On Monday, four California gun dealers filed a federal lawsuit challenging a nearly century-old law that bans the display of handguns in store advertisements.

Under state law, it’s perfectly legal for a gun-control supporter to use images of handguns in a protest outside of a gun store. But if a gun store were to put the same sign in its store window, it would be a violation of state law.

States California Civil Code § 26820, which was first enacted in 1923:

“No handgun or imitation handgun, or placard advertising the sale or other transfer thereof, shall be displayed in any part of the premises where it can readily be seen from the outside.”

This isn’t a case of hypothetical free speech scenarios. Earlier this year, a Central Valley gun dealer was cited by the California Department of Justice for breaking the law by displaying a handgun in its window. Tracy Rifle and Pistol, the San Joaquin County firearm retailer that was cited by the Department of Justice in September, points out the obvious content-based speech restriction.

“I run one of the most heavily regulated and inspected businesses in existence, but it’s still illegal for me to show customers that I sell handguns until after they walk in the door,” said Michael Baryla, the owner of Tracy Rifle and Pistol. “That’s about as silly a law as you could imagine, even here in California.”

Gun stores speak out

One Fresno gun dealer and plaintiff in the case, PRK Arms, told KMPH Fox 26 News’ Erika Cervantes that the lack of proper signage can be confusing for customers.

“We actually get quite a few calls throughout the week from people asking if we sell handguns,” Elijah Smedley, the store’s general manager, told KMPH. “If you look around, there’s plenty of them here. The product itself is not illegal in any way, so why should advertising be illegal?”

Smedley pointed out the obvious double standard.

“You can advertise for just about anything else that you sell,” he said. “There’s grow shops, there’s dirty magazine stores, there’s all kinds of things out there that you can advertise for the exact item you’re selling. Yet, for some reason, handguns are taboo.”

First Amendment scholars join case

Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who is considered one of the country’s foremost experts on the First Amendment, has joined the case on behalf of the plaintiffs.

“The government generally may not ban advertising of lawful products — indeed, of constitutionally protected products — on the grounds that such advertising is offensive, or stimulates consumer interest in such products,” Volokh explained on his legal blog at the Washington Post.

In addition to a double standard for gun owners and gun control advocates, there’s a double standard for weapons. In California, it’s legal for gun dealers to display images of shotguns and rifles on their premises, but illegal to display an image of a handgun. The multiple content-based restriction has helped the gun dealers enlist other constitutional experts in the case, including top-notch attorneys Bradley Benbrook and Stephen Duvernay.

“The First Amendment prevents the government from telling businesses it disfavors that they can’t engage in truthful advertising,” said Bradley Benbrook, lead counsel for the plaintiffs. “This case follows a long line of Supreme Court cases protecting such disfavored businesses from that type of censorship.”

A spokesman for Attorney General Kamala Harris, the lead defendant in the case, declined to comment about it to CalWatchdog.com.

State’s clever gun rights advocates target vulnerable laws

The lawsuit is only the latest effort in a series of savvy moves by the state’s leading Second Amendment advocates. Unable to slow the endless series of new gun-control bills proposed each legislative session, the California Association of Federal Firearm Licensees, Calguns Foundation and the Second Amendment Foundation have turned to lawsuits and public-records request to overturn laws. And when the mainstream media ignore their achievements, CA-FFL shares its victories directly with its nearly 40,000 Facebook fans.

In August, a federal judge ruled that California’s 10-day waiting period on gun sales violated the Second Amendment rights of certain groups of gun owners. The plaintiffs in the case were represented by Calguns Foundation and Second Amendment Foundation.

The group has also exploited the state’s public records law to obtain information about the uneven administration of conceal-carry permits. In 2011, Calguns Foundation believed then-San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey was failing to comply with California’s conceal-carry laws. Under state law, all agencies that have the authority to issue firearm permits must create and publish a written policy on the process. Thanks to a public records request, the group proved that the sheriff had selectively enforced the law and awarded permits to politically-connected applicants.

San Francisco wasn’t an isolated case, but a part of Calguns’ program to enforce compliance with the law. A similar 2010 request filed by Calguns with the Ventura County sheriff’s office was denied. Calguns was forced to file a lawsuit, which it won.

Whenever it can, California’s gun-rights advocates are looking to form broad-based political coalitions.

