May 01, 2009
California's handgun list under fire
Although the mainstream media has paid scant attention to the recent appellate decision out of the U.S. 9th Circuit holding that the Second Amendment was incorporated and applicable to the States, lawyer Allan Gura was listening; he's filed an interesting lawsuit, challenging California's list of guns authorized for sale in the state.
For those of you who have the good fortune to not live in the legislative nuthouse that is the Golden State, here's the issue.
For a handgun to be legally sold in California, the manufacturer must submit a sample of the gun for testing and pay a fee. If, after rigorous and scientific testing (ahem) , the gun passes, it is placed on "The List."
All variants of a firearm must be individually tested; if a gun is available in a variety of calibers, or with purely cosmetic differences (i.e., different color slides), the manufacturer is required to submit a sample of each variant, even if they are functionally identical.
This can represent a substantial cost to be borne by the manufacturer -- some might call it harassment, with no beneficial impact on public safety.
The lawsuit, spearheaded by Gura, the lawyer who convinced the Supreme Court in Heller that the Second Amendment is an individual right, seeks to put an end to this legislative stupidity.
Gura ... noted that California “tells Ivan Peña that his rights have an expiration date based on payment of a government fee. Americans are not limited to a government list of approved books, or approved religions,” he said. “A handgun protected by the Second Amendment does not need to appear on any government-approved list and cannot be banned because a manufacturer does not pay a special annual fee.”
“The Para Ordnance P-13 was once approved for sale in California,” Peña noted, “but now that a manufacturer didn’t pay a yearly fee, California claims the gun I want to own has somehow become ‘unsafe’.”
“The Glock-21 is the handgun I would choose for home defense, but California has decided the version I need is unacceptable. I was born without a right arm below my elbow and therefore the new ambidextrous version of the Glock-21 is the safest one for me. The identical model designed for right hand use is available in California, but I can’t use it,” said plaintiff Roy Vargas.
Added SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, “The Supreme Court’s decision is crystal clear: Handguns that are used by people for self-defense and other lawful purposes cannot be banned, whether the State likes it or not. California needs to accept the Second Amendment reality.”
[...]
Joining plaintiffs Peña and Vargas are Doña Croston and Brett Thomas. Doña Croston’s handgun would be allowed if it were black, green, or brown, but her bi-tone version is supposedly ‘unsafe’ merely based on color. “I didn’t realize that my constitutional rights depended on color. What is it about two colors that makes the gun I want to purchase ‘unsafe’?”
Brett Thomas seeks to own the same model of handgun that the Supreme Court ordered District of Columbia officials to register for Dick Heller. However, that particular model is no longer manufactured, and its maker is no longer available to process the handgun’s certification through the bureaucracy.
“There is only one model of handgun that the Supreme Court has explicitly ruled is protected by the Second Amendment and yet California will not allow me to purchase that gun,” said Mr. Thomas.
“The so-called ‘safe’ gun list is just another gun-grabbing gimmick,” said co-counsel Donald Kilmer. “California can’t get around the Second Amendment, as incorporated, by declaring most normal guns ‘unsafe,’ and gradually shrinking the number of so-called ‘safe’ guns to zero.”
There's also an interesting Equal Protection argument waiting to be made about the list, as well as the California ban on high capacity magazines: Neither regulation applies to sworn peace officers.
That means a cop can buy a handgun that is "off list," not offered for sale to the public, solely because of his status as a peace officer. The inference to be drawn, therefore, is that a weapon's presence on the list has nothing to do with whether or not it is or has been deemed "safe"; risk-averse police departments and city attorneys would never authorize their cops to carry unsafe weapons.
The rationale for allowing cops to purchase hi-cap magazines (they shouldn't be outgunned by the crooks) but not law-abiding citizens, who presumably follow the law -- and therefore are at risk of being outgunned by the same crooks who ignore the law, also seems ripe for an Equal Protection challenge.
You can read the complaint here.
Posted by Mike Lief at May 1, 2009 10:13 AM
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Comments
Liberals are anti-freedom. They are statists who believe that a man must lay down and die and accept being killed or his family being killed in front of him if the police aren't there in time.
Liberals love the idea of a police state. They give guns to an organized force (the police) and then turn the force against the population by enacting petty laws that turn good people into criminals.
Posted by: Rod at May 2, 2009 11:29 PM
The government should really give an eye to the slumping economy rather than chasing to take away people's guns.
Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: online gun shop at May 12, 2009 03:01 AM
What I want to know is when the lawsuit is finished and list illegal as it always was who goes to jail? BATF for following illegal orders? Governor? Judges? Who? Oh the list does not apply -- that is not just.
Posted by: steve at March 7, 2010 02:04 PM