Gov Holds AB 962 Signing Ceremony

Posted on 10-15-2009

Gun Owners of California Reacts to Governor's Signature of Ammunition Registration Bill

By Sam Paredes, Executive Director

On Thursday morning, at 10:25 a.m., Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had a ceremonial signing of AB 962 in front of a backdrop of law enforcement officials and Assemblyman Kevin DeLeon, author of the legislation. Some of those supporting the Governor's action were Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, representatives of the City of Long Beach, City of Oxnard, and the biggest cheerleader of then all, newly elected and NRA endorsed Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen A. Trutanich. Trutanich announced that the signing of AB 962 would rock the world !

All had long speeches talking about how this was a new day for crime fighting and how this will prevent criminals from buying ammunition from local retailers. Assemblyman DeLeon stated that he has never said that AB 962 was the “panacea” to end gang violence and crime. He did disclose that AB 962 is just the first step towards creating a statewide database of ammunition purchasers and that in the upcoming year or the following he will introduce the next step. That is the secret. The anti-gun leaders in the legislature and law enforcement want background checks and a database on all ammunition purchasers. No doubt a waiting period is also in their thinking.

After touting the fact that he owned many guns and lots of ammunition, the Governor stated that he is a supporter of the Second Amendment and did not see how signing a registration book and giving a thumbprint would infringe on a gun owner's rights. A reporter asked him, when was the last time he personally purchased any ammunition? He sheepishly admitted that he hadn't in the past 10 years. Talk about being out of touch.

As the only member of the pro-Second Amendment community present at the press conference, Gun Owners of California Executive Director Sam Paredes issued the following statements immediately following the Governor's press event to the assembled members of the Los Angeles media:

“This bill does nothing more than implement a failed federal policy that was dumped in 1986 by Congress because it proved to be completely ineffective as a crime-fighting tool, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.”

As signed on October 11 by Governor Schwarzenegger, AB 962 requires ammunition dealers to log all ammunition purchases, obtain a thumbprint of the purchaser, make all handgun ammunition unavailable to purchasers without assistance from the vendor, and bans purchases by mail-order.

The registration information is required to be kept at the vendor's place of business and must be made available for inspection by law enforcement, even though there is no requirement for the information to be transmitted to any state or local agency, thus necessitating a law enforcement officer to physically visit the vendor and examine the registrations.

“How the officer will recognize a prohibited person is a mystery. Will they profile registrants based on what's listed on a piece of paper – their name, address, or even worse - their nationality? Will they investigate individuals who buy large quantities of ammo? This is a backwards and invasive,” says Paredes.

This bill requires all transactions to be conducted “face to face”, which creates a virtual ban on mail order purchases of any “ bullet, cartridge, magazine, clip, speed loader, autoloader, or projectiles capable of being fired from a firearm with a deadly consequence . “ However, state law cannot regulate the U.S. Postal Service, nor can it prevent the shipment of any of the above-listed items into California. (The U.S. Postal Service does not ship loaded ammunition.)

California stands to loose millions of dollars in sales tax revenue, as evidenced by a similar law regulating spray paint. When canned pray paint was put in locked cases, the industry saw a drop of between 25% and 34% in sales. That translates to a loss of approximately $3,000,000 a year in sales tax revenues to the state.

One issue the Governor and the author fail to mention is that anyone who acquires handgun ammunition, either from within California or any other state, or reloads their own, can give it away to anybody they want and they would not be in violation of AB 962. Criminals included.

The Governor vetoed this bill once before – why is he now trying to curry favor with anti-Second Amendment Democrats? AB 962 creates a liberal feel-good log-book that will do nothing to solve crime.

Given the cozy relationship that the Governor is publicly displaying with radically liberal Democrat legislators like Assemblyman Kevin Deleon, insiders at the Capitol and the press are suggesting that he is willing to wheel and deal, giving in on bad legislation like AB 962, in order to gain support for his solutions to the California's water crisis.