The rifles were variants of the popular AR-15, the semiautomatic civilian version of a military M-16. They are surprisingly easy to acquire in California, though they come with limitations aimed at curbing their ability to inflict mass damage. Semiautomatic rifles, for instance, cannot have magazines that hold more than 10 bullets or can be quickly removed.However, such limitations can be easily, if illegally, bypassed. For instance, a 10-bullet magazine can be quickly removed by pressing the tip of a loose bullet into a recessed button, allowing for a high-capacity magazine to be inserted in its place.This release feature — called a “bullet button” — is installed, legally, by gun manufacturers on rifles sold in California; the high-capacity magazine is illegal in the state....Despite California’s relatively tough gun laws, it is not difficult to legally buy semiautomatic rifles that critics call assault weapons but are marketed by gun makers as “modern sporting rifles.” C.D. Michel, a Long Beach lawyer who has brought numerous legal challenges against gun ownership restrictions, said that “none of these laws have proven to be effective.”“There’s a substitution effect,” said Mr. Michel, who counts among his clients the National Rifle Association. “If you ban Rifle X, people will use Rifle Y. When you strip away the prohibited features, you have a bare rifle, if you will, that is not necessarily a banned assault weapon.”
Who would have guessed? The knuckle-dragging gun nuts are smarter than California's enlightened progressives.
As I've said before, those who complain about loopholes in their shiny new laws are revealing that others have better reading comprehension than they do. And for a group that prides itself on being smart and educated, and more so than everybody else, that is a crushing revelation.
ReplyDeleteIsn't a vertical pistol grip on a non-grandfathered gun illegal in the state? The two models used are way too new to be grandfathered, and the picture I just saw of them showed both with the usual pistol grips instead of what I thought were the required mods for that.
ReplyDeleteGot a partial explanation: a gun sold with a bullet-button can have all the eeevil features that otherwise make it an illegal California assault weapon.
ReplyDeleteFrom another source, not counting the straw purchase angle, "ATF Says Weapons Used in San Bernardino Shooting Were Illegal in California":
While they were originally sold legally, with magazine locking devices commonly known as bullet buttons, the rifles were subsequently altered in different ways to make them more powerful, according to Meredith Davis, a special agent with the ATF.
The Smith & Wesson rifle was changed in an attempt to enable it fire in fully automatic mode, while the DPMS weapon was modified to use a large-capacity magazine, she said.