California 'assault weapon' ban not oppressive enough?

July 6, 9:11 AMSt. Louis Gun Rights ExaminerKurt Hofmann

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     Oleg Volk photo

One might think that the forcible citizen disarmament lobby in California (ranked by the Brady Campaign as the number one, most tyrannical) would consider their work there to be just about finished, and move on to disarm some other state.  This, after all, is a state that bans certain guns because of their color, bans faux "assault weapons" from a list so expansive (far more so than the expired federal AWB) it includes even some single-shot rifles (because they're .50 caliber), is the only state so far to have mandated "microstamping," etc.

Unfortunately, though, to believe that the California gun haters are finished is to dangerously underestimate the depth of their hostility to private gun ownership (did I mention an attempt to pass a law to require registration of a gun's magazines?).   The latest case in point is this contention that California's ban of faux "assault weapons" is not quite draconian enough.

If you can't tell the difference between an AK-47, explicitly banned as an assault weapon in California since 1989, and the Russian American Armory Co.'s Saiga, available for purchase at several gun stores locally, you'd be in good company.

Neither can Sgt. Steve Harding, the Sacramento County Sheriff Department's rangemaster and in-house firearms expert.

"The round (it fires) is the same and the mechanism is the same," he said. "It's basically the same thing."

I especially like the last sentence--let's look at it again: "The round (it fires) is the same and the mechanism is the same," he said. "It's basically the same thing."  That's exactly what we have been saying all along about faux "assault weapons"--they're functionally no different from guns that (supposedly) no one is trying to ban.  Now the other side is saying it, and it's not hard to see where they're going with that--banning the heretofore legal guns, as well.

In California, assault weapons are either defined by manufacturer and model or by a set of defining characteristics, such as a pistol grip, a magazine that can hold more than 10 rounds or a flash suppressor, among others.

Assault weapons, as defined by California law, refer to semi-automatic guns – ones that fire one round per trigger pull. Fully automatic ones fire multiple rounds per trigger pull, and are banned by federal law except for those holding special permits.

Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency physician and violence expert at UC Davis, said this practice created a massive loophole for gun manufacturers.

Ah--Garen Wintemute--one of the anti-defense crowd's leading cheerleaders.  On one thing, though, I do actually agree with him, California's "assault weapons" law does indeed create a massive loophole.  Where we differ is in the fact that I contend that the loophole is one that can be exploited by the gun haters, who simply change definitions when moving the goal posts suits them.

Dr. Wintemute's "loophole" argument is based on the fact that AR-15 (for example) variants are legal in California, if the magazine is not detachable, so the gun has to be partially disassembled to reload (or if the magazine is removable, a tool must be used to do so).

Oh--almost forgot this part:

For example, the Colt AR-15, which the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department carries a variant of, is illegal for the public to purchase under California law.

The "weapons of war" that "belong only on battlefields--not our streets," because they are "only useful for killing the greatest number of people in the shortest length of time,"  are carried by the Sheriff's Department.  Does the department moonlight as a hit squad, then?