It’s not news that California is America’s gun rights hell. The latest raft of laws that the state’s millions of gun owners are trying to navigate (or not) includes mandatory registration of “assault rifles.” Technically, that was already supposed to have happened, but due to rampant non-compliance and some technical difficulties, the state extended the deadline to June 30.
A Bakersfield man, wanting to comply with Sacramento’s latest diktats, attempted to register his firearms through the state Department of Justice’s web portal. How’d that go for him?
According to court documents, the California Department of Justice raided Jeffrey Scott Kirschenmann’s home last month, after he tried to register an illegally modified gun online through the state’s website.
What they found in his home, led to the DA filing charges: a dozen guns, 230 rounds of ammunition and two silencers seized from Jeffrey Scott Kirschenmann’s home in a gated community in Northwest Bakersfield.
Wow…all of 230 rounds. It isn’t clear from media reports how the rifle in question was allegedly modified. And the silencers are clearly illegal in the Golden State, because James Bond or something. For our part, we were impressed that the kget.com reporter somehow managed to write her story without once using the word ‘arsenal.’
A “recognized firearms expert” suggests gun owners seek help from an FFL in navigating California’s system.
Retired KCSO Commander Joe Pilkington is a court recognized firearms expert. He could not speak directly to Kirschenmann’s case but says the laws are changing so frequently, it’s often hard to keep up with the latest regulations.
“Just in the last few years, there have been lots of changes in gun laws,” he said. “Making an effort, a good faith effort to comply with these really complicated laws, should count for something.”
Maybe it should, but it doesn’t. And the difficulty legal gun owners experience in complying with the ever-shifting legal requirements heaped upon them is, in the view of Sacramento’s leading anti-gun lights, a feature, not a bug.
Kirschenmann is out on $150,000 bail, accused of 12 felonies for possessing assault rifles, silencers and a multi-burst trigger activator.
Ignorance of the law is never considered an excuse. But somehow, ignorance in drafting those laws and the infringements they impose on Second Amendment freedoms never seem to have any consequences. Go figure.