Hand_Rifle_Guy
Member
As inspired by my post in this thread, I'm inquiring about exemptions to the PRK's drop-test listing extortion racket, but I want to reach a broader audience.
Way back when, two years ago, when the drop-test certification scheme first came into effect, there was a lot of confusion about what guns actually needed to be listed. With the requirement of a seperate listing for identicle guns with variations as minor as barrel length or finish type, it amounts to an extortion scheme for maufacturers to list their entire line. While the 30-ish-thousand dollar cost of the independent lab test of a given model might not be required for every variant, the $100-$250 listing fee definitely IS. For a company with an extensive line like Ruger or S&W, that isn't chump change on a yearly basis. I worked out the math for Ruger once, and with something like 80 guns in their line-up, I discovered it amounts to some $20,000/year just to MAINTAIN the ability to sell all of their products in this state, never mind the initial outlay of the cost of the independent lab test.
Like I said, extortion. Can't sell guns in THIS state 'lessen you grease the gears of the beauracracy, FFL notwithstanding. It's this arbitrary cost that I think is keeping Taurus from listing it's whole line here, which denies access to a whole bunch of guns that they make that I would jump at the chance to purchase. Stupid state.
There are, however, some exemptions to the drop-test requirements. C&R guns are exempt, and private-party transfers allow folks within the state to sell guns that are unlisted without the potentially onerous/unfair ordeal of selling them out-of-state. (I imagine selling off an assualt weapon from the PRK must involve a little 'captive market' gouging, as an out-of-state buyer must realize that people in the PRK have a restricted number of avenues to dispose of their guns, and can subsequently squeeze a little more of a discount out of a given seller as there's no local competition.)
Another class of guns that are not subject to the listing is single-action revolvers of the type used in Cowboy Action Shooting. Or at least, there WAS an exemption for these guns, some two years ago in the early days of the law's implementation. The CalDOJ's website that gun dealers access to run DROS's and backround checks had at the time a seperate menu for single-action, non-autoloading, non-changeable-magazine guns that allowed for their registration and sale regardless of their manufacturer or listing status. I discovered this while doing a song & dance and The Merry Ha-Ha to figure out how receive ownership of guns that I had ordered and paid for that my dealer was storing while I waited out the one-gun-a-month purchase restriction enacted the year before. (I'd had string of five guns laid out in November, and three of them were NOT going to wind up on the list, as they were out of production, and the manufacturers had no incentive to pay the costs on listing a used model when they'd rather sell their newer offerings. That provision cost me the ownership of a stainless Ruger Service Six, and a 20% restocking fee when I had to send the gun back a month after I'd bought it. )
One January day whilst hanging about in the back of my dealer's store on one of my many regular visits, he showed me a NIB NAA .22 mag Mini-revolver that had just arrived that a lady had ordered back in November before the drop-test law went in to effect. He told me how at first both he and his customer were dismayed at the prospect of having the sale denied, as the little gun wasn't listed, but that he'd discovered that it was exempted under the provision for SA revolvers. He then further mentioned that although the exemption existed for CAS revolvers, the law as written was not specific to wheelguns, and therefore guns like the Thompson/Center Contender, a non-autoloading, no-magazine, single-action firearm, also qualified for dealer sale under the same exemption. He griped about how all the dealers he knew had pulled Contenders from their shelves, and that companies like T/C and NAA had issued statements about how they weren't going to ship their products to the PRK due to the hoops the state required them to jump through, when in fact there was LESS of a restriction on those types of guns then on more complicated types. This, he said, was because of CalDOJ's typical obstructionist attitude about implementing the new gun laws whereby they were perfectly willing to let folks ASSUME that the restrictions covered a wider scope than they actually did. (We had run face-first into this attitude from DOJ around the one-a-month exemption for private-party transfers. Confirmation of this provision had to be DRAGGED out of DOJ officials reluctantly, with repeated phone calls, and an admission from one that they were encouraging the "un-circulation" of that exemption in dealer circles by not mentioning it unless directly asked for the specific purpose of deliberately slowing/damping down gun sales in the state.
) When coupled with legitimate distributor's conservative attitude of not wanting to run afoul of the law by accident because they didn't understand it's particulars, it meant he couldn't order these guns at all, despite knowing it was legal to sell them.
Now, at the time, DOJ's website was under construction, and it would change on a day-to-day basis. In particular, the menu about SA firearms that my dealer had accesed regarding the NAA mini-revolver was unavailable at a later time when we tried to review the DOJ's position on cowboy guns, with the idea of ordering one for me. We never could find a straightforward answer to that question that day, so we didn't order a gun for me. I subsequently lost my job, ran out of money, and could no longer afford to buy one, so we never pursued the subject to it's ending.
That was a year and a half ago. I would like an answer to this mystery, which gets me to a couple of direct questions:
I still have no faith in answers direct from DOJ, so I'm disinclined to call 'em, but if I have to, I'd like to be forearmed with appropriate info.
