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lelandyee

Many of you remember Leland Yee from California. He introduced his AB 249 last year, known fondly as the bullet button ban. Most of the free world gets to simply push a nice button to release their magazines, but here in California we have this nifty little piece of crap bullet button. This was a work-around to bypass California’s AWB. Leland’s original legislation had no grand fathering and no financial restitution. Turn them in or be a felon. That was the choice. Now Leland is back, embolden by the tragedy at Sandy Hook and subsequent bloody T-Shirt waving. Lee’s SB 47 is currently sitting in committee. [Click here for the text.] This is not the only gun ban bill California is facing, but it’s one that reaches pretty deep . . .

Headline: Lee’s legislation outlaws modern semi-automatic hand guns. That’s in addition to California’s ten round ammunition magazine limit and mandatory magazine safety. Key verbiage:

This bill would revise these provisions to mean a semiautomatic, centerfire rifle or a semiautomatic pistol that does not have a fixed magazine but has any one of those specified attributes. This bill would also define “fixed magazine” to mean an ammunition feeding device contained in, or permanently attached to, a firearm in such a manner that the device cannot be removed without disassembly of the firearm action.

Can anyone tell me if a 50 BMG has ever been used in a civilian crime, anywhere? Not asking about some assassination of some public figure, but a stop and rob, or something like that. Well now folks who have ’em will go to jail, plain and simple.

Existing law requires that any person who, within this state, possesses any .50 BMG rifle, except as otherwise provided, be punished by a fine of $1,000, imprisonment in a county jail for a period not to exceed one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment.

Forced registration, because that should do us a lot of good!

Existing law requires  that, with specified exceptions, any person who, prior to January 1, 2001, lawfully possessed an assault weapon prior to the date it was defined as an assault weapon, and which was not specified as an assault weapon at the time of lawful possession, register the firearm with the Department of Justice.

And last but not least, no financial reimbursement. They’ll probably charge us a fee—or is it a tax? Penalty? You decide!

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

Meanwhile, the GRAA are trying to get the Sheriffs on board to tell them the Sacramento mob that they won’t enforce any new gun laws, period.

The most frightening part of all of this: California liberals have a super majority in the state legislature. They can ram bills through and override a veto by Governor Moonbeam himself if needs be. At least Yee’s boyz didn’t mandate house-to-house firearms confiscations. Yet . . .

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87 COMMENTS

  1. All hands on deck, folks. Just like the NY and IL legislation, if this gets traction in CA it will come to your state sooner or later.

    Dan, please update ASAP with links to organizations that are coming together to fight SB47.

  2. Two links that may be of interest.

    Gun Facts 6.1(PDF Document):
    http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/6.1/gun_facts_6_1_screen.pdf

    Gun Facts is a free e-book that debunks common myths about gun control. It is intended as a reference guide for journalists, activists, politicians, and other people interested in restoring honesty to the debate about guns, crime, and the 2nd Amendment.

    Gun Facts has 112 pages of information. Divided into chapters based on gun control topics (assault weapons, ballistic finger printing, firearm availability, etc.), finding information is quick and easy.

    Each chapter lists common gun control myths, then lists a number of documented and cited facts (with nearly 500 detailed footnotes). Thus when a neighbor, editor or politician repeats some sound bite about firearm control policy, you can quickly find that myth then rebuke with real information.

    Assaulted:Civil Rights Under Fire (A Kickstarter film project):
    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/assaulted/assaulted-civil-rights-under-fire-finishing-fund-c

    When the subject of gun control laws are discussed, rarely are they associated with the civil rights movement and the quest for equal rights for all.

    This film will compare the historical aspects of gun control targeting the indigenous tribes of North America and emancipated slaves, through the Jim Crow era to today’s laws that favor rich elitists and denies the rights guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment to the most vulnerable in our society. This documentary takes a critical look at the original intent of the current guns laws across the nation in contrast with crime and murder statistics before and since their implementation; and compares these laws to those currently proposed by the President and various states.

    A sample of the movie is available on the linked page.

  3. Where does this bill ban semi-auto handguns? It looks similar to the national bill just announced but doesn’t have a line stating any semi-auto version of a fully-automatic handgun. None of the listed features would apply to most common semi-auto pistols people carry. I’m not saying this is a good bill. It’s stupid. But lets make accurate statements about what it does.

    • It’s basically a kill the bullet button bill.