“Since we started our Carry License Initiative, Calguns Foundation has had the great pleasure of supporting and, where possible, collaborating with fantastic open government groups like the First Amendment Coalition and CalAware on matters relating to public records and meetings,” said Brandon Combs, one of the masterminds behind the effective political strategy.

A copy of the complaint can be viewed here.

Yet in California, Democrats have a similar ritual — and it draws not fire but praise from many of the state’s editorial pages. It’s the Legislature’s habit of passing tough gun control rules that are obviously going to be tossed by federal courts for cramping the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

Why do I say “obviously going to be tossed”? Because while it seems to have failed to sink in with most of the media, America is in a new era when it comes to gun rights. After decades of  justices’ wobbling, bobbing and weaving, the U.S. Supreme Court now has a majority that has firmly and consistently held that the Second Amendment isn’t part of a “living document.” It means what it says.

Guns aren’t just guaranteed to militia members

The turning point came at term’s end in June 2008:

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday embraced the long-disputed view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for personal use, ruling 5 to 4 that there is a constitutional right to keep a loaded handgun at home for self-defense.

The landmark ruling overturned the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns, the strictest gun-control law in the country, and appeared certain to usher in a fresh round of litigation over gun rights throughout the country. The court rejected the view that the Second Amendment’s “right of the people to keep and bear arms” applied to gun ownership only in connection with service in the “well regulated militia” to which the amendment refers.

Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion, his most important in his 22 years on the court, said the justices were “aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country” and “take seriously” the arguments in favor of prohibiting handgun ownership. “But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table,” he said, adding: “It is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.”

Justice Scalia’s opinion was signed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr.

That’s from The New York Times. This most important ruling of Scalia’s career has swung like a wrecking ball ever since, helping along by a 2010 Supreme Court ruling declaring that the Second Amendment applies to local and state laws, not just federal law.

State law struck down by … 9th circuit!?!

This piece from last week in the Los Angeles Times showing a surge in concealed-carry permits reflects the new strength in Second Amendment enforcement. A state law permitting counties to set their own restrictions on such permits was struck down in February by … drumroll, please … no less a liberal pillar than the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Then there is this development last week:

In another setback for California’s tough gun-control laws, a federal judge ruled Monday that the state can’t require gun buyers to wait 10 days to pick up their newly purchased weapon if they already own a gun or have a license to possess a handgun.

U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii of Fresno said the 10-day wait for current gun owners is a restriction on constitutional rights that isn’t justified by safety concerns. He noted that all firearms purchasers, including second- and third-time buyers, must pass a state background check of their criminal and mental-health records, but said it was unreasonable to make gun owners wait the full 10 days to acquire another weapon.

That’s from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Observation about Dems holds for media

But as Bee columnist Dan Walters recently pointed out, there are still more weak laws this year coming out of a Legislature whose Democrats see guns as no less than a “secular sin.”

Dan could have noted that largely holds true for the California media as well. In 2004, New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent wrote a powerful essay about gun owners being among  “the groups The Times treats as strange objects to be examined on a laboratory slide.” The CA media offer the same incredulity about anyone who believes in the Scalia interpretation of the Second Amendment — in my personal experience, incredulity tipped with disdain.

Good people, you know, abhor guns! They just do! Or they’re not good.

“Attorney General Kamala Harris moved Thursday to preserve California’s restrictions on concealed-weapons permits, seeking a rehearing of a federal appeals court ruling that would allow law-abiding citizens throughout the state to carry handguns in public.

“Harris, on behalf of the state, asked the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for permission to intervene in the case, involving a lawsuit against the San Diego County sheriff over gun permit restrictions … .

“San Diego’s sheriff, Bill Gore, the sole defendant in the case, announced last Friday that he would not ask the court for a rehearing, raising the possibility that the ruling would become final without further appeals. Thursday was the court’s deadline for an intervention request by Harris, who ordinarily defends state laws in court but was not named as a party to the case. …

“C.D. Michel, lawyer for the California Rifle and Pistol Foundation, and individuals who challenged the San Diego County system, said the appeals court should refuse to let Harris enter the case.

“‘The state of California has been in this case from day one by virtue of the fact that Sheriff Gore was in there as a state actor,’ Michel said. He said Harris had turned down invitations from both sides to enter the case at the outset, and is seeking to intervene now only because she disagrees with the ruling.”

Chortling over rebuke to CA gun haters

There’s quite a bit of chortling in gun-rights circles over these developments. California likes to think it’s the national leader in scorning guns and gun owners, and now the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, of all courts, has gotten in the way.

