Oh, sure, it’s not really a ban, but it’s certainly outrageous. Imagien if you needed to jump through the same unConstitutional hoops to, say, buy a newspaper or go into a church. Or even *vote.*
| To: Cabela’s California Customers From: Cabela’s Communications Subject: California Assembly Bill 962 Date: Sept. 22, 2009 We are writing to inform you of pending legislation that will restrict purchases of handgun ammunition in California and will terminate our ability to service your needs for certain products. On Friday, Sept. 11, the California Assembly passed Assembly Bill 962, by a 44-31 vote. Among other regulations, AB 962 would: |
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| • Ban all mail-order and Internet sales of handgun ammunition. • Prohibit the retail sale, the offer for sale or the display of handgun ammunition in a manner that allows ammunition to be accessible to a purchaser without assistance of a vendor or employee. • Require that the delivery or transfer of ownership of handgun ammunition occur in a face-to-face transaction, with the deliverer or transferor being provided bona fide evidence of identity of the purchaser or other transferee. |
| That evidence of identity, which must be legibly recorded at the time of delivery, includes: |
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| • The right thumbprint of the purchaser or transferee. • The date of the sale or other transaction. • The purchaser’s or transferee’s driver’s license or other identification number and the state in which it was issued. • The brand, type and amount of ammunition sold or otherwise transferred. • The purchaser’s or transferee’s signature. • The name of the salesperson who processed the sale or other transaction. • The purchaser’s or transferee’s full residential address and telephone number. • The purchaser’s or transferee’s date of birth. |
| The bill is on the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, where it awaits his consideration. He will have until Oct. 11 to sign or veto the bill. If he does not veto the bill, it will become law.
If you wish to comment on AB 962, you may contact Gov. Schwarzenegger by phone at (916) 445-2841, or via fax at (916) 558-3160. To e-mail Gov. Schwarzenegger, visit We encourage all Cabela’s customers who participate in the shooting sports to contact Gov. Schwarzenegger to voice their opposition to this initiative, which will limit your opportunities to shop with Cabela’s, and will restrict the sale of handgun ammunition everywhere in California. |
19 Responses to “Cabela’s take on the California ammo ban”
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And this was passed by the MOSTLY Republican California senate/house? Why am I not surprised?
Scott wrote:
“Imagine if you needed to jump through the same un-Constitutional hoops…”
Uhm… which ones would be ‘un-Constitutional’ since by Constitutional law the STATES not the FEDERAL government will regulate internal firearms regulations so long as the current interpritation of the Second Amendment is legal precident?
This website probably says all there is to say about this bill and its actual chance of becoming law:
http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=158183
This has been tried and tried again by the same person who is now, (having outlived most of those in line ahead of him :o) finally chairman of Assemblies Apropriation commitee, so now he really doesn’t NEED to find a co-sponsor he can just shoot out “bills” with a couple of vote “majority” as noted in letter. (79 total in the Assembly, 4 not-shown as voting, margin passed by 13)
As noted also this bill is a major “fail” in the legality department due to several out-right and VERY illegal restrictions on interstate commerce which are already covered by federal regulation. (Which if we’ve been paying attention since the end of the Civil War which is legal precident for “federal” regulation and law trumping “states-rights” in any and all cases :o) Should we even mention the illegal and unenforcable “limit” on handgun ammo sales PER DAY??
Not that I’m sure any of this will keep this idiot from trying the same bill over and over again, (note that he’s actually been censured for violating California limits on the amount of times a defeated bill can be resubmitted and trying to amend this to various other bills without due process) the same as certain Republican State reps here, (ok… so they are almost ALL Republican.. which makes “blaming-the-Democrats” difficult, but they still do that too ;o) repeatedly brings up a bill to “force the United States Government” to withdraw from the United Nations and make any and all things “United Nations”-ish illegal in the state of Utah.
Well lets bring up the part where no STATE is allowed a seperate voice in international politica and the FEDERAL government is the only ones capable of making, enforcing, or withdrawing from international agreements. (Pesky Civil War thing again….. Federal’s won, States lost…. get used to it people. :o) And there is that ‘banning’ the UN thing… How do you DO that when at least 2/3rds of your ENTIRE state economy is based on things you are trying to ‘ban’ or make illegal being SHIPPED through or STORED and MAINTAINED by various business, state, local and federal governmental locations and agencies within the state?