      Of course, this bill appears to have a giant easter egg: it reclassifies your bullet button gun into an assault weapon, which you have to register, but does not actually force you to keep it in bullet button configuration. Unless there’s something I’m missing, Yee’s bill would allow Californians to reconfigure their new registered AWs into a normal configuration.

      • First: I don’t agree with the bill at all, one bit. I escaped CA last year for a free state and I’m darn glad I did. That said, the article is misleading.

        Yeah nothing in the bill changes what made a handgun an “assault weapon” under previous California law anyway. The only difference is now a bullet button doesn’t qualify as making it so the gun has a fixed magazine per the law. Now to be a fixed magazine it can only be removable if the action is taken apart. You ONLY require a fixed magazine IF your pistol has a banned feature (threaded barrel, forward pistol grip, magazine inserted outside of the pistol grip, etc).

        This article should have mentioned what’s actually required in the bill to make a pistol an AW:

        (4) A semiautomatic pistol that does not have a fixed magazine but has any one of the following:
        (A) A threaded barrel, capable of accepting a flash suppressor, forward handgrip, or silencer.
        (B) A second handgrip.
        (C) A shroud that is attached to, or partially or completely encircles, the barrel that allows the bearer to fire the weapon without burning the bearer’s hand, except a slide that encloses the barrel.
        (D) The capacity to accept a detachable magazine at some location outside of the pistol grip.
        (5) A semiautomatic pistol with a fixed magazine that has the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds.

        • BTW 50BMG has always been completely illegal in CA and this bill doesn’t change any laws regarding it. Why it’s even mentioned in this bill is a total mystery. It says right in the sentence, “existing law requires…”. But we shouldn’t act like something is going to change for 50 BMG whether this law passes or not. It’s already flat-out banned and highly illegal.

        • JMS, that’s actually not true. For a number of years after 50BMG rifles hit the scene, it was perfectly legal to buy and possess both rifle and ammo. (Good luck finding a range less than 3 hours from any major metro area that permitted 50BMG during that same time period, but I digress.)

          50BMG rifles were outlawed and made fully illegal for possession (no grandfathering) in 2004, with the law taking effect in 2005.

          BUT

          If you’re in the Praetorian Guard, excuse me, you’re a law enforcement officer or agent, then it’s cool, you can have a 50BMG rifle. (No offense to my LEO friends, I just hate how legislators are creating a separate class of citizen with a superset of my rights.)

          Here’s the one that kills me: if you’re an out-of-state owner of a 50BMG rifle, you can bring it into the state for shooting competition. If you’re a CA resident, you can’t compete with your own 50BMG rifle because there is no way for you to legally acquire or possess one. Fsck me with a chainsaw.

          Here, educate yourselves:

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_Caliber_BMG_Regulation_Act_of_2004

        • Looks like this is meant specifically to hit AK and AR pistols.

          Yes, that is it precisely.

          Personally, I think the idea of rifle-caliber “pistols” is a thinly-disguised legal hack to get around the SBR laws. Ridiculous though they may be, I still support people’s right to own them if that’s what they like.

          The HUGE fracking problem here is the bullet-button ban. Life with an AR-class rifle in CA is tolerable with the bullet button, but it’s going to SUCK if that compliance measure is outlawed. Pulling the takedown pins to top-load a fixed-magazine AR is bullshyt and I want no part of that.

          THIS BILL MUST DIE.

  4. My advice, gentleman? Vote with your feet. California, New York, etc. are all sinking ships, and we’ve got plenty of room for y’all here in Texas. No state income tax, beautifully lax gun laws, tons of game, and best of all a legislature that still honors the constitution.

    • The problem lies when all those fed up Californians decide Texas should be more like California and start electing liberal whackos…

      • Yup, sadly, it’s happening to Colorado, and even Utah is starting to get some of that nowadays. There’s absolutely no concept for some of these people of ’cause and effect.’ It is, as Robert Heinlein observed many years ago, just “bad luck” that keeps following them around.

        • Not to mention New Hampshire. It’s almost farcial how many MA refugees move their to escape whatever ails their former home, yet seems to be completely unaware that what made them move in the first place, is exactly what they are trying to turn NH into.

