(courtesy snopes.com)

Underneath the headline Gun control bills aim to change California’s gun culture, the San Jose Mercury News writes this:

With nearly 8 million gun owners and hundreds of thousands of semi-automatic weapons in California, Gov. Jerry Brown’s signing of six new gun control bills on July 1 won’t make us instantly safer. But it’s a good step in what should be a decades-long campaign to change the state’s gun culture.

And there you have it: the Golden State’s recently enacted package of gun control laws is a step on the slippery slope to civilian disarmament. Regardless of its impact — or lack thereof — on firearms-related crime.

I suppose it’s not news that the News and its ilk have broken cover. The pattern is set: every time there’s a headline-grabbing, firearms-related homicide, the mainstream media becomes more and more emboldened, gun control-wise. Have they no shame? Actually, a little . . .

The most significant action in the six-bill package Brown just signed makes California the first state to require background checks to buy bullets. The legislation also bans high-capacity magazines — and requires people to turn in ones they already own — as well as banning “bullet buttons,” which make it easy for shooters to detach magazines and quickly reload.

The NRA, prone to hyperbole, calls the new laws “draconian” and “Stalin-esque.” None threatens the right of law-abiding citizens to own weapons, but the organization does have a legitimate point about one element. It outlaws lending guns to anyone but immediate family members without having the borrower go through a background check. Previously, guns could be loaned between people who are personally known to each other for as long as 30 days without a background check.

The Legislature should look at whether this law can be tweaked to make it clear that lending guns will be prosecuted only when a crime is committed with one. That way friends will know they’re taking personal responsibility for legal use of their firearms but aren’t subject to arrest for letting a pal try out a new hunting rifle.

Start with this: if the NRA is “prone to hyperbole” the Mercury News is prone to anti-gun rights hysteria. Then there’s the usual Fudd remark suggesting that the right to keep and bear hunting rifles is somehow different from the right to keep and bear any other type of firearm.

As for the suggestion that the legislature should “tweak” the law mandating a background check when loaning a gun to anyone other than immediate family, where was the News when the law was being debated? In full support, of course.

Mass shootings and gun violence are escalating. California has an obligation to try to stem that tide while protecting the rights of its law-abiding gun owners. The Legislature has approached this responsibly — especially since it has had the foresight to sponsor independent study of the results.

The number of mass shooting in the U.S. are not escalating — unless you believe the stat-bending mainstream media (e.g., The Washington Post) outlets with an anti-gun rights axe to grind. A quick Google search of “are mass shootings becoming more common” tells the tale of an alternative, indeed scientific view.

Equally, how exactly do the new gun control bills — one of which outlaws standard capacity ammunition magazines — protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners? Do California gun owners feel their gun rights are being protected by having to undergo a background check when they purchase ammunition?

Can you say ‘lip service’? Of course you can. And should, at every possible opportunity. And what’s the bet that the “$5 million allocated for research on the impact of gun violence and of state laws intended to curb it” will find that gun control is actually a good thing? The same odds that Americans will surrender their gun rights without a fight.

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57 COMMENTS

    • In California? Not many I imagine.

      If he drove to other states? Too many to count.

      In fact that truck would probably get used for target practice if the driver stopped anywhere in the boonies and went to get a bite at a diner.

        • Some decades back, I used a protractor (remember that gadget for drawing circles?) that I still had from high school to do a more permanent job on such a difficult vehicle, 4 tires on the car and another 4 on the trailer, guy came back to 8 flats and one spare, wonder if he ever parked that rig illegally again. Much quicker and cheaper, too. Oh, and punctures in the sidewall cannot be patched, new tires in order. While his boat stayed in the water.

        • Larry:

          I don’t want to do any permanent damage. I just want him to be completely confused as to why his driver’s side front tire is flat every single morning.

          That way I can laugh as he changes his tire and gets his rim buffed repeatedly all to no avail.

          Just take the dog for a walk, swap out the valve stem cap for one of those things, and on the return from walking the dog retrieve it.

          It’s like picking the locks on your friend’s house to constantly rearrange their furniture and then relocking the doors on your way out… starts screwing with their head.

