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Near complete gun bans by a thousand regulations

Near complete gun bans by a thousand regulations

In  Heller v. D.C. and McDonald v. Chicago, the Supreme Court made clear that sweeping gun bans are unconstitutional.

In response, we are seeing a new trend — don’t “ban” guns, but make it so costly, burdensome, and fraught with legal risk of an innocent mistake that otherwise law abiding citizens “voluntarily” disarm.

Everyone who is not David Gregory needs to worry about the swift arm of arbitrary prosecutorial discretion being smacked down on them with devastating life consequences.

A good example is the complicated and at times bizarre (as in 7 bullet magazines) New York gun law passed with almost no notice to the public.

California plans on topping New York, as detailed with obvious pleasure at Think Progress, California Democrats Propose Strictest Gun Regulations In The Nation:

1. Ban all semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines. California’s assault weapons ban only restricts the possession of semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines if they have an additional, “military-style” feature like flash suppressors. The new laws would tighten this law by banning all such rifles regardless of external features.

2. Ban possession of high-capacity magazines. California law bans the transfer, not possession, of magazines that can hold over ten bullets. This allows people wanting to skirt the law to buy the constituent parts and make the magazines themselves. The new law would close that loophole.

3. Ban “bullet button” conversion kits. State law defines “detachable magazines” as, in part, magazines that can be released “without the use of a tool.” Bullet button kits allow magazines to be released quickly by pressing a bullet into them, thus creating an end-around the intent of the assault weapons ban. The new provisions would ban such kits.

4. Bans shotgun-rifle combinations. It would ban this class of class of weapon.

5. Universal registration of all guns. The law would create “ownership records consistently across-the-board, ensuring all firearms are recorded” so that the background check system can prevent criminals from getting guns.

6. Background checks on ammunition. This provision requires a “full and complete” background check on ammunition sales, “building on” laws existing in Los Angeles and Sacramento.

7. Regulating gun loans. The legislators propose setting up an as-yet undefined regulatory system for the loan, as opposed to sale, of guns.

8. Prevent prohibited individuals from living in homes with guns. California’s Armed Persons Prohibition (APP) database lists people who can’t legally own weapons (as a consequence of criminal or mental health records) under state law. This addition would prevent people on the list from living in a house that has a gun.

9. Cracking down on people who can’t own guns legally but do anyway. Currently, 19,700 people who are on the APP list own guns. Police estimate that these people own roughly 39,000 firearms. This new law would authorize additional funding to enforce the law in this area.

10. Required safety training for handgun owners. People with concealed carry permits are required under California (and many other) state laws to pass a mandatory safety and firearm instruction course. This provision would require all handgun owners, regardless of permit status, to undergo a similar process.

A related proposal is to require liability insurance, which will price many people out of the market:

Gun owners in California would have to buy liability insurance to cover any damage caused by their firearms under legislation proposed Tuesday by two state lawmakers.

AB 231 was introduced by Democratic Assemblymen Jimmy Gomez of Echo Park and Phil Ting of San Francisco in the wake of the killing of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

“The government requires insurance as a condition of operating a car -– at the very least we should impose a similar requirement for owning a firearm,” Ting said.  “The cost to society of destruction by guns is currently being borne collectively by all of us, and not by those who, either through carelessness or malice, cause the destruction.”

However, Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, said the government cannot legally require citizens to buy insurance as a condition for exercising a constitutional right — bearing firearms.

“Also, what more can you do to discriminate against low-income residents who live in high crime areas and need their guns to defend themselves, than to require them to buy insurance they cannot afford?’’ Paredes said.

Expect legal challenges should these proposals become law.  The new laws are too-cute by half, obviously intended to force otherwise law-abiding citizens to navigate Rube Goldberg-like regulatory schemes as a precondition to the exercise of a constitutional right.

But in the meantime, as the cases take years to make their way to the Supreme Court, the street and drug gangs, and rogue left-leaning former cops, will have even more power knowing that they, and they alone, are able to defend themselves.

