Question for those in AWB states

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AlexanderA

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Under federal law, the "gun" is the serial-numbered part -- in the case of the AR-15, the lower receiver. Everything else is just an unrestricted part.

When NY, California, NJ, etc., restricted the AR-15, did they apply the restrictions to complete guns, to lower receivers, or to any and all parts such as detached barrelled upper receivers?

The reason I ask is that we have just had a close call here in Virginia, with the governor proposing an AWB with no grandfathering. The proposed law would have given owners a few months to turn in their guns, destroy them, or move them out of state. And although the proposal was defeated this time, we can be sure that it will be back after the next election.

The text of the bill was silent as to whether it applied to detached parts or disassembled weapons. It would seem that the obvious solution would be to strip the guns down and store only the bare lower receivers across the state line in a neighboring state. Am I missing something?

(Another quirk in this bill was that it would have outlawed semiautomatic rifles, but left fully-automatic machine guns untouched. Of course, it would be hard to use the fully-automatic machine guns since you would be limited to 10-round magazines or belts.)
 
In CA, there are three categories of "assault weapons", two types of "listed" weapons, and one type that is based on features.

The first two types are banned regardless of configuration, so, say a Colt "AR-15 series" lower is an AW by itself.

The third type (for rifles, pistols and shotguns are different), is defined in the statutes as being centerfire. With that being said, an AR lower receiver that is not one of the "listed" AW's, by itself is not centerfire. It could just as easily be completed to be a rim-fire. Consequently, the separated lower itself is not an assault weapon. Many were advising people to split their AR's and store them that way while they waited on registration during the latest shennanigans involving "bullet buttons".

(a) Notwithstanding Section 30510, “assault weapon” also means any of the following:

(1) A semiautomatic, centerfire rifle that does not have a fixed magazine but has any one of the following:

...

(2) A semiautomatic, centerfire rifle that has a fixed magazine with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds.

(3) A semiautomatic, centerfire rifle that has an overall length of less than 30 inches.

(4) A semiautomatic pistol that does not have a fixed magazine but has any one of the following:

(A) A threaded barrel, capable of accepting a flash suppressor, forward handgrip, or silencer.

(B) A second handgrip.

(C) A shroud that is attached to, or partially or completely encircles, the barrel that allows the bearer to fire the weapon without burning the bearer’s hand, except a slide that encloses the barrel.

(D) The capacity to accept a detachable magazine at some location outside of the pistol grip.

(5) A semiautomatic pistol with a fixed magazine that has the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds.

(6) A semiautomatic shotgun that has both of the following:

...

(7) A semiautomatic shotgun that has the ability to accept a detachable magazine.

(8) Any shotgun with a revolving cylinder.

Interestingly enough, the Ruger Charger, being a pistol with a detatchable magazine outside the grip, is a CA AW unless you fix the magazine in place (and then only 10 rounds or less).

https://oag.ca.gov/firearms/regagunfaqs
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=30515.&lawCode=PEN
 
I don't feel like I am being blind or stupid, but that proposed bill was so over the top that I didn't see how it had any hope of passing. It was a political stunt to deflect attention from the scandals in Richmond. This scare should serve as a reminder to stay in constant contact with your representatives, whether you believe that they listen or not. Keep reminding them of where we stand on this. Donate time and money as you can to organizations that will do the most good. Stay vigilant!
 
The first two types are banned regardless of configuration, so, say a Colt "AR-15 series" lower is an AW by itself.
I figure that the lower would be an AW by itself, but what about the rest of the rifle (such as the barrelled upper receiver)? If I have to store my guns (and over-10-round magazines) in West Virginia, it will be much easier to take the lower halves than the whole guns. And also, security-wise, incomplete guns are less likely to be stolen than complete ones. And there is less exposure on a monetary basis.
 
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I figure that the lower would be an AW by itself, but what about the rest of the rifle (such as the barrelled upper receiver)? If I have to store my guns (and over-10-round magazines) in West Virginia, it will be much easier to take the lower halves than the whole guns. An also, security-wise, incomplete guns are less likely to be stolen than complete ones. And there is less exposure on a monetary basis.

The way I understand it in CA (it's been several years since I lived there, but I keep tabs on things), only specific, non-firearm, parts are verboten... examples being "multi-burst trigger activators": bumpstocks, trigger cranks, binary triggers, hellfire triggers, etc. http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&sectionNum=16930.

