TFB B-Side Podcast: What It's Like Being a Gun Guy In California

I lived in CA 2011-2014. It IS bad, but it also depends on your shooting discipline. Yes, they infringe your rights across all shooting sports, but some less than others. For example, if precision rifle is your passion, then you'll have very little trouble. On the other hand, if you're into 3-gun, well, sucks to be you.

There's a 10 day "cooling off" waiting period on all gun purchases, regardless of how many you already own. There's a state background check, which costs an extra fee. By law, the fees are supposed to be used to run and maintain the background check service, but it generated so much revenue that the CA politicians gutted the fund to pay for other projects, leaving the background check system in desperate need of maintenance and personnel. To put it into perspective, I walked into a gun store, picked out a $100 lower receiver, and paid $160 at the end.

There's a "whitelist" roster of approved handguns. You are allowed to own handguns that are not on the list, but they're really hard to find. When I moved to CA in 2011, I brought a few "off roster" handguns with me. Moving in to California, I could bring anything that did not violate their "assault weapon" or magazine capacity law. It's one of the few ways to get off-roster handguns in to the state, and off-roster handguns are worth a premium. If anyone is planning to move to California, maybe take a few desirable models with you, but be careful not to cross the nebulous line of "engaged in the business" of dealing guns.

Edit: the requirements to get a handgun onto the "roster" are so strict that it is functionally impossible to get any handgun added to the list. I remember reading that Franklin Armory got an AR pistol on the list a few years ago. I think it was a single-shot upper, so it would qualify for a lower standard, and could be added. I suspect you can put a standard upper on it after it's transferred to you. Again, the roster only applies to handgun sales, not handgun ownership.

Edit: the roster lists specific guns by make, model, and SKU. Hence, a standard S&W 686 is (was?) on the roster, but a special edition engraved 686 is off-roster.

Edit: there used to be a rooster exemption for long barreled single shot handguns, so gunsmiths would install a super long barrel and a 0-round magazine, the gunshop would sell it to a customer, and then sell the customer parts to cover it into a 10-round semi-auto with a normal length barrel. Often, the shop would offer to buy the customer's unwanted long barrel and 0-round magazine, so they could be reused to repeat the process. Just to be clear though, in many cases, the "long barrel" was just a regular barrel with 10 inches of copper pipe welded on to the muzzle to make it legally a "long barrel".

Edit: I think there is still an exemption for single action revolvers with a barrel that is at least 3.5 inches. Hence, off-roster double action revolvers could be converted to single action only, sold, and then converted back to double action. Obviously, this added to the cost, but it was better than not being able to get it at all.

Edit: Technically the roster is a list of "not unsafe" handguns approved for sale. It's ridiculous in so many ways. For example, imported guns are listed according to the importer, not the manufacturer, so 2 identical guns may be legal or illegal to sell, based purely on which company imported it. When I was there, Kamala Harris was Attorney General, and she implemented a policy that any change to the design of a handgun model, no matter how miniscule, required the handgun to be resubmitted. However, it would need to be resubmitted under the newer, impossible standard. Also, handguns can stay on the roster indefinitely as long as the manufacturer pays a fee, which applies to each specific SKU. ONLY the manufacturer can pay the fee, and if they don't, then any shops or distributors get stuck with merchandise that cannot be sold in the state. Some manufacturers have let older SKUs fall off the roster. Between old models falling off the roster, and models being forcibly removed for miniscule manufacturing changes, the roster was shrinking rapidly. At one point, it was shrinking so fast, that if it had confined at that rate, the would have been 0 handgun models for sale by 2019. Collage the most of recently added handguns (I'm surprised to see ANY) https://www.oag.ca.gov/fire... to the list of recently removed handguns https://www.oag.ca.gov/fire... and you can set which way things are going in California. As of today, there are 809 models of handgun on the roster.

Gun shops cannot sell off-roster handguns, but they can be sold between private parties (me to you). Many gun shops would put private-party transfer guns in their display case. If you wanted to buy one, the gun shop would call the gun owner and arrange a time for you to meet up. The gun shop benefited by charging transfer fees, and possibly getting a cut of the sale price for "advertising".

The private party transfer system is awful. The 10 day wait and background check fees still apply. Also, you must provide a gun lock (that might be handguns only). If you don't have one, you're required to get one before you can sell your gun. Obviously, all of this needs to be done at a gun shop, and there are not enough gun shops in some parts of the state. There are zero gun shops in San Francisco, for example. The nearest one is an hour away.

When you put it all together, you start to see what a huge burden it becomes. I wanted to trade my 9mm pistol with 10 round magazines for a different 9mm with 10 round magazines. Sounds simple, right? We both had to drive an hour to the nearest shop and both had to remember to bring locks or else buy them ($10). We both had to pay a background fee, wait 10 days, and then we both returned (separately, at our own convenience) to pick up our traded guns. I drove a total of 4 hours and paid like $50 just to trade my 9mm for a different 9mm.

You can get nearly any kind of rifle or shotgun. Certain models are banned by name, but the list sounds like an 80s action movie. The law originally banned "copycats" of those guns, but that was struck down as too vague to be enforced. Hence, you cannot get a Colt AR-15, but you can get a Stag. Apparently California says: pony bad, deer good.

The "assault weapon" law restricts features, so you have to neuter the gun by eliminating the pistol grip and such, OR you can do something much worse. The other option is to disable having removable magazines. The old standard was that you were fine as long as it required a tool to remove the magazine. They didn't like the workaround that gun owners created, so they made the law more strict. Now you must partially disassemble the action to be considered a "non removable" magazine.

Edit: they also have some kind of "safe storage" law about keeping guns away from children. I lived into it, but we don't have children, and we weren't friends with anybody who had children, so it didn't apply to us. I never bothered to learn much about it, but that's another big concern.

Basically, living in the socialist State of California is just a matter of getting used to being turned into an outlaw over night on any given week. One eventually gets used to it. Strange that more guns are sold in California annually than any other State. Yes, that fact includes Texas.