I don't frequently pay much attention to all things political, even on things that could potentially affect my carrer, like patent reform and last year's America Invents Act. But I'm paying attention to California's SB 249.
SB 249 started its life in early 2011 as a bill submitted by California State Senator Leland Yee, who also happens to be the state senator from my district, which would add provisions to the state's Food and Agricultural Code relating to district agricultural associations. *Yawn,* right? The bill got a Senate floor vote in May 2011 and passed.
Then, over a year later in May 2012, while the bill was still pending in the Assembly, Yee used a procedure known as "gut-and-amend" (which is not all that different from "bait-and-switch") to completely revamp the bill, turning it into a penal code revision to ban so-called "conversion kits," which the bill broadly and ambiguously defined as any combination of parts that can convert a firearm with a fixed magazine into an assault weapon as defined under previously existing law. Those relevant prior laws define an assault weapon to include any semi-automatic centerfire rifle with the capability of accepting a detachable magazine and having at least one of several prohibited features, such as a pistol grip, flash suppressor, or collapsible stock. Notably, existing California regulations promulgated by the CA Department of Justice specifically define a "fixed magazine" to include a magazine that requires the use of a tool to remove. In reliance upon the DoJ regulations, hundreds of thousands of law-abiding gun owners in California have used magazine locks commonly known as "bullet buttons" to bring their firearms into compliance with state law; the bullet button prevents the magazine release of a firearm from being actuated using a fingertip, instead requiring the user to activate the mechanism through a small pinhole opening using a small screwdriver or bullet tip -- a mechanism similar to the recessed "reset" button you used to find on digital alarm clocks.
Apparently realizing that the original wording of his bill was so overly broad and vague that it could potentially make criminals out of anyone who owned a legal, magazine-locked rifle and, separately, possessed the parts comprising a standard magazine release (even if those parts were not installed in any functional firearm), Yee then amended the bill again, revising the definition of "conversion kits" to only cover parts that were designed "solely and exclusively" for converting fixed magazine firearms into assault weapons. By this time, the gun-owning community had already picked up on Yee's latest assault on gun rights, launching a rapidly-spreading social networking campaign to oppose the bill. Yee and his chief of staff, Adam Kiegwin, then took to Twitter to denounce concerned gun-owners as fear-mongering racists, insisting that SB 249 was only meant to ban a device known as the "Mag Magnet," a magnetized button that attaches (via said magnetism) to an existing bullet button that then allows the bullet button to operate essentially as a standard magazine release. Given that the Mag Magnet is not designed "solely and exclusively" to convert fixed magazine firearms into assault weapons (it can be used legally to convert fixed magazine firearms into fully functional firearms when shooting out of state, or to convert fixed magazine receivers into fully functional rimfire firearms, which are not subject to the same restrictions as centerfire firearms), however, the only way for SB 249 to achieve this purported function is if it is interpreted so broadly that the words "solely and exclusively" essentially fall out of the bill.
Then the shooting in Aurora, CO happened. Sensing an opportunity to spin tragedy into political expediency, Yee gutted-and-amended SB 249 yet again, this time to override the DOJ's definition of "fixed magazine"; if passed, the current version of SB 249 would rewrite California assault weapons law to include any centerfire rifle equipped with a magazine lock. Thus, in yet another act of bait-and-switch, Yee reneged on all of the assurances offered by his staff just one week earlier that they were only interested in the Mag Magnet. Worse yet, Yee was unabashed about the fact that he was trying to leverage the tragedy in Colorado for his own political gain; in statements made to the press, Yee crowed that the events in Colorado provided "an opportunity" to go after magazine-locked rifles, and he wanted "to take advantage of that."
The potential ramifications of SB 249 are widespread and devastating. Law-abiding Californians own hundreds of thousands of magazine locked firearms; SB 249 would turn all of these law-abiding gun owners into felons. Moreover, the current draft of SB 249 provides no registration period for existing firearms; thus, gun owners would have to either turn in their firearms, have a gunsmith weld their magazines permanently into their firearms (a task that is highly unsafe, as removing the magazine is one of the first and most important steps in troubleshooting a jammed weapon), or convert their firearms into "featureless" configurations (configurations that do not include any "prohibited" features, such as pistol grips, forward grips, flash hiders, or collapsible stocks). The state would potentially face millions of dollars in liability for takings of these firearms under the 5th Amendment, not to mention liabilities for deprivation of 2nd Amendment rights.
To close, I'll just encourage everyone reading this in California to contact their state legislators and express your opposition to SB 249. For more information, check out the Stop SB 249 fact sheet here. And for those who like firearms videos, here's a video showing the absurdity and arbitrariness of California's assault weapons laws.
