Continuing in the California tradition of attacking the state’s really big problems, Governor Moonbeam signed a bill on Friday that bans long gun open carry. Assemblyman Anthony Pantload Portantino says he wrote the bill after protestors began carrying long guns to protest an earlier Golden State law that outlawed the open carry of unloaded handguns. “‘This shows an unequivocal commitment from law enforcement and state government to ensure the public safety of families in our neighborhoods and public places,’ Portantino said, adding it allows law enforcement to ‘focus on pressing duties free from the threat of an ‘open carry’ stop spiraling out of control or turning deadly.'” Californians’ will do doubt thrill to the immediate and perceptible dip in violent crime the new law is sure to bring about.

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68 COMMENTS

  2. I love California’s contempt for the constitution. What better way to justification for limiting 2nd amendment rights, than the fact people were using long guns to exercise their 1st amendment rights.

    All the people who hate guns better look out. Pretty soon the government will be cracking down on your freedom of speech like hippie socialist fucks coming after our gun.

  3. As a resident of California does anybody wonder why, as a gun owner I don’t like the dems? Moonbeam is our governor, difi and boxer are our senators and they all back barry. So as an American my civil rights are null and void because I live in California.

  4. You know, as a member of the military I swore to defend the country against all enemies of the U.S. foriegn and DOMESTIC. Reading stuff like this makes me wonder if the military should remove this politician from office as he is legislating against the Constitution which is akin to treason. Sooner or later someone needs to do the right thing and stop those who create legislation that strips our rights away from us. They need to do so in a non-violent way but this needs to stop now. I feel bad for anyone who lives in California, the Communist State.

    • The CA legislature created, debated, and passed the bill through state House and Senate. The Governor signed it into law, yes, but it is dishonest to imply that this was some sort of executive-order fiat.

      The solution to bad speech isn’t censorship, it’s overcoming bad speech with good speech. Similarly, the solution to bad legislation isn’t martial law and military overthrow of politicians, it’s use of the democratic process and better legislation.

      I think it’s dangerously anti-American to suggest removing lawfully elected politicians from office through military force. That’s why we have elections, and term limits. Other countries do what you’re suggesting. We call those countries military dictatorships and we (not infrequently) use our military to oppose them.

      • I think it’s dangerously anti-American to suggest removing lawfully elected politicians from office through military force.

        It sounds perfectly American to me, wasnt Saddam lawfully elected? Same with Hitler (well, lawfully apointed) and probably most other leaders we’ve gone to war with?

        • Really? You are seriously asserting that military action by the US against another nation is legally, morally and ethically equivalent to having the US Army depose the lawfully elected governor of California?

        • Yes i am. For another classic example, look at the US Civil War.

          And why wouldnt they? They could care less about the consitution or rule of law, for instance during the Colorado Labor Wars, Gen. Sherman Bell justified the ensuing reign of terror as a “military necessity, which recognizes no laws, either civil or social.” His junior officer, Thomas McClellend, declared, “To hell with the constitution, we aren’t going by the constitution.”

      • Concentrate here, Mr. Geek. I don’t doubt you are earnest in your view that violence is un-American. Ponder these questions, then re-evaluate your position.

        Why the 2nd amendment?

        Why do the members of the military swear their oath to protect the constitution against domestic enemies as well as foreign?

        Our founders perfectly understood that it is the tendency of governments to tyrannize the people. And tyranny “duly elected or enacted” is no less tyrannical. That we american citizens are guaranteed, by our constitution, the means to overthrow our government by force of arms is, get this, uniquely american!

        That these malignant power-drunk politicians, and their mob of constituents are directly attacking this guarantee should deeply offend you.

        If not, then in the words of Sam Adams, “May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our [countryman].”

        • Concentrate here, Mr. Geek. I don’t doubt you are earnest in your view that violence is un-American.

          I encourage you to re-read what I wrote, and note that you are putting words in my mouth. I did not assert, and do not believe, that violence is in-American. You may find questions about a person’s beliefs to be more effective, and less inflammatory, than willfully misinterpreting that person’s speech and using that as the basis for your argument.

          These incursions on our constitutional rights do offend me, mightily. That’s why I support effective means of opposing them, particularly the Calguns Foundation. I’m open to ideas in how to influence CA politics to achieve the results I think we both desire — shall-issue CCW and the end of ridiculous AWB/mag-size limits, to start with.