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Comments

TrooperJohnSmith | February 10, 2013 at 11:36 am

How can citizens exercise their rights under Heller and McDonald, and stop state and local governments from passing and/or enforcing these laws? Can’t gun owners use these rulings as a don-not-cross line, just as the Left uses Roe?

If only the Left’s Who’s on the First Amendment, What’s on the Second, were funny.

Second amendment supporters would have to get an injunction preventing the implementation of such laws, from a federal court here in California. That is randomly possible at the district court level, but then the case would get to the 9th circuit, where the odds would be strongly against upholding such an injunction. Who knows what the SCOTUS would do at that stage.
These are ill winds, like never before in my almost 7 decades of life. America could soon be gone with those winds.

Re Trooper’s comment:

Talk about touching the third rail with the Second Amendment of the Constitution mentioned in the same thought as the case law distortion of Roe v. Wade!

If the Founders thought they needed to protect the sanctity of marriage and the respect for human life into the first amendments of the Constitution they would have done so. As it is they shared and expected of one another basic charity and respect for human life.

As it was they were worried about the abuses of the British crown and had not yet descended themselves into Rousseau’s philosophical morass.

Leave Roe v. Wade out of guns.

Still both are grave matter. Roe v. Wade should be struck down due to its toxic, depraved foundation and the Second Amendment should be freed of its Progressive inflicted impediments.

Thank you, Trooper and thank you, Professor.

DM

    Ragspierre in reply to dmurray. | February 10, 2013 at 12:18 pm

    But, folks…

    the Collective (“Progressives” among them) have ALWAYS lived with open contempt for BOTH the Constitution AND the Declaration, as Pres. Skeeter made very clear in his 2nd inaugural, and as Wilson also made clear.

    They will use them as both sword and shield when convenient, and as toilet paper in all other circumstances.

    We have TEN amendments in the Bill of Rights. How many are simply ignored today?

    TrooperJohnSmith in reply to dmurray. | February 10, 2013 at 1:07 pm

    My point was that Roe is now the ultimate line in the sand for anything on the left. It was the birth of the so-called “litmus test”, and all energies are expended to the end of preserving this toe-hold on what amounts to eugenics.

    On to the Second Amendment… at what point do conservatives put the same energy and force of political will behind the preservation of gun rights? When do we draw OUR line in the sand and create OUR litmus test?

    The irony here is that the Left sees gun rights as suborning murder and mayhem, but their blind defense of Roe ignores the millions of deaths post that SCOTUS ruling. Plus, one is explicitly written into the Constitution, and the other is a SCOTUS construct. At what point do WE realign these two positions into their proper perspectives? The MSM sure as hell isn’t going to compare the two…

These type of gun control measures will be opposed by both right and left. The day is coming when many of the left will wake up and realize that it is not only the rights of the right that are under assault, but theirs, too. Right now they remain in their blissful stupor because little has impacted them directly. But that will change soon. Government at all levels has forgotten its role. They really do treat us like serfs.

their intention cannot be made more clear.
they intend to disarm the law abiding citizen
this will not end well
i’ve got a bad feeling about this
if and when the constitution revering patriots rise up in defense of the values enumerated in the original Declaration of Independence & Constitution,
the initial targets of opportunity should be the denizens of the lib/prog media.
the need to to administer payback for their ongoing treasonous “reporting” should be job #1

9thDistrictNeighbor | February 10, 2013 at 12:21 pm

What is so confusing about “…shall not be infringed?”

Ah yes, we’re all focused in on protecting the 2nd Amendment. But, IMHO, the real target is the 1st Amendment!

Once el Skeeter the Magnificence, el Poppa Abba to some, has done away with the 2nd Amendment, he’s going to focus on “hate speech” and the always present need to restrict that, especially after all the harm that American Hate Speech has done to the world, as seen in North Africa late last year!

As laws, rules, regulations and ordinances become more onerous and impossible too follow, more will simply ignore them, either knowingly or unknowingly. Plus the police won’t bother to enforce.

