re: #289 Political Atheist

Yup, IIRC that would be all about our assault weapon ban. I don’t like the blanket ban. It was severe enough to interfere with law enforcement purchases. Like when some cops borrowed some during the NH bank heist and epic gun battle. I’d like to see a qualification regime like the FAA has for pilots. Anyway…

Back when I was really advocating hard for gun rights here California (90’s)we thought we had a deal with the state. The deal was that instant background check hardware would get funded by gun groups and owners. And then we would have good positive control over purchases. Suddenly the background check became a “cooling off period” and we got screwed.

California came to us gun groups for guidance on a mandatory safety test before purchase of a gun. Which was done We liked the idea. We were assured the instructors certified by police, military and the then sane NRA would be accepted to give the test and our credentials would mean we did not have to take the test. Neither of those promises were kept.

I could go on but if California impinged that hard on any other amendment we would have far wider protests. When us gun owners protest, we are instantly dismissed in the legislature as “never minds it’s just those gun nuts”. Yeah gun nuts that backed their safety regs and dug in on some unreasonable regs.

Actually, the North Hollywood bank shootout was used as justification for California’s gun ban law, even though the rifles used by the robbers were already illegal. The two AKs were Chinese Type 56 rifles that had been smuggled in, thus they had never been in the US legally and no gun ban would have effected them. The HK-91 used by one of the robbers had been illegally modified to fire full-auto, a major federal crime carrying a 10 year prison sentence.

Hence the law used a very poor justification to already questionable ends.