Thoughts on new CA gun laws?

Metal God: The "background check" required to purchase ammo is NOT a NICS check, it is a computer check to see if the buyer's name appears in CALIFORNIA's APPS (Armed Prohibited Persons System) list. It takes seconds and there is no "waiting period." As to NICS in general, California does run a NICS check for firearms purchases, but that is only a part of the background check performed by the DOJ. California also looks at state databases for convictions, TROs, GVROs, involuntary mental health holds, etc. Much is automated, and approximately 20% of all checks are processed within seconds, the majority take a few days, and the remainder take as long as 10 days. This is all detailed in the briefs in the pending appeal.

As an aside, the California waiting period was enacted due to the difficulty in days past of completing the background check faster (pre-NICS). It was only in the recent law suit that the State suddenly (and with no authority from the legislative history) declared that the 10 day wait is a "cooling off period," a period that is entirely irrelevant to people who own guns. Further, although the trial court, on the evidence presented, overturned the waiting period in part, but the Ninth Circuit reversed, and in doing so completely ignored the trial court's findings of fact. A petition for certiorari is pending before SCOTUS, but after denials in Kolbe and Norman, and even though the petition points out that there is no consistence between the circuits as to the proper standard of review, the chances the Supremes will hear the case are limited.

The part I don't know about is how out of state residents will be able to purchase ammunition if they come here to hunt or compete.

The part of the law that has been delayed is the licensing scheme. In order to issue licenses to buyers (which will simplify the purchasing process), the DOJ has to build a brand new computer system (for which it has borrowed $150 million against the anticipated revenues of $500 million) and then process approximately 10 million applications with required background checks.

As of January 1, 2018, in order to purchase ammo, you must present a photo ID. The dealer is required to record (and report weekly) the amount and caliber of the ammunition purchased, along with your name, age, address and photo ID license number. An APPS check will be performed. Ammo prices will rise to account for the time lost to fulfilling these requirements. Further, all ammo must be behind a counter or under lock and key accessible only to the vendor. Muy local Sportsman's Warehouse will be installing locking glass over all of its ammo shelves, and someone will have to wait on you.
 
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The "background check" required to purchase ammo is NOT a NICS check, it is a computer check to see if the buyer's name appears in CALIFORNIA's APPS (Armed Prohibited Persons System) list. It takes seconds and there is no "waiting period
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Thanks for clearing that up , I have a hard time sometimes getting straight answers on Calguns . That speaks to my over all point . How can CA have an instant background check of prohibited persons for ammo and that same check can't be used for firearms purchases ? Are they saying it's a lesser standard to buy ammo then buying a firearm ? If so what's the point ? You can either own and shoot a firearm or not , why would you have two standards of prohibited persons ????
 
why would you have two standards of prohibited persons ????
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Why not?? First, its CA, second, its a govt, and 3rd, its about guns!!!

people say we shouldn't have double standards, they are unfair, unethical, etc. Yet, we have them. We have them in many areas of our lives, DAILY, and most think nothing of it. Seems a double standard only really bothers people when it affects their personal lives.

The biggest double standard that comes to my mind first is set in law. Its an AGE discrimination. And, not surprisingly no "rights" group ever seems to tackle the issue anymore.

At 18, you are considered a legal adult. You can vote, you can join the military, and risk dying (or worse) in the service of your country. You can get married, you can buy a new car, or a house, or a boat, or a rifle, but you can't buy a beer, (most places) and you can't buy a new pistol, anywhere!

Now, I'm 40 years past the point where being over or under 21 matters to me, personally, but I can still REMEMBER when it did.

If you look at it one way, our entire system of government relies on double standards. Approved double standards, where state law differs from Federal law.

Every gun control law I can think of, save one, has a built in double standard. And the only one that doesn't is the (despised by many) Lautenberg law.

In the case of CA and ammo background checks, its clear, to me, anyway, why they have a double standard. It's NOT about protecting the public, though they will say it is. It's not about effieciency (they COULD use the Fed NCIS system, they chose not to). It's about the jobs, money, personal power, and bureaucratic "kingdoms" of the people in govt service.

Why else would CA (or anyone) spend MILLIONS of dollars (and borrow the money to spend in the first place) on a new computer system to do what the existing Federal system already does??