Complete uppers are not such a part.

Granted, any thing goes when talking about potential laws. They could easily say that either half of the AR receiver is a firearm on it's own, for example. Heck, the ATF could change it's mind on what the "firearm" is if it wanted to... https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog...ying-50-cal-bolt-action-ar-uppers-as-firearm/
 
To answer the question. It depends on the wording of your law . In CA , no the upper off the lower is not restricted. It’s when it’s assembled and has certain features that makes it an AW . So it depends how your law is written as to what would be your best way to follow the law while keeping the firearm.

A lot of guys went to whats called featureless . This is changing out resticted parts for legal ones like a muzzle brake instead of a flash hider , making your stock fixed instead of collapsible , changing the grip so you can’t wrap your thumb around it so it can’t be defined as a pistol grip . Google featureless ar15 to see what I’m talking about .
https://www.google.com/search?q=fea...h93jAhVCLX0KHcVoAK8Q_AUIESgB&biw=1093&bih=521

Again “featureless” only works in CA because of how the law is writen . I suspect at some point they will figure out a way to ban featureless AR’s as well . Also adding in the term constructive possession . Which means if you have “all” parts in one location even if not assembled it’s still considered an AW because you can simply put it together real fast .

You know the old saying . If you're burring your firearms because you fear the government , It's time to dig them up .
 
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Storing the lower receivers across the state line would only be a temporary solution. The permanent solution would be to leave the state altogether.

But, let's say I move back to Texas to avoid a Virginia AWB. What happens when an AWB passes on the federal level? Without grandfathering, and you have to turn them all in?

Thousands, maybe millions, of people like me may just decide to ignore the laws at that point.

This is something that the gun-grabbers just don't understand. Didn't they learn anything from alcohol Prohibition?
 
They did. It makes the populace more dependent on the government for protection, thereby increasing the government's power. The whole idea.
I don't think that's how it worked out at all. Alcohol Prohibition made the Mafia, the war on drugs is making the cartels, and gun prohibition will promote who-knows-what criminal groups. These are all challenges to government power, and they can only take root in an environment where there is general contempt for law. Government power rests, basically, on the consent of the governed. Draconian laws, that go against existing cultural norms (such as drinking or gun ownership), serve to undermine this popular consent, and weaken government.
 
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Alcohol Prohibition made the Mafia,
And the year after prohibition was repealed, we got the NFA, due to the mafia. Government got to keep theirs, law-abiding citizens had to pay more for the stamp than the gun.
war of drugs is making the cartels
And Operation Fast & Furious was supplying those cartels with the ability to cause more mayhem, for the purpose of garnering more support for gun restrictions here.
gun prohibition will promote who-knows-what criminal groups.
And the government will say that they just didn't go far enough with the restrictions, ala West Coast.
Draconian laws... serve to undermine this popular consent, and weaken government.
Unless the government can influence the uneducated masses, and convince them that the restrictions are in their own best interests, by continually demonizing the tools instead of the wielder and the reasons.
 
But, let's say I move back to Texas to avoid a Virginia AWB. What happens when an AWB passes on the federal level? Without grandfathering, and you have to turn them all in?

Thousands, maybe millions, of people like me may just decide to ignore the laws at that point.
I like to think millions, and it becoming the largest case of civil disobedience ever in the country's history, with the implied threat that they will be put to use in defending against forced confiscation, since it seems that's all they understand.
 
I like to think millions, and it becoming the largest case of civil disobedience ever in the country's history,
Civil disobedience, strictly speaking, is openly refusing to obey an unjust law, and being willing to pay the penalty. Sitting in at a segregated lunch counter, during the civil rights movement, and going to jail for it, was civil disobedience. The defiance of alcohol Prohibition was just..... disobedience. People wanted their liquor; they didn't want to go to jail to make a point.

There isn't going to be anything civil about the defiance of gun confiscation laws. People simply want to keep their guns. They're not interested in becoming martyrs over guns. Because of that, the situation will resemble alcohol Prohibition and not the civil rights movement.

But widespread defiance of laws has its own dynamic. If it gets bad enough, the entire legitimacy of government and laws gets called into question. That's the lesson that the antigunners are not heeding.
 
I've said this before quite a few times, chortling about how you will hide your guns is fun but so what?

You can't compete or hunt with them. You can't use them for self-defense without correlated consequences. The accessory industry is destroyed except for government sales. You stand the risk of exposure by accident (a fire, car wreck), being turned in by your ex or nasty neighbor or 'friend', your kid blabs at school. And maybe you just said on the Internet that you will hide them, have a fishing accident, etc.

Widespread defiance or noncompliance will bring down the government, fat chance. Did the ignored laws against sexual acts bring down the government? Does the widespread use of drugs (say marijuana for example) bring down the government?

The widespread forced confiscation is also a fantasy - confiscation will occur through special case exposure. There won't be a door to door search for everyone. It's nice to think that you will organize the revolution. Not going to happen.

The best methods are electoral and judicial and not fantasy. Virtue signaling on the Internet is worth spit.
 
I've said this before quite a few times, chortling about how you will hide your guns is fun but so what?

Widespread defiance or noncompliance will bring down the government, fat chance. Did the ignored laws against sexual acts bring down the government? Does the widespread use of drugs (say marijuana for example) bring down the government?

The widespread forced confiscation is also a fantasy - confiscation will occur through special case exposure. There won't be a door to door search for everyone. It's nice to think that you will organize the revolution. Not going to happen.

The best methods are electoral and judicial and not fantasy. Virtue signaling on the Internet is worth spit.
So when the majority of voters are voting with the gun-grabbers, (or so we're told, as I have nearly lost faith in the voting process, and completely in the media) then what do you suggest? Just what do you think is worth dying for in this country? So many have died for nothing in places like Vietnam, and the viability of the Second Amendment takes a back seat to crap like that? Are sexual acts protected by the Constitution? Is the widespread use of drugs? Too many people don't give a damn about guns and simply want them gone, and far too many want them for themselves, but not common folk, and these are the ones running for office today.
 
So when the majority of voters are voting with the gun-grabbers, (or so we're told, as I have nearly lost faith in the voting process, and completely in the media) then what do you suggest? Just what do you think is worth dying for in this country? So many have died for nothing in places like Vietnam, and the viability of the Second Amendment takes a back seat to crap like that? Are sexual acts protected by the Constitution? Is the widespread use of drugs? Too many people don't give a damn about guns and simply want them gone, and far too many want them for themselves, but not common folk, and these are the ones running for office today.

Ease off a bit. NOBODY knows what will happen if guns are banned, and nobody knows exactly how. Gem's theory works if you believe all politicians are smart, but not very many truly are, even those who are wily politically.
Everyone has built-in assumptions on this subject, and history has no obligation to unfold according to any assumption.
 
So when the majority of voters are voting with the gun-grabbers, (or so we're told, as I have nearly lost faith in the voting process, and completely in the media) then what do you suggest? Just what do you think is worth dying for in this country?

What do you suggest outside of trying to win the elections and in the courts? Only a fool thinks that armed resistance to something like an AWB will be supported by more than a very, very small proportion of the country? I didn't see you leading your battalions to FREE THE BUMP STOCKS! I don't know how old you are but did you resist the Clinton Era AWB? Did you raise the flag of rebellion when GWB supported its renewal?

Did the folks who hid their banned weapons in CA or NY march in rebellion? Hundreds of thousands of people marched against the Viet Nam war. The same number marched for Civil Rights. The war was ended and society changed.

I'm too old for internet ranting bullcrap. Gun rights will be defended and/or expanded by rational arguments for their existence.
 
What do you suggest outside of trying to win the elections and in the courts? Only a fool thinks that armed resistance to something like an AWB will be supported by more than a very, very small proportion of the country?
80% didn't register their AWs in Connecticut, 96% didn't in New York, and 97% didn't in California's latest, and those were just states. But you think it will be just a fraction that disobey a national AWB?
I didn't see you leading your battalions to FREE THE BUMP STOCKS! I don't know how old you are but did you resist the Clinton Era AWB? Did you raise the flag of rebellion when GWB supported its renewal?
You have NO FRIGGIN CLUE what I did at those times, nor am I here to brag to you about my labors in those matters, but I'm likely older than you, so maybe you can just hazard a guess. Put it this way, I've been in grass roots activism on 2A matters for over 40 years.

I'm too old for internet ranting bullcrap.
Seems to me you were doing just that, as I quoted.
Gun rights will be defended and/or expanded by rational arguments for their existence.
Uh huh. When rational is shouted down by irrational, and outright lies are being told so many times, that many are taking it as gospel, what then? Sit back on your laurels, content to be "the better man?" Throw in the towel if you want-there seems to be a lot of that going around, but personally, I'm getting damn sick of turning the other cheek.
 