  2. That $5 million is going to wind up being blown on escorts and cocaine. That’s how those research grants work, just nobody wants to talk about it. Oh, and the “research” that’s performed deep inside “Cinnamon and Licorice” will absolutely find that guns=death and no guns=peace and love.

      • In my youth it was weed, alcohol and women. But that was the 60’s. Now that I’m in my 60’s I’ve had to cut back. Just women survived the cut.

      • Strippers, blow, and a few cocktails are mine.

        Just like about 3MM other guys, assuming there’s only 1% of us…

        Just sayin’.

  3. “We are not coming for your guns”, yeah do what leftist do, repeat lies and hope people are dumb enough to believe you.

  4. I’m getting sick of these people and their ignorance. I’m at the point where I wish they would stop wasting my oxygen,

  5. Remember, thank your California pigsters for their quid pro quo with Sacremento: civilian gun control for police carve-outs.

    • Yep. Every badge worshipper who can’t wait to jump to the defense of the police should remember how happy they are to enforce our present unconstitutional gun laws.

      You think most bureaucrats-with-guns would think twice about following an order to go door-to-door disarming “civilians”? Think again.

  6. First, the CA legislature makes us use bullet buttons to “save lives”. Now, they are saying that it makes it “easy to detach magazines and reload” WTF? You see, we give in and compromise on the bullet button and now they are using it against us. A good lesson for all of us.

    • Not true. California did not mandate the bullet button; rather the bullet button was a way around the last AR ban that required fixed magazines on AR style rifles, which was defined as a magazine that required the use of a tool to remove it. The effect was to outlaw magazine release buttons and require, as will the new law, that the action be opened in order to reload. The tip of a bullet being a “tool,” the bullet button was born.

  7. I’m not really seeing the story here. Haters gonna hate, liars gonna lie and gun grabbers gonna grab.

  10. Nice URL.Thought the truck was real until I saw that. Photoshop, but not a lie either. A real one will be a MRAP.

    • The Photoshooped van is more in keeping with the California thinking. They are certain if the van pulls up in front of your place you will meekly place all of your firearms near the front entrance and stand with your hands in the yellow circles on the wall while they carry your guns away.

  11. Thinking about that new “fix” for the California bullet button ban where you have to release the rear pin on the upper and swing it open to release the mag. It would require a little gunsmithing work, but why not make the rear catches spring-loaded hooks? Also add a spring to the rear locking pin and make it slide from right to left.

    Push the locking pin and the upper disengages. The locking pin then automatically returns to battery. Swap the mags, swing the upper back down into to position and the spring-loaded hooks re-engage the locking pin. Still clumsy and slow, but with a little practice might work. If nothing else, when the new mag is in place simply pressing the end of the barrel against a hard surface would snap everything back into firing position.

    Just a random thought.

    • Lever gun with King’s patented loading gate. Shotgun with tube mag. With a little practice both are neverending mags.

      Is it perfect? No. But no matter how you rework the bullet button you’re stuck with 10 round mags.

    • here’s a better idea. fuck them and their horseshit laws. Operate your ar how you feel is best and when they come for it, use the magazine eject button as it was intended to be used. It’s gonna take several thousand of you Californians not only not compling, but violently resisting when the state attempts to force compliance to roll back the tide. From a free state, I wish you well. just remember, you patriots in California are I a situation I would not tolerate.

    • I noticed that too. In Montana a truck requires 18 wheels. Or at least ten!
      These things are known as “vans”, or maybe “pickups” if they have an eight foot bed that doesn’t need to be made…. -Joe Diffie

  14. California is a game of musical chairs. Be sure to exit before the music stops. The last taxpayer still standing is going to get hit with a HUGE bill!

  16. My RIGHT to keep and bear arms here in California is temporarily available until such time as the legislators can successfully remove it altogether, and of course the choices of firearm I may purchase are being removed with each legislators keystroke.