Their answer, of course, will be that "our new system is designed to meet our needs, the Fed system is not". And, there you go. Why doesn't the Fed system meet CA needs? Because there is a DOUBLE STANDARD!
 
In the case of CA and ammo background checks, its clear, to me, anyway, why they have a double standard. It's NOT about protecting the public, though they will say it is. It's not about effieciency (they COULD use the Fed NCIS system, they chose not to). It's about the jobs, money, personal power, and bureaucratic "kingdoms" of the people in govt service.
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I do believe NY tried to use the NICS system to do ammo checks and the FBI told them no. it's not in their mandate.
 
I do believe NY tried to use the NICS system to do ammo checks and the FBI told them no. it's not in their mandate.
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Interesting , I don't know the specifics of the NICS system but would think there's a box that needs to be checked long gun or handgun . If that box is not checked the system just stops until that box is check or allows the form to be completed only to later say they had incomplete info to process the check . I'm sure there are other parts as well that will lock up the system if you try to use it for ammo purchases . Either way I can see why ammo can't be checked using that system

44amp : I agree and think if argued correctly ( not that 'I' could ) that double standard should be able to be shot down . "If" the ammo background check is to stop prohibited person from buying ammo . Which seems logical , if your prohibited from owning firearms why do you need ammo ? Then why can't there new system be used for firearm purchases ? You're either prohibited or you're not ? right ??? Why would there be a need for two different checks and balances ?
 
My Thoughts if they are allowed to be shared

The new gun laws only creates a new way to tax lawful commerce and hassle/tax people for practicing regularly with their firearm and creates a slippery slope whereby people circumvent the law in the same way people ignored unjust Jim Crow laws in the south during segregation. Criminals will not follow these laws any more than firearms laws. What we have in California is government that is unwilling to keep serious repeat criminals behind bars and instead keep chipping away at civil liberties. There are people in my area with convictions for felon in possession of a firearm running around free with less than 1 year served committing crimes on probation without spending any serious time locked up. rc
 
Is it just me, or does a subject like California laws often seem to go from a simple discussion to a confrontational situation? Somebody on here maybe should mellow down !
 
I went to my FFL to purchase ammo this weekend. Previously the ammo was out on the sales floor. It was labeled and items on sale were clearly marked. I would purchase ammo on sale as I could if it fit my gun. However, now there is no ammo visible. You have to go to the gun counter and ask for the ammo you want. Nothing is displayed and nothing is on sale.

So, I asked for the ammo for my guns starting with .375 Win. The clerk then walked to the room behind the counter, entered his cipher code and disappeared. In a few minutes he returned and said "Sorry, no .375 Win. If fact we are out of any ammo with win after it."

Then I asked for 22LR. He said "Nope, all out." Rather than simply running down my caliber list I asked for my Bersa Handgun thinking they would have that caliber.

So I purchased 50 rounds of .380 ACP. This is my first ammo purchase this year. What a pain! Had to give him my drivers license so he could fill out the log book. This took several minutes. Fortunately, I did not have to do a background check (that comes later) so did not have that fee and wait time.

The clerk did say if I want to order ammo online I can have it shipped to them and they will hold it for me with a $5.00 fee.

I think I will be buying as much ammo as I can before the background checks kick in.

WHAT A PAIN!
 
have arrested numerous people for it who never served time
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Exact same in my neck of the woods. As a matter of fact I distribute dispositions for my agency as I work with an atf liaison. Most of those dispositions see STATE time pretty much equals probation or a year or less active sentence followed by post release probation, unless they are also convicted of habitual felon. Now if a case is adopted federally, that changes things.

Prove it.
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A link to the NC structured sentencing chart. You will have to click the top link to view the chart. Possession of firearm by felon is a class G felony. An active sentence isn't suggested until an offender has a record level of 5 or 6 (the two highest record levels). Before then it is a judges discretion and/or subject to a plea. I can assure you that a plea will be for a probation sentence 90% of the time, when there is a good chance a judge is encouraged to give it anyway should there be a trial. Even with a record level 6 the bottom of the mitigated range is about 2 years. That being said, this is just one state but it probably it troubles the invocation of the hasty generalization theory.

http://www.nccourts.org/Courts/CRS/Councils/spac/Sentencing/Punishment.asp
 
I went to my FFL to purchase ammo this weekend. Previously the ammo was out on the sales floor. It was labeled and items on sale were clearly marked. I would purchase ammo on sale as I could if it fit my gun. However, now there is no ammo visible. You have to go to the gun counter and ask for the ammo you want. Nothing is displayed and nothing is on sale.