          Off top of my mind, the only “solution” that comes to mind, is for locals to be utterly belligerent about “rightwingisms.” AKs, or ARs, slung over the shoulders of 12 year olds on their way to schools teaching shooting as an integral part of young mens’ education, would probably scare the most squeamish and obnoxious interlopers back behind their iron curtains. But, alas, even most who like to style themselves gun guys, seem too squeamish for that. So, one by one, by baby steps, their freedoms will be eroded, because noone wants to seem “extremists”, as if that’s somehow a bad thing.

        • Colorado has gone sadly leftward in the last ten years. I do note that Udall has softened his support of an AWB somewhat in the last few days, so I’m guessing that the heat we’ve been applying must be having some effect. If there’s a credible R running against him in 2014, a vote for an AWB from this clown might just have him moving on to the Joyce Foundation, or Center for American Progress, where he belongs.

      • It happened and is still happening to Oregon. Oregon used to be a very conservative and independent state. Today, it has become what I call the Northern Province of California. I am now looking at relocating my family and business to either Arizona, Wyoming, or Montana.

        • Western Washington has suffered the same fate….not just californcation, but yuppification as well.
          Sad thing is, Eastern Wa. is still relatively free but out-voted by the birkenstock wearing, tofu farting crowd across the hills….another good example of a situation like Colorado, where it would benefit us (Eastern Wa.) to form our own state.

  5. You meant to say bullet buttons are “engineered improvements to comply with the AWB”, right? Nobody’s circumventing the law, just trying to follow it.

    • Correct. And in the process of following the law the bullet button AND the 10 round mag makes the AR-15 completely pointless, IMHO.

  6. I mean no disrespect, but don’t live in jurisdictions where this nonsense is happening…period. Personally, I’m for home rule on guns. If Illinois wants to go wacko on gun laws – so be it. Vote with your feet. Much better than the one-size-fits-all federal agenda.

    • Why should people have to leave their homes because of unconstitutional infringments on their rights? I guess black people after the civil was should have just left the south!

      A man or a woman has the same set of rights guarenteed by the bill of rights regardless if they like in NYC, Chicago , LA, Miami or Gatlinburg WV. Left unchecked those big city intrusions will find you no matter where you live. Hitler was more popular with the Urban community in the beginning too; lot of good it did for the people who fled Germany to France, Poland and the Czec Republic.

    • It’s easy to talk about “voting with one’s feet”. The fact that it has not been done, en masse, demonstrates that it is far more difficult to do. Work, family obligation, property ties all come into play.

      • Actually it has been done en masse. Over the last decade more than a million Californians have fled to other states. The only reason our population has grown in that time is because of high birth rates in the immigrant Hispanic community plus high levels of immigration from outside the country.

        1 in 4 California residents is foreign born. Most come from countries where the civil right to keep and bear arms doesn’t exist, which might help explain why our civil rights under the Second Amendment are in such peril here.

        Living in California is like living in a foreign country and I say that as someone whose family has lived here for 100 years. We still need to stand and fight here however, if only to stop the spread of this disease to neighboring states.

        • One of the problems is that many of the uber leftist Californians, during the great housing bubble, sold their shacks for ridiculous sums, then split to better places….once there, they either wormed their way into political positions or voted those idiots whom they identified with into office.
          Colorado,Oregon, Western Washington, and parts of Idaho & Montana are prime examples.
          They are like cancer to freedom…

    • You live in Germany, they said.
      Move to Poland, they said.
      I hear they’re not killing the Jews in Poland, they said.

    • The problem with voting with your feet is you will eventually have nowhere to walk. My thought is that if the lib’s or whoever don’t like the constitution then THEY can move to the UK or wherever else that doesn’t have a 2A. All these grabbers have missed one very important fact. If they’ve decided not to hold the gun, then they will surely be looking down the barrel of one.

  7. The bullet-button is not a work-around, suggesting a “loophole”. It’s a California compliance device used by law-abiding citizens.

  8. Bingo.

    Vote with your feet and get out. Let the dependents and their slave masters collapse when the productive members of their society are gone and no longer footing the bill.

  9. California, it is time for you to pull your collective head out, so to speak, and start voting these fools out of office.

    • Leland “Goatfscker” Yee is a state Senator representing the San Francisco district. Unless he’s caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl, he’s in office through the end of his current term.

      Fortunately, I’m 99% sure he is term-limited and has to leave the state Senate at the end of this term. We just need to fight a holding action to keep him from further infringements on our rights in the meantime.

      • Nah, he’s from San Francisco. Being caught in bed with either a live boy or a dead girl would simply be playing to his base. . .