That chortling should extend specifically to the incompetence of Harris and her staff. It evidently never occurred to them that the Second Amendment of the Constitution might apply in California. Now it’s time to play catch-up with some Indignant Posturing.

This follows on her amazing two-step in the bullet-train case. In August, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny ruled that the state’s plan to build the first segment of the project broke state law because of its incomplete environmental reviews and shaky financing. In a subsequent “remedies” hearing, Harris’ office didn’t take issue with Kenny’s finding that the state’s plan broke state law. Instead, it held that work could continue using federal funds. In November, Kenny issued two follow-up rulings basically blocking use of state funds in construction of the project.

Two months later, Harris’ office put out a new opinion that held Kenny’s original ruling was wrong. Huh?

Epic klutziness. But if you don’t like the bullet train and/or fear Harris will be governor some day, it’s been fun to watch.

Detroit — If more citizens were armed, criminals would think twice about attacking them, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said Thursday.

Urban police chiefs are typically in favor of gun control or reluctant to discuss the issue, but Craig on Thursday was candid about how he’s changed his mind.

“When we look at the good community members who have concealed weapons permits, the likelihood they’ll shoot is based on a lack of confidence in this Police Department,” Craig said at a press conference at police headquarters, adding that he thinks more Detroit citizens feel safer, thanks in part to a 7 percent drop in violent crime in 2013.

Craig said he started believing that legal gun owners can deter crime when he became police chief in Portland, Maine, in 2009.

“Coming from California (Craig was on the Los Angeles police force for 28 years), where it takes an act of Congress to get a concealed weapon permit, I got to Maine, where they give out lots of CCWs (carrying concealed weapon permits), and I had a stack of CCW permits I was denying; that was my orientation.

“I changed my orientation real quick. Maine is one of the safest places in America. Clearly, suspects knew that good Americans were armed.”

Here are the murder rates per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010:

Maine: 0.8

California: 3.4

That’s 4 times as many in the disarmed Golden State as in the lockin’-and-loadin’ Pine Tree State.

Why? Well, it could be because it’s too cold in Maine to go outside and rob somebody. Or maybe Stephen King scares all the criminals to death.

Or it might be that criminals never know what victim might be armed, and will shoot back.

Whereas in California, criminals know that the victims have been disarmed by Gov. Jerry Brown, Attorney General Kamala Harris, the state Legislature and county sheriffs.

]]> https://calwatchdog.com/2014/01/03/detroit-police-chief-former-lapd-cop-carry-a-gun/feed/ 12 56769 https://calwatchdog.com/2013/08/15/why-you-need-a-gun/ https://calwatchdog.com/2013/08/15/why-you-need-a-gun/#comments Thu, 15 Aug 2013 16:27:13 +0000 http://calwatchdog.com/?p=48249 Gun controllers insist that we disarm ourselves. That the police will “protect” us. Here’s the real world.

In the placid and well off community of Orange Hills in Orange County:

“robbers forced their way into a home and tied up a family at gunpoint and then invaded a neighbor’s home as well.

“The incidents began about 9:30 p.m. Monday in the 300 block of Calle Grande in Orange Hills, an affluent community in the city of Orange. One of the victims told NBC-Los Angeles that a robber held a gun to her head as well as her family’s.

“The family was then tied up but managed to alert authorities when the woman’s husband escaped through a window and called police, CBS-Los Angeles reported.

“The incident lasted three hours, the woman told reporters at the scene Tuesday.

“But the robbers weren’t done. A neighbor’s home also was invaded and a man who lived there was either shot or stabbed in the hand, the man’s wife told KTLA-TV. The man was taken to the hospital for treatment, according to media reports.”

If these people had been armed, say with pump-action shotguns, they could have taken care of business. They also could have saved the taxpayers the cost of the trial and incarceration of these brutal criminals.

Citizen defense

In Texas, where guns sensibly are a big part of the culture, a woman showed how to take action:

“HOUSTON — A woman opened fire on a group of robbers at a local Denny’s restaurant.

“At around 4 a.m. Thursday, a man who does not want to be identified, said his brother was robbed by six men with guns at a Denny’s off the Gulf Freeway in southeast Houston.

“‘I don’t know if it was random or someone set him up. Because he got his own label,’ said the victim’s brother.

“His brother’s wife was in the restroom at the time, but when she exited the restroom she saw the group of suspected robbers. Police said that’s when she pulled out her gun and shot at them.

