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Gun control advocates were wrong-footed by the San Bernadino terrorist attack. How could such a thing happen in California, the state with the strictest gun control laws in the country? Even before the bodies were cold, gun control zealots had an answer: California’s neighboring states! Their “lax” gun laws were to blame. This despite the fact that there was no evidence whatsoever that the killers bought their guns in Arizona or Nevada. Check out this excerpt from Why California’s Strict Gun Laws Didn’t Matter In San Bernardino at huffingtonpost.com . . .

In an era where mass shootings have become commonplace, the couple’s firepower still raises eyebrows — especially in California, which experts say has the nation’s strictest gun laws. Those laws typically forbid the sale and possession of assault rifles of the sort used by the shooters.

But authorities said the shooters’ arms were purchased legally, perhaps exposing the limits of state gun regulations in a country where gun laws vary widely from one state to the next.

Perhaps?

The DPMS Model A15 and a Smith and Wesson M&P15 that Farook and Malik used aren’t explicitly prohibited under state law, since both rifles are available for purchase with bullet buttons, according to The Associated Press.

It was unclear if the rifles were purchased in California under the loophole, or in another state.

Unclear?

The ATF on Thursday night said both rifles had been illegally modified, according to Desert Sun reporter Brett Kellman, One had been rigged to hold a 30-round magazine; an attempt was made to convert the other to full automatic fire.

If the assault rifles or the high-capacity magazines used in the massacre were purchased in another state, it would be consistent with a pattern.

“California is not an island,” said Ari Freilich, staff attorney for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “People can go to neighboring states. A significant source of crime guns and guns used to inflict acts of violence in the state come from other states with weaker gun laws.”

If? Consistent with a pattern? 

There are limits to what California can do, however, when states like Nevada and Arizona, which have loose gun laws, are within driving distance.

“What we know is that each year more and more crime guns are coming in to California from states like Nevada and Arizona that don’t have laws, like expanded Brady background checks, to keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons, suspected terrorists, and other people intent on doing harm,” Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a statement. “The number of crime guns coming from NV and AZ, into CA has more than doubled since 2006.”

Fifty-seven percent of out-of-state guns used in California crimes came from just 10 states in 2007, according to a 2008 report by Mayors Against Illegal Guns .  . .

In a separate 2010 analysis, Mayors Against Illegal Guns found that 4,462 of guns recovered in California crimes in 2009 were imported from out of state, whereas 1,772 guns recovered in other states were found to have originated in California.

So…there’s no proof that Arizona’s or Nevada’s gun laws had anything to do with this crime, and gun control-happy California is a source for “crime guns.” But The Huffington Post’s happy to publish an article suggesting a connection relying on data massaged and manipulated by a civilian disarmament organization.

I think it’s safe to say that’s consistent with a pattern.

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63 COMMENTS

    • The answer is obvious. If a progressive passes laws that don’t reduce gun crime, it’s because the laws weren’t strict enough or wide ranging enough. So we need restrictive gun laws all over the country.

      It’s why the progressives, (the Spawn of Communism) says communism has a hundred percent failure rate where ever it’s been tried. There aren’t enough countries in the world that are practicing communism for it to work.

  2. You still can’t buy in gun in NV or AZ with out the appropriate ID from those states, so unless it was a straw purchase (illegal anyway), the accusation is baseless.

    • Depending on state law a person can buy a long gun from an FFL dealer in another state. But also depending on state law (and maybe Federal?), that dealer might also be required to follow the laws of the buyer’s home state.

      Kentucky does not have any waiting period on firearms purchases. Illinois residents who buy long guns from an FFL dealer in Kentucky are required to wait the 24 hours required by Illinois law to take possession of the firearm. I can’t count the times I have heard sales help at different stores explaining this to Illinois buyers. The local Wal Marts for a time would not sell firearms to Illinois residents, they still may not. Illinois residents are asked for their FOID if they buy ammo in Kentucky.

      • If you get caught selling a firearm in the state of Nevada to someone that is not a resident, you will never own a gun in Nevada again. The majority of resident gun owners here know this and do not sell without ID and proper bill of sale. the problem is we get a serious flux of people moving here from Calif. and they do the purchases for friends and family illegally. Those are the ones they need to apprehend and strip them of ever being able to own a gun in the state of Nevada.

        This is the bill of sale I use in the state of Nevada:

        https://s3.amazonaws.com/uslf-previews/US/US-00456BG.pdf

  3. Are nevada and arizona awash in violence because of their lax gun laws?

    Must be those damn Swedish fundamentalists trying to make CA look bad.

