“All of us should be able to go to work and send our kids to school free from the fear of becoming a mass shooting victim. The bullet button loophole undermined California’s assault weapons ban and the shocking loss of life in San Bernardino last year revealed the subsequent threat to public safety.” – Assemblyman Phil Ting in Gun retailers report a run on firearms ahead of new California restrictions [via latimes.com]

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69 COMMENTS

  1. Actually, the “criminals gonna crime” loophole undermined the safety of the people in San Bernadino as well as everywhere.

    • If the Immigration Act of 1965 was still in place this moron and those degenrates would not be in America and we would be better off for it…

        • Lets be honest, that is like implying that Native Americans weren’t fighting among each other before they ended up having a common enemy.

      • Whenever I went to the range in California it was full of Asian-Americans. I’d even venture to guess they out represented us honkeys based on population. His problem isn’t that he’s Asian, his problem is that he’s a California politician.

    • The San Bernardino shooters didn’t use bullet buttons, so the bullet button law did everything we said it would – it made law abiding upstanding citizens abide by the law and install the bullet button whereas criminals and murderers, like the San Bernardino mass killers, ignored the law. Which makes sense because if you are going to go on a shooting spree – why would you care about a law regarding bullet buttons.

  2. So what you’re saying, even though no where else has a bullet button law, and those places aren’t plagued with mass shootings, California needs this law because you believe your consituients are inherently evil and immoral and the only thing stopping them from commuting mass murder is the bullet button on thier ARs?

    • And the rifles in the crime terrorist attack he referenced didn’t have bullet buttons; they fed the normal way. So there’s no logical connection between the bullet button being legal, and the SB attack.
      Maybe he’s trying to resurrect Leland Yee’s gun smuggling ring, and wants to make his wares look more appealing.

    • Its meant to be an incremental control measure. They used San Bernardino as an excuse. They know it won’t stop anything. You can still buy AR’s in California, even after Jan 1st….. and like was said above, criminals will modify the guns to their purposes, the liberal legal system will let them off the hook, and then the legislature will howl for more gun control. Wash, rinse, repeat.

      • This is the long game the liberals/anti-gunners are playing. “Never let a crisis go to waste, especially if you’ve manufactured it.” It’s not about saving lives, it’s about leveraging high profile killings and crime in order to continue to restrict gun rights, with the eventual goal of banning guns all together (or at least regulating them to the degree that they are virtually banned). The constituency of these politicians, by and large, are ignorant about firearms, and see no legitimate use for them in civilian hands. So they continue to support this laws, erroneously believing that they will reduce crime/murders/mass killings.

  3. It wasn’t a loophole. Some smart people figured out a way to comply with the law that you didn’t think of.

    That’s a facet of human nature – we’re good at finding workarounds. Criminals use a very simple one – they ignore laws they don’t like or are inconvenient. Honest people do things like make bullet buttons.

    • That’s what I’ve always loved about gun laws; they try to take creativity, something that’s totally amorphous and infinite, and say it’s a cube. And then they try to impose limits on the dimensions of the cube, forgetting completely that it was never a cube in the first place. Then, when creativity rolls right through the walls of the cube, they change the dimensions of the cube in a futile effort to contain its fluid nature.

      It’s impossible (and unwise) to try to regulate ingenuity. Laws that venture into the dimensions of firearms, by their nature, are incredibly pedantic, short-sighted, and doomed to fail. They focus with intensity on the refined, end-state of the design process without realizing that creativity can flow in any direction. Worse yet, when they become immersed in the minutiae of physical dimensions, they never seem to stop and ask, “What is our goal, how will this law achieve it, and will the cost of individual freedom be worth it?” (of course, that’s assuming that they actually care about safety and/or individual freedom).

      • “It’s impossible (and unwise) to try to regulate ingenuity.”

        Quite true, and it’s worth keeping in mind it works the other way around, too. You can’t legislate scientific and technological advances, nor mandate them on a schedule. Thus, smart guns can’t be mandated to be available by a certain time, with a certain level of reliability; also true for things like, say, microstamping. (Nor can you expect to get them without paying for R&D, including some that might seem pointless at the time, but that’s another discussion.)

  4. So people broke a law to better break another law, and this moron thinks more laws are the answer. My brain hurts now.

  6. I hit up a couple of places yesterday. Bolt action rifles and shotguns but no semiautomatic rifles w/bullet buttons. I feel safer already here in CA. Yes, sarcasm.

    • They did. They replaced them with standard AR15 mag releases. So much for stopping those fast magazine changes.

      • Have they been prosecuted? Maybe we could bathe them in pork fat before tossing them in the incinerator.

    • That’s what I was thinking. Can’t anyone with a modicum of mechanical aptitude just go to Brownells and blow what, $15 on the parts to convert it?

      • Are the parts legal to bring into the state, and will Brownells send them to you? I know a number of vendors that won’t ship threaded barrels to California because they’re illegal on some (but not all) pistols. Bar-Sto, for instance. I don’t blame them for not wanting the potential legal troubles. And I’m glad I don’t live in CA anymore.