“‘She said she came out of the restroom and saw my brother on the floor. That’s when she started doing what she gotta do. She got a license and she’ll do anything to protect her kids and my brother,’ he said.

“Police said there was a shootout, but it is not known how many shots were fired at the time. However, police said the gunshots did hit cars in the parking lot.

“No bystanders or customers were injured.

“The group of suspects fled the scene.

“The married couple said they are still shook up, but their family said they’re glad they made it out alive.

“‘Self-defense saved my brother’s life,’ he said.

“According to police, the robbers got away with jewelry.”

The woman’s only mistake was not taking enough target practice prior to the incident.

In California, county sheriffs control conceal-weapons permits. Most county sheriffs, including in supposedly “conservative” Orange County, severely restrict conceal-carry permits. They leave us at the mercy of criminals — who, as these two incidents show, obviously can get guns easily, and don’t care about gun laws.

In any case, in California, for now, you still can get a gun and keep it at home. So get one, practice twice a month, and protect your family.

Lock and load.

March 6, 2013 

By Dave Roberts

California’s Democratic politicians, not content to have enacted some of the nation’s strictest restrictions on their citizens’ right to keep and bear arms, now want to do the same to the rest of the country. The Senate Public Safety Committee on a 4-2 vote (Republicans dissenting) last week passed SJR 1, a resolution urging President Obama and Congress to ban so-called “assault” weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines as well as require universal background checks.

State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, presented the resolution at the request of U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force of the Democratic Caucus. The task force is pushing for a ban on “assault” weapons and magazines along with requiring background checks for every gun sale and updating the national background check database. Thompson, in a town hall meeting in Vallejo in January, rejected the National Rifle Association’s preferred solution to preventing school shootings: providing trained personnel in schools who can access weapons in an emergency.

“Existing law in California is already much stronger than the federal law in that it regulates and requires background checks for the possession and transfer of assault weapons,” Wolk told the committee on Feb. 26. “But without a comprehensive federal approach, states will remain unprotected and vulnerable in protecting their communities from the violence associated with these weapons.”

She was backed by Amanda Wilcox, representing the 25 California chapters of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Wilcox’s daughter was killed in 2001 by a disgruntled patient who went on a rampage at the mental health clinic where the daughter worked.

“We need a comprehensive approach to address the problem of gun violence in our nation,” said Wilcox. “And this resolution is very simple. It urges the president and Congress to pursue that approach. I have family members and friends across the nation and want them to be safe. From a California perspective, we have strong gun laws. Guns do not stop at our border. We cannot do it alone. We need national solutions to reducing gun violence. And in particular a universal background check. So that people who cannot pass a background check in our state are unable to go across the border to neighboring states and buy a weapon through a private party sale.”

‘Assault’ weapons same as regular firearms

Two gun rights supporters spoke in opposition to the resolution.

Tom Pedersen, representing the California Rifle and Pistol Association, said his organization supports background checks and would like California to adopt an instant-check system. But he argued that, with “so-called assault weapons, there’s actually no real difference in the function of a firearm. A semi-automatic firearm, you pull the trigger each time, it discharges one round. And so to say that they are distinguishable between an assault weapon, so called, and a sporting firearm, that really is not the case.” An AR-15 semi-automatic rifle of the type he was discussing is pictured above.

Pedersen also argued against limiting the capacity of magazines.

“The reality of it is citizens want to have the same ability to protect themselves for the same reason that law enforcement officers want those high-capacity magazines,” he said. “The reality of it is that a woman by herself in her house at night who is 5-foot-2, and somebody breaks in who is 6-foot-2 and weighs 300 pounds, the firearm is the only equalizer there is.”

Ed Worley, representing the NRA, argued that the profusion and complexity of gun control laws has turned law-abiding citizens into criminals.

“Throughout the history of California, with the so-called gun bans that we’ve had in California, the biggest victims have been those who cannot understand what the law means,” he said. “Because laws are so arbitrary and capricious: if it has a pistol grip, if it has a magazine this size. What we’ve seen over the years is that thousands and thousands of people who have tried to comply with the law can’t figure out when the law took effect, didn’t know they had to register their gun again.

“The last case was a gentleman 69 years old, a school teacher who recently retired. He got in trouble because he tried to comply with the law. He contacted his state Assembly member and said, ‘I recently realized that I need to re-register my gun.’ So he went to his Assembly member to help with the Department of Justice and do the paperwork. He was informed that he needed to surrender his rifle and have it cut up.