        • AR, SM,

          For the avoidance of doubt, I meant something along the lines of being caught with a prepubescent boy. Or a farm animal. Or both, really.

          If either of you were alleging that SF is pedo heaven, I invite you to visit and form your own opinions.

      • Live boy will just boost his popularity in his SF district. Unless someone finds a way to use such unequal bedroom representation to out him as a sexist, or something.

      • Yes, this is his last term, He has indicated that he plans to run for the state Secretary of State job when his term ends. (We have term limits, but these guys keep bouncig around in the system for years after their legislative terms have been used up. Even politicians have some job security.)

        • I worked to get Debra Bowen elected CA SoS, and she’s done a great job cleaning up the e-voting mess left by her predecessors.

          There’s no way I’m going to stand by and watch Yee slither into the SoS office. I’m not going to run against him myself, but I sure as heck will figure out which of his opponents has the best shot and do everything I can to get them elected.

          And yes, TTAG readers, that means I will likely be supporting a Democrat who is not Leland “Goatfscker” Yee for this office, because that’s how things work here.

  10. The bullet button was a work-around to be in compliance with, rather than an effort to bypass, California’s AWB. It bugs me that gun control advocates lobby for laws that, when passed, manufacturers and gun buyers actually conform to. Then they characterize the resulting firearms as some sort of perfidious efforts to circumvent the law when in fact they were efforts to be in compliance with the law.

    • Florida and Ohio used to be good , 100% pro gun small gov republician states. Both are slowly slipping away now. How long before by your methods all we have left is Idaho and Montana?

  11. What ithis bill essentially provides is two-fold. One, it outlaws the future sale of any semi-automatic rifle that has a detachable magazine (and continues the list of the other features of AWs previously outlawed). It further provides that any internal magazine cannot have a greater than 10 round capacity. You can keep what you got, if you register the weapons (grandfathering). It would seem that this ban will encompass Mini-14s and M1 carbines. Get ’em while you can. Second, this bill will outlaw AR pistols in pretty much any configuration. Semi-auto handguns are otherwise safe from this bill (as long as they comply with the existing ten round magazine limit).

    • If you think that they are going to allow grandfathering, you better look again and check out Assembly Bill AB174. It seeks to eliminate grandfathering. So not only will it make the BB rifles illegal but anyone who registered a Pre Ban weapon as well.

      • I have accurately summarized the provisions of THIS bill. THIS bill specifically provides for grandfathering. I think Yee understands, though he doesn’t like it, that confiscating guns would clearly implicate consitutional rights and would likely result in the invalidation of the bill if passed into law.

  12. And if we bail on California. At the federal level the word goes out that California’s “common sense” gun control works, let’s take it national. Remember the awb of 94 got started in California. And where in the constitution does it say that I lose my rights because of my zip code.

    NY, Ill, NJ are pissants compared to California. If we lose the battle here, we’ve lost the war. SAF, NRA and all you TTAG’ers need to realize that Californiais the front lines and this is where the efforts need to be made.

    • If we lose the battle in California we lose California, i.e., we lose nothing we currently have. The states where gun bans are moving forward are the deep blue states where the pro-Second Amendment culture has been dead for years. We should concentrate our resources on keeping our right ot bear arms intact in the rest of the country. I do not care what happens to the soon to bankrupt blue states. When they can no longer afford to pay the police than even fascists like Lee will be living in fear of the thugs that will control the streets.

      • That’s not how it works. It’s not an either/or. Legislation that passes in CA should be considered a preview of bills that will make it to your state sooner or later.

        Fight this in every state, in every legislature and courtroom, OR stay home, clutch your guns, and wait for the disarmament enforcers to get around to regulating YOU. Those are your choices.

        Note that the SAF is very active in California. Perhaps there’s a lesson there.

      • You do realize that if California goes bankrupt it ain’t just California that gets hurt, right Tdiinva? California has a bigger economy than Greece. The whole country, pro gun and anti gun are fvcked if California goeas under.

    • This.

      Everyone suggesting that we move out of CA can fsck off. My career is here, my community is here, and most importantly, I refuse to concede defeat and flee in terror. That solves nothing, and worse, gives the confiscators more momentum in their push to roll over the entire US into disarmament.

      • Absolutely. Fortunately I live in an area that is much more gun-friendly, but I can’t leave, and the gun lovers cannot outvote the gun banners. Our only solutions are judicial, and those steps have been and are being taken. We are just waiting on the Ninth Circuit to see what the next step will be. Unfortunately, the Ninth seems to be dragging its heals, waiting for the Supremes to act, or the dust to settle in other districts, or something. There are a bunch of cases under submission awaiting rulings.