        • Yes, they will send you the parts because they are parts of a standard lower parts kits and there is no law yet making illegal to possess or import the parts. Furthermore, once the new law goes into effect eliminating the bullet button you might as well put the regular mag catch back on because you are still a fellon either way. This will be the fist time I’ve committed a crime by not doing anything.

        • ‘This will be the fist time I’ve committed a crime by not doing anything.’

          I doubt that’s actually true. It’s probably just the first time you’ve been aware of the crime you’re committing by not doing anything. Unless of course you’ve perused among other things the 70,000+ pages of the federal tax code.

        • It is even more stupid than that. In enacting a law that requires all owners of bullet button rifles to register them as “registered assault weapons,” the Legislature has, in its infinite wisdom, enacted a law that will allow everyone who registers their ARs as RAWs to remove their bullet buttons. [There are major negatives to registering a RAW, but this is the one positive.] Further, anyone who converts to a “featureless” build with no pistol grip, collapsible stock and no “flash hider) although muzzle brakes are legal) will ALSO be able to remove their bullet buttons. With a Thordsen stock and a muzzle brake, there could be hundreds of thousands if not a few million unregistered bullet button-less rifles in this state in the next 12 months, and it will be completely legal for FFLS to sell them. (RAWs cannot be sold in this state after the 1st of the year, but featureless rifles can.)

      • I deal with “we don’t ship to Massachusetts” almost daily. I’m an FFL and Midway wouldn’t ship bullets to me. Cartridges would be a little more understandable but bullets? Really?

  11. Another intellectually dishonest assemblyman disguising his freedom-snatching agenda as a cloying appeal for peace. Why do a get the feeling that he’s running an armaments import/export business on the side?

    • Be careful what negative statements you say about him. Progressives are cracking down on “fake news”, which is code for any speech they disagree with. Unless of course you live in a red state, then you still have that freedom. ? 😉

    • …the legality of which is being hotly debated in gun forums in this state. There is no debate, however, that a Thordsen stock, a Monsterman grip, or the various grip wraps, along with a muzzle brake instead of a flash hider, will render a rifle “featureless” and enable removal of the BB.

  15. Here I thought it was the “letting Moose-lim jihad killers in the USA” was the loophole…silly me?

  16. What happens with some nut bag uses a lowly 12 gauge to commit mass murder as happened at the Washington Navy Yard? Or hand guns as happened at VA Tech? Methinks California legislators haven’t fully thought this through.

    • … or a lever-action rifle in .454 Casull or .45-70 Government loaded with heavy (350+ grain) hardcast lead bullets that will easily kill three adults or five children with each bullet. That means a spree killer can easily murder something like 18 to 30 people without even having to reload their rifle. (A lever-action rifle’s barrel is long enough to accommodate a tube magazine capable of holding at least 6 cartridges.)

      Or a spree killer could just use a truck to plow into people.

      Keep in mind that lever-action rifle technology is something like 130 years old and the .45-70 Government cartridge is even older.

      • Yup. When one honestly follows the “logic” of “if it saves just one life” then you’re left with an Australian gun control model. Any gun of defensive utility can be used to commit mass murder.

  17. Excerpt: American Historical data.
    *******************************************
    Tarring and Feathering

    The practice of applying hot tar and a coating of feathers to one’s opponents was largely an American practice. The intent was clearly to intimidate. Dabbing hot tar on bare skin could cause painful blistering and efforts to remove it usually resulted in pulling out hairs. The use of solvents to loosen the tar was also unpleasant in the extreme, especially when a substance like turpentine came in contact with burned skin. Application of the tar over the rival’s clothing was rightly deemed a lesser punishment than placing it on bare skin.

    Just a few instances of this practice were recorded in the 1760s, but the passage of the Townshend Acts provoked a sharp increase in its usage. It usually required the abuse of only one tax collector in an area for word to spread quickly. Another spate of incidents occurred around the Tea Act in 1773. During the War for Independence, the tarring of Tories happened with greater regularity and ferocity, resulting in the deaths of several victims.

    Tarring and feathering was a barbaric practice and, sadly, an effective one.

  18. Excerpt: American Historical data.
    *******************************************
    American Revolution – American Revolution Essays – Tar and Feathers in Revolutionary America by Benjamin H. Irvin

    Most notably, Boston mobs began to tar and feather an individual’s property and effects rather than his body. Several persons’ homes were tarred and feathered, as was at least one merchant’s store. In Marlborough, a crowd went so fatar and feather an individual’s property and effects rather than his body. Several persons’ homes were tarred and feathered, as was at least one merchant’s store. In Marlborough, a crowd went tarred and feathered, as was at least one merchant’s store. In Marlborough, a crowd went so far as to tar ..