So, I asked for the ammo for my guns starting with .375 Win. The clerk then walked to the room behind the counter, entered his cipher code and disappeared. In a few minutes he returned and said "Sorry, no .375 Win. If fact we are out of any ammo with win after it."

Then I asked for 22LR. He said "Nope, all out." Rather than simply running down my caliber list I asked for my Bersa Handgun thinking they would have that caliber.

So I purchased 50 rounds of .380 ACP. This is my first ammo purchase this year. What a pain! Had to give him my drivers license so he could fill out the log book. This took several minutes. Fortunately, I did not have to do a background check (that comes later) so did not have that fee and wait time.

The clerk did say if I want to order ammo online I can have it shipped to them and they will hold it for me with a $5.00 fee.

I think I will be buying as much ammo as I can before the background checks kick in.

WHAT A PAIN!
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:eek: that sucks. Not that California hasn't been trying to kill the recreational firearms past time for years now, but this has to be dealing a pretty big blow to it.

For local Californians, have you noticed a significant price increase thus far due to compliance costs?
 
I haven't notice price increases. However, the inventory of the LGS is down about 90% with the new Assault Weapon Ban in California. Just now they are starting to get AR15's in stock with the fin attached to the pistol grip. However, when they used to have 20 or 30 ARs they now only had TWO!

It used to be fun to walk in to the gun store and just browse. Now it is just depressing. However, their Archery section and range are great!
 
I use some very obscure ammo: 8mm Lebel rifle, 9mm Browning Long, .455 Webley ... stuff like that will never be "on the shelf" at your neighborhood gun store. It's gonna have to be shipped to the nearest store, and the owner doesn't want to be a public warehouse. I dunno what he's gonna charge, but it won't be free.

--
Michael B., in Berkeley
 
SonOfScubaDiver said:
On another thread I have been discussing "reasonable vs infringement" with another poster. I've been arguing "reasonable" and he's arguing "infringement". These new ammo regs strike me as total infringement.
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What's the argument? The Second Amendment doesn't say, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be totally infringed." It doesn't even say "shall not be unreasonably infringed." It says "shall not be infringed."

Parsed to the essence, any regulation is an infringement. As to your argument, the word "reasonable" does not appear in the Second Amendment, so a strict and honest interpretation would not even touch on that.

Yes, I am aware of Frank Ettin's past posts to the effect that, historically, all the rights in the Bill of Rights have been subject to "reasonable" regulation. But that history is based on the other rights, not the RKBA. The Second Amendment is the only right enumerated in the Bill of Rights that states, right in its own language, that it shall not be infringed. Since regulation is infringement, the 2A actually says that it shall not be subject to regulation.
 
Aguila Blanca said:
...The Second Amendment is the only right enumerated in the Bill of Rights that states, right in its own language, that it shall not be infringed....
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Other than the First Amendment (emphasis added):
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
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And there is a long history of couts sustaining laws (both federal lawa and, after the First Amendment began to be held applicable to the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, state laws) regulating (and thus abridging) rights protected by the First Amendment. A few examples are:
  • Laws prohibiting such things as false advertising, fraud or misrepresentation, as well as laws requiring certain disclosures in connection with various transactions, would absolutely survive a challenge to their validity on Constitutional grounds even though such laws do impinge on the freedom of speech.

  • If you are offering securities or certain other types of investments to the public, your written solicitation materials will have to first be approved prior to use by one or more regulatory agencies. If you are selling medicines in interstate commerce, your labeling will have to be approved in advance by the FDA, and you will have to have demonstrated, through hard, scientific data, that any claims or representations made are true. These are also laws that abridge freedom of speech.