    • That’s the same thing I was thinking. If the guns are the problem, why aren’t they an even bigger problem in Arizona and Nevada, where there are more of them AND they’re easier to get? Must be some kind of magic that happens when they cross the border.

    • its nice here in Phoenix. the riiiivers of blooooood flowing through the streets give it a Venice of the Southwest feel 😉

  5. Wasn’t there something floating around yesterday where Carly Fiorina was being interviewed and said the guns
    ( one, some or all, I’m not sure) were legally purchased for the San Bernardino PD?

  6. But…..but….guns!

    The mind boggling stupidity of progressives is causing physical pain. The stupid, it burns!!

    The fact that you have hundreds of left wing political hacks, left wing media pundits and left wing celebrities all screaming about “common sense gun control” without even once acknowledging that California already has everything they want and MORE is just morally corrupt.

    What they need to do is grow a pair of balls and stop saying “we don’t want your guns” and say “we want the 2nd amendment repealed and we want you to surrender your guns”. I might have a tad bit more respect for them then.

  7. This is why they hesitate to call it terrorism, they are looking for something… anything, to further their agenda or distract from the 100 ton elephant in the room.

  8. Being a resident of AZ, I am perfectly happy to shutdown the border with California, and then require a passport and visa for entry from California (or any blue state) into Arizona. I am so freaking pissed at the Progressives and their minions in the news media, I cannot even put it in words anymore. I would be glad to debate the facts with these people, but they do not care about facts. If I were married to a Progressive, I would divorce her. If my son/daughter was a Progressive, I would disown them. If one of my friends was a Progressive…well, they would no longer be a friend. If anyone in my family is a Progressive, I will never talk to them again. That is how angry I am at these people. I am drawing a line in the sand.

      • +10million. I moved from CT to AZ to avoid the terrible laws (not just guns, but taxes, wages, rent etc) and these bloody liberal Californians (mostly southern CA- Northern CA may as well be NV) keep coming in because CA is such a failure, then trying to make AZ just like the hell-hole they left! I say, screw the southern border- We need a western border!

        • Hey now, my wife and I are planning to flee CA to AZ. We’re as conservative as they come…so let’s watch where we’re swinging that brush. 😉

        • Blake, I am sure we will have an immigration policy so that those escaping tyranny in California can seek asylum. 🙂

  9. “One had been rigged to hold a 30-round magazine”

    Idiot. The mechanism is the mechanism. Holds 5 round mag, holds 30 round mag, holds whatever the ever loving fuck sized mag. There is no “rigged”.

    These idiots should be required by law to only write stories for children, about puppies.

    Adults can have conversations without being bothered by them then.

  11. I have no sympathy for the disarmed anymore. Let the frightened chickens crow, it’ll make them feel better.

  13. Does this mean if we pass liberal gun laws and more violent crime happens by bad guys using guns do we get to blame Canada, or do we point our fingers back at Mexico like they have been doing to us all this time?

  14. I blame progressives with their lax mental capabilities. Stupid is always at fault.

    “to keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons, suspected terrorists, and other people intent on doing harm”
    I see they added a new word to their bad people list.

    BTW, I’d love to see this “people intent on doing harm” list. Wouldn’t that be just about everyone on his facebook page? There has got to be a way to leverage this kind of shit and shove it back on them.

    Can I just call the CIA/FBI and report Dan Gross as a suspected terrorist and get him on a list? He’s certainly spouted enough violent rhetoric against the Constitution to qualify.

    • It would probably make the other terrorists angry. Besides, everyone knows there is no such thing as a female terrorists. Only men are evil enough to do such things.

    • Maybe no pictures before death due to Muslim modesty/regulations? No pictures after death due to no recognizable face?

  16. Well, lets get back to some common sense here; many if not most of the “bullet buttons” can be permanently affixed in case a person is going to a “free” state or moves out of CA. Modification to a detachable mag is what removal of a pin, pulling the old mag and putting another in at worse? Manufacture of new machine guns are illegal in the US, and that didn’t stop them from trying to make one.

    If they didn’t get the guns from AZ or NV, they could have in all probability gone across the border to MEXICO and gotten all the firepower in the world that they wanted to. Stuff that would have been full auto, probably explosives and RPGs even. Mexico is happy enough to import all manner of drugs without any regard to health, life or the stability of our country why wouldn’t they import firearms and ammunition if the profit margins were there? That’s exactly what happened in France, and all the gun laws they had did nothing to prevent access to the weapons they had.

