California’s Kamala Harris, the best-looking attorney general in the nation, has signed a letter mandating micro stamping technology for all new semiautomatic handguns being sold in the Golden State. [Read the letter here.] Any new model handgun must have a microstamped serial number somewhere on the gun’s frame and a firing pin that stamps a unique number onto the cartridge before (or as) it ignites the primer. I immediately reached out to Brandon Combs of the Firearms Policy Coalition to confirm. Confirmed. Brandon has assured me that the Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale is being challenged in court as a whole. Meanwhile for those Golden State gun buyers this means . . .
Californians who surmount the paperwork and scrutiny required to purchase a handgun can still buy any of the handguns on the current Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale. But that’s about it. As of today, all new models which manufacturers want to introduce for sale in California will need to follow the new guidelines. They’ve got to be capable of microstamping.
There’s not a single handgun manufactured in the United States that microstamps a cartridge. Not one. Why should there be? The technology is both expensive and useless (the firing pin can be replaced or sanded down in seconds) and consumers may well balk at the idea. So gun makers looking to introduce new models into California are going to have to design and build handguns that microstamp or . . . nothing.
Chance are they’ll walk away. Even without this microstamping misegos, gunmakers are dropping California compliant models. The state’s registry of acceptable gats has declined by half since its introduction, from 2400 models to 1279 today. SIG SAUER “lost” 17 models in the month of March alone.
There may come a time when California gun shops may have only a dozen or so new handgun models for sale. Or, perhaps, none. Think that’s an exaggeration? California still has no less than 46 civilian disarmament bills floating around in the Sacramento legislature. It’s a slave state for sure.