FortyFive

By Assemblyman Ray Haynes

June 24, 2005



Missing the Target Again On Crime



Liberals in Sacramento are missing the target again. At a time when people are upset and fearful of serious sex offenders that are being placed in group homes in their neighborhood with little or no oversight, the Democrats in the legislature have once again rallied around their favorite “tough on crime” issue and declared war on… bullets!

Despite the lack of evidence that any of their goofy gun control laws have ever stopped a single murder, and despite the fact that they have already succeeded in banning scary “assault weapons”, allegedly unsafe “Saturday night specials”, and the imaginary menace of “50 caliber sniper rifles,” they have dug deeper this year to invent new ways to harass gun owners in California.

There are four major gun control bills moving through the legislature. Two are major threats to the future of gun ownership in California. One that is mostly just annoying (AB 944) adds a bogus new warning to the six warnings already required by law. Relying on discredited studies, it claims that the “State… has determined that” among other things “it is safest not to keep a gun in the home.” I guess that means you’re okay if you keep it in your purse or car?

The second more limited bill (AB 996) requires all handgun ammunition to be kept inaccessible to the public, but doesn’t explain how this is to be done. It could require all of it to be under lock and key. It could require it to be merely behind the counter. It could require specific lock requirements like the state now does for handguns. No statistics indicate that theft of ammo is a major problem in this state, and at $10-$50 per box, don’t retailers already have sufficient incentive to prevent theft? Some of the larger gun stores have rows of ammunition for sale in a wide variety of weights, bullet types, and grains of powder, under different manufacturer labels at differing prices. Keeping it all behind the counter under lock and key will be nearly unworkable for some stores.

The two bills that seem designed to stop the sale of firearms and ammunition in California are AB 352 and SB 357. Apparently written by someone who has watched too many episodes of CSI, both of these bills attempt to add high tech identifying marks to bullets to make it easier for the police to solve crimes. AB 352 sets up a cockamamie, laser-etched, micro-stamping system inside the firing pins and chambers of handguns that would mark the ejected shell casings with the make, manufacture, and serial number of the firearm. From a law-enforcement perspective, it will only provide even greater incentives for the bad guys to steal guns that won’t be registered (which is what they usually do anyways). It would also allow killers to collect marked casings at shooting ranges and then scatter them at crime scenes to confuse the police and cause law-abiding citizens to be harassed and questioned by the police. Oh yeah, and it is completely useless on revolvers. This will also require manufacturers to completely retrofit equipment and factories to make handguns that will only be sold in California. My guess that many won’t bother and will just leave the market here.

SB 357 will require every bullet in California to have an identifying number that will be traceable to the purchaser with a complicated and expensive bullet registration system. Anyone who keeps his old ammo, or casts his own bullets would be subject to expensive fines. People (including one of my own staff members!) would have to dispose of hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of unmarked ammo to comply with the new law. With 8 billion rounds of ammunition manufactured world-wide per year, and some factories turning out a million rounds a day, how can they verify that 50 rounds in a single box have the exact same serial numbers? And how do they keep them from being switched later? The industry suggests they’d have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building special factories, just to sell handgun ammunition in California. Furthermore, while stealing ammunition (as discussed in AB 996) hasn’t been a problem before, if this bill passes it will create an immediate hot new black market for out-of-state and stolen ammunition. Is that really what they want?

I’m afraid what they want is to make gun ownership for recreational and personal protection purposes impossible in California, as manufacturers and retailers continue to flee the state.

But while these gun bills have passed the floor in their house of origin, bills to extend parole periods and require GPS tracking of sex offenders (SB 1044), prevent felons from owning sex offender group homes (SB 1046), keep sex offender group homes away from schools (SB 1051), and create a one-strike punishment for certain sex crimes against children (SB 448) have been defeated or stalled in Sacramento by the Democrat majority.

Do you feel safer yet?





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Footing The Bill

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1...928916,00.html

06-20-05

The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to increase the amount of money the federal government will give states to cover some of the cost of jailing illegal immigrants. That's only right. After all, it's the failure of the federal government to secure the borders that puts this extra burden on the states' prison systems. Still, the sum Congress proposes to pay, $405 million, isn't nearly enough. Los Angeles County alone estimates that it spends $80 million a year to jail illegal immigrants, and will receive only about $14 million from Washington.



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Chinese Oil Firm Bids For Unocal

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...home-headlines

06-23-05

A major Chinese oil company made a landmark offer to buy California-based Unocal Corp. for $18.5 billion on Wednesday, topping a bid by rival U.S. oil giant Chevron Corp. and setting the stage for an intense political debate over the future of U.S. energy, security and trade policies. The unsolicited offer by CNOOC Ltd., an arm of state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp., was the most dramatic example yet of China's growing influence in global markets and would be China's largest foreign acquisition by far.

__________________
As you slide down the banister of life,
May the splinters never point the wrong way.
---
NRA Life Member

Bud White

Ughh ... All our gun loveing freinds should just move from land of friut and nuts sooner it breaks off and falls into the ocean the better

P95Carry

What can we say to all that crock of horse pucky?? There are hardly words to suitably describe the crass and totally illogical presentation of thinking.

Only of course one explanation exists - or can exist - CONTROL of the most malignant kind - blatantly trying thru a near unenforceable statute to deprive almost all law abiding folks of their guns and any shooting, even recreationally. But they wouldn't (yet?) dare and try an actual pure ban.

HOW on this earth can such stultifying law-making be tolerated? This surely over steps all boundaries of common sense, let alone flying once more in the face of all that is (damn well should be) constitutional.

I may soon have to vomit!

__________________
Chris - P95
NRA Certified Instructor & NRA Life Member.

"To own a gun and assume that you are armed
is like owning a piano and assuming that you are a musician!."

If a BG dies as the result of pointing a gun at me, then he has merely succumbed to an occupational hazard of being a thug

FortyFive

We have been living with this stuff year after year and those politicians call themselves Americans. It is so disgusting to have to live under their rule, like living under king george I suppose. I want to be free as an American not have to live as those control freaks want. bummer..rant over

__________________
As you slide down the banister of life,
May the splinters never point the wrong way.
---
NRA Life Member