  19. Like most Kalifornians the man is delusional or just flat out retarded. Take your pick.
    A bullet button only known in Kommiefornia isn’t going to save one life. Anyone who lives there and has it on their AR. Is a lawful minded citizen to begin with who has no need for it anyway.

  20. If Californians really want to keep their children safe, the first thing they should do is beat the living hell out of every Cali politician.

  21. There really needs to be a revolution/culling within California borders. It seems that every single state politician is just trying to one-up the others by introducing more and more massively retarded legislation. There’s absolutely no reason for people following the law to become felons by not doing anything between 12/31/16 2359- 0001 01/01/17.

  22. Take a perfectly reasonable first sentence and build on it with gibberish. Joke all you want, there are serious problems with this man’s thinking process. POTG see that easily enough. But, put this guy in a room full of others like him, and it is verbal masturbation. Then, the people they see as intellectually inferior live in the mess.

  24. Nothing less than a brain stem IDIOT. Put into office by voters that are just as stupid. Kaliforna, a failed state where FREEDOM and LIBERTY comes to DIE!

  25. Actually, this guys got a point, though he doesnt take it far enough. Every single law we have has a dangerous loophole called “not getting caught”. Enough is enough! How many lives need to be lost before we see sense and close this loophole?! No, clearly, we need to incarcerate every single person in the US, from birth until death. If it saves one life, it’s all worth it. /sarc

  26. There is no fact that a gun-rights/people’s rights advocate can show an anti-gun/people’s rights opponent that does not appear to be false.

    This is how far we have broken from each other, I don’t blame the right, and I do blame the left, because they are lazy. They want a single all-encompassing solution so they don’t have to spend more thought on this “issue” of guns, which is a right to us.

    Every day these liberal politicians continue to infringe our rights and the media chews around the edges in their half second coverage of it, if at all between all those commercials. To this man and all those liberal politicians like him in this state and all the states of this country, you lost, you lost, you lost, we know you lost, you know you lost, so please keep signing more of this crap cause when the President gets some supremes that agree with us, your garbage is gonna get swept away.

  27. “All of us should be able to go to work and send our kids to school free from the fear of becoming a mass shooting victim.” (Emphasis added.)

    One makes a choice between dangers. – Lady Alia Atreides.

    “It is sad that you were never really fremen” Leto said. … Our judges can choose between evils.” – from Children of Dune

    Apparently, the Assemblyman has the power to shape the world to his will. So, he should get on that. Those of us who aren’t god have to choose between evils.

    In a world we never made, one with crazies and guns in it, do you want the occasional school shooter to run amok, or peaceful, responsible people to have the means to fight back at need? Which is the lesser evil?

    Our Betters like the Assemblyman are fine with the rest of us being at risk as we have neither arms, nor guards, while they are protected by large men with guns. They’re willing to sacrifice us for their comfort or safety. That goes by a lot of names, but in all of them it is a new evil, added willfully to the choice of being a victim or wielding a terrible power.

    • Assemblymen only get armed guards while in the Capitol or their congressional offices. Otherwise, and absent a direct threat of harm warranting armed guards, they are on their own. That’s why they have CCWs. For themselves, anyway.

  28. So those Islamic terrorists were using bullet buttons?

    No, of course they weren’t.

    So what does that have to do with this?

    …mumble mumble Iraq mumble mumble 9/11 mumble mumble gotta invade…

  29. It’s cute that this effete financial advisor thinks he speaks for all Californians, and that his actions actually have meaning beyond further reinforcing the idea that UC Berkeley graduates are all statist buffoons.

    Bullet buttons mean nothing when it comes to school shootings in California. Bullet buttons have been required accessories on California ARs for the better part of two decades and yet the only shooting with an AR-15 on a school grounds has been with a… surprise… felonious AR-15 by a prohibited person!

    How does this keep me, a life-long Californian, safe? It’s already been PROVEN that people who wish to kill indiscriminately WILL ignore the law. Phil Ting and his fashionable tie have abandoned reason (which is hilarious given that his profession is filled with absolutes) and he’s now a slave to the vote.

    I am a professional, a small business owner, a husband, someone who pays his taxes and helps people in my community when they need help- I am a normal person who, in just a few days, will become a felon through no initiation of force. I will become a felon, yet someone like me in Oregon, Nevada or Arizona would be a free man by virtue of their geographic location.

    Phil Ting, I have to say- you don’t represent me. You don’t represent freedom. You represent a small, ignorant portion of my state- a portion so well-educated it’s actually progressed back into idiocy. The fact that you’re actually given enough power to have anything resembling a say in this matter is a failing of our government and further proof that it needs to be rolled back. You small, closed-minded man with delusions of grandeur- I pity you.

    If I see you around, I’ll look at you with no more interest than if you were excrement on the bottom of my shoe.

  30. I’ll bet a substantial sum of cash that this idiot believes that a bullet button enables you to change magazines faster than a standard mag release. Every idiot Democrat I’ve interviewed believes this, as though their fellow legislators sought to make it easier to change mags.

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