California’s gun-hating Democrats are proposing a radical gun control law that would eliminate detachable magazines for semi-automatic rifles in California.

Assemblymember David Chiu (D-San Francisco) and Attorney General Kamala D. Harris and gun safety advocates today proposed a bill that would strengthen California’s existing assault weapons ban and close the “bullet button” loophole. Assembly Bill 1663, which is co-authored by Assemblymembers Marc Levine (D-Marin County), Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), and Rob Bonta (D-Oakland), would require semi-automatic rifles sold or transferred in California to be manufactured with ammunition magazines that cannot be detached. Fixed magazines prevent the rapid reloading that increases the lethality of horrific mass shootings like the one in San Bernardino last December.

“We must close the loopholes in our assault weapons ban so that guns like the ones used in San Bernardino, Newtown, and Aurora cannot be bought legally in our state,” said Assemblymember David Chiu (D-San Francisco), who worked on gun legislation as a United States Senate aide in the mid-1990s.  “Detachable magazines cost lives, and it is more important to save lives during future mass shootings than to be able to reload assault weapons in the blink of an eye. I appreciate the sponsorship by Attorney General Harris and look forward to working this year with my colleagues, the Governor’s office, and advocates on this and other efforts to prevent gun violence.”

AB 1663 will effectively close the “bullet button” loophole.  This loophole enables a firearm owner to use a bullet or other pointed object to quickly detach and replace a weapon’s ammunition magazine, converting a semi-automatic rifle into an assault weapon.  An individual can switch magazines on a gun with a bullet button within seconds, making them especially deadly in a mass shooting situation.  Firearms with bullet buttons were among the guns used in the San Bernardino shooting late last year.

“The devastation wrought by gun violence on innocent victims, children and families in this country is an international embarrassment,” said Attorney General Kamala Harris. “This is a common sense solution that closes a dangerous loophole in California’s assault weapons ban.  We simply must do everything we can to keep dangerous, high capacity firearms off of our streets and out of our communities.”

Guns are not now, nor have they ever been, “the problem.”

“The problem” is and has always been the actions of violent human beings. Once human beings decide that they are going to hurt others, they will find a way to do so.

This proposed legislation, which is designed to do nothing more than infringe further on the rights of California’s law-abiding gun owners, would not have had any impact at all on the San Bernardino Islamic terrorist attack that took 14 lives. The terrorists already went around, over, and through dozens of other laws including California’s blatantly unconstitutional existing gun laws and first degree murder.

It’s very clear that these anti-gun Democrats consider liberty itself to be a “loophole,” and are cynically attempting to use a terror attack as an excuse to once again infringe on the right of self-defense of California’s citizens.

I hope that Californians will fight against this idiotic legislation with everything they have.