(Lets make the UN illegal! Wait, that means anything with a UN labeling/documentation/shipping number of any type CAN’T be in or go through UTAH! Hmm, Hill AFB gone, Toole Army Depot gone, no more Railroads or Trains, no trucks either as they all have UN numbers assigned for international tracking…. Oh hey, no UPS, Post Office…. Hmmm… Hey… Wait a minute… No guns, no ammo allowed either because they have both ISO [International Shipping Organization which uses NATO/UN standardized forms, documents, among other things like standardized packaging and containers, to make shipping worldwide easier and faster] and UN information on them! This guy’s a Commie who wants to take out guns away! How come no one’s noticed this guy’s ploy before? Why he’s almost as bad as that… Oh wait… back to subject… California politician :o)
I’m guessing California has this guy to thank for the fact that they have so many laws concerning the same issues that the courts are having issues with charging suspects due to overlapping laws and regulations? My wife reminded me that there is a case in California right now that a man who is “currently” charged with agrivated assualt and attempted murder for beating his pregnant wife, (who had the “gall” to leave him before he could actually buy ammo to carry out his threat to kill “her and that bastard kid”) almost to death with his empty handgun after his rifle stock broke on her head. I say “currently” because his lawer is arguing that since he passed through a school zone with the unloaded weapons THAT is the higher priority “law” that has been broken and THAT is the law under which his client should be arrested and tried! Since he wasn’t he’s asking the charges be thrown out and his client released.
Doesn’t sound like his lawyers all that ready for this though, he almost had the NRA on-board as support for his client over the case being un-Constitutional and a violation of 2nd amendment rights because “they” were trying to take his guns away JUST for passing close to a school. The idiot sent his client WHOLE case file intead of just the “new” charge he’s trying to arrange. THAT gave the NRA a “whew-dodged-the-bullet-there” moment :o)
Meanwhile I don’t see the “charge” being dropped summerily by the court, and as charges are still being ADDED to the case, (when he didn’t have enough money to buy either rifle or pistol ammo he tried to make a break for the door with a case of pistol ammo the clerk ALMOST caught him but he broke open the case on the edge of a counter and the owner of the gun shop and employee both went down when they hit the rounds rolling around on the floor… funny but not… he got the ‘case’ though but ALL the rounds fell out so that’s ALL he got but it’s still robbery :o) I’m thinking this particular stategy isn’t going to go well with him. (Police happily noted that they had actually MISSED the violation of the firearms zone around the school, thanks :o)
On a more serious note though, the lawyer has brought up a point since the school zone issue is both a STATE and FEDERAL crime, while the aggrivated assualt is ONLY a “State/Local” crime issue. Justice departments and police agencies around the nation were watching this close because it IS quite possible for a legal case to be made that a FEDERAL firearms violation trumps any and all STATE or LOCAL crimes and therefor the STATE and LOCAL crimes would have to be dropped in favor of the FEDERAL crime being precedent. Mostly because while the FEDERAL crime has MANDETORY sentences, (violation of the no-gun zone with unloaded weapons is something like 5 years) the aggrivated assualt charges does NOT have mandatory sentences so therefor “legally” the crime with the mandatory sentancing guidlines has precedence. And the argument has BEEN USED BEFORE so there is a legal precidence as well.
(In that case it was to ensure someone went behind bars for a time instead of being given a slap on the wrist and let go. Unintended consequnces at work :o)
Oh, and just two quick notes:
Cabela’s HAS no outlets in California so this would effect them big time as they have a HUGE mail order business there :o)
Can’t recall the towns name, but a small California town council passed a law a few weeks ago making nuclear weapons illegal within the city. To back this up they authorized fines up to $500 dollars for detonating a nuclear device withing city limits!
Randy
Whoever dreamed this one up was smoking some California’s best. It’s going to drive sales up in the adjacent states, a fact which may be missed by those trying so hard to be nice. I’m sure lawyers love this one, too. If there’s a suit over a shooting, even the sales clerk is going to get sued.