          On the other hand, I don’t think that coming within a hair’s breadth of advocating assassination of the California governor is a healthy contribution to the democratic process, and that is a position which I will not change.

        • I don’t think that coming within a hair’s breadth of advocating assassination of the California governor is a healthy contribution to the democratic process

          That right is enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and codified in to US law under the title of Organic Laws.

      • “I think it’s dangerously anti-American to suggest removing lawfully elected politicians from office through military force. ”
        actually its not. not when those politicians are in blatant violation of the constitution. That is why the 2nd amendment exists to begin with.
        Am I advocating violence? not remotely. There is a peaceful solution to the problem.

      • I reread your post. My original reply stands. I don’t think I put words into your mouth at all. You stated, “I think it’s dangerously anti-American to suggest removing lawfully elected politicians from office through military force.” My paraphrase was off only a little if at all. Maybe you did not write what you meant?

        Certainly I would agree that violence is absolutely the last resort, but we’ve been at the peaceful opposition a long time. And significantly, once our arms are taken. It is too late!

        How long would you wait? “Forever”, or “I don’t know”, are not very good answers. What is your answer?

      • Geek – you’ve completely missed the point. It’s not that the law is unpopular. The idiot majority in this state may well be OK with it. It’s that the law is UNCONSTITUTIONAL. It violates individual RIGHTS. The courts need to throw it out NOW. The outcome of elections DOES NOT allow the government to violate our RIGHTS.

    • Sorry, but your enemy is not the politicians but the people who vote these crackpots into office.

      Same applies to the Fugazy in Chief.

      • Sorry, but your enemy is not the politicians but the people who vote these crackpots into office.

        So it’s settled then – the US military needs to declare war on the state of California.

  5. That was predictable. Open carry folks, take note: Pulling on the tiger’s tail may not be a good idea after all.

    • I hate to say it, but you are right. The majority of voters in CA know nothing of guns other than what they get through the news (gangbangers!), from movies (visible gun == someone is gonna die a bloody death!), and from politicians pandering to their base fears (gangbanger terrorists are going to kill your family from 1000m with Barrett M82s!). And on the national news, it’s more of the same plus Tea Party activists exercising their open carry rights at political events while often-as-not making veiled threats about rising up in revolution.

      CA voters see open carry demonstrations as a direct threat of gun-involved violence. We have a long way to go in this state before reactionary laws like this one stop making it onto the books, much less get struck down.

    • Translated: “That’s what you get for exercising your rights, stupid!”

      Thanks Joe. You’re a real benefit to gun-rights. /sarc

      • Hey Idaho Man: All I’m saying is that there is a smart way to go about things and there is a dumb way. Walking around town with an AR-15 at the ready is a dumb way to try to win friends and influence people.

        • If I saw a guy walking about town with a AR-15, i’d try to befriend him. And it would influence me to join him with my rifle.

        • It wouldnt be at the ready, since a previously existing CA law says that they must be unloaded…which just makes this new law even dumber. The streets will be so much safer without all those unloaded gun toters around.

      • thats what you get for drawing attention to yourself, stupid.

        all of you chuckleheads know we live in a police state that is tramping on the constitution with increasing frequency.

        Dont worry, the move towards the other amendments will proceed.

    • As it has always been. California’s second major gun law, banning the carrying of loaded weapons, occurred in 1968 when (armed) Black Panthers marched in protest on the state capital. Gov. Reagan signed the ban into law as an emergency public safety measure. Thus the tone that guns are a threat to public safety was set, and was soon followed by the assault weapons ban (which is still in effect to this day).

      It is a numbers game. By population, the urban areas vastly outnumber the rural areas. The Dems have a nearly 2/3 majority in the Legislature. Only the courts can save us–and right now the Ninth Circuit is sitting on its hands with multiple appeals that address these issues pending. I feel that perhaps the Court is waiting for the election before issuing any rulings. Given the political sensitivity of this subject, that would make sense out of this interminable delay.

  7. “Assemblyman Anthony Pantload Portantino says he wrote the bill after protestors began carrying long guns to protest an earlier Golden State law that outlawed the open carry of unloaded handguns.”
    So he wrote a bill because some of the citizens were practicing first amendment rights.
    Feel a whole lot safer now that the Dems have passed another feel good law.
    Sure that the crime rate will be close to zero very soon.
    Build a wall around San Fran and LA and leave the rest of us alone.

