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1kamala-harris

By DrVino

Beginning January 1st, 2015 California gun sales require the Firearms Safety Certificate. Many people and dealers are still in the dark about the process. The DOJ has been caught with its pants down, unprepared for the rollout of this new process. The website dealers use to administer the test and issue the FSC crashes regularly, although current reports from select FFLs indicate the process is improving. It’s almost as if it was developed by CGI Federal. Here is what is known about the new process . . .

If you hold a valid Handgun Safety Certificate, you can use that to purchase handguns until it expires. Then you need an FSC.

If you have a valid Hunters Safety Certificate (or a valid/current hunting license), you can use that to purchase long guns until it expires. Then you need an FSC.

Whereas the previous HSC was a pre-printed card — about the size of a Social Security card — that the dealer filled in and signed, the new system requires dealers to either print the card, now twice the aforementioned size, on plain white paper or card stock.

Corporate offices of some chain stores are reportedly living minute-to-minute, getting info from the DOJ to their stores. Some seem unsure if they are in compliance or not. People are unable to buy because the system crashes and they can’t get through the process of testing and FSC issuance. The DOJ website used by FFLs to administer the process crashed briefly on January 2nd and again for a long period on Saturday, January 3rd. Crashes are occurring daily, according to some FFLs.

There are accounts of people wanting to purchase firearms and leaving the store because they are unable to initiate the testing process. The test is required for the FSC. The FSC is required to initiate a Dealer’s Record Of Sale (form 4773, registration and background check).

People are apparently unable to pick up guns put into purgatory prior to December 31st. Initially, everyone thought guns purchased and put through the background check and state-mandated 10-day waiting period before year-end would be exempted from the new FSC, even if the pick-up date was after January 1st. A week ago, according to one sporting goods store manager, word came down that those buyers in that situation would now need to have an FSC to pick up their guns, an additional $25 or $35 cost.

While he is able to describe the process in theory, this sporting goods store manager has not seen the process executed in its entirety and hasn’t been able to release or sell a gun this year so far.

What we have here is more than a technical violation of the spirit of the Second Amendment. If the system in place bars people from obtaining firearms (by design, bureaucratic bloat or simple incompetence), then the people’s rights have been infringed.

Furthermore, it appears that Kamala Harris, America’s Best Looking Attorney General, isn’t particularly interested in enforcing existing “gun safety” laws she seems to hold so dear. In fact, her department’s failure to prevent this debacle speaks directly to her true intentions: willful and deliberate infringement of Second Amendment rights of Californians.

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135 COMMENTS

  1. To parapahrase a gun grabber’s favorite saying: If even one life is lost, due to the state’s unlawful delay and infringement, then the Attorney general should be prosecuted as accessory to murder. I know that won’t happen, but if something of the sort should happen where someone is victimized due to inability to purchase a firearm for self defense, civil suits should flow. Especially wrongful death suits if a fatality occurs!

  2. Wonderful. So fracking wonderful. I was hoping to go to a gun show this weekend but with this might kill that plan.

    In other news, Kamala Harris is still a terrible human being. It is known.

  3. When are California gun owners going to stand up and decide to stop being slaves? I can’t believe the number of gun owners who will put up with this crap without throwing a holy fit endlessly until it changes.

    • What do you suggest? A facebook page? Some sort of petition? A march? Oh, I know, they can give money to republican candidates, that ought to do it!!! You’re right, they DO need to stand up, but after they stand up they need to put one foot in front of the other, and keep doing it over and over until they’re in another state, because that place is hopeless, and the people who live there are responsible.

        • That is something which should NEVER be allowed to happen to the most populous state in the Union.

      • If you want to win, take some notes from Texas: shfit aggressively libertarian while embrasing the middle-class, conservative Latinos and Asians. You must reach out to people outside of your comfort zone and educate them rather than alienate them with ballot iniatives and rhetoric that amount to feel-good measures. Most importantly, focus on the middle-class and small business owners like a laser pointer. They’re the ones getting screwed the most by a California political class that caters to multi-nationals, billionares and the poor cheap, imported service workers that cater to their every need.

        In short, learn from Texas Republicans, meet new people and pay more than lip service to the middle-class and small business owner.

    • And what would you have us do? God knows we vote for our guns in every damn election, but we are outnumbered by idiots. We bring and fund lawsuits, but our liberal court system blocks and delays them for years. Pena v. Cid (Handgun roster) is at what, 14 years now? Some of us have jobs, families, and lives here that we cannot uproot to move elsewhere. Besides, running away doesn’t solve CA’s problems.

      So what more would you have us do? Start shooting people? Do you think that will solve our problems, or create a litany of new ones?

      • Really, you need more media control. And the few rich people in hollywood who aren’t liberal should speak the hell up. IMO part of the problem is a lack of reach due to someone else controlling the message. Also liberals take the VERY long view of getting the children. Conservatives/Pro-gun people are WAY underrepresented in control of how schools are run and what is taught there as well as media.

        Why isn’t there a “Bloomberg” on our side? Ridiculously rich person throwing money and advertisements at the cause? There is no sound reason why wealthy powerful people should NOT be pro-gun/conservative since the liberal side of things taken to their full logical conclusion would harm most rich people in the end.

        Why isn’t the pro-gun/conservative side focusing more strongly on getting gun education and constitution education into schools (Kudos to South Carolina for making an effort, but really… it’s taking this long for even SOUTH CAROLINA to figure out that maybe we need to be educating children a certain way if we want better outcomes later? It seems like people have just abandoned the children to liberal propaganda.)

        We’ve basically allowed liberals to control the message in the schools and on the TV. WHY? And holy crap why on earth can’t the few pro-gun/conservative people who manage to get some leverage in either media or education simply focus on the FACTS instead of inserting religion into it and coming off as extreme whackadoos?