    If I were in an especially sadistic mood I would thank the Democratic legislature, the Spooky DeLeon’s, the Gruesome Newsome’s, the Pruny Hag Face Boxer’s and Fugly Fienstein’s for their tireless efforts to remove our states citizens access to legally available goods. It is because of their insane zeal to take toys away from us “little kids” that I can thank for slowly peeling away the stratified layers of Democratic group thunk, yes thunk, I typed it, from my mind and I am seeing the small glimmers of hope in changing my FUDD family’s views on gun rights.

  17. The same Mercury News that pimped mandatory pharmaceutical products in the name of public safety? Surprise surprise.

  18. Technically, the new law signed by Brown does not require a “background check” to purchase ammunition. In the traditional sense, a background check entails a review of records to determine if an individual has any disqualifying crimes or mental diseases. The check on this new law simply compares one’s name against a list of prohibited persons, called the APPS list. One’s individual background is not “checked.” Newsome’s ballot proposition, however, WILL require a NICS check. That you have to pay for. Each and every time.

    • That “pay for” situation really violates my sensibilities. Doesn’t it make sense that people who supposedly reap the benefits from a particular policy should be the ones who *pay the costs* of that policy? The purchaser of a firearm reaps precisely zero benefits from a NICS check. It SUPPOSEDLY makes a community safer, through magic, I guess, since there is no enforcement involved which involves an actual criminal. Perhaps if those communities had to pay for it, they would pay more attention to whether it accomplishes anything, I believe it does not.

  22. Background checks for ammo? Now is the time in all other states to buy the ammo you will need for decades…… Just in case. Not wanting to come off paranoid but I think most of us have been stocking up whilst reading the writing on the wall.

  23. Meh, i give the astro a c-… they should have gone with a previa with the optional side mounted machine gun.

  24. The Mercury news is my local rag. We are a ‘May Issue’ State when it comes to CCW. Our corrupt sheriff doesn’t give out permits unless you are a member of Her Sheriff’s Advisory Board. This is a shadowy group of wealthy businessmen who raise funds for the Sheriff’s Department OUTSIDE of whatever funding is provided by the Board Of Supervisors. In other words, it is a private slush fund for the Sheriff’s own personal use. The sheriff commutes to work in her private airplane from her retreat in LAKE TAHOE. Rank and file Deputies hate her and her jails are rife with scandal that has led to charges of murder by her deputies for beating a mentally ill person to death. The Mercury News cannot be bothered to cover any of this!

    On May 12th a career criminal from San Francisco drove to a remote (wealthy)home owners association in the mountains, conducted a home invasion, tortured the occupants and then murdered the homeowner before fleeing the scene in a Prius that ended up crashing on the exit off ramp near my house. The career criminal was caught and is now facing felony murder charges. In the back seat of the Prius a male subject(suspect?) was found. That person was rushed to the hospital where he was later pronounced dead. That person has not been identified by the Mercury News and my attempts to get a response from their crime reporter have been ignored.
    We have a high profile Home Invasion where the wealthy live; a high speed Prius chase, a dead home owner and a mystery body in the trunk of the Prius. And the Mercury News doesn’t think that further updates or investigation is somewhat warranted? This happened two months ago!

  25. More progressive common sense gun legislation. It’s for the children. Even if it only saves one life. We don’t want your guns….just the AK 47s that can take down a jetliner (so says the righteous rev Jessie Jackwad)

  26. When did laws in a republic become a way to change the culture, contra to what people want and do on their own, vs. a way to let help people in doing what tbey already want and do?

    In a republic, laws are done *for* us, not *to* us, right?

    Since when are the enforcers in a reoublic a way to inflict your preference on others you’ve failed to.convince?

    Yet, there it is. This is what the cali-overlords want, so they’re gonna restructure how the proles live, at the point of a gun, if that’s what it takes.

  27. My favorite part about this article is that they stole the photo from cracked.com. Good job writing an article about villi laying people’s rights while violating people’s property rights!

  29. “Gov. Jerry Brown’s signing of six new gun control bills on July 1 won’t make us instantly safer.”

    No, clearly that has to wait for the “Safety For All Act” initiative in November. At that point, if Californians aren’t instantly safer, they should bring immediate suit against the organizers for consumer fraud.

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