10 replies to this topic

[Flash]

"Lawmakers rush to become #1 in gun bans in the nation" would be a better title.

http://www.insidebay...ance-sacramento

California gun-control bills advance in Sacramento

SACRAMENTO -- A package of bills that would once again give California the nation's toughest gun-control laws passed a key legislative hurdle Tuesday, setting up a white-hot Capitol showdown.

The Assembly Committee on Public Safety hearing offered a preview of that battle, as dozens of gun-control advocates -- including some who have lost loved ones to violent crime -- faced off against gun-rights supporters who believe that a basic freedom is threatened.

"This entire package is not focused on trying to prohibit or limit law-abiding citizens from having guns," state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, told the committee. "It seeks to close loopholes that were never supposed to exist."

But National Rifle Association lobbyist Ed Worley scoffed at that notion.
"We're not looking at a loophole," but rather a vast expansion of government control over a constitutional right, he said.

By the hearing's end, the committee had voted along party lines to approve bills that would add all semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines to the state's list of banned assault weapons; ban owning any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds, including existing ones; ban "bullet buttons" that allow fast swapping of rifle magazines; require long-gun buyers to pass a written safety test; and add more crimes to the list of those that would bar someone from carrying a firearm. The bills, already passed by the state Senate, are moving inexorably closer to floor votes and the governor's desk.

Tuesday's votes followed similar actions Monday in the Senate Appropriations Committee, which voted to approve an Assembly bill aimed at prohibiting firearms in homes where any resident is legally barred from owning one, unless they're locked up or carried by a lawful owner.

California's gun laws -- including strict background checks and waiting periods for all gun purchases -- for decades made the state the most restrictive in the nation. But since December's massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., New York has leapfrogged ahead of the Golden State by toughening its assault weapons ban, expanding registration requirements and limiting magazines to seven rounds. Colorado's new gun laws, though not as tight as California's or New York's, have inspired a recall effort against two lawmakers.

Gun-control advocates are looking to California to restore some momentum to a movement that has stalled on the national level.

Tuesday's Assembly committee debate over Steinberg's SB374, which would ban semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, was particularly heated.

Sitting next to Steinberg was Adrienne Egeland, who was teaching kindergarten at Stockton's Cleveland Elementary School in January 1989 when a gunman killed five children and wounded 29 more -- a shooting that inspired California's assault weapons ban. Egeland, her voice shaking, testified that the children's wounds looked like those she saw simulated during her Army basic training, "and all I had was Band-Aids."

But Worley contended that Steinberg's bill balloons the assault weapons law to include firearms that aren't even remotely of military style. Martin Mayer, general counsel for the California State Sheriffs' Association, called it "vastly over-inclusive of firearms that are legitimate sporting and hunting weapons." Gerald Upholt, lobbyist for the California Association of Firearms Retailers said, "You're looking at literally millions of guns" that would be affected.

Committee vice chair Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, said the debate extends far beyond the state Capitol's walls: "My gun owners are blowing up my phones, saying 'You can't let this happen.'"

"We can't ban everything," she said. "This is about personal responsibility of human beings ... not the weapons they are using."

The committee approved the bill 4-2.

Craig DeLuz, lobbyist for the California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees, spoke against SB683, which would extend the state's safety-certificate requirement for handguns to long guns as well. Many who buy long guns will never own a handgun, he said, so there's no reason why people should be tested for knowledge of both.

Bill author Marty Block, D-San Diego, said 80 percent of the safety test would be the same for handguns and long guns, so state staffers determined it wouldn't be cost-effective to create two different tests. The bill passed 4-0.

State Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, advocated for SB396, her bill to criminalize possession of all high-capacity magazines even if they predate the state's 2000 ban or were made with do-it-yourself kits. Such magazines "have no place in civil society," she said.

She said giving owners a year of advance notice before the ban takes effect -- as well as giving them options to sell their magazines outside California, sell them to a licensed dealer, destroy them or hand them over to police -- should be enough to sidestep any potential lawsuits challenging the ban's constitutionality.

Tom Pedersen, lobbyist for the California Rifle and Pistol Association, argued that "criminals do not follow the law," so the bill will do nothing to curb violence.

The committee approved the bill 4-2.

[TheSaint]

"...setting up a white-hot Capitol showdown." This reporter hasn't been paying attention, has he? There is no opposition in California, it's run entirely by liberal Democrats. They can pass whatever they want: gun control, higher taxes, infinite welfare, radical environmentalism, bullet trains to nowhere, ad nauseum. And they will be reelected without fail. The Republican party in California is window dressing to maintain the illusion of democracy. The reality is that it is an oligarchy, a tyranny of the majority. Why do they think that thousands of conservatives are leaving California every day?

[magaskins]

LOCK THIS THREAD, IT'S CALIFORNIA, NO ONE CARES!!!



oops, wrong forum, as you were...

