SB 249

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Quote Of The Day

September 27, 2012 by 2 Comments

California Senator Leland Yee’s SB249 has officially died for this session of the California legislature. The finger pointing has begun between Senator Yee and Attorney General Kamala Harris. The so-called investigative journalists at KCBS who did the original story that let Senator Yee think he could ride the issue to fame and glory have more on it here.

The quote of the day comes from Senator Yee bemoaning the fact that people let their voice be heard:

State Senator Leland Yee, who sponsored the bill, said the campaign
became ugly fast. “We got emails, we got phone calls. We even had
billboards along 101,” he said.

Dude, that’s the way it is supposed to happen in America. Citizens can and should make their voices heard. I imagine that is one of the reason’s Sen. Yee’s family (including him) emigrated in 1951or ’52 to America from Red China.

As to the billboards, props to the gun rights activists in California!

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CalGuns Alert On SB 249 – Is It Dead Yet?

August 15, 2012 by 1 Comment

There were reports yesterday that California State Sen. Leland Yee’s SB 249 was dead. However, the CalGuns Foundation warns that it may be dead but there still are a few more days left before it can be conclusively called dead.

They released this about the bill and urged those in opposition to keep up the pressure.

SB 249 MAY BE D.O.A.; STOP SB 249 CAMPAIGN URGES CONTINUED OPPOSITION PRESSURE

Cal-FFL, Calguns Foundation opposition letters cited in official Committee analysis that may be the final straw in breaking SB 249

For Immediate Release: August 14, 2012

Reference: Assembly Appropriations Committee Analysis at http://stopsb249.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/sb249_approps_analysis.pdf

SAN CARLOS, CA, AND MADERA, CA – In spite of bill author Senator Leland Yee’s many assurances to the contrary, even the Assembly Appropriations Committee legislative analysis found that the SB 249 gun ban presents California taxpayers with significant cost impacts.

The analysis determined that, among other major costs, SB 249 would impose “[o]ne-time special fund (Dealer Record of Sale Fund- DROS) costs, likely in excess of $200,000 (the AG’s office estimates about $400,000), for the AG to conform existing regulations regarding the definition of assault weapon to the definition of detachable magazine proposed by this bill.”

Implicit in the Committee’s analysis is that SB 249 is a material legislative change to the Penal Code, which would require new DOJ regulations. Senator Yee and his staff have spent considerable time representing SB 249 to be a “clarification of existing law.” We now have further evidence in the Legislative record supporting our argument that SB 249 would harm California gun owners by creating an entirely new standard for “detachable magazine” firearms.

Up-to-the-minute information acquired by Cal-FFL lobbyist Matt Gray of Capital Alliance and Cal-FFL president Brandon Combs suggests that, while SB 249 may not succeed in passing the Appropriations Committee due to the substantial costs issues, it is premature to consider the bill a non-threat to gun rights.

“SB 249 has been proven to be an outrageous attack on hundreds of millions of dollars of legal private property and law-abiding gun owners. We’re encouraged that the Appropriation Committee’s analysis has affirmed our view that California simply cannot afford Senator Yee’s misguided bill,” said Combs. “We urge all of our members and supporters to continue vigorously opposing SB 249 by calling the members of the Appropriations Committee and using the Take Action tools at our StopSB249.org campaign website.”

The STOP SB 249 Take Action page is located at at http://stopsb249.org/takeaction.

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SB249 Gets Even Worse

August 8, 2012 by 5 Comments

California State Sen. Leland Yee’s SB 249 has been through many iterations. As you may remember, the bill was introduced in response to a San Francisco TV station’s breathless report about “bullet buttons”. The bill originally banned all “bullet buttons” and then was changed to only ban the use of the MagLock. Now it has been amended again and would ban the possession of all bullet button and/or MagLocked firearms.

The CalGuns Foundations and CalFFL are fighting this tooth and nail. They sent out an update late last night which I’ve put below. It looks like all the major anti-gun politicians in California are piling on as co-sponsors of this terrible bill.

SAN CARLOS, CA, AND MADERA, CA – In an egregious and deliberate move to ban hundreds of thousands of legal firearms and harm law-abiding California gun owners, California Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has amended his bill SB 249 to make possession of all Bullet Button, or “maglocked”, firearms a criminal act as of July 1, 2013. Sen. Yee’s chief-of-staff, Adam Keigwin, has said that California should ban all guns, even bolt-action hunting rifles.