America: land of opportunity.
I wonder how ‘intelligent’ the law is? By that I mean, Could a store or ammunition manufacture simply lable say.. 9mm as rifle ammunition? Since technically it can be used in some rifles. Its like at Walmart, Everytime I buy ammo they ask “is it for a rifle or handgun?” If I say handgun, they ask for proof of age but not for rifle ammunition. Its ridiculous.. Needless to say, I buy a lotta 9mm rifle ammo. *nods*
> Its like at Walmart, Everytime I buy ammo they ask “is it for a rifle or handgun?”
I don’t get that question at *my* Wal-Mart. They don’t even ask me that when I buy 44 Magnum ammo at the grocery store.
If you live in a state where it’s more difficult to buy ammo than booze or smokes, then your state sucks.
Oh I’m sure this will bring California crime to a screeching halt. Wonder what their excuse will be next.
>>I don’t get that question at *my* Wal-Mart. They don’t even ask me that when I buy 44 Magnum ammo at the grocery store.
If you live in a state where it’s more difficult to buy ammo than booze or smokes, then your state sucks.>>
Haha, I don’t know if its a state policy or not. I live in Arkansas, but who knows.. But generally? It does suck in many ways. But its always amusing when a 18 year old girl behind the counter, who has nfi about firearms asks you that question.. I can’t help but snicker.
Or buy some non-prescription cough syrup. Oh, Wait.
“Oh I’m sure this will bring California crime to a screeching halt. Wonder what their excuse will be next.”
Knives, probably. I lived in Birmingham, England for 6 months a few years back, and their “give up your knives” signs and complaints about “knife culture” always used to give me a laugh.
How long till the cops start complaining about getting ammo for their ‘at home’ weapons and personal backups?
If it wasn’t time for sensible folk to leave CA before now, it certainly is now. Don’t they keep saying if their state was a country, it would have the world’s 6th-largest economy? I say they should go for it! They’ve already got border control and inspection stations where they meet up with free states.
…Darned pity about Scaled Composites, though.
>I don’t get that question at *my* Wal-Mart.
You should, unless your Wally World isn’t in the U.S.
If your Wal*Mart is in the U.S. of A., they could lose their FFL for selling ammunition intended to be used in a handgun to someone under the age of 21, as per the Gun Control Act of 1968. This is why Wal*Mart has the robotic store policy to ask “Rifle or Handgun?” with every ammo purchase; it comes right up on their cash register screen. You probably don’t get asked because you look old enough to buy beer and your clerk has at least two brain cells to rub together. 😉
>You probably don’t get asked because you look old enough to buy beer..
Sadly, it’s been a long time since any cashier felt the need to card me. 🙁
> Uhm… which ones would be ‘un-Constitutional’ since by Constitutional law the STATES not the FEDERAL government will regulate internal firearms regulations so long as the current interpritation of the Second Amendment is legal precident?
The 2nd says that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. This says nothing about requiring more hoops to be jumped through than one needs to jump through to buy a copy of “The Village Voice.” Banning the mail order and internet sales of a constitutionally protected item would seem unconstitutional. Similarly, I don;t need to ask a bookstore employee to pull a copy of “The Call of Cthulhu” off the shelves; there is no constitutionally supportable reason why I need such assistance for a box of 9mms.
>Similarly, I don;t need to ask a bookstore employee
>to pull a copy of “The Call of Cthulhu” off the shelves;
>there is no constitutionally supportable reason why I
>need such assistance for a box of 9mms.
In the former case the bookstore doesn’t have to worry about being sued should you use your copy of CoC to smash window’s, beat pedestrians, or accidently catch your nose in it when closing it :o)
Ammo suppliers DO have to watch for this AND also theft of ammo and or guns. I remember when you could generally handle the firearms in stores without an employee around, and had ammo nicely stacked on tables near the weapons displays but then again in turn at that time it was rare to have someone try and walk out with a rifle or steal boxes of ammunition.
