By Dean Weingarten 
Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)-
In California, Proposition 63, the ban on gun magazines, requiring licenses to purchase ammunition, requiring reporting any change in gun ownership, has passed by an enormous margin, 63% to 37%. The measure had millions spent to get it passed. The gun haters outspent Second Amendment supporters over five to one. From ballotpedia.org:
Yes on Prop 63 outraised opponents five to one. As of November 3, 2016, supporters received $4.54 million, while opposing committees raised $868,265. The California Democratic Party, a supporter of Proposition 63, had contributed over $1 million to the campaign. The National Rifle Association was against the initiative and contributed $95,000 to opponents. Polls indicated that around 68 percent of residents supported Proposition 63 prior to the election.
Here are a few of the major provisions of the proposition. From Ballotpedia.org:
Licenses to sell ammo
In July 2016, California enacted legislation to regulate the sale of ammunition. The legislation required individuals and businesses to obtain a one-year license from the California Department of Justice to sell ammunition. Hunters selling 50 rounds or less of ammunition per month for hunting trips were not required to obtain a license
Proposition 63 established a misdemeanor penalty for failing to follow these dealer licensing requirements.
Large-capacity magazines
California banned large-capacity magazines for most individuals in 2000. Individuals who had large-capacity magazines before 2000 were allowed to keep the magazines. Proposition 63 removed the ownership exemption for pre-2000 owners of large-capacity magazines. The measure provided for charging Individuals who do not comply with it with an infraction.
Court removal of firearms
Proposition 63 enacted a court process that attempts to ensure prohibited individuals do not continue to have firearms. The measure required courts to inform individuals prohibited from owning a firearm that they must turn their firearms over to local law enforcement, sell their firearms to a licensed dealer, or give their firearms to a dealer for storage. Proposition 63 also required probation officers to check and report on what prohibited individuals did with their firearms.
Out-of-state purchases
Starting in July 2019, the July 2016 legislation would have prohibited most California residents from purchasing ammunition outside the state and bringing it into the state without first having it delivered to a licensed dealer. Proposition 63 moved up the start date of this law to January 2018. It also made bringing out-of-state ammunition into the state without first delivering it to a dealer an infraction.
Reporting theft
The measure required dealers of ammunition to report a theft or loss within 48 hours. It required individuals to report a theft or loss within five days to local law enforcement. Failure to report is considered an infraction under the initiative.
The proposition benefited by a full court press against gun ownership in Maine, Nevada, Washington State, and Oregon. The massive funding given to muliple referenda all on the same date, along with an absolutely critical presidential election, prevented Second Amendment supporters from concentrating their resources in opposition to one referendum.
I expect the proposition to be challenged in court. It remains to be seen if a replacement for Justice Scalia will be on the Supreme Court before a challenge might reach them. A challenge might not be mounted for months or years. It is possible that challengers will wait until the Supreme Court makeup is more favorable.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
About Dean Weingarten;
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
What a bunch of stupid ph-ucks! The next things that we can hope for is their desire for a Calexit. I’m all for it. I will even contribute to the cause. Good riddance,,,so lone,,,good bye,,,don’t let the door hit you in the @$$.
CA is full of MO-RONS. (To all californians who opposed Proposition 63, yer not included in this generalization.)
Many of you are “Snowflaking” and calling us other names, but there were just not enough gun owners to make a difference. We were up against an ammo agenda that had signature gatherers associating that the new purchase provisions would stop school shootings. No joke. That’s what they were telling peeps outside of grocery stores as they were getting signatures for the ballot initiatives. I counter-argumented when I could, but it was of no use; one woman getting signatures was a zealot and launched into screech mode – typical, right? – and refused to engage in dialogue. The vast, vast,… Read more »
What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ is so difficult to understand?
You have to read the entire amendment and recognize the arguments both for and against. Many in the legislature – and the courts – argue that the amendment reads arms in a manner that applies against governmental oppression that entails force. The time of the writing exhibited governmental removal of firearms as a remedy against arbitrary rule. However, that doesn’t mean that our federal government can’t determine that the need for an individual to own anti-armor ammo should be prohibited. There is further argument that the passage is meant to entitle that each state is allowed final say in how… Read more »
The right to keep and bear arms is just that…a RIGHT! That’s why it is included in the Bill of Rights. It is not a privilege that can be altered or revoked at the whim of the government. The right to self defense is a natural right, a God-given right. The 2nd Amendment says what it means and means what it says. Especially the part, “shall not be infringed”. With guns, we are citizens. Without guns, we are slaves. (With 10 round magazines, we are also at a severe disadvantage during a home invasion. Criminals steal whatever they want, including… Read more »
No right is unlimited.
You’re wrong on more than a couple of items: for starters, the 2nd is not a God-given right, and it is incredibly silly to stand on that. It’s not. Really, it isn’t a right that God gave you. It’s a right that our own federal government gave us, and we didn’t get it on a whim from them. Peeps like you – no disrespect – are as bad as they come because you state, based only on your own agenda, a number of “facts” that serve only to urge the anti-gun agenda to be just as unreasonable with THEIR “facts.”… Read more »
For Bob G – you are in error. The right to defend oneself derives DIRECTLY from the Natural Law argument that all living things have such an inherent right by virtue of their very existence. The Founders wrote eloquently about this topic, as have many others both before and since. The argument for a “Just War” also derives from this natural law. The idea that it is a “God Given Right” seems to stem from this argument, but is often misconstrued to be somehow Christian in nature, or a reference to the Christian version of the Deity, which it is… Read more »
Fancy how gun nuts leave out the first half of the 2A.
