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NSSF's California microstamping suit reinstated
The Court of Appeals opinion is a good one. It sounds like the trial court just wanted to deep six the case.
Glad to be in Arizona. When the California legislature came up with the idea of microstamping firing pins, the objection was made that it'd be very easy to deface or remove the microstamp. The legislature then came up with the brilliant solution to that: require the manufacturer to put a second microstamp inside the handgun (with no requirement that that one do anything). And to think they let those legislators not only walk the street, but also to drive a car.
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In California, it's appearances that count.
It's the appearance of 'doing something' about a 'problem' that gets votes and election/re-election. It doesn't matter what the bills actually do or do not do.
Nobody gets recalled when the laws don't"work". No one is called to account when the claimed benefits are not realized. And legislators do not even try to evaluate the success - they just add another bill on the topic to put a checkmark in the 'I did something' column.
Please don't try to evaluate CA gun laws based on anything remotely connected to guns. The legislators already know the bills make no sense technically. But what they care for is the political effect, and that they get, every time.
This is the same situation in NJ where we are constantly battling the same fight over and over. Christy has been a help lately but not someone we can easily count on.
I failed to mention that the supreme court and one of their earliest errors caused the problems we have today. In 1833, the SC decided the Bill of Rights did not bind the states. This decision was pulled from the dark smelly recesses beneath their robes. Earlier law books (Rawle 1825, 1829) noted that the Bill of Rights bound the states under the supremacy clause. After some great BS machinations, Marshall and the court decided otherwise and voila we end up with a hodge podge of state laws on guns. The only amendment applicable solely to the feds is/was the 1st amendment. None of the others specifies a particular object of its inclusion. Part of the decision lies on the fact that Madison wanted to put the amendments in the body of the Constitution but he was repudiated and by placing the amendments at the end as amendments OF the Constitution, those protections recognized but not granted by said amendments, bind all government entities, fed, state, and local.
In California, it's appearances that count. (...etc.)
All of that is common liberal failings that apply far more widely than just to California, though California is a particularly high-profile example - results don't matter, only intentions.
I'm reading Sowell's "A Conflict Of Visions". It's enlightening and I wish I'd read it a when it first came out.
Let's hope common sense (and the NSSF) prevail.
Admittedly, this type of law probably won’t make a major impact on gun crimes or accidents and it’s likely just political showmanship. But if it somehow prevents an accidental death or motivates a gun owner to report a stolen gun a little bit sooner due to the increase in an investigator’s ability to trace its use, I can’t condemn the lawmakers’ intentions.
Accidental gun deaths are far too high in this country. Until gun owners become more responsible with their guns, more regulation will be pushed for.
@FWB: "None of the others specifies a particular object of its inclusion."
You'd think that the Constitutional requirement that States be Republics would be sufficient for requiring the States to recognize inalienable rights, but noooo, the courts have to do everything in their power to allow States to trample on our liberties...
@Litster: "I can’t condemn the lawmakers’ intentions....Accidental gun deaths are far too high in this country."
I can, and I do condemn good intentions, because if you want to do good in the world, intentions are not enough. Good intentions gave us Communism and the 100 million deaths than accompanied it. Do you really think that the Nazis thought themselves evil? Of course not! Nazis were doing their best to implement what they thought would help Germany.
As for accidental deaths being too high, that's strictly true -- one death is a death too many -- but in all practical terms, when about 1,000 people per year die from accidental firearms deaths, out of a population of 311,000,000, we're talking about statistical noise. Requiring microstamps are going to do nothing noticeable in reducing these deaths; indeed, I would propose that Jeff Cooper's four laws of gun safety have done far more to reducing gun deaths than putting tiny stamps in random locations on the gun ever will.
Maybe the second microstamp could be THE SERIAL NUMBER. That way if someone file off the SN on the outside, it would still be inside. What a great concept! NOT!
Can these folks chew and walk at the same time. My 85 yr old mother says it's the salt air that rots their brains. For those of you who live in CA, better get out before your brain turns to mush.