Right now Arnold has AB 962 sitting on his desk. He has until Sunday to veto AB 962 before it automatically becomes law. AB 962 does 3 things in the name of helping law enforcement efforts:
- Require dealers to obtain an ammunition seller's license and to collect a buyer's thumbprint, name, drivers license, address, phone number and date of birth.
- Make handgun ammunition inaccessible to customers.
- Transfer of handgun ammunition must be done face-to-face.
Fine, #1 and #2 are just annoyances, but what about #3? Requiring handgun ammunition to be transferred in person effectively bans all mail order and Internet sales of handgun ammunition. Right now you can count the number of places where this is the law on one hand and the motivation put forward is to improve the enforcement of other laws and aiding investigations. As long as you can order ammunition through the mail, then criminals will be able to buy ammunition for the guns they aren't suppose to own. So if a criminal doesn't obey one law surely they'll obey this other law if we pass it. Right?
That's the ultimate problem with laws trying to control firearms and ammunition. The only ones who abide by the rules are those of us who are law abiding to begin with. Criminals can't own guns, but they still find ways to obtain them. Now criminals won't be able to buy ammo online, but does anyone believe they'll have trouble obtaining ammunition illegally for their illegally possessed weapons? The criminals go on breaking the law and the rest of us are saddled with more regulations, rules, hoops to jump through and higher prices. What would be next, a background check and 10 day waiting period for purchasing ammunition like we have with firearms?
Funny thing is there's nothing in the law about the components used to manufacture ammunition, those will still be available through mail order and the Internet. So even if this passes, criminals could order bullets, cases, powder, primers, dies and a nice progressive reloading press and assemble their own ammo. Actually that's what I'm thinking of doing. How backwards is this state that the laws they try to pass encourage individuals to think like criminals.
I'll be mashing my F5 button this weekend on this page: AB 962 Status
How has arnold governed on other gun legislation?
He vetoed a similar bill a couple years ago, not sure if he let it come down to the wire like this then. Arnold also has like 900 bills on his desk right now. If it does pass I’m stocking up before it goes into effect and then starting to reload my own ammo.
With this current congress and president you better get all your gun licenses ASAP before they take all our rights away.