  13. It’s time to work togeather as Americans to maintain our Constitutional Rights when and where they are threatened. Yee’s bill is one such threat. Writing these threats off as “crazy California”, “nutty New York” or “idiotic Illinois”is not helpful and serves as a divide amoungst us. However, it is helpful to the gun grabbers.

    My great-great Grandmother was a Cherokee and I studied the Trail of Tears. I am an American who lives in California and has firearms. We need the help and support of our fellow American firearm owners.

    If I run from the fight here, where does it end? Should I have to up end my life, leave friends, spend treasure and move because they are trying to stomp on the Constitution? I just can’t give up that easily. No way. I’d feel like I was fleeing in the face of the emeny and desserting my fellow Californian firearm owners.

    If are willing to help us, here are a few sites.
    The Calguns Foundation
    http://www.calgunsfoundation.org
    The California Firearms Owner’s Home On The Internet
    http://www.calguns.net/
    California Rifle and Pistol Association (Founded 1875)
    http://www.crpa.org/

    • +1

      People don’t realize that while “vote with your feet” might benefit you in the short run, large states like California and New York inevitably have a ripple effect on the other states in the union. Letting CA or NY pass ridiculous laws against legit gun owners makes the rest of us vulnerable in the long run.

      On a personal note, I have lots of family in CA and I want them to enjoy the same rights that I have here in WA state. I don’t expect them to all move and leave – they have jobs, houses, churches, and lives built down there. Gun owners everywhere need to rally around and support our brethren who are struggling for their rights.

      Telling them “just move” isn’t feasible for every gun owner out there.

  14. How can you Kaliforians keep electing a Chi Com scumbag like Yee? If your smart leave the Nazi state of Kaliforina before they ban you as a person not following Moe Tse Yee’s Nazi scams.

    • He’s from the Bay Area, where you’ll never meet a Republican unless he’s just passing through. The large urban areas of this state are massivley anti-gun (Nordyke v. King started in Alameda County, right across the Bay, where they sought to ban gun shows). San Francisoc now wants to ban possession of “military and hollow point” ammunition as only suitable for soldiers and cops. I guess those folks have to get by with rubber bullets. Portantino in So.Cal, is anti everything gun, and has proposed the most vile of all of the bills. He hates ARs with a passion. He hates people with guns (he was responsible for the open carry ban). These guys get re-elected because they are democrats in a democratic majority state. No way the repubs can vote them out.

    • Lance, did you read my post above? He’s a bay area representative and I live in San Diego. BTW, two of the Benghazi dead were from here and this is where Navy Seals come from. Please don’t abandon us.

      • I just about Verped watching him on Stossel recently. Stossel did a show comparing CA with TX, and he had a segment with Yee and Suzanna Hupp from Texas. She basically pwned him, but his smug ignorance and unwillingness to either listen or comprehend was truly amazing to see.

        • Your stomach is stronger than mine, AR. I so thoroughly despise him that I can’t tolerate watching him on video for any length of time.

  15. Stupid libtard Commie rats. Why try to make us sniff Zyklon-B because you want to commit suicide by a potential future state force.

  16. I see a lot of people that say we should go into California to fight this. Personally, I have lost hope that the US will ever regain its position as a free republic that values the freedoms it was founded upon, so I just can’t see how going into the viper den of California will help. I think that the United States has become the “Divided States of America” like no other time since the Civil War, and it is going to get much worse. Sadly, being a history buff with a firm belief in cause-and-affect, I am pretty certain this is going to get horribly ugly in a way fitting for those big, thick coffee table history books. For me, I am relocating my family to a state that I personally feel comfortable extending my loyalty toward, to a state that will defend my freedoms against an overreaching central government, and to a state that will defy this newest incarnation of totalitarianism. The last thing I want is for my family to be stuck in a blue state when this gets really ugly.

    Wow! Five year’s ago I never would have thought that I would need to write a post on something like this. It is amazing how fast things have slid in these last 4 years.

  17. This is wrong.who the hell in ca. are just going to bend over just for that foreiner? We cant even vote on it . Im leaving for Nevada.

  18. Scumbag Leland Yee arrested for conspiracy to smuggle guns into the country. Scumbag of the year award!!!

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