or a car or a knife or a... while their victim is unable to adequately defend themselves. I would prefer we call it the 10-day murderer/rapist grace period.

I'm sure other will add to the list, but those are the ones that bug me the most. And it's not just that they are infringing on a right that SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED, it's that they do so with no regard to the actual effects of the laws.
It's all based on two ideas. One, the idea that we as citizens are incapable of taking care of ourselves and need to rely on the government to do it for us, a state government that can't even pay its bills or teachers or cops or firefighters. Two, that we are not responsible for our actions and that evil guns are to blame for all the crime. There is a noted lack of personal responsibility in this state and these laws are simply a great example of this mentality.

/RANT OFF

 

[Airman193SOS]

So hand grenades and tanks are okay. How about nukes? If not, then you acknowledge that a line does have to be drawn somewhere, and that not ALL arms apply to the 2nd amendment. And once you acknowledge that, then it is a matter of opinion as to where that line should be drawn.

There is, to the best of my knowledge, no prohibition on the ownership of nuclear weapons. The government, however, is not under any obligation to sell you nuclear material. So, if you are willing to spend several billion dollars on a plant (if you can get it approved, no mean feat these days), a uranium producing mine, and a few scientists willing to work for you to construct the weapon, you are more than free to own one. Physics holds no secrets, so there's no reason why you couldn't build a modestly powered nuclear weapon.

Of course, somewhere along the way the government will almost certainly pass laws forbidding what you're doing (if they haven't already with some obscure law, but why would the government ban what is a practical impossibility?). Which, ironically, puts you in the exact same position as the people in California, law-abiding citizens that cannot get what they want because the government doesn't trust them, made implicit by the laws they pass.

I'm thinking that you intended to use that as a rhetorical device and that you didn't really want an answer or think that one existed. Sorry about that.

 

[KodiakBeer]

Is it not being able to have an assault rifle or a .50 BMG, or a big-ass clip

Did you mean big ass-clip? You can get an ass-clip (of any size you want) installed at most tattoo and body piercing shops, though it would sure make daily bodily functions extremely messy and inconvenient. I don't think any gun laws in California address clips of any size, no matter where you want to install them and I can't imagine why they would. You Californians sure are an odd bunch.

 

[redneck2]

We need to keep this civil and on track.

I'm thinking post #15 pretty much sums it up.

I live in Indiana. I can carry every day, and have a significantly greater choice of firearms that I can legally own. We have "shall issue" CCW permits.

The 2nd Amendment is just as much or more about protecting yourself from the gov't as it is protecting yourself individually.

 

[KodiakBeer]

If you start a thread using the word "ass" in the opening post, then demonstrate ignorance on basic terminology or even firearm types - "assault rifles, clips, etc" - then... why bother?

But I'll try.

Assault rifles are full-auto weapons that were banned many years ago in California. You can own them in some states, but you have to jump through a bunch of BATF hoops. You can't just walk into a gun store and buy them in any state. You have to file forms and pay a tax and wait weeks/months to get permission.

California law doesn't address "clips". The last firearm (that I know of) that used clips was the WWII era Garand. The Garand clip holds 8 rounds and it's legal in California.

 

[Art Eatman]

I suggest a reading of the Preamble to the Bill of Rights. It states in part that the purpose of the entire group of ten amendments is to prevent abuse of power by the State--the central government.

This cannot be done without reasonable parity between the citizenry and the central government. Plus, of course, the will to excercise one's rights. Face it, the citizens do not need nukes, warplanes or even tanks to make abuse of power to be a Big Mistake. Best that it be done via the ballot box, but there must always be a fallback position.

Compared to most other states, the state government of California treats its citizens as incompetent children when it comes to firearms. Since most of us do not believe that we're incompetent children, we are scornful of California's government and its edicts.

 

[LouisCipher777]

Is there not a line to be drawn between guns for civilians and military-grade weapons? Or should we all be allowed to have ANYTHING our troops get to have?

that line is simple... small arms; pistols, rifles, machine guns, anything a single soldier would use (explosives notwithstanding). "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

California is the breeding ground of the citizen disarmament movement, and has shown us their deceitful bait and switch tactics. It has shown us exactly why we should NEVER allow them to force gun registration on us. California told their subjects, "we don't want to confiscate your semi-automatic rifles, we just want them registered so we know who has them and where they are." Only to turn around a short two years later and demand that they be turned in under threat of prison, since they already knew who had them and where they were.

Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, Hitler, and hell, the fact that during world war II here in the United States we rounded up our own citizens and stuck them in prison camps... have these things taught us nothing?

Registration > Confiscation > Genocide.

A few choice quotes that really accentuate the point;

"If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying -- that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 -- establishes the repeated, complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime."
* Orrin Hatch, "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms"

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn."
* Mahatma Gandhi

"The laws of [false utility] are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance? Does not the execution of this law deprive the subject of that personal liberty, so dear to mankind and to the wise legislator?"
* Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments

 

[atomd]

And what did all of those ridiculous gun laws get them? Nothing at all. Their crime rates are still higher than a lot of other states. The guys who you don't want to have guns still end up with them. The people who need them to defend themselves against those guys can't get them or carry them because their rights are being infringed upon. That's what you get when you get the moonbat population to elect other moonbats to run your state....you get unreasonable restrictions on the rights of law abiding citizens while simultaneously not enforcing many other laws, letting dangerous people back out on the streets, oh and they're bankrupt to boot. What exactly is CA doing right? I can't think of one thing. They are an embarrassment. I can't even sell a lawnmower there unless it meet some silly emissions standard. A lawnmower! :banghead:

Ahhh....much better now. Thanks!

Law abiding citizens follow laws. Criminals don't follow laws (obviously). You can make all the laws you want but they're just going against logic.

 

[LouisCipher777]

I can't think of one thing.

marijuana laws. only thing I can think of.

 

[Hunt480]

It always boils down to that same common denominator "the liberal politicians"
the apparent liberal majority keep voting in office. Vote'm out...

 

[BeerSleeper]

I'm not gonna block quote, but it was post #15 http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost.php?p=6488129&postcount=15

Well said! Best thing I have read all week.