  • Laws respecting the time, place and manner of speech or assembly have also survived Constitutional challenges. Thus a municipality may require that organizers obtain a permit in order to hold an assembly or a parade and may prohibit such activities during, for example, the very early morning hours. Such regulations would be permitted only to the extent necessary to serve the compelling state interest of protecting public health and safety. Any such regulations, to be constitutionally permissible, could not consider the content of the speech or assembly; and they would need to be applied in an even handed manner based on set guidelines and not subject to the discretion of a public official. See, for example:

    • Hill v Colorado, 530 U.S. 703, 120 S.Ct. 2480, 147 L.Ed.2d 597 (2000), in which the Court, in upholding a Colorado law restricting protesting, educational or counseling activities within 100 feet of the entrance to a health facility, noted:
      ...We are likewise persuaded that the statute is "narrowly tailored" to serve those interests and that it leaves open ample alternative channels for communication. As we have emphasized on more than one occasion, when a content-neutral regulation does not entirely foreclose any means of communication, it may satisfy the tailoring requirement...
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      • Cf. McCullen v. Coakley (U. S. Supreme Court, No. 12–1168, 2014)

      • In McCullen the Court struck down a new Massachusetts "buffer zone" law. As noted in the opinion the Court had previously sustained a different sort of buffer zone law in Colorado, and nothing in McCullen casts any doubt on the continued validity of the Colorado law (McCullen, slip opinion at 2):
        ….The statute [the prior Massachusetts law] was modeled on a similar Colorado law that this Court had upheld in Hill v. Colorado, 530 U. S. 703 (2000). Relying on Hill, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit sustained the Massachusetts statute against a First Amendment challenge. McGuire v. Reilly, 386 F. 3d 45 (2004) (McGuire II), cert. denied, 544 U. S. 974 (2005); McGuire v. Reilly, 260 F. 3d 36 (2001) (McGuire I).

        By 2007, some Massachusetts legislators and law enforcement officials had come to regard the 2000 statute as inadequate.....
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    • Santa Monica Food Not Bombs v. Santa Monica, 450 F.3d 1022 (9th Cir., 2006) in which the court upheld a Santa Monica ordinance requiring a permit for public assemblies. In fact in Santa Monica Food Not Bombs the court specifically acknowledges that the ordinance may burden the protected right, noting, at pg 1038:
      ...A narrowly-tailored permitting regulation need not be the least restrictive means of furthering a locality's asserted interests. The regulation may not, however, burden substantially more speech than necessary to achieve a scheme's important goals. See United States v. Baugh, 187 F.3d 1037, 1043 (9th Cir.1999). "[T]he requirement of narrow tailoring is satisfied `so long as the . . . regulation promotes a substantial government interest that would be achieved less effectively absent the regulation.'" Ward, 491 U.S. at 799, 109 S.Ct. 2746 (quoting United States v. Albertini, 472 U.S. 675, 689, 105 S.Ct. 2897, 86 L.Ed.2d 536 (1985))...
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  • In the leading case on prior restraint (Near v. State of Minnesota Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 51 S.Ct. 625, 75 L.Ed. 1357 (1931)) the Court in striking down a Minnesota statute allowing for the abatement, as a public nuisance, of malicious, scandalous and defamatory news analyzed in considerable detail and depth the scope and extent of the infringement of the freedom of press, the interests served and the availability of other and narrower remedies. And the Court then reached the conclusion that the statute went too far to be a permissible regulation.

    But nonetheless the Court also noted that certain interests, under certain circumstances would justify even prior restraint (Near, 283 U. S. 657, at 715 - 716):
    ...The objection has also been made that the principle as to immunity from previous restraint is stated too broadly, if every such restraint is deemed to be prohibited. That is undoubtedly true; the protection even as to previous restraint is not absolutely unlimited. But the limitation has been recognized only in exceptional cases. 'When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its error that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.' Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47, 52, 39 S. Ct. 247, 249, 63 L. Ed. 470. No one would question but that a government might prevent actual obstruction to its recruiting service or the publication of the sailing dates of transports or the number and location of troops.6 On similar grounds, the primary requirements of decency may be enforced against obscene publications. The security of the community life may be protected against incitements to acts of violence and the overthrow by force of orderly government. The constitutional guaranty of free speech does not 'protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force. Gompers v. Buck's Stove & Range Co., 221 U. S. 418, 139, 31 S. Ct. 492, 55 L. Ed. 797, 34 L. R. A. (N. S.) 874.' Schenck v. United States, supra. These limitations are not applicable here. Nor are we now concerned with questions as to the extent of authority to prevent publications in order to protect private rights according to the principles governing the exercise of the jurisdiction of courts of equity...
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  • In the past, laws prohibiting polygamy have been upheld against challenges that they violate the right to free exercise of religion (Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333, 10 S.Ct. 299, 33 L.Ed. 637 (1890)).
 
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