        I’m tired of listening to the extremists on both sides being crazy. Why can’t normal people ever have a voice?

        • ” And the few rich people in hollywood who aren’t liberal should speak the hell up.”

          Sorry, but no. The richies there have been speaking up, and they mostly speak for gun control and gated communities. It’s like the Atlantic corridor where the wealthy there can buy security.

          They want the middle-class and working class powerless and at the complete mercy of a state they can pay to do their bidding. No one speaks for the middle-class, working class and small-business-owner in CA. 2A is a middle-class, working class and SBO issue.

          If you tie firearms liberalization to other issues that cater to the middle-clas, working class and SBOs, and you might get some progress.

        • @ Summer:
          “Why can’t normal people ever have a voice?”

          Problem is, “We the People” are a pretty wide ranging ‘melting pot’. In CA, what’s normal to you and me may not be normal to Mary and Cindy Onesex or Dennis and Mindy Libbybum down the street who celibrate the religion ‘Utopia’ who’s God is a unicorn.

          California seems to be infected with an overabundance of that kind of sheeple minded progressive nanny reliant entitlement seeking Democrat voter, and just like people such as you and me, they vote their preferences too – for representation that doesn’t favor Second Amendment protections, largely because it isn’t much of a priority to them. Plus, not being informed otherwise by the rabidly anti-gun biased media in this state and nationally, they easily buy into the gun grabbing dogma and rhetoric of the Democrat’s political platform.

        • I said “the few people in hollywood who AREN’T liberal should speak the hell up.” There ARE people with money in hollywood and in the entertainment industry who are conservative. Jon Voight is only one example. There are many. Not as many as the liberals, but the conservatives have been cowed into silence so that it looks like one homogenized view. And that’s just not the case out there.

          If more people with power, money, and influence spoke up, it wouldn’t suddenly “only” be cool to be a granola crunchy liberal.

          Also, just having money doesn’t mean you are evil or only out to protect yourself and want to rule over a bunch of peasants and serfs. There are plenty of people in the world with truckloads of money who see the bigger picture and don’t want this brave new world. (Some of them, it’s only because they are smart enough to see that their wealth exists based on business and investments and most businesses sell stuff to the middle class. When you dry up the middle class, you don’t have enough wealthy people who are going to even want your crap for capitalism to keep working. They are also smart enough to see that when the bread and circuses run out it will be their heads on pikes.)

          Either way, the fact that we don’t have our own “Bloomberg” is pretty bizarre to me.

          But I agree with you that Conservatives in California need to go more libertarian and tie gun rights directly in with benefits to the middle class and then walk that talk.

        • @Roscoe, I should have been more clear. “normal” is obviously subjective. Maybe I should have said “normative” instead. i.e. there is a LONG continuum of behavior, attitudes, and beliefs in the political spectrum. And it tends to have extremes on all sides. But MOST human beings do not live inside those extremes. And yet everything that is supposed to represent us tends to talk in those extremes.

          Of course some might think I’m “extreme” about 2A but I’m not sure what part of “shall not be infringed” and “law of the land” is giving them so much trouble.

      • You know that “from time to time the tree of liberty” quote… First off you need a separator. You need to find out which tyrants are sheep and which are goats.(1) A peaceful mass demonstration should do this nicely. Walk down the street with paper guns and block traffic in front of your capital or wherever you know these tyrants hang out. (2) Now take these paper or cardboard guns and lay them all at the front door and make a bill of sale for each with the name of your favorite local tyrant under the “buyer” portion. Now the date for each and every one of these bills should be in the future and all the “seller” addresses should be the same also. (3) Now on that date and at that place should be another peaceful demonstration. All parties involved should be wearing nice dress clothes and NO CAMO. Button up shirts and blue jeans at a minimum and similar standards for women also. There should be no signs and nobody should say anything but a once every 3-5 minutes the 2nd amendment should be read loudly by all. Now that’s the peaceful portion. Should any lobsterbacks shoot on civies then I see no reason that the trees of California not be “refreshed”.

      • “Besides, running away doesn’t solve CA’s problems.”

        While that’s true, and should be considered in the big picture, we tell people in a lot of other circumstances that first you need to solve your own problems, before you start saving the world. And gunowners or lovers of freedom to make one’s own decisions, in that regard, need to leave CA.

  4. I attempted to impulse buy a Mossberg bolt action .410 and was told my valid hunting licemse was not good enough. I had to do the FSC and pay the fee. That cooled my desire to buy the little shotgun.

    I’ve asked this question before. If the 8 million or so people that own guns in CA are squeezed out of the gun market how will this effect bottom line for gun and ammo companies? Will they have to scal back production? Raise per unit costs to make up the difference?

    • If the 8 million or so people who own guns in california all stood up and loudly DEMANDED their rights and filed lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit until it changed… it would.

      If a TINY minority of people in the gay rights movement can get the kind of public acceptance they’ve gotten and the marriage rights they’ve gotten… gun owners have no excuses. Sorry, but all the silence from gun owners in places like California is exactly why this kind of encroachment can happen at all.

      *Note: I am not against gay rights. My only point is gay people are a TINY minority of the population. 1%-3%. That kind of tiny minority somehow STILL managing to get so much support is boggling and it speaks to the squeaky wheel. Go squeak please. I don’t want this gun control disease spreading to my free state.

      • Summer, we do. Note the lawsuits. We’re just outnumbered here. And of course the constitution is supposed to protect the individual from the tyranny of the majority. Or so I’ve heard.

        And your comment, which is bascially the same made by others everytime CA comes up, along with the infantile “Just move”, doesnt answer my question about the economic impact on gun and ammo companies if CA is written off.