  8. If California’s population is anything like people who live in Chicago,then the fight has already been lost for this generation. As far as most people in the Windy City are concerned self defense is a myth and the Government is the only agency which should have martial authority.

    I have little doubt that if one of California’s anti-gun politicos offered a total civil gun ban for a vote tomorrow, the evil legislation would only be stopped by a judiciary injunction. Without the court system California would already have outlawed civil gun useage.

    • Yep. Nailed it in the second paragraph.

      We came within a hair’s breadth of losing access to mail-order ammo. The courts, thankfully, struck it down as unconstitutional. This wouldn’t have happened without CA residents and 2A advocates working hard within the system to challenge these laws in court.

  10. I, for one, feel safer already, knowing next time I zip down to trader joe’s I won’t have to worry about accidentally seeing someone with an empty k98.

    • We all know those LA gangs just love to oc their MG42s at the local grocery store. I guess governor Moonbeam just had to sign that legislation, ya know, for the children.

  11. I’m not from Kaliforny but isn’t this a brief synopsis of recent gun precidents:

    Judge rules may issue (or essentially no issue except to well connected and impotent people) is ok since open carrying of unloaded is legal.

    The state outlaws open carrying of unloaded handguns. In protest, gun owners carry unloaded long guns.

    The state outlaws open carrying of long guns.

    So tell me, how does this state have a constitutional leg to stand on? The citizens have no choices for exercising their 2nd amendment rights. The original ruling was based on citizens having a choice if they couldn’t get a CC permit. If I were the judge, I’d revise my ruling since the state was gaming the system.

      • The next argument we anticipate is that the current CCW law (may issue for “good cause”) is sufficient to preserve the right. What “good cause” means will be the subject of future litigation in some county that is essentially no-issue. I don’t know how differences in how discretion is exercised will affect future decisions; some counties are virtually shall issue for self defense, while LA is issue only under those circumstances which would authorize an individual to carry a loaded weapon even without a permit (immediate threat of harm). Hawaii is essentially no issue under a may issue system, and its system was upheld by the federal district court despite the fact that Hawaii has not issued a single CCW and offers no reciprocity. Litigants are thus required to show that the police chief abused its discretion in denying a license, a nearly impossible standard to meet. An appeal of that ruling is pending.

  12. I’m sure the Calguns Foundation will take this one to court. And I must also say I wholeheartedly disagree with those who extol California gun owners to leave the state. Yes, that may solve the problem for the individual, but it weakens the position of all the other gun owners in the state. It also serves to further polarize the country which, if the last 12 years are any indicator, is not a good thing. I know gun owners tend to be rather independent folk, but the self-serving attitude leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

    • The number of gun owners in California is so small its below the statistical error percentage of the poll stats. Whether the few right thinking gun owners in CA stay or go is irrelevant to the outcome of California state politics. The politicians in Sacramento can type a letter saying “F**k You” to every gun owner in the state and they’d not lose a point in approval ratings. Considering the nature of ignorant gun-fearing hoplophobes they may even get extra political points for doing just that!

      • True this. My fight is within the State of Florida and Washington D.C. California gun owners need to either lead, follow or get out of the way all by themselves.

        • And where did the last awb start, California. And the next and permanent awb has been put forward by a California senator, feinstein. Ignore and ridicule California all you want. But do so at risk of your gun rights.

          Barry gets reelected and the California dems are going to have his ear.

    • CA, NY, IL et al. are lost causes, and not worthy of the state taxes paid to them by people who believe in liberty and its defense. Best to sell your property and move to a state that _does_, or at least hasn’t gone down the statist tubes as far. Leave the childish fools to wallow in their self-made pit, escape to free territory elsewhere.

    • Yes, that may solve the problem for the individual, but it weakens the position of all the other gun owners in the state.

      It also means less tax revenue for politicians and a higher criminal to law abiding citizen ratio, meaning that the politicians will have that much harder of a time convincing people that tyranny works. You can dream all you want, but short of revolution or military intervention, the only way to change things in anti-Constitution areas is for the decent people to flee and let them self-destruct. It also means more decent people in the rest of the country, thus helping to add more votes for good causes in other states to help further solidify their laws that follow the Constitution.

