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Oppressive Gun Control Package MercuryNews.com All semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines would be banned, all guns would be registered and no ammunition could be bought without a special permit in California under a sweeping list of bills rolled out Thursday by state Senate Democrats. The 10-bill package constitutes the single largest gun control push in decades in the Golden State, which already boasts some of the nation's strictest gun laws. It joins equally controversial proposals from Assembly Democrats that would regulate and tax ammunition sales and consider taking the state's 166,000 registered assault weapons from their owners. This first unified California plan comes less than a month after New York adopted its own sweeping package of new gun controls and President Barack Obama announced a package of executive actions, all in the wake of December's Connecticut schoolhouse massacre. Even as this plan emerged Thursday, House Democrats' gun violence task force was announcing 15 "policy principles," including protecting Second Amendment rights but also instituting universal background checks and reinstating a federal assault weapons ban. "We respect the Second Amendment right of law-abiding citizens to have guns for hunting, for sport, for protecting their homes and families. But loopholes in California's tough gun laws have been exploited long enough," state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said Thursday. "We can save lives by curbing the proliferation of guns designed to be fired and reloaded rapidly," he said. "We can save lives by getting guns and ammunition out of the hands of the wrong people. We can save lives if every gun owner knows how to safely handle those guns. And if we can save lives, we must act to do so." Gene Hoffman of Redwood City, co-founder and chairman of the Calguns Foundation gun rights group, countered that "almost every item in the proposal is wildly unconstitutional." He said the only silver lining is that passing such laws might "accelerate the speed at which the Supreme Court takes these ideas off the table." Steinberg unveiled the package in a news conference Thursday at the state Capitol, flanked by Public Safety Committee Chairwoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley; Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee; and police chiefs Chris Magnus of Richmond, Ken James of Emeryville and Sylvia Moir of El Cerrito. A bill by Steinberg would ban future sale, purchase, making, importing or transfer in California of any semi-automatic rifle that takes a detachable magazine, by adding such guns to the state's list of banned assault weapons. Another Steinberg bill would require ownership records for all guns; California now keeps only handgun and assault weapon records. Hancock's bill would ban possession -- not just manufacture and sale -- of large-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds. State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, has reintroduced a bill to ban "bullet button" kits that let gun owners effectively sidestep the distinction between detachable and fixed magazines for semi-automatic rifles. Another Yee bill would require that guns be properly locked and stored when their owners aren't present, but that bill wasn't included on Steinberg's list Thursday. READ FULL SOURCE ARTICLE: 02/07/2013 Editor's Note: "When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist...When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat...When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist...When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn't a Jew...When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out." -- Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller The BasicsProject.org informational and educational pamphlet series is now available for Kindle and iPad. Click here to find out more... The New Media Journal and BasicsProject.org are not funded by outside sources. We exist exclusively on tax deductible donations from our readers and contributors. Please make a tax deductible donation today.
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