I don’t see that either “hoop” is that much of a hardship and frankly less so than trying to get a copy of “Playboy” in this state where they have to be ‘displayed’ behind the counter and have the cover hidden. Especially since the law leaves interpritation of what is ‘pornography’ up to the store owners! (No longer in print but previously when “my” bookstore wouldn’t have a copy I had to go to a place in Salt Lake City that put the D&D magazines “Dungeon” and “Dragon” in the poronography section because the owner thought that D&D was a satanic game. Not that that stopped him from SELLING the stuff, and enough so that despite his ‘beliefs’ he stocked a good supply of supplements, books and magazines. But they ALL were behind the counter and covered per the pornography law, which made getting the book or supplement you WANTED a bit tough :o)
Randy
> a place in Salt Lake City that put the D&D magazines “Dungeon” and “Dragon” in the poronography section because the owner thought that D&D was a satanic game
Better a random dufus store owner making that determination than the government.
I’m from Ca. This is going to drive more jobs away from this state since many companies will not want to jump thru the extra hoops to sell ammo. It will drive prices up, so I’ll just buy ammo across state lines.
For my wife and I this was the last straw. We are moving to Texas. CA is lost, the gays, liberals, free-loaders, hippi’s, communist loving, socialists, and fascists can have it. I can’t wait to see CA go bankrupt! I will be laughing from afar as their stupidity finally comes home to roost.
Brian – for your entertainment and perusal 🙂
http://www.nationalbubble.com/people-are-leaving-california-by-the-thousands/
I wrote:
>>a place in Salt Lake City that put the D&D magazines
>>“Dungeon” and “Dragon” in the poronography section
>>because the owner thought that D&D was a satanic game
admin wrote:
>Better a random dufus store owner making that
>determination than the government.
Missed the point I think there Scott :o)
“Dufus” store owner was making folks with whom he disagreed “jump-through-extra-hoops” to purchase merchandise with content he disagreed with by USING a “determination” of the government. Not that a government “determination” is actually required :o)
(Oh and my wife informs me that my faulty memory is at work again, the store was in Ogden, not Salt Lake City. :o)
Look at the examples we HAD here (as far as I know despite legal protection by the State of Utah and support from the LDS church they are all out of business??) with the video stores that chopped out “objectionable” content and respliced the movie back together for rental? While it can be argued (and was) that for the most part they were removing only selected scenes of violance, sex, etc that did not change the overall story line, the removals DID tend to effect the stories especially of some of the more popular mainstream movies such as Diehard-III and a couple others that got really chopped but whos names escape me now.
Brian: I was born and raised in California and left in 1979 only coming back on leave or short stays. My wife who is from Utah loves the Monterey Bay area and the mountain and rural areas as well as San Fransisco and Northern California as do I. She enjoyed San Diego, well at least Sea World, but we both loathed the Los Angles basin with less than 24 hours exposure :o) But the place I’m actually from? A little town called “Soledad” in the Salinas Valley surrounded by farming country. Not a decent comic, game or book shop to be found within 60+ miles! You have to go to Santa Cruz, San Jose, even Monterey for that and most other activities.
So I was amused by the opening article in Brianna’s link on how wonderful the coastal stretches of California were. Yup, you just can’t afford to live there :o) And while my family owns land outside of Soledad, barring a severe catatstrophe I don’t see going back to live. It’s just not my state or ‘home’ anymore.
Randy
>>Better a random dufus store owner making that
>>determination than the government.
> Missed the point I think there Scott :o)
More likely *you* did.
> “Dufus” store owner was making folks with whom he disagreed “jump-through-extra-hoops” to purchase merchandise with content he disagreed with by USING a “determination” of the government.
Yes, and? If he chose to do so, customers can easily shop elsewhere. If there is not another store nearby, and assuming that this was in the before-InterWebTubes-times, then someone else could have started a competing store. I dare you to go ahead and start a competing California state government.
Governments and businesses are *fundamentally* different. A store owner makes a policy change that cuts customers off from what they want? That’s annoying. If a government does it, that’s a threat.
> video stores that chopped out “objectionable” content
These werespecialty services that you had to go out of your way to find. They were not secretly replacing the regualr copies of the DVDs at Wal Mart with their their Disneyfied versions.