  13. “… Portantino says he wrote the bill after protestors began carrying long guns to protest an earlier Golden State law …”

    Thus Portantino explicitly states that the law has nothing to do with criminals using firearms. Rather, the law criminalizes citizens who merely possess firearms anywhere in public.

    I have to believe it would be a cinch to overturn California’s open carry laws in the courts after this legislative act. It might also help the cases for concealed carry already in process.

    • That’s the hope. With the bans on handgun and now long gun OC, coupled with the virtual impossibility to obtain a CCW here in CA, it is a de facto total ban on any right to bear arms. I don’t have any faith in the CA courts, but perhaps they will finally recognize the gross infringement and force something to give here. We’ll see.

      • During the House HR822 debate last year, I heard CA rep Dan Lundgren say something telling about their attitude on the Constitution.Recalling the quote from memory:

        “We believe in strong gun laws like our sister state Illinois and feel they are the example to follow for our state. Our gun laws are too liberal”

        Those people could give a rats fart about Constitutional rights. Their game plan is probably this:if Illinois can get away with it, so can we. In that state carry in every form is forbidden to non law enforcement, so until a court case strikes the UUW statute down CA has little to fear from the judiciary.

  14. Pat Brown (Moonbeam’s pater familias) was soooo right when he said that Cali has the perfect climate for fruits and nuts.

  16. I have nothing to say to California, and California has nothing to say to me. They can PASS whatever they want, CAs is the least significant set of rules that govern my life.

    I’ve been living in CA for 27 years, and flatly ignoring their laws for 12.

    LEAVING just makes CA stronger, it makes the purity of their curdled liberal blood stronger, it makes their unified voice stronger. We can’t AFFORD to all run to AZ or Idaho, or NV.
    SOMEONE has to stay here to throw a wrench in their works.

    The Chair is Against The Wall, boys…..

    • leaving is a good idea. its called jumping out of the cesspool.

      i wish the worst on that corrupt, rotten state that i can possibly fathom. when it floats off into the Pacific, ill be celebrating.

    • all good and well until the other shoe drops and you turn from rebel to felon in the eyes of the CA justice system. you haven’t thrown a wrench in anything, they’ll arrest you and lock you up just like anyone else. time to stop thinking you’re special ’cause you get away with it.

  17. This is the first picture I have see of gov. Jerry since he took office. I remember him from the first go-round, the years have NOT been kind to him.

  19. I don’t know what to say… I moved to WA from CA 7 years ago and fully enjoy WA’s gun-friendly shall-issue mentality (well, except Seattle and some of the surrounding townships where you can’t even have pepper spray). My local grocery chain just added a gun counter! With handguns! I think I did a dance…

    But I still travel to CA monthly for work (and carry a few CA-legal handguns so I can hit the range while I’m there–I follow all the rules, but I’m worried that soon I won’t even be able to do that). I perform (hippie-dem-friendly) public service work for that state, yet feel more and more unwelcome as the years pass. To my mind, they’re not just afraid of my guns, they’re afraid of me: what I am, what I stand for, what I can do. (At what point do I not get to appear in public? Or does whoever I’m out with get busted for having a weapon in a public place?)

    Food for thought: we keep calling these people “communists”. They’re not. Communism doesn’t work. Never has, outside of a little hippie commune. Communism is an idea you sell to poor oppressed folks, a dream that everybody is going to be equal and share everything. But in every case (Russia, China, N. Korea, Cuba) you need a supreme leader or small elite group to enforce this absolutely (and they get into power by selling the “dream”), to keep everybody towing the line “for their own good”, and anybody who steps out or speaks up…well… There is a name for that. It’s Fascism. (Which is supposed to be the opposite of Communism, right?) This is why all the “progressives” who think the Constitution needs “modernizing” disturb me.

  20. I would rather be working for minimum wage in Arizona than any wage in California.

    When my OC unnerves some interloper from CA it makes my day.

    No wonder Not Cal is such a popular clothing line out here…

  22. Could Mikeb be the secret love child of Hillary and Obama from thirty years ago, just wondering?

    • could you be the secret love child of a can of corn niblets and six bran muffins, just wondering? wtf does that have to do with the long-gun ban being discussed? r-tard.

  23. I live in California. I cannot move due to obligations to elderly parents who cannot/will not move. I put up with the anti-gun climate here and expect it to get worse…so it goes.
    Even so, I shoot two or three times a week, both pistol and long gun, reload ammo and buy all I want if I am too lazy to reload.

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