Way back when, two years ago, when the drop-test certification scheme first came into effect, there was a lot of confusion about what guns actually needed to be listed. With the requirement of a seperate listing for identicle guns with variations as minor as barrel length or finish type, it amounts to an extortion scheme for maufacturers to list their entire line. While the 30-ish-thousand dollar cost of the independent lab test of a given model might not be required for every variant, the $100-$250 listing fee definitely IS. For a company with an extensive line like Ruger or S&W, that isn't chump change on a yearly basis. I worked out the math for Ruger once, and with something like 80 guns in their line-up, I discovered it amounts to some $20,000/year just to MAINTAIN the ability to sell all of their products in this state, never mind the initial outlay of the cost of the independent lab test.
Like I said, extortion. Can't sell guns in THIS state 'lessen you grease the gears of the beauracracy, FFL notwithstanding. It's this arbitrary cost that I think is keeping Taurus from listing it's whole line here, which denies access to a whole bunch of guns that they make that I would jump at the chance to purchase. Stupid state.
There are, however, some exemptions to the drop-test requirements. C&R guns are exempt, and private-party transfers allow folks within the state to sell guns that are unlisted without the potentially onerous/unfair ordeal of selling them out-of-state. (I imagine selling off an assualt weapon from the PRK must involve a little 'captive market' gouging, as an out-of-state buyer must realize that people in the PRK have a restricted number of avenues to dispose of their guns, and can subsequently squeeze a little more of a discount out of a given seller as there's no local competition.)
Another class of guns that are not subject to the listing is single-action revolvers of the type used in Cowboy Action Shooting. Or at least, there WAS an exemption for these guns, some two years ago in the early days of the law's implementation. The CalDOJ's website that gun dealers access to run DROS's and backround checks had at the time a seperate menu for single-action, non-autoloading, non-changeable-magazine guns that allowed for their registration and sale regardless of their manufacturer or listing status. I discovered this while doing a song & dance and The Merry Ha-Ha to figure out how receive ownership of guns that I had ordered and paid for that my dealer was storing while I waited out the one-gun-a-month purchase restriction enacted the year before. (I'd had string of five guns laid out in November, and three of them were NOT going to wind up on the list, as they were out of production, and the manufacturers had no incentive to pay the costs on listing a used model when they'd rather sell their newer offerings. That provision cost me the ownership of a stainless Ruger Service Six, and a 20% restocking fee when I had to send the gun back a month after I'd bought it.
)One January day whilst hanging about in the back of my dealer's store on one of my many regular visits, he showed me a NIB NAA .22 mag Mini-revolver that had just arrived that a lady had ordered back in November before the drop-test law went in to effect. He told me how at first both he and his customer were dismayed at the prospect of having the sale denied, as the little gun wasn't listed, but that he'd discovered that it was exempted under the provision for SA revolvers. He then further mentioned that although the exemption existed for CAS revolvers, the law as written was not specific to wheelguns, and therefore guns like the Thompson/Center Contender, a non-autoloading, no-magazine, single-action firearm, also qualified for dealer sale under the same exemption. He griped about how all the dealers he knew had pulled Contenders from their shelves, and that companies like T/C and NAA had issued statements about how they weren't going to ship their products to the PRK due to the hoops the state required them to jump through, when in fact there was LESS of a restriction on those types of guns then on more complicated types. This, he said, was because of CalDOJ's typical obstructionist attitude about implementing the new gun laws whereby they were perfectly willing to let folks ASSUME that the restrictions covered a wider scope than they actually did. (We had run face-first into this attitude from DOJ around the one-a-month exemption for private-party transfers. Confirmation of this provision had to be DRAGGED out of DOJ officials reluctantly, with repeated phone calls, and an admission from one that they were encouraging the "un-circulation" of that exemption in dealer circles by not mentioning it unless directly asked for the specific purpose of deliberately slowing/damping down gun sales in the state.
) When coupled with legitimate distributor's conservative attitude of not wanting to run afoul of the law by accident because they didn't understand it's particulars, it meant he couldn't order these guns at all, despite knowing it was legal to sell them.Now, at the time, DOJ's website was under construction, and it would change on a day-to-day basis. In particular, the menu about SA firearms that my dealer had accesed regarding the NAA mini-revolver was unavailable at a later time when we tried to review the DOJ's position on cowboy guns, with the idea of ordering one for me. We never could find a straightforward answer to that question that day, so we didn't order a gun for me. I subsequently lost my job, ran out of money, and could no longer afford to buy one, so we never pursued the subject to it's ending.
That was a year and a half ago. I would like an answer to this mystery, which gets me to a couple of direct questions:
- Are CAS-style guns like SA revolvers still exempted from the drop-test listing, and if so, does that include modern SA's like the Ruger Blackhawk?
- Presuming it exists, does that exemption extend to manually-operated SA guns like the T/C Contender, the Savage Striker, the MRI Lone Eagle, the Remington X-P 100, and other guns of that ilk that the rest of the world seems to think are un-sellable in this stupid state?
I still have no faith in answers direct from DOJ, so I'm disinclined to call 'em, but if I have to, I'd like to be forearmed with appropriate info.
.