This article should be saved and given to every hunter who isn’t active in
stopping gun control laws because his rifle isn’t an “assault” weapon.

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Two Dealers Halt Sale of Hunting Rifles

Source: Los Angeles Times
Published: 1-6-2000
Author: Carl Ingram

SACRAMENTO–Fearful that they could be accused of selling outlawed assault
weapons, two major California gun dealers said Wednesday they have
indefinitely suspended the sale of many popular hunting rifles.

Executives of Turner’s Outdoorsman, a big retail sporting goods chain in
Southern California, and Trader Sports Inc. of San Leandro, a Northern
California firearms retailer, said hundreds of rifles had been removed from
sales shelves on Jan. 1.

In interviews, they charged that recent administrative regulations by Atty.
Gen. Bill Lockyer to implement California’s new assault weapons control law
were so narrowly drawn that they would ban the sale and possession of many
legal guns used for hunting deer, bear and wild pigs.

Rather than risk potential arrest or other legal liability, spokesmen for
the two dealers said the businesses decided to indefinitely suspend the sale
of such popular hunting guns as the Remington 7400 and the Ruger Mini-14.

“We definitely want to comply with the law. However, we are really unsure
what we can do without putting ourselves or our customers in jeopardy,” said
Bill Ortiz, an executive of Turner’s, which operates 13 stores, in Southern
California.

“If you follow their description, there aren’t any guns that are legal,”
said Tony Cucchiara of Trader Sports; “We’ve pulled about 300 pieces that f
thought were marginal pending a clearer view from the attorney general.”
Nathan Barankan, a spokesman for Lockyer, defended the regulations,
asserting that they accurately reflected the Legislature’s intent in
enacting the law.

“For those who opposed the first assault weapons ban back in 1989, their
failed argument has always been that, assault weapons are sporting weapons.
Unless your sport is war, there is no justification for that point of view,”
Barahkan said.

While the 1999 Legislature substantially toughened controls on assault
weapons, it was left to Lockyer’s Department of Justice to propose and adopt
administrative regulations that implement the statute.

In essence, the regulations are intended to help police officers, gun
dealers and citizens identify the differences between a banned assault gun
and a legal firearm.

During debate last year on the new assault weapons restrictions, backers of
the bill, SB 23 by Sen Don Perata (D-Alameda), said they went to
extraordinary lengths to avoid including hunting rifles in the prohibition.

“We figured we knew what the legislative intention was, but this has thrown
a wrench into the works,” Ortiz said. “We have spent a lot of time trying to
avoid this jeopardy and legal peril.”

Throughout the long debate over assault weapons, the National Rifle Assn.
and other opponents of new controls contended that it was impossible to
craft an effective definition of an assault gun that would exclude guns used
for hunting or other sporting purposes.

“The way they wrote the regulations banned everything. This isn’t what they
intended to do, but that’s what they wrote down in the regulations,” said
NRA lobbyist Steve Helsley of Lockyer’s regulation drafters. “This is
clearly Larry and Moe doing gun control.”

The state Department of Justice on Dec. 29 issued its proposed regulations,
which, Bararikan said, are subject to change after public hearings next
month.

Under California’s new assault weapons law, which took effect on Saturday, a
variety of semiautomatic firearms are banned in California, if they include
such generic military features as a “conspicuously protruding pistol grip,”
flash suppressor, folding stock or are easily concealed.

The Legislature left it to Lockyer to define a “conspicuously protruding”
pistol grip, often a signature feature of assault guns that allows the
shooter to hold the weapon in one hand at the hip and spray fire rapidly.

But Helsley and dealers complained that definitions proposed by the
department were so tightly drawn that they classified many center-fire,
semiautomatic hunting rifles with a detachable ammunition magazine as an
outlawed assault weapon.

In a letter to Lockyer, Shirley Andrews, president of Turner’s, said the
regulations left her with two “bad choices.”

“We can sell the rifles that we think should not be covered by any
reasonable definition and thereby risk arrest and the loss of our business,”
she said. “Or we can sell no semiautomatic rifles at all and go out of
business.”

She appealed to Lockyer for advice in complying with the “vexing”
regulations. Ortiz, her spokesman, said Wednesday that no reply had been
received.

Ortiz noted that the bill was signed by Gov. Gray Davis last summer but that
the Department of Justice announced the regulations only a few days before
the law took effect, giving dealers and customers virtually no time to make
sales adjustments.

“In effect, they’re saying, ‘We made a law and we don’t know what we are
enforcing, but we’ll tell you when You get there,’” Ortiz said.