Oldshooter- You’re overthinking this. Maybe you’re doing it to fit the 2nd into your perspective, but you’re still overthinking this. You argue that having a gun is a natural right for defense, but it isn’t. You’re argument would demand that, as a living being, you are required, by nature, access to any weapon you deem necessary to provide a defense. You ignore governmental mandates – the same government documenting those rights – that restricts some of that access. Many claim that any weapons restriction is a violation of the 2nd, but the courts have upheld a number of those restrictions;… Read more »
Bob – I don’t think I’m over-thinking the issue, it’s just that I see it differently. I think the difference in our perspectives may stem from you seeing gun control issues in a sort of short-term, pragmatic, “what can we really hope to get them to do” vein, while I see them from a more long-range, civil rights perspective. I recognize that your “practical” approach is necessary to “get things done,” especially in an anti-gun locale like the overly-propagandized CA urban areas, but I think that we (pro-gun guys) need to change the way anti-gunners think about gun control in… Read more »
Oldshooter: We’re losing each other. We’re not aoing to see things eye-to-eye. I’m capable of seeing the big picture, and I’m capable of seeing the long-term effort. Being savvy enough to know what won’t work shouldn’t be a fault. I stand by what I said; citing Got or nature or metaphysics will not get or keep our gun rights. I guarantee that your effort to explain why we need guns will end in having them removed because the opposition focuses on fear and fear and they toss in some fear. I’ve engaged a number of people in my years and… Read more »
Music – You are right in most of what you said; however, not in your beliefs that some socialist ideas might be good. For example, free health care for all is a very BAD idea. Because it is NOT free, it is paid for by everyone’s taxes, which fund an invariably inefficient government bureaucracy to manage it. We would all be better able to afford our own medical insurance if it were available more like the way auto insurance is sold. It would cost a lot less than what we’d all have to pay in tax increases to fund national… Read more »
I disagree on a couple of your points. Healthcare does tend to have a certain fiscal ineffeciency, but that’s remedied by oversight, pricing limits, and prosecutorial edict. It should NOT be allowed to run like auto insurance; you think of it as buying the coverage you need, but elder care would price NEEDED care out the window. That’s just the way it is. Hell, nowadays that low cost auto insurance is too often crappy and fly-by-night, so imagine what health pokicies will look like if sold like auto policies. People can afford coverage through their work because their work puts… Read more »
Takes a special MORON to vote your gun rights away, sadly the sun bathing, pretty people, left wing whackos obviously outnumber the normal citizens. The yuppies, Hollywood actor/actress idiots, musicians (Katy Perry, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen) and like minded lefties have flooded the state with stupidity. Trump needs to put a Constitutional Carry law in effect that TRUMPS any state law. Your permit (existing or needed) Allows carry in ANY state, including New York, California, Illinois. Maryland or ANY other state in this country. For years the LIBTARDS have pushed their twisted agenda on us, it ends now. We The… Read more »
I can never understand why people would knowingly vote away their freedoms for laws that DO NOT work. These laws will do nothing to reduce crime or violence. When will the liberals learn that criminals DO NOT follow laws, any laws.
We can thank those that live in places like san fransicko and other liberal strongholds, those things hate guns do much they even wznt the police disarmed. The only hope we have now us taking this monster to court and suing the crap out of the state as well as that newsome thing, all the gun haters should be rounded up and shipped of go a country where there are no guns, say bikini atoll or some other place like that…..
The members of the CA Legislature, the Governor, the Deputy Governor, the Attorney General, etc, who have been supporting these gun control bills should be sued, indicted, whatever, for: – violating the California State Constitution which contains the oath of office for all civil servants, and contains the words, ‘…. protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies foreign and domestic.’ – for failure to assure all residents of the state are afforded EQUAL representation under the law, which the conservative residents have been denied by… Read more »
I would like to live in a ‘bikini’ atoll. Girls, girls, girls!
Liberals are mindless twits who could not survive without government handouts, lemmings who could not protect themselves from a pissant attack.
You could make that same argument about every law that restricts behavior. Does that mean we just shouldn’t have any such laws?
You would have a point if most gun control laws addressed behavior. They don’t – they limit or prohibit mere possession without regard to behavior or even intent.
It’s akin to “car safety” laws that ban cars with spoilers, racing stripes, and/or engines above a certain horsepower because somebody might use one to drive recklessly. Never mind the fact someone with an economy sedan is more than capable of driving recklessly and maiming/killing others in the process.
CA’s only hope is that Trump get’s the Supreme Court fixed and law abiding gun owners can sue the states and win in the SCOTUS!
All President Trump need do is withhold California’s federal highway fund check until Ca gets into step.
I donated a couple of hundred, what I could afford given the economy in this darn state, what irritated the H out of me is I NEVER saw one anything that said NO ON 63, it was always ‘STOP Newsom’. Most of the darn snowflakes don’t have a clue as to what the H it meant. Luckily we should have a supportive SCOTUS for the lawsuits.
+1
I asked all the organizations that were sending me emails about prop 63: “do you sell ‘no on 63’ yard signs”?
Answer: “no, but we have ‘Stop Newsom’ t-shirts”