…coming out of California shortly after incorporation of Heller against the States. From Gene Hoffman, chair of the Calguns Foundation, which will be underwriting a bunch of these:
Things that Heller will end soon:
1. Waiting periods after the first gun.
2. The guts of the AW ban.
3. May issue CCW.
4. Open Carry ban…
Stuff it will not end:
1. Lock/safe sales requirements.
2. Background checks.
3. First waiting periods in California.
4. HSC.
The “HSC” is the “Handgun Safety Card” you get after you’ve passed the required written test. I hate the fact the test exists, but it’s really so basic that I’d be a mite scared of someone who couldn’t pass it….
Gene elaborates:
Let me clarify. For your first gun, I expect California will be able to save/justify a waiting period. However, once you can show you own or posses a firearm there is no rational basis for subsequent waiting periods. Cooling off because the .357 wouldn’t complete the crime of passion as wall as the new 9mm? I think Roman and I are agreeing that this is a son of Heller though. However it can be a very quick son.
Fun times! Have you DONATED yet?
If the stupid HSC is OK, then next will be proposed a manual-of-arms demonstration, which might just be made tough enough so that serious schooling was required before being able to pass it it. Remember the program to “arm” airline pilots?
Look at the German system of driver licensing. Their driver licensing system is tougher than what we require of private aircraft pilots. The license itself costs almost a thousand Euro to get, once you’ve qualified.
Germans STILL have the most spectacular freeway accidents in the world, despite all this training and levels of certification.
“4. Open Carry ban…” This one scares me. It will be comforting to see who is armed and who isn’t when lots of folks start open carry, and the more closely-cut clothing required will finally end pants-sagging (and the new “open-button” style advertised by Levi Strauss), but open carry WILL turn into THE source of guns for violent criminals. Few persons carrying openly (except cops, who are required) use Level Three Retention Holsters, and fewer still would carry openly if those were required, but L3 holsters, and CONSTANT mat practice in the body moves to assist in gun retention are the ONLY way to guarantee that you hang onto your piece.
Many open carry candidates will practice their fast-draw, and get good enough at it to believe that they can draw and confront a bull-rush assailant going after their gun fast enough to defeat the bull-rush.
I’ve had to watch (many times) training videos on convicts practicing moves to take holstered guns in the prison yard exercise areas, and I’ve seen martial arts masters take ANYONE’S gun away.
For open carry, the law will have to be changed EVERYWHERE to reflect that a bull-rush towards an openly-armed person constitutes justification for a gun-armed person to shoot an unarmed person engaged in only physical assault. It’s not that way now. Cops have this protection by precedent now (at least in OR), but the law will have to be modified everywhere open carry is allowed to permit that uneven force exchange.
Sorry, David, I just see more problems with Open Carry than it’s going to solve. Yes, it’s our right, or should be, but a whole lot of changing will have to be done before it means what it says and before the society achieves any measure of overall security from it.
If it were suddenly instituted right now by judicial fiat, it would be a continuing disaster. Imagine, if you could, that a workable “sky-car” was invented, built and priced within reach of the middle class. Would you, if you were an experienced private pilot, still want to fly near cities with thousands of those “sky-cars” suddenly flitting to and fro?
The reason Open Carry is such a big deal in California is that it is the only form of carry allowed right now — and UNLOADED, too — but only in unincorporated areas of a county. What is meant by overturning the Open Carry ban is to make it so UNLOADED Open Carry is lawful everywhere in the state. This of course is fraught with all sorts of interesting difficulties, which is why the California Coalition pushing the various gun cases is asking California gun owners to refrain from Open Carry civil disobedience until we have incorporation and some other stuff nailed down first.
Of course, we’re hoping we’ll eventually get the UNLOADED requirement tossed too….
As for the “sky-car” example, RD, IIRC you drove through California recently. If you got anywhere near a major urban area I’m sure you noticed the hordes of unsafe drivers. quarter-mile-long chains of commuters tailgating each other at 80mph and zipping in and out of the 18-wheelers in the two right lanes. And our accident stats show it, I’m sure.
I’m not saying the HSC is okay, but that it’s going to be relatively tough to get it overturned — and we’ve got lots of other stuff to fight in order to get good precedents on the books, so we have to pick and choose our battles. HSC will probably be around for the foreseeable future in California.
My Spring trip to TX and back took me through CA both ways, and I made a one-way trip North not quite a year ago. I ALWAYS time my I-40 to I-5 trips to NOT be near BakersPatch or Stockton-Sacto anywhere near rush hour, and other than the dreadful potholes on I-5 in the northern half of the San Joachin Valley and the outrageous fuel prices on I-5, it’s a pretty decent trip. Not as many speeders as you would think, that’s the turf of the CHiPs, and they take care of bidnes on that freeway.