What’s wrong with California? Hmmm, where to start…. Fiscally speaking, this is as good a place as any: “Today (Gov. Jerry Brown) will unveil his revised budget and explain what additional spending must be cut. Tax collections have run $3.5 billion below what he calculated four months ago. Spending has grown $2 billion above projections. The federal government and court ruling blocked some savings he expected, while his fellow Democrats in the Legislature balked at others.” The solution? Well, besides higher taxes nothing’s better than convening an economic summit, of course. Basically, a 500-strong circle jerk whose sole contribution to “solving” the state’s problems is bland statements like “We believe that continued success requires public and private sector leaders taking signature actions that simultaneously promote economic vitality, equality of opportunity and environmental quality.” What does all this have to do with guns? Just ask Rico Tedjakusuma . . .

Rico wants to do something that’s damned hard in the Golden State these days – he’s trying to get a new business up and running. An enterprise that will produce income, profit and tax revenue in a state that’s hemorrhaging all of the above. But you’ve probably already guessed what the problem here is, right? Rico wants to start a gun business.

Don’t worry, though. LNC Arms – which doesn’t seem to be operating yet – will be an online business so no one in the East Bay has to drive past a purveyor of violence and death and be forced to explain to the children in the car why the world is such a terrible place. In fact, Tedjakusuma’s plan is to run the whole thing from his home, a condo in the idyllic sounding community of Pleasant Hill. Just think how small his carbon footprint will be!

The good news: Rico already has approval for his little enterprise from the city. On his application for a business license, he took pains to note that he won’t be selling retail guns out of his home. And while he also noted that he won’t be “a stocking dealer,” local law allows him to store as many guns in his home as he wants.

But, as mercurynews.com details, Karen Arntzen (who’s described as “a Pleasant Hill resident and a member of the Contra Costa Chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence”) got wind of the new venture.

“We still feel that Pleasant Hill should ban home occupation gun dealers whether they’re operating over the Internet or not; it still creates a situation where guns are being brought into the neighborhood and more guns in a community creates more opportunity for gun violence,” Arntzen said.

Tedjakusuma may be hearing from his condo association, too.

“I’m really shocked that the city even allowed this, because what happens when someone breaks in and steals all the guns?” said Christopher Stanley, community manager with Bay Area Property Services.

Stanley said he will consult an attorney and the homeowner’s association board of directors to find out if the complex can do anything about LNC Arms.

“I will do what I can to stop this,” he said.

Surprisingly, city councilman Michael Harris is taking a more measured approach to the kefuffle.

“If it’s simply an office and he’s not storing guns and ammunition and simply using that as a place to take orders, I don’t see an issue with that,” Harris said. But Harris is willing to look into the matter if Tedjakusuma’s neighbors raise concerns with the council.

“If there’s no risk to the heath and safety of the neighbors, the City Council shouldn’t be involved,” Harris said. “But if there is a risk, the City Council should take appropriate steps to reduce that possibility.”

God knows the last thing California needs is another profitable, growing company on its hands. Except that they do. Badly. If the state really wants to take some “signature actions…that promote economic vitality,” maybe they could eliminate some of the structural impediments to establishing a business in one of the very few truly bright spots in the national economy.

If they did – and I hope no one is holding their breath – that would allow Mr. Tedjakusuma and other intrepid souls to take a risk and help fund all of the spending the state’s Legislature’s so fond of. Then again, maybe Rico’s tax money isn’t the right kind of revenue for a state like California.

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33 COMMENTS

  1. From financialsense.com :
    Between 1985 and 2005 the population in California grew by 10 million people. And it is, and still remains, the most populous state in the union. But here’s the significant point: out of the 10 million new residents that moved into the state of California, we only got 150,000 new taxpayers. So, in other words, 98.5% of that 10 million population influx are non-taxpayers. So you have a tax base of 1.5% that is supporting the other 98.5%; and the statistics get even better…California has 12% of the nation’s population but it has one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients. 1 out of 5 residents of Los Angeles are on welfare.

    • I am loving it. Does not California have a huge tax shortfall or spending over run as well?

    • California is a prime example of communism gone wrong. And that’s why we have a democracy now albeit not a great democracy but its better then the failed Communist state of California.

      • The USA is not a Democracy. I am very happy to remind you we are a Constitutional Republic. Remember a Democracy is where two wolves & one sheep vote on what’s for dinner. Also if we were a Democracy lynch mobs would be perfectly legal as well if we were a Democracy.

        Everybody who makes that mistake needs to read the United States Constitution, Common Sense by Thomas Paine, & the Federalist Papers at a minimum.

      • All freedom comes from the barerl of a gun, our Anglo/Saxon heritage of freedom comes from the private ownership of weapons, England stayed free from the Continent after William the Conquer because all free born English were required to own a war bow and practice with it weekly. England was the only nation that allowed the peasants to own weapons that could take an armored knight off his horse. The original British gun laws were written because the towns people were buying guns for self defense and not practicing with the bow. All gun laws do is disarm the law abiding people and since the left has spent close to a century spreading propaganda that guns are evil it will take several real hard slaps by reality before the majority of the people in Canada and Britain wake up and start demanding their ancient right to be armed.