        • Fair enough. 8 million just seems like a lot of people to me. But I guess that’s because I forget LA has over 9 million people alone. That kind of population density astounds me.

          I also hear about various protests/rallies etc. where much less than even 1 million show up and it creates huge waves of response. So it seems like if all 8 million of you could get together to voice your views, it would make a difference, but if the votes aren’t there, they aren’t.

          Honestly, no offense, but I wish California would just entirely disconnect from the US (like that the land mass would break off and drift into the ocean. After that, I wish it would become it’s own sovereign nation and stop affecting the outcomes of large elections here at home.)

          All that crunchy granola hippie crap that’s all “feelz” and no logic is grating and harmful to a free people.

        • Summer. Take a look at the map of California. Note the legend and distances. I’ve been involved in 2A activism – including organizing, rallies, protests and other citizen actions. It’s at least a 6 hour drive from L.A. to Sacramento. Longer if one lives in Orange County or San Diego. It’s not so much apathy as logistics that are the killer here. It’s just damned near impossible to get people to the capitol in meaningful numbers. There are more than one protest on the capitol grounds on any given day. To stand out, we would have to have several thousand people there.

        • @DrVino that sucks re: logistics. And that’s my point about big numbers. I’m not saying it’s “easy” to get a large number of people together at one time for an event, but Times Square sure is packed every year at midnight. Is it not even barely conceivable that a BIG impressive number could actually be gathered? I know people are obviously fighting, but it still seems like most everybody is somewhat apathetic, not happy, but not really DOING anything either.

          I’m on the other side of the country and I’m not traveling 3,000 miles to fight for a state that won’t fight for itself.

        • Then travel 3000 miles to fight for your state. Or contribute or support the fight from where you are.
          Because this craziness can spread like ebola.
          And if you think we’re not fighting it, just wait ’till the last person actually does stop fighting.

        • The real problem with gun activism in California is that too many of the gun have jobs and responsibilities if you were all unemployed leaching suckers of the federal Taxation you to could protest professionally just like the rainbow coalition illegal activists

        • Dr.Vino, California isn’t my state. I’m IN my state, which doesn’t require a 3k mile trip. It’s irrational and unreasonable to ask me to go to California and join the fight for gun rights over there when a big portion of the 8 million gun owners aren’t even fighting. Screw that noise. I’m in a deep red state. Should the tide turn away from me here, I’ll fight it here, but California is dead to me.

          Also, I can’t AFFORD to travel 3k miles in an ongoing fight that most of the gun owners actually IN the state are too apathetic to make noise about.

        • Okay, I’ll play your game…if 8 million CA gun owners are taken out of the market, it might have the effect of gun and ammo companies having to scale back production, and perhaps some of them would attempt to make up the difference in profits by raising prices, but only if they scaled back production WITHOUT scaling back overhead, which wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense. More likely, gun and ammo companies would have to deal with diminished demand, which would lower the value of their products, resulting in lower prices. There’d also be some layoffs to offset diminished earnings. On the plus side, we’d have lower prices for a while, and a more plentiful ammo supply.

        • I think that removing CA from the market is a mixed bag for producers. Yes, they lose the 8M people in the market but they also get to cut from their production line CA compliant models that have a cap of on 8M buyers. As far as I know no one who has a choice to buy a non-CA compliant firearm does so willingly. With the freeing up of production capacity they can produce more firearms that can be sold in a larger number of markets and that could cause a slight price drop which would lead to more sales. Or they keep producing at the same rate for those markets and absorb the money previously spent on overhead and working the CA market as profit.

          For ammo didn’t they just ban lead ammo there? If so again another mixed bag. Again, they lose access to 8M buyers but they can now push that ammo to the larger US market where it will get eaten up. They also avoid the costs of special CA runs of bullets. Anytime you have to retool/reformulate/rewhatever for a speciality market it costs money up front and in the long run because of lost economies of scale the the like.

          In the end an 8% decrease in the size of the market (assuming 100M gun owners in the US) would hurt in the short term but not devastate the manufactures for long.

        • Right on. I am currently in the process of removing CA mandated crap from the LC9 I got from Santa. LCI, MD, and safety (on a DAO! Do they require a safety on revolvers, too?). If they’d stop listening to the CA lawmakers, there would be better choices for the rest of us.

      • The gay community get the press and lobbying, because they are favored by liberals and democrats. While gun owners are hated flat out.

        • Given that conservative values are more productive for capitalism in general, I don’t understand why there isn’t more consolidated media power (given that they are corporations) in conservative hands. Most of the democrat talking points would be eventually harmful to the wealthy if carried out to their logical conclusions. Or do all the people with money think they would be the special sneaufake exceptions in the tippy top ruling class?

          I know that both parties have a lot of corporate interests involved. I just don’t see how democratic policies actually benefit wealthy people. They would have to have exemptions made for them for almost everything to continue the “lifestyle to which they have become accustomed”. And in a totalitarian state how could they guarantee such consideration? I mean can’t the govt at some point of control just come in and take their money? No need for them to contribute to campaigns voluntarily to get what they want anymore.

          If I’m missing something, I’m happy to be corrected on it. I just fundamentally don’t understand why wealthy corporations would ever be liberal.

        • Also, since democratic talking points tend to engender class warfare, if we did come to the end of the logical conclusion and wealthy people were flat out being robbed by the govt, they couldn’t exactly appeal to the public, because nobody would care about the plight of the poor put upon rich person.

          I get the “short term” benefits to wealthy liberal people. I just don’t see how their long game, if they actually won and got their brave new world would work out for them. I wonder the same thing about elected officials… at some point they might not be in office. In a socialistic state, where they are now one of the peasants… why the hell wouldn’t they just work toward a more free country instead, where they would be somewhat safe in all outcomes rather than a world in which if they ever fell from grace they are a slave?

