ar-15 assault weapon AK
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

From the Second Amendment Foundation . . .

After two years of litigation over a botched computer program to register so-called “assault weapons” in California, a settlement has been reached between the state and all parties involved, the Second Amendment Foundation revealed today.

The case is known as Sharp v. Becerra. In 2016, the California Legislature created a new “assault weapon” classification requiring registration. But there was a problem with the online registration process that prevented gun owners from actually complying before the July 1, 2018 deadline, so a lawsuit was filed by several parties including SAF, the Firearms Policy Coalition, Calguns Foundation, Firearm Policy Foundation and the Madison Society Foundation, along with several private citizens.

“Under this agreement,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “California must reopen the registration process for all individuals who possessed eligible firearms, and reimburse all plaintiffs. California DOJ is required to announce the re-opened registration period and provide notice to other known gun rights groups and law firms. This requirement especially applies to every person who called or emailed the DOJ to complain about being unable to register before or after the original deadline. The department must also conduct a public outreach campaign to notify the public about the reopened registration period.

“It’s fair to say our lawsuit prevented guns from being banned and confiscated, and their owners from being prosecuted,” he stated.

“The department must also accept paper submissions as an alternative,” he added, “on a form that gets the information required by the online registration process. It’s important that California DOJ under Javier Becerra had to acknowledge its registration website was something of a disaster.

“As noted in the agreement,” Gottlieb continued, “hundreds of people actually contacted the California Department of Justice to seek technical assistance because they encountered problems trying to register online. When you consider the likelihood that many times the number of people who contacted DOJ became frustrated and didn’t contact the agency, we’re talking about a system breakdown that shouldn’t have happened. I’d call this an embarrassing loss and a huge setback for California gun control overall.

“Through this agreement,” he added, “all of the plaintiffs will recover our legal expenses and more importantly, thousands of honest California citizens will be able to comply with the law. DOJ must give gun owners 120 days’ advance notice that the system is re-opening.”

 

The Second Amendment Foundation is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 700,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.

30 COMMENTS

  1. A setback, perhaps.

    A real setback for the California politician establishment would have been elimination of the registry. But perhaps that’s a bridge too far at the moment.

    • Another example of how registration is unlawful. If sheeple comply and say it’s a “reasonable” requirement, then all the State has to do is find an excuse as to why they can’t perform their end of the process…and bam! you have no rights…right?

      A right delayed is a right denied.

    • Asdf,
      I’m not seeing that at all. Aside from registration being a bad idea as GunnyGene said, it seems clear from the article that this only applies to the [relative handful of] people who actively complained before a long-past deadline.

      • Not quite. They have to notify gun organizations and, individually, any person who complained.

        • I may have misspoken, but my main point remains: While I’m glad people (who tried to build legally years ago) are no longer in trouble for it, it doesn’t change anything about the law / set back CA gun grabbers / make “AWs” legal to build today.

  2. California makes a fool of themselves but that is SOP. I’m not sure how this a genuine setback because registration is the real issue and it will continue.

  3. Compromising rights away continues on. This is not a win. The only win would have been a complete ban on the registration.

    • “This is not a win. The only win would have been a complete ban on the registration.”

      If you are facing possible felony charges for not registering your guns via a mandated system that cannot register your guns, this is a “win”, though effectively only a reprieve. Between preventing specious felony charges, or fighting the bigger issue, one must choose the urgent issue, first; the essence of “live to fight another day”.

      The problem with the announcement (as far as gunowners are concerned) is that the notice does not indicate either a new filing against the registry as whole, nor does the notification mention any ongoing challenge to the registry.

      • Oh gee…The big problem is the website and not Jim Crow Gun Control.

        CA scumbag perverts have been after the 2A and they know they cannot take all of it at once so they take it one bit at a time. They went after cosmetics to please themselves, then after capacity and now registration.
        Anyone who complies with any CA crap complies with an agenda rooted in racism and genocide.
        Any cop that obeys orders from what is by all accoints the Nazi SS is a not a cop but a jack booted thug or a sheet wearing klansman.
        You want to arrest some filthy dirtbags then you go arrest the sicko high and mighty gun control scumbags who think they are running plantations and concentration camps.

  4. I’d call this an embarrassing loss and a huge setback for California gun control overall.

    I’d call it bullshit… How is still being required to register your sporting rifle (as an ASSAULT WEAPON) a WIN for gun owners?… Completely doing away with the “Assault Rifle” registration and NOT allowing Kommiefornia to write the definition of an “Assault Rifle” (Feinstein’s definition) would have been a HUGE setback AND a win for gun owners nationwide… This just sets a precedence (and a guideline) for National Registration… But hey at least they have to pay for YOUR expenses…

  5. Sounds like a condemned man graciously being offered his choice of cigarette brand before the firing squad gets down to business.

