Post by jgaffney on May 3, 2010 15:21:23 GMT -5
Maybe some of you missed the flurry of activity last week regarding the latest attempt by the Democrat gun grabbers in Sacramento to further erode our 2nd Amendment rights. So, here's the story:
AB1810 was introduced in the Assembly by Assembly Member Mike Feuer (D-Beverly Hills). In its original incarnation, AB1810 was an innocuous bill to set stiffer penalties for vandalism. The bill was read once on the Assembly floor, then referred to the Public Safety Committee. When the bill reached the committee, it was completely gutted and rewritten to require the same registration procedure for long guns as is currently required in California for handguns. The rationale for this requirement was lifted directly from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The complete bill text is here. Note the strikeouts of the original language and the italics of the revised language.
The argument in favor of the bill included statistics like:
This is just wrong on so many different levels. First, the reputed growth in long gun ownership during 2000-2009 can be explained by a similar increase in the population during that period. Second, the recovery of a long gun from a "prohibited person" is a failure of existing gun laws, not a need for additional gun laws. But, most of all, the slipping of a Trojan Horse bill through the Assembly in order to completely re-write the bill in committee shows a complete disregard for the voters of California.
Last week, the bill was scheduled for a vote in the Appropriations Committee, since it required the expenditure of $400,000 to set up the software to track the guns. The Committee voted to put the bill in the suspense file, which means they will not take any action on a bill that requires increased expenditures while the state budget is in crisis. However, the bill is not dead yet. It could be called up, hustled onto the Assembly floor in the last hours of the current session, and voted into law before we know what happened.
Vote the bastards out.
AB1810 was introduced in the Assembly by Assembly Member Mike Feuer (D-Beverly Hills). In its original incarnation, AB1810 was an innocuous bill to set stiffer penalties for vandalism. The bill was read once on the Assembly floor, then referred to the Public Safety Committee. When the bill reached the committee, it was completely gutted and rewritten to require the same registration procedure for long guns as is currently required in California for handguns. The rationale for this requirement was lifted directly from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The complete bill text is here. Note the strikeouts of the original language and the italics of the revised language.
The argument in favor of the bill included statistics like:
- average annual long gun sales have increased by 7.7% during the 2000-2009 period.
- 54% of illegal firearms recovered from prohibited persons are long guns.
This is just wrong on so many different levels. First, the reputed growth in long gun ownership during 2000-2009 can be explained by a similar increase in the population during that period. Second, the recovery of a long gun from a "prohibited person" is a failure of existing gun laws, not a need for additional gun laws. But, most of all, the slipping of a Trojan Horse bill through the Assembly in order to completely re-write the bill in committee shows a complete disregard for the voters of California.
Last week, the bill was scheduled for a vote in the Appropriations Committee, since it required the expenditure of $400,000 to set up the software to track the guns. The Committee voted to put the bill in the suspense file, which means they will not take any action on a bill that requires increased expenditures while the state budget is in crisis. However, the bill is not dead yet. It could be called up, hustled onto the Assembly floor in the last hours of the current session, and voted into law before we know what happened.
Vote the bastards out.