        • Summer: It isn’t money. The super rich who own the media corporations make sure that they write exemptions into every law, so that they are not affected by it like everyone else. And even if they were affected by their socialist ideals, they are raking in so much money that they wouldn’t even notice.

          I’m straying from my point though. It isn’t money that these people are after, it is power. The democrat party is very good at one thing: creating and maintaining underclasses of people who will suffer in poverty created by democrats, but always keep looking up to those democrat leaders who promise better lives. See the poverty ridden populations of black and hispanic people in America. They are continually suppressed by the democrat party, just kept alive through welfare. They are the base of the party’s power, and will continue to vote for the very people who are perpetuating their suffering. Thus the people in power, stay in power. If the democrats were to ever actually help the poor to lead better lives, then those poor people would quickly start voting republican. It is simply in the democrats’ best interests to keep their largest voting blocs destitute.

        • @Ben I get the exemptions in the laws part, but at some point a federal govt with so much power can override those exemptions by fiat. The reasons we even have the rule of law in the first place is that we have a somewhat functional constitution. They’re trying to shred our constitution which would weaken rule of law overall, so there wouldn’t be much to hold any law in place at all if they were successful. So what makes them in their tiny pea brains think they could forever escape their own evil bullshit?

          Maybe they really are that arrogant. I know their useful idiots clearly seem to be.

          re: keeping a poor underclass. I know you’re right about that, but it’s absolutely disgusting. Part of that is also an uneducated underclass. It’s hard to help the masses understand how they are being screwed over if they are kept poor and stupid.

        • This whole thread reminds me of this movie scene…

          Daggett: “I’ve paid you a small fortune”

          Bane: “And this gives you power over me?”

          ……..yeah I nerd out for the Batman movies.

        • I think it was Summer who asked why corporations would support liberal policies. First, leftists don’t support liberal policies, they support statist/authoritarian policies. “Liberal” is a name they adopted after the word “progressive” became poison (though that cooled off over the decades until they feel comfortable using it again these days). I know, this seems nit-picky, but it’s important. Orwell placed great importance on the idea of language control as thought control for a good reason.

          Anyway, “Or do all the people with money think they would be the special sneaufake exceptions in the tippy top ruling class?” Yes, most of them probably do. But they are not voting altruistically. It’s no accident that the rich have gotten richer and more of the middle class have slipped downward under Obama. Tax the corporations? It’s a joke. Those taxes and regulatory costs are just passed straight on to consumers, all the while the red tape jungle and laws protect the big boys from competition.

          One of my best friends growing up in CA is a perfect example. He had a small concrete pouring business, and was doing quite well. He does good work, and quickly developed a larger base of clients than he could handle. But the sheer amount of red tape in CA made it impractical for him to expand, since he couldn’t afford a full-time staff to deal with all the regulatory crap like bigger companies could. Not too big a deal, since he was happy working on his own and making a very good living. But then, CA passes new environmental regulations that make his equipment, only a few years old at the time, illegal. [Incidentally, the Cal EPA staff member who prepared the report on which the law was based was horribly selective in the research he cited, and was later shown to have lied about earning an advanced degree]. The new draconian regulations that put my friend out of business didn’t hurt the big boys, because they could upgrade their equipment gradually under the law. Wonderful, unless you only operate one pump like my friend did. So, the little guys perished while the big guys were protected, the .gov expanded it’s power, pols got money from the big construction companies, and eventually all those extra regulatory costs will be passed on to consumers. Consumers who will complain bitterly about taxes and housing costs in CA, all the while voting democrat because they buy into the crap about the leftists being the party of the people.

          There is a happy ending to the story, though. My friend moved to TN, where he well on the way to establishing a thriving concrete business. Just an anecdote, but this basic story plays out again and again, at various levels.

        • Hey Old Ben, thanks for laying all that out. So corporations who are in bed with the “liberal” side are playing the short game and are too arrogant to think the long game will end with their heads on pikes. Got it. The problem with their plan is… their isn’t enough money available through taxation to keep the little serfs just comfortable enough to go along with the program. In the short term, yes. Over the next 10-20 years? Absolutely not. When people are starving while their corporate masters are going on luxury cruises and all the little guys realize this is no land of opportunity anymore, it simply won’t matter what the govt. “says” they are doing or going to do for them. Once people start literally starving in this country, everything changes, then I hope the wealthy have some bunkers to retreat to because good luck being safe going out in the sun again.

        • While I don’t agree with shaming gay people, shaming self reliance and gun ownership is the kind of mentality that will ruin us.

        • Of course. I was reflecting on a societal shift, not on the validity of shaming one over the other.

        • Fair enough. Didn’t mean to imply that you were for that shaming, just wanted to make clear that I wasn’t.

        • LOL true, but I don’t give a crap about political correctness or “offending people” in general. Nobody has an enshrined right not to be offended. But I don’t have a desire to hurt people. And what other consenting adults do in their bedrooms is not my business. And I would never want anyone to think that because I’m pro-gun that I’m so far right conservative that I’m anti-gay. To me that’s not about political correctness. It’s a matter of honor. If I WAS anti-gay (and thought it was right to be) I would have no trouble saying it. I’m pro-choice even though that probably isn’t popular among a lot of people here. I don’t give a crap. My body. My choice. I’m armed. Good luck trying to make me do ANYTHING that seriously restricts my freedom or brings harm to me against my will. Pregnancy and childbirth is one of those things I would fight to the death to avoid.

      • The person who refused the sale might have gotten the law wrong (is, AFAIU, the case), but if the store won’t sell him the firearm the result is the same as if that was the law.

