KABA:

“On November 25, 2003 the California DOJ announced the seizure of a number of illegal ‘assault weapons’ from a Laguna Niguel gun dealer. One of the guns on display in the store was a Robinson Armament model M96 rifle. Believing this rifle to be an illegal ‘assault weapon,’ DOJ Firearms Division agents used the store’s transaction records to locate each purchaser of the M96 rifle, then went door to door, often in the dead of night, confiscating the firearms under threat of criminal prosecution. One such raid was videotaped. No compensation was offered for the seized firearms.”

“Only problem: the M96 rifle is perfectly legal and is not an ‘assault weapon.’ Thankfully, higher ups at the DOJ Firearms Division got involved at the urging of CRPA and others, and reversed the Agents’ interpretation.”

“The confiscations illustrate the difficulty in determining whether a firearm is an ‘assault weapon.’ Even the specialized DOJ Firearms Division’s own agents, with their advanced training on the subject, couldn’t tell. So, then how is the average gun owner supposed to know?”

This reminds me of the story about the writing of the Assault Weapons Ban. DiFi had her staffers go through gun magazines and highlight guns that looked mean. That’s how they got the nineteen specific types. And the number determined for capacity of magazines (10) was just a number that sounded good. No basis for it at all. So, the appearance is what counts. By they way, here’s an M96 site.

Update: Via Kim, it turns out that Robar (the maker of the M96) released the following info:

In March of 2001, we sent a sample of the M96 without a pistol grip and with and without a pistol grip stud to the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) of the State of California. The essence of the DOJ’s response was that they would not state whether or not the rifle was legal in the State of California.

Lame.

Posted in uncategorized on February 9th, 2004 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |