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In California, Confiscation Is No Longer A Threat...It’s The Law !!
by Charles C.W. Cooke - Thursday, August 31, 2017
One federal judge is all that stands between California gun owners and the unprecedented confiscation by the state of millions of dollars of legally purchased property.
This feature appears in the September ‘17 issue of NRA America’s 1st Freedom, one of the official journals of the National Rifle Association.
At the end of June, California was set to start enforcing a law that America’s gun owners are routinely assured that “nobody, anywhere is proposing.” Had the state not been prevented from implementing the rule by a sensible federal judge, an extraordinary precedent would have been set.
The law to which I am referring, passed by state-level referendum in 2016, requires the confiscation of all firearms magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds—even if those magazines were purchased before the ban. Or, put another way: Having promised gun owners in 2000 that their now-illegal-to-sell property would be safely “grandfathered,” Californians elected brazenly to renege on the deal. Under the terms of the statute, law-abiding Americans would have been obliged to destroy, hand over or transfer out of state their now verboten property.
And if they refused ? They’d be guilty of a misdemeanor, and their magazines would be taken by force.
The word used above bears repeating—confiscation. Time and time again during our debates over firearm law, advocates of the Second Amendment are scoffed at, accused of “fear mongering” and cast as unreconstructed extremists for raising the specter of seizure. All progressives want, we are told, is “common-sense” legislation. “Nobody is going to take your guns!” is a favorite refrain. “Why are you so suspicious ?”
The answer, perhaps, is this: We are suspicious because it is abundantly obvious that for too many gun controllers, this is the ultimate aim. And it is clear that, should it come, it will come in stages. As history has taught us well, the enemies of individual liberty never openly suggest the worst-case scenario until, all of a sudden, they do. And by then, it is invariably too late, for the road has already been traveled.
Seventeen years ago, California was “just” banning the sale of “high-capacity” magazines. Today, the state is “only” confiscating those same magazines. Tomorrow, it’ll be something else. After all, the advocates will say, “We already confiscate magazines.” And so, bit by bit, is the salami sliced.
How extreme is California’s on-hold policy? Consider, if you will, that even at the height of the foolish panic that was Prohibition, the restrictions imposed fell only on the production and transfer of alcoholic drinks. By contrast, those who already possessed those beverages that were forbidden by the Volstead Act were left well alone. This was not unusual. Indeed, it is tough to find a good analog in all of American history for what California is trying to do. Without compensation, the state aims to take private property that was legally obtained, and that it had previously made assurances would remain so.
In other countries, such behavior is routine. In America, however, it is unheard of. Such is the zealotry of the anti-gun Left that it is happy to throw any liberty out of the window so long as it can dent the integrity of the Second Amendment. Next time you hear promises about “limited measures,” you’d do well to remember this day.
by Charles C.W. Cooke - Thursday, August 31, 2017
One federal judge is all that stands between California gun owners and the unprecedented confiscation by the state of millions of dollars of legally purchased property.
This feature appears in the September ‘17 issue of NRA America’s 1st Freedom, one of the official journals of the National Rifle Association.
At the end of June, California was set to start enforcing a law that America’s gun owners are routinely assured that “nobody, anywhere is proposing.” Had the state not been prevented from implementing the rule by a sensible federal judge, an extraordinary precedent would have been set.
The law to which I am referring, passed by state-level referendum in 2016, requires the confiscation of all firearms magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds—even if those magazines were purchased before the ban. Or, put another way: Having promised gun owners in 2000 that their now-illegal-to-sell property would be safely “grandfathered,” Californians elected brazenly to renege on the deal. Under the terms of the statute, law-abiding Americans would have been obliged to destroy, hand over or transfer out of state their now verboten property.
And if they refused ? They’d be guilty of a misdemeanor, and their magazines would be taken by force.
The word used above bears repeating—confiscation. Time and time again during our debates over firearm law, advocates of the Second Amendment are scoffed at, accused of “fear mongering” and cast as unreconstructed extremists for raising the specter of seizure. All progressives want, we are told, is “common-sense” legislation. “Nobody is going to take your guns!” is a favorite refrain. “Why are you so suspicious ?”
The answer, perhaps, is this: We are suspicious because it is abundantly obvious that for too many gun controllers, this is the ultimate aim. And it is clear that, should it come, it will come in stages. As history has taught us well, the enemies of individual liberty never openly suggest the worst-case scenario until, all of a sudden, they do. And by then, it is invariably too late, for the road has already been traveled.
Seventeen years ago, California was “just” banning the sale of “high-capacity” magazines. Today, the state is “only” confiscating those same magazines. Tomorrow, it’ll be something else. After all, the advocates will say, “We already confiscate magazines.” And so, bit by bit, is the salami sliced.
How extreme is California’s on-hold policy? Consider, if you will, that even at the height of the foolish panic that was Prohibition, the restrictions imposed fell only on the production and transfer of alcoholic drinks. By contrast, those who already possessed those beverages that were forbidden by the Volstead Act were left well alone. This was not unusual. Indeed, it is tough to find a good analog in all of American history for what California is trying to do. Without compensation, the state aims to take private property that was legally obtained, and that it had previously made assurances would remain so.
In other countries, such behavior is routine. In America, however, it is unheard of. Such is the zealotry of the anti-gun Left that it is happy to throw any liberty out of the window so long as it can dent the integrity of the Second Amendment. Next time you hear promises about “limited measures,” you’d do well to remember this day.