    • http://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/firearms/forms/hscman.pdf

      According to this manual, posted on the CA AG’s website:

       Valid Hunting License (Long Guns Only)
      Exemption Code X98; Authorized by Penal Code section 31700, subdivision (c)
      A person, validly identified, who has been issued a valid hunting license that is unexpired or that was issued for the hunting season immediately preceding the calendar year in which the person takes title of possession of a firearm is exempt from the firearm safety certificate requirement in subdivision (a) of Section 31615, except as to handguns.

  5. I don’t live in Cali, but if I did, could I accelerate the process if I made a sizable contribution to Presidential Adviser Al Sharpton?

  6. This is exactly what the CA DOJ wants – to through a wrench in the works and stop the purchase of firearms. Dr Vino or JWM should describe and forward their woes to CalGuns or the SAF, NRA, etc. I’d start a lawsuit myself but I’m not personally affected.

    • That kind of thing actually might be on the horizon. There are several other states that want to split off from the parent state due to large urban centers taking over the vote from the rest of the state and making all the people not in those urban centers live according to their asinine urban center rules.

    • Imagine how much fun it would be to watch CA try to make payroll with 8,000,000 fewer taxpayers…There are two states that border CA that have way better second amendment protection than CA, what are you waiting for? Just don’t vote in any state elections for a few years until you let us show you how it’s done.

      • So pro gun people from CA get to become refugees in their own country and you want them to give up their right to vote. Remind me again which side you’re on?

        • Honestly, at this point I think we’re all just uber frustrated with California in general. On this issue as well as others. There doesn’t seem to be an actual solution (short of a LOT of legal battles being won and most of the liberal citizens of the state developing such a fascination with their cats that they forget election day altogether for many election cycles in a row.)

          I’m just tired of people who would rather be subjects (not you… liberals) than citizens trying to make it so here, so that one of the last free bastions on the planet ceases to be so. I feel like we’re standing in the last drops of tiny sorta kinda freedom. I would love nothing more than to have my Republic back and for those who seem to think the Constitution is profanity to just get on a boat or a plane or freaking teleport to a European country or Australia and leave us and the way this country was created in peace.

          That fatigue just makes me (and obviously others) want to rail against those who are in the thick of it because we don’t feel like enough people are doing enough and… yeah. I obviously can’t speak for others in this thread, but that’s where it’s coming from for me. That might be where it’s coming from for others as well.

          Strategically, if a certain percentage of gun owners would move from their super-red-never-going-blue-ever states to California, things would change in CA in a hurry. But, none of us in more constitutional states are willing to give up living in more free places for that cause.

        • Ca has NOTHING that makes is worth visiting much less taking up residence. Move or start shooting. Talking won’t change anything.

        • JWM, I live in Austin. Approximately 75% of CA moves to this beautiful little city every year, never mind the rest of the state. Fine, we love it. But then, they immediately start voting for the same stupidity that’s running CA down the crapper and is the reason they left. The people are welcome, the wild-ass left wing stupidity is not. The idea of giving your ballot a rest for a few years is a good one. You want to keep voting for gun-grabbing people promising massive giveaways of free stuff, you’re already in the best spot in the US, why move unless its overseas?

        • Larry, so true. These people get their liberal utopias, find out how terrible they really are, they they move to red states and start voting democrat. Maybe they are voting on ‘social issues’ but anybody who thinks gay marriage and abortion are more important than their right to keep and bear arms is drinking some serious kool-aid. Without the RKBA, no other rights matter or can be enforced down the road if the govt. decides to fall totally to tyranny.

        • One other thing… I think we shouldn’t underestimate the effect Michelle Obama’s “school lunch rules” has had on the hearts and minds of children (and especially teenagers who will be voting age soon) stuck in those programs.

          These kids are all out revolting against this crap. You think most of them are going to feel warm and snuggly with govt. authority or the democratic party in particular?

          A whole generation of parents have been raising special entitled sneauxflakes. Yes, entitlement breeds the liberal mentality, but another part of this entitlement is not “I want what I want when I want it and you have to give it to me”, it’s… “I want to DO what I want without you hassling me and telling me I can’t.”

          Liberals have a fight ahead of them with this younger generation if they think it’s going to be “super easy” to convert them all to democratic voters. Some of them are going to find the religiosity and social conservatism of the far right appalling, but if the republican party gets it together and goes more libertarian and simply shuts up about social issues that should NOT be within the federal government’s responsibilities anyway, we’d see a LOT of these kids going republican/libertarian.

          Liberals may have grabbed the kids young with the media and schools, but they made a few fatal mistakes. Now I want to know if conservatives are smart enough to capitalize on those mistakes.

  7. On the bright side, there are less and less decent handguns to buy in ca (thank you micro stamping/ approved roster) so the new safety card will not be stoping as many handgun purchases as it could.

    I would say I am trying to look at my state with a glass half full approach, but it is actually like 90% empty.

  8. Something tells me Ms Harris isnt going to get much sympathy from Judge Ishii when she goes back in February to ask for more time on compliance with the 10 day waiting period lawsuit she lost, whining about programming computers, despite the millions allocated for this process.

    In high tech Silicon Valley, being unable to setup a simple database query…this is childs play in comparison to the complexity of the Obamacare website access,

    but the complete buffoonery of missing a known start date, is on the same order of managerial fail.
    This is simple incompetence managing CA DOJ, at best. Not looking so good for her executive resume for replacing Gov Moonbeam, now that her long shot as Obama’s successor has gone to Fake Indian Warren.

    I wonder when a civil lawsuit for damages and obstruction of business can be filed, by FFLs and sporting goods stores, against the State of CA?

