Border Traffic at the San Ysidro Primary Port of Entry.

While visiting Wyoming, I missed most of the coverage of the South Carolina shooter. I returned home to find politicians demanding disarmament. Again. More. Still. Hello? California already has over 800 laws pertaining to firearms. This farrago of firearms regulations depends on the same logic you find at the California border, where government workers who can’t question or detain “undocumented Americans” ask inbound drivers if they’re transporting any plants, fruits or vegetables . . .

You got me! I’m smuggling an heirloom tomato plant under my jacket and a Saffron Crocus in my spare tire. The idea that genuine “plant smugglers” would queue-up at California border control is more than a little naive. Sure the agents protect against unintentional plant and insect imports, but what good does that do, exactly? As far as I know, non-native plants and harmful insects migrate across state borders all on their own, regardless of laws or law enforcement.

Meanwhile, the border agents suck up valuable taxpayer resources – which could have been spent on eradication efforts. See the parallel? The majority of California’s 800+ gun laws focus on preventing criminals from accessing firearms, burdening law-abiding citizens, accomplishing virtually nothing. Yes, but if it saves just one avocado! I mean, life.

Nothing makes a freedom-loving person contemplate government tyranny faster than living in California – except maybe living in New York. Which is why our family is considering moving to The Equality State. A possibility that seemed particularly attractive as I crossed the imaginary line into a state that somehow transformed my right to keep and bear arms into a state-controlled privilege. And uses armed guards to protect their salad.

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41 COMMENTS

    • Fruit smuggling enforcement actions are virtually useless against intentional illegal transportation. A lot of tax money is wasted. Gun laws are virtually useless against preventing criminal violence. A lot of tax money is wasted (and a lot of freedom is lost). Therefore, Sara T. is contemplating a move to a state that doesn’t waste so many taxpayer dollars and simultaneously respects her Constitutional rights. A state other than California.

      I might move to Arizona in the next 6-8 months for similar reasons. I’ll also driven through “agricultural inspection stations” and marveled at how useless and wasteful they are.

      Pretty simple, really.

      • “Meanwhile, the border agents suck up valuable taxpayer resources – which could have been spent on eradication efforts.”

        Yeah, we could be using DDT or Chlordane to take care of the problem. Wait a minute, the .gov put a stop to that too.

      • I recently drove through the “Bug Check” station on I-10 into California with a truckload of produce for Kroger stores (Smith’s). I fully expected to at least have a cursory glance, it was produce, after all, but I was waived through without hardly needing to go all the way down to first gear.

        A few weeks later I entered California on I-15 with a truckload of recycled cardboard boxes in bales and I was pulled aside and made to open my trailer while some fat lady wheezed up a ladder and shined a light inside to make sure I wasn’t smuggling infested plants or harmful bugs.

        Go figure.

      • Would love to meet up for a trip to the range if you do (move to AZ). I’ve been here since 1980, and have roamed all over the state. I’d be happy to give you a rundown on places to go & things to do.

    • It makes perfect sense guys, think a little, I’m sure you can do it.

      I know I shouldn’t b, and I shouldn’t say it in the PC environment that TTAG has become, but I’m a fan of being honest where others could learn. If they tried…

      I’m impressed by the intellect shown by this woman. It’s unfortunately rare, but I’m glad, somewhere, that’s at least one of them living up to equality instead of demanding it.

  2. The California border check stations are a bit sillier than Hawai’i’s, granted.

    But I think there is a difference between those and the gun laws. The border checks are intended to help reduce accidental importation of harmful species by, in effect, jogging the memory of good but forgetful or unaware folks.

    Gun laws on the other hand … Well, don’t tell my wife this but nobody “accidentally” buys a gun, except maybe when buying a storage locker or something. So as you say, the laws burden only the law-abiding.

    • A sign at the border could do exactly the same thing. But it wouldn’t create a bureaucracy of thousands of do-nothing union workers who will vote for, and donate to, big government candidates.

    • And by the way, when I had a house in Tacoma there was a large Italian plum tree in the backyard that put out a hundred pounds or more of the sweetest little natural confections you ever tasted every September. As they didn’t keep all that well and were hard to dehydrate, I regularly carried a couple of pounds with me in the truck ice box.

      I never declared these at the north California border and no one ever tried to inspect me to see if I was telling the truth, even though homegrown fruit is one of the things they are desperately trying to keep out of the state.

      Go figure.

  3. I think the parallel fits. Wasting resources on something that does little or no good while ignoring procedures and enforcing laws may actually do some good. Gun grabbing laws seem to be done mostly for political theater. The politicians like to look like they are doing something positive to stop the problems with violence by passing laws that do very little or no good. Meanwhile they ignore the fact that we are not enforcing the current laws while plea bargains with the real criminals keep them out of jail and on the street with guns that they cannot legally carry. Makes NO sense.

    • Security theater is surely an element, but it’s more a mask of their evil intentions than a facade concealing their ineffectiveness.

      Make no mistake, the primary aims of firearms freedom infringement are civilian disarmament and te wholesale transformation of the relationship between citizen and State.

      They want us literally defenseless so that they can set themselves up as our permanent providers and guardian, and set us up as obedient subjects and supplicants. Disarmament and the onslaught of insecurities it unleashes leaves heretofore rugged individuals ripe for serfdom and perpetual dependency.