“So in the state of California, what you have is an overly broad list of so-called assault weapons that don’t exist. So-called assault weapons are not machine guns. They are guns with various features on them. The federal assault weapons law that Dianne Feinstein [Democratic Senator from California] put into effect [from 1994 to 2004] had absolutely no effect. … You have tens of millions of people who lawfully possess high-capacity feeding devices, magazines of 10 rounds, usually 15 rounds. And now we have in the state of California legislation that is going to require them to be surrendered and confiscated. So what we are seeing in this resolution is trying to take the failed policies in California and trying to move them across the United States to people who have never committed a crime.”

Committee Chairwoman Loni Hancock, D-Oakland, who has introduced SB 396 limiting magazines to 10 rounds, responded that gun control legislation is effective.

“Of the 10 states with the strongest gun safety regulations, seven of them have the lowest level of gun crime, and that includes California,” she said. “Guns in homes result more often in suicide, or family members, mistakenly or not, killing or injuring one another, than they do for protection from outside people entering the home.”

Sen. Joel Anderson, R-San Diego, said he supports universal background checks, and would support Wolk’s resolution if it were limited to just that provision. Wolk said she would consider that. But Anderson joined Steve Knight, R-Palmdale in voting against it in committee.

By John Seiler

When the Soviet Union existed, Russians traveling to the free, capitalist West would pick up goods that were difficult or impossible to get back in the USSR: stereos, cameras, French perfume, etc.

California now is like that:

“Disparate gun laws make it easier for residents of California, for example, to travel to Nevada to buy just about any weapon they choose without undergoing background checks. The issue is a topic of discussion in Congress and among state lawmakers across the country.

“California’s laws are among the most stringent in the country. Only seven states, including California, ban the sale of large-capacity magazines. Eleven states, California included, require waiting periods of up to two weeks between the purchase of a gun and the transfer of the gun. The other 39 have no waiting periods.”

Free states respect our sacred Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms.” States assaulting freedom restrict that freedom.

I wonder how many decent, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens have left California, or soon will, because it restricts Gun Rights. Even if you have one of the scarce jobs not destroyed here by high taxes and regulations, what good is it if it’s increasingly difficult to defend your family against marauding robbers, rapists and murderers?

By John Seiler

When my work is done today, I’m heading off to Starbucks to patronize their fine coffee. Three of their ships are half a mile of where I live.

That’s because today is the day gun-rights advocates are saying “Thank you!” to Starbucks for not buckling before immense pressure from Second Amendment fanatics. The fanatics demanded that Starbucks ban all guns from their shops.

Feb. 22 was chosen because it often is written 2-22 — the 2’s standing for the Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms,” the foundation of all our sacred American liberties. If you can’t defend yourself against tyranny, what good are all the other rights, such as for speech, religion, assembly, etc.?

Starbucks’ position is simple: It follows local gun laws.

So in Arizona, a civilized place where any law-abiding citizen can carry a concealed weapon without even getting a permit from the state, Starbucks says it’s OK to bring your gun into their store. That also means the stores are safer, especially today, because any potential terrorist or robber knows he immediately would be aerated by the patrons.

California cronyism

Things are different in the California autocracy. Last year, “open carry” of firearms, which are displayed for all to see, was banned by the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown. The state keeps sliding toward a North Korean level of abuse of citizens’ liberties.

“Conceal-carry” — where the gun is hidden — long has been allowed only by permit. And permits in most places are give out only to the sheriff’s cronies and campaign donors. The L.A. Weekly just reported:

“The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department is known in gun-rights circles for being stingy with concealed-weapons permits. Sheriff Lee Baca has total discretion over who is allowed to get a permit, and he hasn’t given out many.

“As of May 2012, only 341 people had been granted them, according to sheriff’s records. Compare that with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, which had 1,754 permit holders in 2011, despite a population of just 2 million people to L.A.’s 10 million. The Kern County Sheriff granted even more, with 3,564 permit holders in a population of 800,000 people.

“In L.A. County, records show, most of the permits go to judges and reserve deputies. But there is another group that seems to have better luck than most in obtaining permits: friends of Lee Baca. Those who’ve given the sheriff gifts or donated to his campaign are disproportionately represented on the roster of permit holders.

