By Ryan Frasor
That’s how an attorney with the Gifford’s Law Center described Proposition 63, California’s cockamamie ammunition background check system which, in less than six months, has denied over 60,000 Californians their right to purchase ammunition.
That equates to approximately 20% of all ammunition sales being rejected by the California Department of Justice. So, of course, those 60,000 denials must have been violent felons who were forbidden from owning firearms altogether, right?
Wrong.
More than 99% of the denials were false-positives.
People whose only crime was having a change of address, a misspelled name, or simply not being in California’s registry.
These law-abiding Californians were denied their God-given, and constitutionally-guaranteed right to bear arms, and the Giffords Law Center is thrilled that the law is “working as intended.”
All part of the plan
While I don’t often find myself in agreement with the Giffords Law Center, in this situation we’re in total agreement. This crooked system is working exactly as the politicians who enacted it intended.
The goal of the anti-gun left is, and has always been to impose as many barriers to firearms ownership and operation as possible until it becomes so inconvenient to exercise our Second Amendment rights that gun ownership in the United States simply dries up.
Of course this type of constitutional infringement isn’t solely limited to California. In fact, the same sort of violations have been taking place on the national level for years.
The NICS system, which processes background checks on all commercial firearms transactions also has an abysmal false positive rate of over 90%.
The Consequences
The fact of the matter is that single mothers, military veterans, and even police officers are being wrongfully denied the ability to purchase ammunition because of the California registry.
One such example is Dan Logan, a 72 year-old Vietnam veteran and retired California Highway Patrol officer who was denied his right to purchase a box of shotgun shells from a sporting goods store in Folsom, California.
Mr. Logan’s story is just one of 60,000 instances of California’s ammunition background check scam in action.
However, it’s not just individual gun owners who are being harmed by California’s radical gun control laws.
The state as a whole is suffering as well.
As politicians continue to invent more insidious ways to trample on the Second Amendment, sportsmen are fleeing the Golden State in droves, and they are taking their money with them.
So far in 2019, hunting license purchases have fallen short in the last year by more than 10,000, decimating the state economy, costing people jobs and harming the states wildlife.
As reported by the Sacramento Bee;
In California, around a quarter of the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s budget is paid through hunting and fishing license sales and taxes on their firearms and gear. The funds go to pay for state wildlife programs such as habitat restoration and refuges.
Turning a blind eye
Even as his state throws away millions in revenue and denies thousands of law-abiding citizens their Second Amendment rights, California Governor Gavin Newsom refuses to acknowledge the failures of his state’s draconian gun laws. In fact, he wants other states to follow California’s lead.
I’d like to see them model California’s background check on ammunition purchases.
For those of us who don’t live in California, it’s easy to overlook the unconstitutional regulations that pro-gun Californians are forced to deal with.
However, if we are going to defeat the gun-grabbers across these United States, it is imperative that we stand in solidarity with our fellow gun owners in California, and nationwide.
Ryan Frasor is a senior contributor and Firearms Policy Specialist for the National Association for Gun Rights, a 501(c)4 organization representing 4.5 Million Second Amendment members and supporters nationwide.