[WKshooter]

Sheep will be and continue to always be sheep. There is a whole different mind-set by a large percentage (not all, but most) of Kaii residents. I swear it is a whole state of "C" and "I" type personalities, they enjoy the social atmosphere and mass gatherings. They live in the masses so the law of averages will keep them from being a victim of crime or by being a good citizen they will prevail. For the most part they are 99% all the time. A couple I was talking to a while ago said they lived in Kali there entire life and never had a bad thing happen to them. They said they would rather live there, than have to worry about "packing" a gun every time they walk out of the house or grab a gun with a 'banana' clip just to drive in the desert. I remember we were up at Black Canyon having breakfast and they kept staring at a biker couple near the register. I looked didn't see anything and asked them what was wrong? The wife, said 'that' guy and wife are wearing guns...

But you know as well as I do the bad guys are not sitting idle. Its been shown on different news networks, there is some ranks of the gangs which are recruiting guys with military background and using this as an edge to train and educate their members. You can Google search "military training gang members" to see the multiple examples of some of this mis-guided following. I feel sorry for those who live in Kali, but those who I talked to about it agree it's not a good thing but they will survive. They actually like Kali and have little or no desire to move out even if they had the option and resources. Its a strange state indeed, don't know what more a fella can say about it...

[Flash]

I've read that about where they're using Mil and ex-mil to train gang members. Sometimes they even join up to get the training personally.

Not a bad idea for someone in their line of work.

I know 2 different guys who are living there now, both in Northern California. One is a guy I went to High School with and the other is a guy I met while doing some jobs there. Both great guys, both 2nd Amendment supporters and gun guys and....

....they both "can't" leave. And it's for the same reason, they've both got 2 kids (adult) living there and their wives won't allow them to leave.

Very sad.

[TheSaint]

Yeah, my wife's family was not happy when we told them we were leaving. They didn't make a scene or anything, but they were not happy, still aren't. But thankfully my wife was completely on board with it, and she just gently told them why we were leaving and that we appreciated their concerns but that we decide what goes on with our family, not them. God, I love that woman. :-)

[Flash]

You got a good one, Saint. Me, too.

One of the members of my weekly shooting group moved here around a year ago from New Jersey. Watching him go from being a paranoid subject to a gun packing citizen has been a lot of fun, but I digress.

His son lives somewhere in Southern Kali with his family and, of course, kids. My friend's wife said that when they moved from N.J., she wanted to move to Kali to be around the kid. My friend said nope, you'll do that alone if you do it, so they moved to South Gilbert, around 2 miles down the road from me.

Now, his son and daughter in law have had it with Kali and are formulating plans to move to Arkansas, where the daughter in law is from.

I told my friend that his wife will now want to move to Arkansas and he said "if she does, she goes alone."

We'll see.

[magaskins]

I grew up in and spent 44 years in a small northern california farming town. Up until the mid 80's it was a pretty nice place to be, then the shitheads from San Francisco, LA and New York started polluting the place finding it "quaint" and "rustic". They started buying up properties and building new homes at record pace causing home prices to skyrocket. Locals seeing they could get over a million dollars for a 50 year old 2 bedroom bungalow jumped at the chance and left town. These new residents started running for city council and started proposing "improvements"... They improved things alright... they improved the town square, tore down most of the old buildings and courted new fancy $1000 a night hotels, gave incentives to build boutique shops, closed the local airport, etc. Of course to accomplish all this, they raised taxes. A lot. Family farms and local wineries sold out to corporations, anything deemed distasteful or unsightly (think gun shop, muffler shop, trucking yard, feed store, mortuary that had been in the town for 80 years...) were driven out of business and torn down to build more boutique stores and restaurants .

Fodor's Travel guide has named it one of the top 10 tourist towns in America, further driving up prices and cost of living. The small town is now overrun with asshole tourists and transplants who have done everything possible to turn it into the overpriced trap they were trying to escape. The town was 2500 people when I was growing up; most of the farmlands are gone with the exception of the bigger wineries and the population exceeds 25,000 now.

[Flash]

I'm probably wrong, but Calistoga? I had an uncle who owned the Ford Dealership there.

[magaskins]

I'm probably wrong, but Calistoga? I had an uncle who owned the Ford Dealership there.

nope, however I do know that dealership. We used to stage there every year for the Napa Valley Marathon because of it's close proximity to the Silverado Trail. I grew up in Healdsburg.

Edited by magaskins, 14 August 2013 - 01:24 PM.

[Flash]

Well, I was close.

My uncle was an uncle by marriage, a paisano named Ammerico Lawrence Birleffi. The place was Birleffi Ford.

I've gone up there a few times before he passed away and it was a neat little town. If you were in one of his cars, the cops ignored anything you did. He kind of owned that town.

Died at 38 from colorectal cancer caused by eating a barbecued steak 6 days a week for dinner because his wife thought she was society and ate at the Country Club every day, leaving him to fix his own dinner.

She ended up dying penniless and despondent. Couldn't have happened to a nicer person.

I was named after him and he was my favorite Uncle.