The CA microstamping law indeed passed.
In CA, fortunately it's likely unimplementable (or at least for 20+ years) because it depends on proprietary patented technology, and the law takes that into account. Some friendly legislator got some friendly language in. I believe there are some legislators+ staffers that may have to vote antigun but will put in 'special language' to achieve at least marginally gun-favorable end results. That's the way the game has to be played here in CA sometimes.
BUT...
That being said, we shot ourselves in the foot because of an "alternate gun organization", GOC (Gun Owners of California, run by the idiot Sam Paredes).
The Governator signed these bills as 'bite back' because GOC's Sam Paredes forced a bit of drama during bill signing season regarding a condor-protection/ lead ammo bill. Paredes got a friendly legislator to force the gov to boot a Fish & Game Commisioner
right near the time the lead ammo bill was up for signing, along with a bunch of other way-more-important stuff going on (budget, etc.) So he boots F&G commissioner as appeasement to 'get things done' on a variety of legislative matters, but has a long memory and ends up signing the bills later as "don't f*k with me" gesture.
Right before Paredes' nonsense, we had info that gov's legislative analysis staff was recommending
against signing for a variety of practical and political reasons. Paredes stirred up drama where it wasn't welcome and at the wrong time for an ego trip to get one F&G commissioner pushed out - winning a trivial battle to go lose the far bigger war. The governor burned gunnies because at his level he doesn't know the difference between NRA, GOC, CRPA etc - all he knows is "some gun people" caused him grief, and in the political world, grief = payback.
The whole political background of CA's passage of AB821 (lead ammo/condor bill) and AB1471 (microstamping) is discussed on Calguns.
Original Calguns discussion of the GOC-driven clusterfudge on the lead ammo bill & microstamping:
http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=73228
GOC's Sam Paredes non-direct, non-responsive non-rebuttal to me (as well as others), my counterresponse, further discussion thereof, and including Wes @ TenPercentFirearm's excellent timeline analysis of GOC's actions vs. legislative calendar, and how the whole clusterfudge was choreographed:
http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=74140
I and many other Calgunners now regard GOC as a de facto anti-gun organization - due to its negative results regardless of stated position. GOC is a private business with no staff elected by any membership, so f**kups can't be punished, nor can the organization be re-steered.
Hell, at this point I'd be happy if GOC would just take people's money and **** - or even give it to the Bradys! Outright fraud would be preferable to GOC's recent behavior.
GOC has not sponsored any useful CA legislation (i.e, stuff that can be passed) nor, with the exception of one person a few years ago, helped defeat any antigunner or reelect a progunner. (Sure, they back some winners in safe seats but GOC did not change the outcome.)
In fact, GOC actively drove some stupid legislation that - while on the surface might 'fix' some of CA's bad assault weapons laws (AB2218), actually would end up creating dangerous 'constructive possession' matters for AW-related matters. [Lack of constructive possession in CA's AW laws lets us at least enjoy modified 'off-list' rifles with special grips or fixed mags.]
I also have several reports of GOC-affiliated folks going to gun shows and actively pulling people away from NRA signup booths and diverting them to GOC memberships instead.
Bill Wiese
San Jose CA