    • Her claim is that there are NOT millions of dollars devoted to the systems and personnel upgrades necessary to have instant approval, and that it will take legislative action to obtain that money. On the money front she is correct; the Legislature adjourned around the time this decision came out, and is just now going back to work. And I would imagine that it will take some time to comply–longer than 180 days. But what she is really doing, and what Isii is not buying, is trying to get a stay extended until the appeal is decided.

    • Not failure, not incompetence. Its called open defiance. I won’t do it. What is the judge going to do? I mean, I don’t even know! Just like Obama gives an obviously unconstitutional order, his minions begin carrying it out, what is to stop them? Holder is found in contempt of congress, slouches down defiantly and says, threateningly, “Watch it, Buddy!” to a US Congressman, what is Congress’ ability to enforce their demands upon a stupid thug pretending to be a public servant, backed by an even worse stupid thug? I’m sure there is supposed to be a mechanism of some sort, but I don’t know what it is. We’ve already seen that none of the Obama cronies will be prosecuted for anything, no matter what, because Holder will just refuse to prosecute! That was easy, huh? We are in a bunch of trouble.

  9. “We shall hang together, or we shall hang seperately.” Apparently a message that the POTG have forgetten. Abandon CA, it can’t happen here in my deep red state.

    Like the gca 68, nfa, awb didn’t happen anywhere but CA. The willful ignorance displayed by some of my fellow gun owners is downright depressing.

    Well, the fight continues…..

    • I didn’t say it can’t happen in my red state. In fact, places like california are a threat because they set a precedent for further bullshit in other places. I said a significant amount of crap is going on in California re: gun rights, and maybe there are a million good legit reasons why more gun owners aren’t more actively fighting this. I find it hard to believe a majority of the 8 million gun owners are doing anything but privately complaining. There is really little I can do on the other side of the country, and there is little I would be willing (or able) to do for California if this much crap doesn’t galvanize nearly all of you to act. (get involved in lawsuits, harangue your congress critters, etc.) If this kind of bullshit comes to my state I will BE one of the ones fighting it. And if you’re one of the ones actively fighting it in your state, awesome. But if you aren’t actively fighting or actively working to get out of the state, how am I supposed to have much sympathy?

      • We are fighting it Summer. Couple of big lawsuits just broke our way. We keep fighting it every day.

        But when others just glibly say”move’ or they hope Ca falls into the ocean or give it back to Mexico makes me question the gun owning credentials of those making those comments. I’ve been in this fight since 68. And we’ve always had those people trying to drive wedges in our ranks and split us up. They’re called gun grabbers.

        So if i get a little frustrated sometimes, oh well….

        • As a New York State resident I empathize greatly with you guys, I hear a lot of the same remarks.

          Same can be said from any POTG in NJ, or CT I’m sure.

        • Try to remember that SAF, NRA, GOA, and a bunch of others are getting donations from me and other people from all over the country, to fight these laws, in CA and elsewhere. Get more lawsuits going, you’ll see more donations. Just keep taking it and you don’t need my money.

        • i realize you guys are fighting it now. I was just frustrated and that frustration bubbled out into me saying stupid crap. So I’m sorry. Hang in there. I respect your willingness to stick it out and fight there.

        • In my defense, I DID suggest maybe only the super liberal cities close to the coast should drift off into the ocean. So you could stay in california, just not in those cities. 😛

      • How about if you have comradery for all American gun owners regardless of where they live. This attitude that pro-gun / pro-freedom Californians don’t deserve support just gets fucking tiresome. I bet it wouldn’t be easy for you to move to a different state, and they all have shitty laws of some sort. WI has pretty good gun rights but ridiculously low speed limits, for example. I got pulled over for 32 in a 25.

        • It’s not a matter of not supporting people who are in less gun friendly states. As Larry mentioned, money can be sent and when it is clear people there ARE fighting, then many of us in other areas will send money. Some already are. The issue is more one of: look, everybody’s got their own battles and issues to face in life. And even in a red state it doesn’t mean I don’t have “other” problems in life to deal with. Why should I fight someone else’s battles if they aren’t fighting for themselves? Maybe a lot of people in california ARE fighting it… but how many aren’t doing anything at all? To expect me do “support” people in any way who won’t get up off their asses and help themselves… well that’s a hand out not a hand up, and it isn’t a very conservative value. Sorry, I can’t just rewrite my code.

          Though it isn’t fair for me to gripe at people who are not part of the problem and who are fighting. But I absolutely don’t believe that all 8 million gun owners in CA are doing anything to fight for their rights. Many of them are sitting down and taking it on the chin. And I don’t want to hear crap from those people at all. Help yourself or leave but don’t sit around and whine about how nobody is riding in to save you.

  10. I have read reports that the major hangup i the system is not the test or the issuance of the FSC card, but instead the payment system. With the HSC, the FFL would buy cards, usually in packets of 10 or 25. the cost to the consumer is $25, the cost to the dealer $15. Under the new system, however, the cash transaction with the dealer and the state takes place at the same time–the dealer takes your credit or debit card, and uses it to pay the state its fee. But if the dealer can’t oay the state, he can’t issue the card.

    The even more obnoxious part of the system is that you used to be able to replace cards by going to the dealership where you got it. Now, each person authorized to administer the test and issue the card has a separate log-in to the state system–so you have to go back to the exact same person who issued your card to get a replacement. And if that person is no longer working there, you are SOL.

    California law also requires a purchaser to perform a safety demonstration–showing that you know how to load, unload, safety check, and apply a gun lock–at the time of delivery. No one has yet figured out how you are supposed to do that with a stripped lower receiver.

    Finally, the test, so I have heard, is almost identical to the HSC test. You spend about 20 minutes reading a pamphlet that covers certain aspects of California gun laws (transfers) and numb-nuts commonsense safe gun handling rules. 20 questions, multiple choice, 70% is a pass.