Joining Senator Yee in his effort to take away hundreds of millions of dollars of currently-legal guns are co-authors Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), Senator Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), Senator Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley), Senator Ted Lieu (D-Torrence), Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge), and Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles).

Explaining his support for the gun ban, Senator Steinberg told the Sacramento Bee that “no one will convince me it’s anything other than a joke to say that having multiple clips and semi-automatic weapons that can shoot 100 or more bullets at a time is necessary in this state or in this country. It’s ridiculous.”

Also on record as supporting SB 249, the Los Angeles Times reports Attorney General Kamala Harris as saying, “I applaud the Legislature’s interest in addressing this problem and support efforts to pass legislation needed to” [ban Bullet Button firearms].

SB 249, if it were to become law, would categorically ban all “maglocked” semi-automatic firearms that are in common use, such as those which use the Bullet Button device. SB 249 does not provide for any grandfathering of existing firearms nor does it have a method of compensating gun owners for the firearms the proposed law would require to be destroyed or removed from California. The net effect would be what is perhaps the single largest unconstitutional government taking in California history.

More, SB 249 would subject gun owners to criminal liability as of July 1, 2013, for the mere possession of firearms that Senator Yee and Attorney General Harris have both said are legal under current law. Ex post facto laws, such as SB 249 would create if passed, are expressly unconstitutional.

Interestingly, however, SB 249 would create a de facto requirement that gun owners , hunters, and competitors in California use only “featureless” firearms, such as AR and AK-style guns employing compliance parts like the Solar Tactical KYDEX Grip Wraps, MonsterMan Grips, or Exile Machine’s Hammerhead Grip, which not only allow for the lawful use of factory magazine releases but large-capacity magazines as well. California does not ban the possession of large-capacity magazines. Wes Morris, owner of Ten Percent Firearms, demonstrates this is an excellent YouTube video you can view at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhC8LpHPbRQ.

Senator Yee’s bill is currently before the Assembly Appropriations Committee and is expected to be heard on August 15, though it could be heard as soon as August 8. The bill must pass both the Assembly and the Senate by August 31.

The Calguns Foundation and Cal-FFL, through their pathbreaking grassroots initiative platform StopSB249.org, have created many free, easy-to-use tools for you to help combat this massive gun ban. Please forward this message to your friends, family, favorite gun dealers and manufacturers, and your social networks, like Facebook and Twitter. Working together, we can Stop SB 249 – but we need you to TAKE ACTION NOW!

The SB 249 Fact Sheet is available for download at http://stopsb249.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/sb249_fact_sheet1.pdf.

Donate to The Calguns Foundation and help Stop SB 249.

Stop SB 249’s Take Action page with many free tools to fight SB 249 can be found at http://stopsb249.org/take-action.

Crap like SB 249 is not only a California problem. Unlike Las Vegas, what happens in California doesn’t always stay in California. This is especially true when it comes to gun control initiatives such as microstamping which almost passed again in New York State and has been introduced in other states. It is all too easy to say “I live in a free state” or that California gun owners ought to just move.

It is best to think of SB 249 as a festering sore that could infect the rest of the body. It needs to be stopped and stopped hard before it spreads to impact all of us.

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A Politician Worthy Of Parody

July 17, 2012 by 2 Comments

California Democrat State Sen. Leland Yee introduced a bill, SB 249, that would have outlawed the “bullet button”. This is the device that converts a detachable magazine to a fixed magazine so that a semi-automatic firearm remains in compliance with California’s assault weapons (sic) ban. Sen. Yee has since amended his bill to only prohibit conversion kits such as the “Mag Magnet”.

Yee was prompted to introduce the bill after seeing a breathless report on the evil bullet button by a San Francisco TV station. California gun groups such as the CalGuns Foundation are fighting back. They have set up a website, StopSB249.org, as well as starting an ad campaign to defeat the bill.

One of the more amusing push-backs against Sen. Yee and SB 249 by CalGuns is this parody mash-up seen below. They’ve taken a CBS 5 report produced last week and added their own special touch to it.

Sometimes ridicule is the best way to deal with pompous politicians such as Sen. Yee.