SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA — In light of recent emergency measures passed which would greatly restrict Californians from possessing and obtaining so-called ‘large capacity’ magazines, the California Department of Justice was forced to withdraw the measures. The Office of Administrative Law was formally asked by the DOJ to withdraw any such request.
Taking a look at the emergency ‘large capacity’ magazine restrictions, we can quickly see how much of an absolute hassle these regulations would have been to enforce.
The National Rifle Association formally earned its keep by being first to the fight in sending strongly worded letters to the Department of Justice and others. Among the many reasons the NRA gave to the Department of Justice, the following certainly resonated:
4. DOJ presented zero evidence that an emergency exists, and there is ample time to address the regulations using the standard rulemaking procedure.
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6. The regulations are not necessary to avoid serious harm to the public. More troubling is the fact that if these regulations go into effect, DOJ will create unwitting felons without adequate notice or giving the public reasonable opportunity to comment.
Basically, in this heap of emergency garbage, the Department of Justice was willing to enact horrible restrictions upon law-abiding people ostensibly under emergency powers.
It would be like pulling a fire alarm without any evidence of smoke or fire.
As the NRA pointed out, and we certainly agree, whenever you enact emergency measures that place serious, burdensome restrictions upon citizens, you run the risk of forcing those citizens to become unwitting felons. They may not know what the new emergency measures entail. They may not have been publicly educated on what those measures entail.
And, just as importantly, they’ve been given no opportunity to redress grievance with the state nor voice their dissent properly and be heard.
California’s “top down” system of governance, under emergency powers, is essentially stripping the average citizen of his or her ability to act independently. It’s dictatorial, to say the least.
Thankfully, this time at least, the crisis has been averted. How that plays out in the future is anyone’s guess. With so many states loosening or removing restrictions for legal gun ownership and discarding any definition of what constitutes a ‘large capacity’ magazine, California appears dead set upon keeping a foot in every person’s home. When the state tells you what you can or cannot possess as a matter of what is available to nearly any other law-abiding citizen in this country, we truly have entered a time where the government no longer serves the people.
For today, at least, we can continue telling ourselves it’ll get better some day.