As many of you already know, we here in Chicago already have some of the most restrictive guns laws in the nation. Those laws are all but ignored except for the handful of citizens that choose to follow them. A few thousand out of millions have jumped through all the hoops to get the required permit. All weapons are supposed to be registered with the CPD, yet only a few thousand have been. All owners are supposed to have a FOID card, yet those cited with not having one are few.

2012 stat: out of the 330K police incidents filed, only 102 were for no FOID card. Almost as many (97) were for illegal use of an air rifle – people shooting rats in the alley or kids shooting out windows.

As budgets get cut and police forces shrink, weapons violations will not be a high priority for departments, especially those part of a patchwork of rules that define this or that type of weapon and its legality.

Illustrating Chicagoland Idiocy, Mayhem and Stupidity at heyjackass.com

The key (IMO) will be focing on the meaning of “infringe” as in “shall not be infringed.”

Quite obviously the left does not want to go through the hard slog of amending the document to remove the 2d Amendment. Not only is that route hard, they realize that in the end they’ll probably lose the effort.

Thus, the route of death-by-a-thousand-cuts. However, each cut is an infringement. When there are enough cuts, and NY’s new “law” certainly has that, you have a critical mass of infringement to the point of removal.

An express constitutional guarantee, but no way of exercising it? Will the courts tolerate this? Elections have consequences (such as the power of nominating judges).

Let me point out a few things…

1. gun-control is a species of superstition. Not that that ever bothers the Collective. They wallow in superstition (see warming, global).

2. gun-control never works…except to INCREASE violent crime; models abound.

3. as noted above in the Prof.’s post, gun laws which make sense (i.e., the ones respecting people we would agree should not have guns) are NOT enforced. Why? Well, would you like to go to the dwelling of a criminal/crazy person to collect their firearms, or would you rather mess with a law-abiding citizen?

4. rather often, gun laws make NO rational sense, as with the proposed prohibition of rifle/shotgun combinations (pretty much ALWAYS single-shot pieces and used exclusively by hunters, campers, and farmers/ranchers). About the LAST weapon I’d chose for any offensive or serious defensive purpose.

5. this is Kulhifornia. It is GONE. Lost. Kaput. Do not imagine this could happen in Texas or MOST other states. It can’t.

6. civil disobedience works every time it is popularly supported. Prohibition NEVER works if it is popularly opposed.

In Pennsylvania, many municipalities sought to restrict protests, rallies and the like by establishing a requirement that event organizers post a bond or have liability insurance to provide financial resources should there be an incident or a cost. The courts found that this was unconstitutional because it had an adverse impact on the ability of whomever to exercise their First Amendment rights. I think that a similar finding would be possible; one’s rights should not be subject to the whim of the insurance market…..

I think that it is a good idea for conservatives or constitutionalists to start tying together the First and Second Amendments. Could you envision the howling if an administration, state or other regulatory group said that there was no need to have another newspaper because there were already enough newspapers out there? That you don’t need to go to church so much because you’ve gone enough? Your rallies use enough resources; you don’t have to protest so often…. I’ve never seen a reference point where one part of the bill of rights supercedes another because of its placement…..

Meanwhile, the left is now wringing their hands over the inability of the poor to pay their traffic tickets. Debtors’ prisons, etc. (How do they replace a dangerous tire, or pay for auto insurance? How often does one “get into trouble with the law?”) After-the-fact excuses of scofflaws who don’t even try to be responsible. The claims are specious for anyone who has a whit of common sense and can read between the lines.

I’ve so had it. Not going to comply with gun registration laws.

    jdkchem in reply to janitor. | February 10, 2013 at 8:41 pm

    That is just so much bullshit it’s not even remotely funny. They still have this thing called community service. Funny how the leftards suddenly, magically, conveniently deny it’s existence. This is why we are thoroughly fucked. In the minds of these scum there is nothing that cannot be forced on the productive citizenry for the sake of the “poor” and the children. The reality is these are nothing more than piss poor excuses from scum.

