Blame Governor Moonbeam for Syed Farook’s Guns
Jerry Brown may be ripping into gun laws in Arizona and Nevada in the wake of San Bernardino, but it was his own veto that allowed the killers to get their rifles.
To hear Gov. Jerry Brown of California condemn Arizona and Nevada for lax gun laws that provide “a gigantic back door through which any terrorist can walk,” you might forget that he personally kept open the back door that made the weapons used in the San Bernardino killings legal and readily available in his state.
But he did exactly that with a veto two years ago.
Maybe the man once known as Governor Moonbeam should now be called Backdoor Brown or, better, Bullet Button Brown.
The “Bullet Button Loophole” being a technicality in the 1989 assault weapons ban that California passed as part of what otherwise remains among the toughest gun laws in the country.
Under the ban, a rifle is not an assault weapon if it has a fixed as opposed to a detachable magazine. A fixed magazine is defined as one that cannot be removed without either dissembling the weapon’s working parts or employing a tool.
But gun manufacturers quickly came up with a button that released a magazine by pushing it with the tip of a bullet, which was deemed a non-tool.
The hundreds of thousands of weapons the “bullet button” made “California legal” include the Smith & Wesson M&P-15 and the DPMS AR-15 that a one-time neighbor of Syed Farook is thought to have purchased at local gun stores sometime between 2007 and 2012. The rifles somehow passed from the neighbor, Enrique Marquez, into the possession of Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik.
After 20 youngsters and six staffers were murdered with an assault rifle at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, the bullet button circumvention became an issue in California. The legislature passed Senate Bill 374, which would have closed the loophole. SB 374 also would have required anybody who had secured a “California legal” assault rifle between Jan. 1, 2001, and Jan. 1, 2014, to register the weapon.
All that was needed for the bill to become law was for Brown to sign it.
Leland Yee Renews Call For ‘Bullet Button’ Loophole Law
CBS San Francisco
He instead sent an Oct. 11, 2013, veto letter to the state Senate:
I am returning Senate Bill 374 without my signature.
The State of California already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, including bans on military-style assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
Brown defended his veto of the measure ending the bullet button loophole, describing the bill was “overbroad,” affecting such things as “collectibles.”
While the author’s intent is to strengthen these restrictions, this bill goes much farther by banning any semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine. This ban covers low-capacity rifles that are commonly used for hunting, firearms training, and marksmanship practice, as well as some historical and collectible firearms. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of current gun owners would have to register their rifles as assault weapons and would be banned from selling or transferring them in the future.
Today I signed a number of bills that strengthen California’s gun laws, including AB 48, which closes a loophole in the existing ban on dangerous high-capacity magazines. I also signed AB 1131 and SB 127, which restrict the ability of mentally unstable people to purchase or possess guns.
I don’t believe that this bill’s blanket ban on semi-automatic rifles would reduce criminal activity or enhance public safety enough to warrant this infringement on gun owners’ rights.
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