    • Wouldn’t it be something if you had to pay for a card, or pay to take a test, every time you voted…
      And demonstrate knowledge of the subject matter you were voting on?
      My gosh.

      • As a naturalized citizen, I had to pass a knowledge test that covered basic concepts in US government and civics. No big deal, ten questions, who’s the President, how many elected Representatives and Senators, what’s the Constitution, what’s the Bill of Rights. That kind of thing. As someone who stayed awake in those classes in middle and high school, it was a breeze.

        I wouldn’t be at all opposed to making passing such a test a requirement of citizenship generally. Go ahead and be generous, that’s fine. I just think having a baseline level of knowledge would be extremely helpful.

        • Carlos, in case you’re not kidding, that was ruled unconstitutional decades ago, and rightly so, since the tests administered at the polls were significantly different depending on the color of your skin. And if allowed for firearm purchases in general, say Bye-bye to 2A. You do not have to pass a test from the .gov in order to exercise a RIGHT. If it’s a privilege granted out of the goodness of you rulers’ hearts, fine. But not for a right.

    • “California law also requires a purchaser to perform a safety demonstration–showing that you know how to load, unload, safety check, and apply a gun lock–at the time of delivery. No one has yet figured out how you are supposed to do that with a stripped lower receiver.”
      So true.
      That Sh*ts funny right there.

      • I have a wide selection of gun locks, and so far, I haven’t figured out how to get them out of the plastic wrap they came in.

        • At least Ruger includes normal padlocks with their revolvers, which are useful unlike the goofy cable pad locks from HK (among others).

    • In order to initiate the process on the site, a customer’s credit card must be entered (nobody knows how to handle cash payments). The system freezes and crashes at this point in many instances. This is for the DOJ’s cut of the total fee. The FFLs generally do a separate transaction for their own cut.
      This may be the origin of what you are reporting.

  11. So. I’m a glass half full kind of guy.
    Although I no longer live in California, I always thought I would go back. Someday…
    This reminds me of the story about them coming for machine guns, but I didn’t speak up because I didn’t own one. Then they came for semi automatics, but I didn’t speak up because I didnt own one. Then they came for my muzzle loading flint lock, and there was no one left to speak… Anyway-

    What I see here is an alarm bell that hopefully will be heard by folks that never paid attention before. Fudds
    It’s too bad this didn’t take place before the fall hunting season or Christmas. When the Fudds go to get that new shotty or bolt gun, you can bet they will be pissed off.
    Maybe then, they will open their eyes and see what’s been going on in front of them?
    Maybe a surge in SAF and CALGUNS donations? NRA memberships?
    I’m feeling a fight coming on. Maybe mass civil disobedience?
    As California sits now, it’s my understanding I would be a felon a few times over if I moved there. So I can’t go back. Yet.
    Besides, there is a couple of battles coming here in my state.

    • Well in NY a lot of people just flat refused to register guns that were demanded to be registered. The refusal was so extreme (i.e. so many people) that most law enforcement just quietly let it go because they just can’t enforce it on that level. And then there are cops who are on our side, even in places like NYC. I don’t really sit up night worrying about mass gun confiscation. At THIS point I do believe most people would actively fight even risk their life for their rights if something so totalitarian just happened overnight. But what worries me is this frog in boiling water approach. People just putting up with a little more and then a little more and then a little more until the end result is the same as flat out confiscation would have been.

  12. Hmm.. illegal immigrants are able to apply for drivers licenses. But as California/American, I’m unable to get a FSC or pick up a firearm I purchased 10 days ago. The state has really lost it’s mind.

    • And cars can be deadly weapons. And plenty of illegal immigrants are violent criminals. What could possibly go wrong?

  13. Avid Reader, wactor and JeffR took my Illinois sucks with a FOID card rant. I had more than one Indiana a##wipe tell me Illinois would never get cc. Fight for your rights. Did anyone see the pathetic turnout for the last election…and according to Frontline all you need is the great and powerful NRA.

    • NRA is like the wizard of oz in my head now. Someone in the thread about the frontline episode said he wanted to send $50 to the NRA and then write PBS a letter about it. I think we should all do that. It would be hilarious and cathartic.

  14. As far as I can tell NOTHING in the new law required most of this BS. The old process for getting an HSC was this.

    “Hey dealer I need an HSC.”

    “Here is a test booklet and answer sheet, circle your answers”

    (2 minutes later) “Done”

    “You got 70% or better on this braain dead easy test, give me $25 and here is your HSC”

    Inconvenient, annoying, an additional tax. But ultimately very low on my list of things to overturn here. As far as the new law is concerned, all that was required was you pay that same fee and do a similar thing for all guns (unless you are exempt… a current huntng license, even gotten after today would exempt for longguns, a CCW exempts, etc). Maybe they could have slightly updated the test to apply to all guns, though the quetions are generic enough to already do so.

    No, they decided to o above and beyond the letter of the law for two reasons

    1. To keep another record of gun buyers. The old way left little paper trail, especially since you could pay in cash. No record was kept of who got an HSC, your name goes on the card which you possess

    2. As a further step in the whole reason for this law. We start with lifetime cards for handguns, then once every 5 years, and then for every gun. By implementing more DOJ systems now, they are preparing to at leat turn it more into something like a FOID system, and probably want something like New York’s permit to even own a handgun. They are just laying the foundations

  15. The solution for California is for the gun industry to completely and totally cut off sales and service to all government agencies in the state. No new gun sales, no repairs, no magazines, no ammo, nothing until California reverses their anti Second Amendment policies. And if it meant that law enforcement ran out of ammo or had unrepairable firearms, so be it. Unfortunately we have those in the industry who only give lip service to the right to bear arms and think they cannot survive unless they get those precious and infrequent government contracts. Cutting off government sales would be perfectly legal and Kamala Harris along with her band of anti mayors and police chiefs would have no legal recourse.