“Chuck Michel, a gun-rights attorney who has pushed for greater access to concealed-weapons permits, says practices in many ‘anti-gun’ jurisdictions are ‘corrupted by favoritism and cronyism.'”

That pretty much sums up California government in most respects: “favoritism and cronyism.”

But a least today I will strike a blow for honesty and freedom by sipping a coffee (Tall, black) at Starbucks.

By John Seiler

Here’s a question: Will more gun control laws in California chase away even more businesses and jobs than our high taxes already do?

I think the answer would be, Yes. A lot of people simply will not tolerate being disarmed against criminals and will move to states where they can adequately defend themselves and their families.

It will take about a decade to see the results of the draconian new attempts by New York and other left-wing states to grab the guns of the law-abiding. These states, like California, also like mugging taxpayers for more money. So a study would have to find out how to tease apart who is leaving only because of the higher taxes, who only because of the new violations of gun rights, who for both reasons and who for entirely different reasons.

As to guns, Thomas Sowell just wrote, “Gun control costs lives“:

“Most factual studies show no reduction in gun crimes, including murder, under gun control laws. A significant number of studies show higher rates of murder and other gun crimes under gun control laws.

“How can this be? It seems obvious to some gun control zealots that, if no one had guns, there would be fewer armed robberies and fewer people shot to death.

“But nothing is easier than to disarm peaceful, law-abiding people. And nothing is harder than to disarm people who are neither — especially in a country with hundreds of millions of guns already out there, that are not going to rust away for centuries.”

CA gun control

Despite that, California’s extremist left-wing Legislature is obsessed with taking away the guns of law-abiding citizens. It’s cynically using the Sandy Hook tragedy as an excuse to violate our Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms.” The latest, as reported by the Chronicle:

“As President Obama prepares for a battle in Congress over proposed gun control legislation, California and San Francisco are moving forward with even more far-reaching proposals.

“The Golden State already has some of the toughest firearms laws in the nation, including a sophisticated background check database that has resulted in the confiscation of more than 10,000 guns since 2006.”

The article does not point out that leaves approximately 40 million guns remaining in the state, almost all of them owned by law-abiding citizens.

The Chronicle:

“San Francisco has been at the forefront of gun regulation, though its laws haven’t always withstood legal scrutiny. Now, both at City Hall and in Sacramento, politicians want to regulate another aspect of guns: ammunition.

“‘Bullets are what make guns deadly,’ said Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, who has authored legislation that would require ammunition buyers to provide identification and undergo a background check, and force sellers to apply for a state license and report all transactions to California authorities.”

But criminals easily could get bullets on the black market, or from out of state. So the law only would hurt the law-abiding.

30 bullets

Another target of the anti-gun rights fanatics is the number of bullets held in a magazine. But  Sowell, who taught marksmanship in the U.S. Marine Corps, writes:

“There are people who have never fired a shot in their life who do not hesitate to declare how many bullets should be the limit to put into a firearm’s clip or magazine. Some say 10 bullets but New York state’s recent gun control law specifies seven.

“Virtually all gun control advocates say that 30 bullets in a magazine is far too many for self-defense or hunting — even if they have never gone hunting and never had to defend themselves with a gun. This uninformed and self-righteous dogmatism is what makes the gun control debate so futile and so polarizing.

“Anyone who faces three home invaders, jeopardizing himself or his family, might find 30 bullets barely adequate. After all, not every bullet hits, even at close range, and not every hit incapacitates. You can get killed by a wounded man.

“These plain life-and-death realities have been ignored for years by people who go ballistic when they hear about how many shots were fired by the police in some encounter with a criminal. As someone who once taught pistol shooting in the Marine Corps, I am not the least bit surprised by the number of shots fired. I have seen people miss a stationary target at close range, even in the safety and calm of a pistol range.

“We cannot expect everybody to know that. But we can expect them to know that they don’t know — and to stop spouting off about life-and-death issues when they don’t have the facts.”

What extremist leftists like Skinner don’t know would fill the Library of Congress. Yet they still want to take our guns and leave us defenseless against roaming hoards of criminals. Hypocritically, she works in the Capitol in Sacramento, which is guarded by heavily armed California state troopers. If she thinks guns are evil, she should first ask the troopers to get rid of theirs.

Meanwhile, the almost inevitable imposition of more gun control in California is another reason to advance any bug-out plan. Gun-rights Arizona is only 225 miles away.

In Arizona, you don’t even need a permit to carry a concealed weapon. What a breath of freedom.