  2. I just have one request for all of the Californians moving here to Texas. When you get here, remember what destroyed your state, and don’t vote like a Californian, vote like a Texan. There isn’t any place for us to go if you destroy our state too.

    • LTC I am pretty sure those fleeing the chaos probably will not be voting anything like a typical Californian.
      It is the reason they left to begin with. California is a beautiful state. We have Tahoe, and many other great places. The San Francisco bay is a another pretty place. The fact that we are being run into the ground by bad politics is something else entirely.

      • Don’t count on it. Living in Florida we see all kinds of refugees from the various Republiks in the Union (NY, NJ, etc.). They had to escape the hell holes they helped make, but most often want to bring their same form of misery with them. Kind of like the folks that buy a house next to a shooting range, then complain about the noise, or move next to a farm & complain about the smell…

        —
        matt_

      • What I have seen in Florida makes me believe that these socialists crap in their nests until it can’t function anymore and then they pick up and change nests – and start crapping all over again. They never change.

  3. I heard this on the radio coming in.
    Mr. Tedjakusuma has done everything right! He even stated that he won’t be a stocking dealer. Ok what does that mean folks? Well any idiot can figure it out. It means he won’t have a stock of guns for sale in his home thus bypassing the whole permit thingy and having a wave of gun grabbers demanding his head on a platter. Guess it isn’t good enough for those folks!
    Lets not forget he has every right to stock his little condo with guns from floor to ceiling there is no law against that. Of course at some point you might have so much weight that it might stress the flooring, but that is another matter.
    I role my eyes and I sigh, why can’t I just move to another state. Unfortunately I can’t or I would! Kalifornia is pathetic. they are about to go bankrupt, and people are trying to regulate what type of online businesses people run from their homes!!! Give me a break!!!
    You know I can usually cut politicians some slack if it a a one term affair since economic and other things take time to creep into the system, but the democratic leadership of California has been in place for a long time. They have borrowed, maxed the states credit cards, are running a high unemployment, and pretty much are down to funding themselves on the equivalent of payday loans. Despite having some extremely large tech companies here they are very unfriendly to businesses. We have the dumbest and strictest gun laws next to DC, and people are getting worked up over this?????
    The Governor needs to go, the whole legislature needs out, and the local Sheriffs from every county need to be on the outs! Then we can also toss the Mayor’s and everyone else.. I am not a democrat or republican, I am a pissed off voter who is tired of the status quot from both sides…
    We have safe harbor laws in San Francisco that contributed to the deaths of three innocent people, we have journalists who commit felonies on TV by constructing and assault rifle but get away with it, yet no one does anything. The Feds worry more about raiding California legal pot grows than telling the state to get their act together. In about a years time I fully expect CA to be in court filling Bank Bankruptcy. Lord knows what will happen then..
    Ok sorry for the long rant.. To much coffee I think… 🙂

  4. Sorry, Tedjakusuma is trying to do something iconically American by venturing into his own business, and we can’t allow anything American in a foreign land like California.

    You ever notice that these braindead anti fools always put the word “gun” in front of violence, as if somehow dying or having your family murdered by a gun is worse than a knife or crowbar or car or any number of objects that destroy lives each and every day? Further proof that they’re not against violence – otherwise they’d simply say “violence” – but rather they focus on the inanimate object to which they childishly assert the ill actions of individual people. And guns are scary!

    Lucky for me, I’m smart enough to not blame boogeymen for people’s actions: morons like that woman give the dignity and intelligence of humanity a bad name, and their pathetic attitudes are a black spot on the American inheritance. And it’s no one’s – and nothing’s – fault but her own.

    But, what else do you expect from such a pitiful chunk of land as Cali?

  5. This problem can be solved easily by giving California back to Mexico, where guns are not allowed.

    • Yeah then those of us here would really know what it is like to have gun violence!

    • Try giving us back to Mexico, we’ll form our own damn country. We have half the Marine Corps, a huge chunk of the tech industry, one of the most productive agricultural valleys in the world, and about 90% of west coast imports come through our ports.

      Not that I’m taking this seriously.

      We could give the Mexicans a more useless state.
      How about Texas?

    • Yup and he still comes out smelling like a rose I mean come on he is building low income housing who can appose that! Well ok maybe folks in Marin will but then they will look horrible in the eyes of, well everyone!

  8. As mister Sanchanim mentioned, California has many beautiful places, but it is the politics that’s ruining us. I believe he mentioned Tahoe, and San Francisco. While, yes, those are beautiful places, and you mentioned the “many other places,” I wished to ask a small question. How far north have you been? California does not end at Sacramento, as I have heard some believe. In fact, there’s a lot of farmland out here, especially north of Sac. It is this area in which I was born and raised, it’s rather conservative, if I do say so myself. Nobody realizes how conservative we are up here because of the larger southern population. I only mention this to make aware those people who don’t fully know California. If I, say, moved to Texas, as LTC F mentioned, my vote would be solely conservative (by the way, my brother-in-law was stationed in Texas, and I must say I’d rather be there than here). Thank you for taking the time to read this.