Well, the government can't lock everyone up. If gun owners stick together the government has no power over you.
 
The OP asks a specific, technical question. I'd be interested in hearing more answers to his question...
The problem is, it is all speculation and conjecture. The bill failed in committee, who knows how it will read next time, or when and if it will pass. The states write the bills as they see fit, so what one state deems illegal could have nothing to do with another state's laws. The legislature could ignore the other states, use them as a guide, or surpass them in their zeal. There is no way to know until a law actually passes, and even then, we probably won't know until someone is charged with violating it.
 
The thread was diverted by virtue signaling puffery. I apologize for feeling the need to respond to it. The poster of such claims we do not know what he did for the RKBA. I'm glad that he engaged in grass roots activism. However, the poster was hinting at extra legal resistance, possibly violent, to bans. I'm sure the poster did not engage in that during the first Federal AWB or the Trump Bump Dump. If he did then, he has confessed to a crime on the Internet. If one is postulating that he or she will engage in violent resistance to new state and/or Federal bans, that is not a extremely stable genius thing to do on the Internet, if anything beyond puffery.

To return to the issue of somehow hiding or transferring banned items, I can see moving them to adjacent states if I was going to use them in that state. Folks from the UK, go to Europe to compete. As a long term solution to a ban, it again falls into the problem of the gun being useless where I live. As I said, no competition, no hunting, no use in self-defense, the risk of exposure - if the gun is hidden in your home region or in the USA given a Federal ban. The local gun rights sanctuary is a nice political statement as PR. It has the same usage to get your message across as the immigrant Sanctuary cities. It won't stop Federal enforcement, if it came to that.

Now there is some historical precedent for resistance, I know. The resistance to the Fugitive Slave Laws happened on a state government level and even on an armed individual or group level in the free states. However, the solution to slavery turned out to be the Civil War (no Lost Cause posts, please). I cannot see that level of conflict over a new AWB or mag limit law. Does anyone? TX going to secede? Nope. Some might say so - but that's puffery. Beto almost won, that's a clue.

Let's say that you still have an NFA item that wasn't legally dealt with. A great old Thompson from that era of free purchase. What do you do with it now? Nothing but hide it with risk or turn it in. There are such out there. However, they ain't coming to the range or shooting a home invader.

Here's another aspect. So as an old man, I hide my banned items. I'm probably going to be around maybe 10 more years. So maybe in a few, my shooting days are up. I've older friends who have given up do to neurological problems and vision. Maybe I die. So do I burden my wife with a banned item to deal with. Do I stick my kid with dealing with such. Suggest to me the plan for them. Do they have to keep them buried, they probably sell the house?

Let's look at Prohibition. There was noncompliance certainly. There wasn't armed resistance to it. It was removed by Constitutional action.

Thus, to avoid more diversion, just bleating that we can solve a ban outside of the legislative and Constitutional processes is baloney. Acts of violence will quickly turn the vast majority of the country against any less restrictive view of the RKBA. Let's not go there anymore in this discussion or suggest that you will be a violent actor because you are going Popeye - "That's all I can stands, cuz I can't stands n'more!"

Make the case for the 2nd Amend.
 
NOBODY knows what will happen if guns are banned
Actually, there's considerable evidence of what happens--it just does not get much press (for both the reasons expressed by GEM and for going against narrative).
In Australia, compliance may have reached as high as a third.
Canadian compliance was almost non-existent.
New Zealand compliance appears to be abysmal.

Within the US, compliance in the NE runs from scandalous to flagrant.

Even in compliant European states, illegal firearms turn up every day.
 
Actually, there's considerable evidence of what happens--it just does not get much press (for both the reasons expressed by GEM and for going against narrative).
In Australia, compliance may have reached as high as a third.
Canadian compliance was almost non-existent.
New Zealand compliance appears to be abysmal.

Within the US, compliance in the NE runs from scandalous to flagrant.

Even in compliant European states, illegal firearms turn up every day.

You might have a point, but what I was actually intending to mean was nobody knew if there would be an AWB enacted, or if there was, whether it would "grandfather" currently owned weapons, or require them to be turned in.
Perhaps I should have been more specific.
 
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