    • My brand is Lucky Strike.
      ” They dont make those anymore. ”
      The hell you say, oh well I’ll just sit here and wait till you find some.

  6. “A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

    “Ordinary citizens don’t need guns, as their having guns doesn’t serve the State.” – Heinrich Himmler.

    A politician with a law never stops a bad guy with a gun.
    He only controls the good guys which is his true agenda.

    Gun Confiscation Program:
    -Step 1 – Register all guns. (Gotta know who and where)
    -Step 2 – Confiscate all guns. (See following paragraph for the why)
    -Step 3 – Shoot unarmed fellow citizen resisters. (How)

    The new agenda for humanity requires that no one will have the capacity to fight back. It has been said: “Our Task of creating a Socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed.” No other explanation is possible.
    History has repeatedly demonstrated that disarming good people in the name of making bad people harmless only eventually facilitates politicians shooting their own countrymen. History…learn from it or be doomed to relive it….or die from it.

    “He who has the Might, determines who has the Right.” There’s the gun controllers’ agenda in a nut shell.

    “Everyone must determine for themselves what level of tyranny they are willing to tolerate.” Some old white guy

    “…..shall not be infringed.” Should be ” Nuff Said”. Our Founding Fathers would already have been finished shooting a second time. They are spinning in their graves for how we have relinquished what they gave us.

    • Were they revolutionaries or were they insurrectionist?
      I suppose it depends on which side of the pond your on.
      I know what’s going on, but I cant say, they’ll come after me.
      I can say theres War in the wind and the pond is the China sea.

  7. Interesting. Attempted to edit last comment well within typically alloted time window, got message “You do not have permission to edit this comment.”

  8. I’ll go against the grain here and say “good job SAF”
    We have seen the courts crack down on “standing”. If you are not directly injured by a policy/law, you don’t have “standing” to challenge it in court.

    The more people we have saying that they weren’t able to comply with the bad laws, the better the chance that more will join in to challenge those bad laws once they’re allowed.

    Also, keeping people out of prison just for exercising their 2A right is always a good thing. The broken registry made it so that people had to either get rid of their guns, or hide them and never use them without the risk of prison (effectively getting rid of them). Now at least they they will be able to own them “legally”.

    Yes, SAF just took an inch… but they’re still fighting for the whole mile.

    • All the “good” and the ghost “gains” from SAF, NRA yeah, right…not in a long time), GOA, FPA, et el, rights keep evaporating because never have they been shown anyone is serious about our rights, and the 2A specifically….it should guarantee all of the rights. There has never been anyone to put the “line in the sand” and enforce it….make believers out of them. So they just keep calling the same plays and inching a little each time. The 2A issue is actually a big David Copperfield illusion to distract and keep Patriots busy, while the other hand sets up to run the table by indoctrinating the children, segment divide and conquer via every facet of perversion and division, destroying America traditions and values and history, demonizing pro gun Patriots and Conservatives, ignoring oath of office/the Constitution/Bill of Rights, building the Government Plantation and getting the Dwellers comfy and in line, illegal hordes inbound, bankrupting via free shit et el, voting fraud, CCP partnering, et el, et el. All is in place, now they run the table with the gun registration/confiscation…..CA in the lead. 45 point plan to take over America, deliver Socialism a little bit at a time, is no longer a To Do list….it is a DONE checklist. America has been over run from within…..traitorous tyrants in the Command Post. Insurrection for decades sans a Kristallnacht or firing squad…..yet……but coming to a street corner near.

  9. Thank goodness they have a second chance to register their sporting rifle as an assault rifle.
    Hopefully they get a second chance to register their assault pistols, assualt shotgunms, and assault knives too.

  10. That’s how Nazi pre-WWII Germany did it to the Jews. Registration.. that didn’t work….post-registration = confiscation….that worked….unarmed….killed. See Kitty Werthermann YouTube videos explaining first hand (survived the Holocaust with concentration camp number tattoo as reminder) how it worked, and pleading for America not to give up our guns. Listen to them. They have told us they are coming for our guns……Sleazy, Senile Ole Joey (BINGO…), KamalHo (First 100 days….), Butto O’Dork (Hell, yes…), Slummer (Common sense….), FineStain (If I could Mr and Mrs America…), WaterBrain (HR127….),
    Jackshit-She (HR8….), et el.
    LISTEN AND BELIEVE. History….learn from it….re-live it….die by it.

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