I’ll go maybe a bit against the grain here – I am enthusiastic for the 2nd A., and I live in Mass., where you do have to take an NRA safety course to get a firearms permit. I have no problem with that. Of course, I also come from a nonshooting background and had hardly ever even touched a gun before in my life. I took the class which included live-fire instruction, not just the lecture. I’m sure there are people who are raised with guns and learn proper handling before they learn how to ride a bike, but I still see no problem with requiring some demonstration of competence with what is, after all, a deadly weapon. Ideally, it would be kept more citizen-side –such as the NRA or similar body setting standards and providing instruction, rather than the government. As we are fond of saying in other contexts, rights entail responsibilities, and if we don’t step up to the responsibility, we are in grave danger of having this right compromised.

    Ragspierre in reply to IceColdTroll. | February 10, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    While I don’t altogether disagree, let’s set some distinctions, shall we?

    First, HAVING a firearm seems a natural right to me. No qualifiers, no predicates, no nuthin’…provided you are a not felon/not crazy person.

    Second, CARRYING a firearm CAN, rationally, require some preconditions. A good, expansive pistol-carry course touching all of law, safety, effective use, etc. cannot hurt anyone. They should NEVER be so expensive (with fees for your permit) as to present a bar. Hell, I’d favor them being offered in the senior year of high-school AND offered by the local LEOs free of charge (except for ammo).

    Seems like a win-win to me.

      I grew up in a part of the country, in a large city, where if you were tall enough to get the money on the counter you could buy any gun and ammunition. No other check required. People were not getting shot every day either.

      The present morass of Federal, State, county, and city gun regulations is nothing but a back door registration and ban scheme.

      “Shall not be infringed” applies to both keep AND bear.
      The government (at ALL levels) is specifically prohibited by the Constitution from infringing ANY of the right.

    Firearm safety and operation should be a mandatory class in high school. Ditch the sex-ed and the diversity froufra.

    I have no problem with safety courses. As a matter of “fairness” I’m also in favor of rigid identification to be able to vote. For the children of course. I also like the idea of libtards and democrats being forced to buy insurance to cover their stupid.

I wish our legislature and Skeet Obama would put a clamp on their spending and their illegal use of drones (the spying on and the killing of Americans) rather than trying to control decent law abiding people who own guns.

Our current government leaders need to take their own medicine. I’ll help them get it down.

Prohibitively liberal/Democrat states (NY, CA, etc) will pass gun control regs with ease, struck down only later in high court decisions, as occurred in DC. Resistance is futile.

Citizens in the other states need to get ready to grassroot the hell out of any prospective regs coming down the pike.

As for me…. MOLON LABE, m-er f-ers.

We need a new law. Legislators are personally liable for laws passed that violate the Constitution and BOR.
Imagine Chicago/Illinois politicians having to pay out of their own personal pocket the cost of losing.

http://www.examiner.com/article/saf-wins-big-over-chicago-appeals-another-il-case
That ruling is being appealed, and one might almost be compelled to thank the City of Chicago for paying its court-mandated legal reimbursement to SAF for the landmark Supreme Court case of McDonald v. City of Chicago. And the amount of that bill? How does $399,950 sound?

    Financial liability is not, by itself, sufficient. Those who violate their oaths should be tried as criminals and, at minimum, jailed for LONG periods. For outright treason, execution is the prescribed penalty.

People don’t understand how bad this is.

5. Universal registration of all guns. The law would create “ownership records consistently across-the-board, ensuring all firearms are recorded” so that the background check system can prevent criminals from getting guns.

California already has a history of doing this specifically the SKS semi-automatic rifles. Many of those owners in the State of California had modified their SKS to accept a detachable magazines. Then when California passed a law requiring SKS owners to register their weapons, several years later, a Republican Attorney General (The one that ran against Gray Davis and lost) ordered all of those SKS turned in by the deadline in exchange for a small amount of money or face prosecution after the deadline. California (Both Californian liberal Republicans and Democrats) does not want you to legally own weapons. They will use any method even lying to you to make you give up your guns at any cost.

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