In California; Lawmakers Push "Gun-Megeddon", Citizens Buy Guns

In the wake of the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, CA last December, Californians have been buying guns at a record-breaking pace. But what are the lawmakers in the Golden State doing?

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Pushing a package of 10 gun control bills that gun owners in the state are calling “Gun-Megeddon”.

“Gun-Megeddon is definitely coming to pass,” said Craig DeLuz of the Firearms Policy Coalition.

Yesterday, 8 of the 10 bills in the Gun-Megeddon package were approved in California. One of the bills voted through the state Senate Public Safety Committee was SB 880. If passed into law, the bill would ban sales of semiautomatic, centerfire rifles with a magazine-releasing “bullet button” and any Californian who owns one would be required to register them as “assault rifles” with the state.

“Today we want to make criminals out of law-abiding citizens who have been collecting guns,” said Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa), who voted against the bill.

“When two radicalized assailants used those bullet button weapons to shoot 36 people in a San Bernardino community building in a span of less than four minutes,” said Ari Freilich with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

“We continue to oppose banning guns for citizens who have no criminal background,” the National Rifle Association’s Ed Worley explained to the panel. “People should be able to own any kind of gun they want to own in the United States of America.”

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Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, noted law enforcement officers use similar guns. “That is what they may need to protect themselves. Why should it be any different for a law-abiding citizen?”

Another bill approved was SB 1446. This bill would make it illegal to own high-capacity magazines, defined as 10 rounds or more at a time.

“Not one of the laws that are being pushed today makes Californians safer,” Deluz said. “All they do is put restrictions — in many cases very unreasonable restrictions — on law-abiding citizens.”

AB 2607 allows an employer, a coworker, a mental health worker who has seen the person as a patient, or an employee of a secondary or postsecondary school that the person has attended to file for a gun violence restraining order

While gun control advocates succeeded in advancing most of the measures yesterday, one bill that didn’t pass an Assembly committee yesterday was one which would have required all gun sales to be videotaped. One remaining bill will be heard today.

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Meanwhile, California Democrat Scott Peters stands in the House chambers in Washington, DC and, once a week, gives a one-minute speech reading the names of victims of gun violence. Why? Because this California lawmaker the House to action closing the (imaginary) “gun show loophole”.

“We’re not trying to do assault weapon bans, nothing ambitious,” Peters said. “Just something that everyone agrees on that would be effective that even gun owners think is a good idea.”

Gun-Megeddon is obviously the reality in California. Too bad truth and common sense are not.


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