    • Cosign. CA elites bully and bribe entire industries to do their bidding and follow their isnane whims. It’s far time for the fireams industry to show some solidarity and starve the beast.

  16. Can we give Kommifornia back the Japanese already? Break it off and float it back to them. My new, Nevada ocean front property would be most welcome.

    /rant over

    • I often (half-sarcastically) say we should sell CA to settle our “debts” to the PRC, and if the Mexicans get pissed, tell them to take it up with the Chicoms.

  17. The only reason I even read articles about anti-gun actions on the whole west coast or northeast coast is to see what the antis are up to in case they try it here. I have long ago stopped trying make sense of it when stuff like this happens in CA or other states I consider as liberal, socialist states. It’s even gotten hard for me to sympathize with people who live in these states, when the cost of living is so high and there are so many better options. It’s like I’m reading about Canada or Europe. Those states are like foreign countries to me. They have essentially seceded from The Union by their blatant disregard of the Constitution.

  18. Just bog potential gun owners and sellers down with so much red tape, paperwork,Guessing, and bureaucratic bullshit that they end up just throwing their hands up and give up… A simple solution to counter those damnedable California gun people… Wont be long before freeways are filled with caravans of refugees pouring out of California

  19. Is it just me or is being “America’s most attractive attorney general” a bit like winning an award for the world’s most fire-retardant paper hat?

  20. The other day when we talked about this, I initially said it looks to me like the CA DOJ has effectively put an end to firearms sales/transfer in California. Later I backed off from that by citing what Dr. Vino has cited that you can buy and take delivery of pistols with a valid HSC card until it expires, or with a Hunter’s Safety Certificate for long Arms until it expires.

    Now, it looks like my initial concern was justified, to a point. Don’t infer from this any gloating on my part because I regard this situation as an egregious infringement upon Californian’s natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear Arms. I don’t think that it would be possible to hold Kamala Harris (CA Attorney General) criminally responsible for the death of any “commoner” who could not pick-up a firearm because of this situation. California just doesn’t work that way.

    While it sounds like the DOJ is working to resolve the issue with the FSC website, I expect it will only do so to a point of “good enough”, then drag their feet to making it 100% reliable.

    The Politicians, Bureaucrats and News Media are Class-A “bloody shirt wavers” and fear mongers in California. We California Gun Owners are outnumbered and despite our considerable efforts in the Courts and the arena of Public Opinion we cannot achieve what we’d like. A large portion of California Gun Owners refuse to be single-issue voters and vote Democrat and for social issues. The successful Democratic Candidates focus on social issues and avoid Gun Rights like the plague, or out and out lie about it. Unfortunately, that tactic works and they get elected. Same for the Governorship and other State elected offices.

    Despite all that, where I live there are three good Shooting Ranges within twenty minutes, and another half dozen, or more, within fifty minutes to an hour and a half. There is a CA BLM Public Shooting Area is within two hours. I can buy all the Ammo I want over the Internet and long guns and pistols (of admittedly limited variety) are readily available. Yep, there are some crazy laws to contend with, but I can shoot somewhere any day of the week. I choose to be a single issue voter, but many CA Gun Owners are not because they, too, can shoot anytime they want and refuse to see the issues as I do.

    BTW- My local State Senator and Assemblyman are solidly Pro Gun Rights, as is my Local Congressman. My U.S. Senators? Well, that’s where the rest of the people in the State screw me over, but Babs Boxer(D-CA) is allegedly retiring, so there’s a glimmer of hope for 2016.

    • I’m pro-choice and would NEVER vote republican. Period. But I won’t vote democrat, either. Now if republicans go libertarian and stop all this stupid abortion/gay crap then maybe I will vote for them. But voting for the people who want to take the only right that protects the other rights is the most foolish thing I’ve ever heard.

      Stop voting these idiots into office. Nobody in the gun community gives a crap what you think about abortion or gay people or whatever other “social issues” the republicans are currently being morons about. None of that crap will matter if nobody has gun rights.

      It’s better to “throw your vote away” on a third party than it is to give your vote to the sworn enemy. Holy crap on a cracker. This is why my sympathy is limited for California. If you value your gun rights do not vote democrat period, ever. Sit at home on your hands on election day if you can’t bring yourself to vote for anything else. Holy god.

      • Since you obviously inferred from what I said things that suited your agenda but did not accurately reflect what i said, you missed the point entirely. No matter you can bloviate however you wish on internet blogs. No, you do not grasp the Political situation in California, but your in good company in your ignorance. I find no need to explain myself further to you because you would probably twist anything else I had to say to suit your point of view and agenda. I have no interest in that kind of response.

        • @ Summer, Once again you get it wrong. That’s 10 points to Gryffindor, thank-you very much, and 5 points from Hufflepuff for getting it wrong.

        • Once again I get it wrong? Handing out fake points to fake houses? And then you try to retell my joke? It’s only good the first time it’s used in a conversation. The next time you’re just copying.

      • Hey, Summer. After reading several of your posts I realize we are vastly on the same page. This “squabble” between us is not to my liking. You have said a lot of things I like and agree with. I want to make peace over this thread because I much prefer you as an ally. Will you accept my apology for a misunderstanding over this thread and let it pass to the status of “Bygones”? Hope so.

    • Obviously I know that “you” are not voting for democrats to avoid being a single issue voter. I’m just so irritated that any gun owner even thinks that way that my general blanket statement sounded like a personal condemnation of you.

  21. In my defense, I DID accept a compromise of maybe only the super liberal cities close to the coast should drift off into the ocean. So you could stay in california, just not in those cities. 😛

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