      There is no such thing as “common sense” gun control. There is only dominance and control of people.

  4. “California already has over 800 laws pertaining to firearms. ”

    Well, if there are over 20,000 gun laws in the USA, California has more than its share, doesn’t it?

  5. Keep your guns for the end of America, whatever comes next, we’re not going to play the stupid blue-states have elected representatives game.

  7. I left the PDRC (People’s Democratic Republic of California) over 20 years ago and have never regretted it. Citizens there are not allowed to protect themselves in public and the criminals know that. They also have no fear of prison, as you are let go early due to overcrowding. The cost of living is high. Services are low. Waste is rampant. Police are everywhere. When I lived in Oakland, I counted 10 police agencies operating there and crime was still high. Plus you get to pay a sales tax and a property tax! What a thrill.

  8. I’m trying to get out… 3 1/2 more years of HAVE to be here ( kids, I have custody) .. My bigger issue is going to be moving my business. While I’m a service industry with almost no overhead, it takes a while to build up a decent clientele to make ends meet. Wyoming sounds beautiful but the population density makes me wonder if I can still be a one-man computer geek. Trying to start another business that is profitable but you don’t just toss aside 20 years experience and knowledge in one industry to go to another.

    • Wyoming is probably the second most sparsely populated state, after Alaska. But with the little I know, if your business can lucratively cater to the wealthy, you’ve got Jackson Hole, and all the beauty of that part of the state. If not, Cheyenne and Laramie are probably the best places to be. (I haven’t been in Wyoming in more than 40 years, in the first half of the ’70s, I drove through it probably 8 times, driving between Boston and the Bay Area.) But maybe someone on here who actually lives in the state can advise you better than I.

      • Yes, there are the Tetons, Yellowstone, Wind Rivers, and a couple places in WY. But, we drove across the state last month on our way from CO to MT, and my wife declared WY to be the ugliest state that she had ever traveled across (and she grew up in NV, which is down there pretty far). Being a CO native, this just reinforced my life long biases against our neighbor to the north.

    • Take a look at Idaho – we have an apparently burgeoning tech industry with a lot of start-ups in Boise/Meridian, and we would certainly welcome an escapee from the PRCa who does NOT want to turn Idaho into California. I escaped to Idaho myself when I retired in 2004 – freedom is really a good place to be.

    • Thank you all for the suggestions! .. and have no fear, I am NOT bringing liberalism with me. I plan on telling everyone I came from Arizona ( technically, true )

    • Phoenix is pretty good for tech stuff. Plus then you’re in one of the best states for gun ownership.

  9. “Meanwhile, the border agents suck up valuable taxpayer resources – which could have been spent on eradication efforts.”

    Government jobs such as these and TSA are for providing paychecks to the people at the left end of the Bell Curve. Both are security theater.

  10. So I suppose that my pet cricket Fred would not be allowed to travel with me to see Disneyland? He has always wanted to go……

  11. I hadn’t thought about the fact that California will take your plants at the border, but let the illegal aliens drive right through–sounds like Gov Brown is inviting them to come. Sheesh!

    But I do remember, in ’73, taking the water out of the turtle tank, putting other junk in it, and hiding my turtles under the seat before I reached the border. Which reminds me, I wonder what my friend, Brad did. He had ten turtles, and was driving a roadster.

    • I once sprayed anti-freeze in the face of a Cali border patrol agent in order to delay him long enough that we could crash the border with three ferrets. Craziest thing I ever did, and I haven’t been back since.

      • The agri lobby who wants to benefit from migrant labor, also wants to push the cost of weedwhacking their farms onto the general tax payer. Just like they want tax payer funded irrigation and waaaaay below market water prices. And despite all the focus on the big coastal cities, in Sacramento, the farmers still hold lots of sway.

        Anyway, in a world of unjust hence unbinding laws, illegal is good. Perhaps not legally (duh), but morally.

  14. We know it’s Sara Tipton writing it. It says so in the author spot. You don’t need to tell us in the title. Who is she anyways?

    • An attempt to sound legitimate and relevant? Who knows? The writing skills aren’t up to par…

      I’m curious as to how people with little to no writing skills are able to get paid jobs… writing?

  15. I have lived here in California for all 26 years of my life and I can say that many of our laws here do little to nothing to reduce any so called “gun violence”.

    One law I loathe with a passion is our handgun roster because our dear politicians know so much about firearms. In a nutshell, a handgun has to be California approved to be sold here but anyways…

    A few months ago, I decided to buy a glock 19 but could not find any because Gen 4s are considered illegal here. Because it was not approved, I had to call around many places to find stores that would sell them for $650-$700 , a lot more than what you would pay OTD in TX or AZ.

    Fortunately I found a place that had one and sold one to me for a good price.

    I’ll also add that they go overboard requiring 2 legal documents, a safety test which you have to pass and pay for, a 1 on 1 consultation with someone showing you how the gun works, and a 10 day waiting period. I can also note that this was my 2nd pistol and I had to go through these hoops again.

    I can’t wait to move as one of the first things I’ll buy is a high cap mag.

    • It should still be possible to purchase and register a Glock Gen 4 if it’s used and purchased via private party. Those wonderful 15, 17, and 33 round mags still fit like a champ.

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