    • Meh, San Francisco’s the most over-rated place in the US, in my opinion. At best merely okay.

      • San Francisco is the Derek Jeter of American cities. It’s great, and yet still manages to be overrated.

        • That would be true if Derek Jeter were an overweight single A player with two bad knees and a bum shoulder.

    • No problem for asking…
      Ok I have been to Redding many times, I hike up near Shasta lake and the mountain.
      Bodega Bay is another favorite spot. We like to go diving for abalone in Fort Ross area.
      I live in Tracy, so Modesto, Manteca, Lathrop “With the Eagles Nest Harley Shop” are all places I am a lot.
      We like Lassen and Trinity parks, plus the trips to Napa.
      So yes I have been north of the bay area, and certainly we are a lot different than Southern CA. To that end we are pushing hard here in San Juaquin Valley for a Sheriff who will be a shall issue on CCW. The SAF had a win when the county repealed it’s laws regarding going to the local PD for CCW. Now we go straight to the Sheriff.

  9. In order for a firearms manufacturer to sell their handguns in CA they have to pay the state $4,500.00 fee for each gun they wish to sell. I own the Kimber Warrior, the civilian version of the of the Desert Warrior. The difference in the two guns, the coating. Mine is Blued and the Desert Warrior is Dura-coated Desert Tan with the controls, trigger, and barrel bushing black. Kimber argued with the state over this difference in the fact that they are the same gun! The state, based on the coating difference, would not budge! Hence you cannot purchase the Kimber Desert Warrior in CA.

    Many other manufacturers handguns are not sold here as a result of the $4,500.00 graft money. The budget woes that CA is experiencing is a drop in the bucket compared to our long term debt, $870, 000,000,000.00. Say Bye-bye!

    • Bye-bye.

      Oh, wait. You didn’t mean “say bye-bye” literally. Sorry.

      On the other hand, Cali just elected a magnificent governor who, I am sure, will solve all the state’s problems toot sweet. He can start by resigning.

    • I knew they had to pay something but wasn’t sure how much.. thanks for the info.

  10. This is a great example of why I’ve been saying for years that all decent people need to just move the frak out of California. Once it’s down to nothing but celebrities funding their socialist hell and they have 99.9999998% of the population on welfare, they’ll either finally wake up or collapse and be taken over by more intelligent people.

  12. I hate this state, and I’m stuck here… Best thing you can do is open your business in Nevada, and work out of your home here in California.

    This state has some of the most asinine laws it’s not even funny, its down right maddening.

  13. Gentlemen,

    I live here, and I have a love / hate relationship with California. This state has tons of potential, but way too many liberals. I am a staunch purveyor of personal responsibility and a strong work ethic (which makes living in CA a challenge!). This state has tons of potential (as one of the other poster mentioned – Marine Corps bases, tech production, agriculture production, etc.), but it is unrealized because of its liberal base. Simply put, voters vote for more handouts, get the same, and perpetuate poverty.

    California remains as a shining example of big government failure. It’s an important lesson that the left will not learn because they are too ignorant. Perhaps our failure will be a guiding light to others to avoid following in our footsteps. We just need to take a page from Wisconsin’s book and balance the actual budget.

    However, California is a HUGE gun and ammunition market. Heck, we perpetuated the use of the bullet button so that AR-15’s would not be completely bastardized by the assault weapons ban. All is not lost, and there are citizens who live here (like me) still “fighting the good fight.” Take a page from my book, and buy a box of 5.56 ammo as a “gift” to someone contemplation the purchase of an AR-15, take a youth shooting, and introduce someone to a shooting competition.

    There are a few of stubborn SOB’s like me who haven’t completely given up on CA.

  14. I drove past this fiasco on my way home the other night. Frankly, it pissed me off so I looked into a bit more and ended up posting this on the Brady Campaign to prevent Gun Violence website. Keep in mind, I am pretty neutral about guns but what they were doing was just stupid. In the interests of full disclosure, I own one gun that has been locked up and never touched for years (bought to protect against a crazy ex). That’s it.

    Posted on Brady Gun Facebook Page:
    Trying to find a spot to post about this incident; this is as close as I can get. Your local chapter picketed in my neightbor the other day protesting because our local government approved this man to have an office in his condo from which he intends to run a gun selling business. Your picket signs GAVE HIS ADDRESS. He was doing nothing illegal and had all the right permits and obeyed all the rules. If you have an issue with the rules, then the place to take it up is with the city Council of Pleasant Hill, CA. To protest in front of his house publically displaying HIS ADDRESS is nothing short of promoting the very gun violence you are trying to prevent. Now anyone driving by knows there may be guns in his house, and you have created a situation where a break-in in much more likely. Not very smart. I don’t know this man nor am I promoting the sale of guns. Just commenting on how stupid your actions were. His permits say that all he is doing out of his house is taking orders and doing his paperwork. No guns are being sold from his house, but what thief is going to believe that as they break in? Please keep your protests where they belong and stop the practice of publishing ADDRESSES of people who are not doing anything illegal. Like I said – don’t like the rules – go talk to the people making the rules. Use some common sense here, people.

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