    Now then, on another note the pipe bombs they had were illegal everywhere. I don’t think that stopped them from making them.

    I guess in a long handed way what I’m trying to say is that trying to stop an adaptable foe who’s bent on committing evil by limiting their weapons is kind of like squeezing a balloon trying to compress the air inside.

  17. I guess they have no idea how ar’s work.
    Even if part of their nonsensical wet-dream came to pass and all the world had to use those stupid bullet buttons or other magazine locking mechanism it takes all of two minutes and $1.50 worth of parts to swap in a regular magazine release. So easy even a HuffPo writer could do it.

  18. This is pretty exciting news for me. I had no Idea I could just run over the CA/AZ border to a gun store, legally purchase a ‘high-capacity clip’ automatic assault pistol and immediately drive back home and no one will be the wiser. That’s how it works, right?

  20. No FFL in neighboring states will sell a gun to a California resident.
    UNLESS :
    – the gun is CA-legal
    and
    – the gun is sent to a CA FFL, from which the CA resident can take possession
    -ONLY after passing a background check and waiting 10 days

  21. Fox news reported this morning that modifying the bullet buttons allowed the guns to be fired full auto. The things you learn from the news.

    • Dude, that’s what the 30 caliber magazine clip does, 30 bullets in half a second.

      All operators know that.

  22. As a former CA resident who spent time in both other states, the HuffPo completely missed the fact that a CA resident cannot legally buy firearms out of state. Like at all. No dealer who values their FFL will do a 4473 for an out of state CA resident.

  23. Because terrorists would NEVER break the LAW! Oh yeah, and don’t you need to show some ID when you legally purchase a weapon? Yep, and a CA license would set off alarms for ANY FFL (whether in NV or AZ). Keep on keeping with that agenda. BTW, CA law states that anyone bringing a firearm into the state must register it with the CA DOJ within 60 days using appropriate forms and $19 fee. You will be considered a personal firearm importer. I’m sure that happened as well.

    • That law is specifically for new residents. Existing residents need to have the firearm from another state transferred to an in-state FFL so that all of the appropriate fees, I mean forms, can be filled out and processed. To include a 10 day wait period and restriction to one gun per month. Good times, right. That’ll show them pesky terrorists. Making it tougher, but not impossible. Bureaucracy in action.

  25. Soooo……about three quarters of California crime guns originate in California, so they’re blaming Arizona and Nevada for the shooting? When, regardless where these specific guns were purchased, they were illegally modified? How pathetic.

    • Well, there’s also this:

      ” I just had a chance to meet with my national security team … for a regular update on our security posture post-Paris and going into the holiday season.

      … I know that families have discussed their fears about the threat of terrorism around the dinner table, many for the first time since September 11th. And it’s understandable that people worry something similar could happen here. Watching the events in Paris made the threat feel closer to home.

      So as we go into Thanksgiving weekend, I want the American people to know — is that we are taking every possible step to keep our homeland safe.

      First, we’re going after ISIL wherever it hides.

      …

      We continue working to choke off their financing and their supply lines, and counter their recruitment and their messaging.

      …

      Second, we continue to do everything possible to prevent attacks at home and abroad, and to prevent foreign terrorist fighters from entering the United States or other nations. Since 9/11, we’ve taken extraordinary measures to strengthen our homeland security, in everything from aviation security to border security to information sharing. We’ve improved upon these actions over time. Any time there’s an event, we learn something from it, and we continue to refine them. We continue to improve upon our approaches as we speak.

      Now right now, we know of no specific and credible intelligence indicating a plot on the homeland. And that is based on the latest information I just received in the Situation Room. It is similar to the information that I — the briefing that I received on Saturday before I left on my trip last week.

      So as Americans travel this weekend to be with their loved ones, I want them to know that our counterterrorism, intelligence, homeland security and law enforcement professionals at every level are working overtime. They are continually monitoring threats at home and abroad, continually evaluating our security posture. They’re constantly working to protect all of us.

      Their work has prevented attacks. Their efforts have saved lives. They serve every hour of every day for the sake of our security. They did so before Paris, and they do so now -– without fanfare or credit, and without a break for the holidays.

      So the bottom line is this: I want the American people to know, entering the holidays, that the combined resources of our military, our intelligence, and our homeland security agencies are on the case. … In the event of a specific, credible threat, the public will be informed.

      …

      And while the threat of terrorism is a troubling reality of our age, we are both equipped to prevent attacks, and we are resilient in the face of those who would try to do us harm. And that’s something we can all be thankful for.

      Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. “

      President Barack Obama
      25 November 2015

      {emphasis added}

      The answer, of course, to not knowing these folks were in the US and planning/prepping an attack was to deny it was terrorism for a couple of days.

      • Farook was a natural-born American citizen who, if he had managed to survive to his 35th birthday, would have been legally eligible to run for President of the United States.

  28. Even the ATF themselves, the Big State Gov’t Agency that has a vested interest in promoting increased Federal level gun control, states that most guns used in crime in California *come from California*:

    https://www.atf.gov/about/firearms-trace-data-2014

    Click on “California” and read through the PDF to the section on “source states”.

    But then, that doesn’t fit the agenda does it?

  29. Wonder if the dip shits at HufPo ever thought about our massively open border on Mexico? You know, where illegal drugs, stolen merchandise, and human smuggling have occurred for decades. They could outlaw every gun in America, and guess what? Guns will be smuggled in just like everything else that is already illegal and banned do. Hypocrites they are, demanding open borders while ignoring the crimes and illegal drugs and merchandise being brought across in the BILLIONS of dollars every year. Yet these clowns think criminals will some how obey the gun laws and NOT smuggle and sell them here like they do drugs and other stolen goods? It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so damn sad.

  30. “California is not an island,” said Ari Freilich, staff attorney for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “People can go to neighboring states. A significant source of crime guns and guns used to inflict acts of violence in the state come from other states with weaker gun laws.”

    Interesting. Perhaps California should be an island. (Come oooooonnnnnnn San Andreas fault line……!)

    Hawaii’s an island. Where do their crime guns originate? ATF reports only 35% originate in Hawaii. The rest come from elsewhere. (Which other state leads all others in supplying Hawaii’s crime guns? California!) That was fun, let’s do another.

    Puerto Rico? Only 45% of their crime guns originate there. U.S. Virgin Islands? Only 28% of their crime guns originate there.

    Antis would interpret this as “See?! If only we had consistent nationwide laws, we could eliminate seepage and drive down gun violence!” Well.

    That’s a deeply flawed conclusion for many reasons, of course. The first of which is that it ignores the reality not that criminals obtain guns from other states, per se, but rather that criminals adapt and obtain guns in general. Impose national standards if you want. Determined and resourceful criminals will find a way around that, too.

    Assuming crime control was ever the real goal (it wasn’t), we’ve gone as far as we can with the penal system as a preventive measure. At this point, anyone who still wants to murder someone is going to do so, regardless. Anyone who can be dissuaded by the prospect of punishment already has been.

    The only ways to reduce murder rates further are either to change some people’s minds about committing them, or to get rid of those people who commit them. Neither approach entails disarming the public.

  31. I live in CA and have tried to purchase long guns in AZ.

    Gun Dealers in AZ will not sell directly to CA residents. Not even long guns. I didn’t bother to ask about hand guns, because I already knew the answer to that question.

  32. HuffPo doesn’t see the irony of blaming AZ/NV gun shops when the DOJ forced said gun shops to sell to straw buyers then threatened them with litigation if owners talked to the press?

  33. who cares what puffingcock post thinks. they’re a bunch of spineless wanna be socialist with vaginas that argue against the ability to defend themselves in the first place.

  34. It’s always someone else’s fault or another states fault and not killers. The killers were the victims here, if it weren’t for other states lax gun laws they never would have become murderers.

  35. And when all 50 states will have the same gun control laws as California, then the firearms will come from Mexico… When anti-gunners will understand that no laws will ever be efficient to stop criminals and terrorists to get firearms, regardless the local gun control laws. Apparently, late French events were not enough. Late California events are not enough… What do they need to finally understand their flawed logic?

  36. PuffHo’s is not a news site- its just a propaganda outlet, spreading the Talking Point Memo from the WH.
    Citing incorrect facts, easily checked, and then citing the Left’s favorite gun control activists- Brady, is becoming a parody of how baldly the left has compromised the “profession” of journalism.

  37. I do not favor drawing a line in the sand. It is quick to crumble and wash away. I prefer to chisel a wide and deep line in granite, it is lasting and defined. If weathering does it ill the granite is likely to crack along a well defined line, furthering its distinction of one side from the other.

    Remember any and all “laws” that regulate any and all arms are, by default, illegal.

  38. Am I looking at that picture of ammo wrong, it doesn’t look like .223 to me, I though they reported both long guns were .223 or 5.56?

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