Fwd: Confiscation is here, Make the most of it. (fwd)

[Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>]

--- begin forwarded text


Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 10:06:17 -0800
To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
From: <snip>
Subject: Fwd: Confiscation is here, Make the most of it. (fwd)
Status: U

>Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 07:45:01 -0800 (PST)
>From: <snip><snip>
>Subject: Confiscation is here, Make the most of it. (fwd)
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>To: <snip>
>
>Daryl Davis, author of the letter forwarded by Schrader, is the range-
>master for the Santa Clara County Corrections Department and <snip>
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 09:46:37 -0800
>From: Mike Schrader <bay2a@webnexus.com>
>To: ca-firearms@lists.best.com
>Subject: Confiscation is here, Make the most of it.
>
>The following text was written to be presented to our (Santa Clara
>County's) Republican Central Committee, to wake up the moderates, that bad
>laws have unintentended consequences. Feel free to use it to do similar
>work.
>
> Also see the advice at the end, and add my own that now is the time to
>turn the heat up on both Lungren the candidate and your local
>representatives to the state houses that voting for more bad laws will
>never get them reelected. Neither party will be safe from the backlash on
>this one. Neither party can distance themselves from those consequences.
>
>Don't let them.
>
>Yours,
>Mike Schrader
>
>
>
>
>Confiscation Comes to California
>Lungren fulfills Feinstein's fantasy
>
>
>By Daryl N. Davis
>
>
>	They said it would never happen. Any suggestion that it would was
>derided
>as "NRA paranoia." They told us they only wanted "reasonable controls."
>
>	Well, it has happened. Gun confiscation is now the law in California.
>Thank you, Dan Lungren!
>
>	In a letter dated November 24, 1997, The Man Who Would Be Governor
>declared that SKS rifles with detachable magazines, unless the owners can
>prove they acquired the rifles prior to June 1, 1989, are illegal "and must
>be relinquished to a local police or sheriff's department." This is a
>reversal of the opinion held by Mr. Lungren from the time he took office in
>January 1991, and which has been conveyed in numerous training sessions for
>peace officers, criminalists and prosecutors during the past four years.
>
>When the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act (AWCA) became law in
>January 1989, it included "SKS with detachable magazine." At that time,
>there were two distinct models-one with a fixed magazine (Type 56) and one
>with a detachable, AK-47 magazine (Type 84). President Bush banned
>importation of the Type 84 in 1990. Later that year, aftermarket detachable
>magazines (which are not interchangeable with the AK-47 magazine) became
>available for SKS rifles originally designed to use only a fixed magazine.
>
>	Until September 1997, Mr. Lungren's position had been that only the
>Type
>84 was an "assault weapon." He allowed the sale of the aftermarket
>detachable magazines and of SKS rifles equipped with them. He also allowed
>the sale of the SKS Sporter, basically a Type 84 that, in compliance with
>the import restrictions imposed by President Bush, had its bayonet lug
>ground off and was fitted to a sporting stock rather than a military stock.
>
>	In September 1996, the Attorney General's office asked the state
>Supreme
>Court to "on its own motion order review of the Court of Appeals
>decision..." in the Dingman case. James Dingman had been convicted of
>possession of an unregistered assault weapon (Type 56 with detachable
>magazine) and his conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeals for the
>Sixth District. Chief Deputy Attorney General (now candidate for Attorney
>General) David Stirling wrote:
>
>"The impact of the court's opinion cannot be over stated because of the
>millions of SKS rifles and after-market magazines currently in circulation.
>Tens of thousands of California citizens may become criminals simply by
>using a perfectly lawful rifle with a lawfully purchased magazine without
>adequate notice that such activity brings them within the proscriptions of
>the AWCA."
>
>In October 1996, in response to the "unprecedented" request by the Attorney
>General, the Supreme Court granted review of the Dingman case. In February
>1997, the Attorney General's office filed an amicus brief with the Supreme
>Court in support of Dingman; they asked that the opinion of the Court of
>Appeals be "reversed."
>
>	In September 1997, in response to a series of blatantly biased and
>aggressively uninformed hit pieces in the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Lungren
>reversed himself. He withdrew his amicus brief in the Dingman case, stating
>that it "inaccurately reflects the view of the Attorney General." Deputy
>Attorney General Paul Bishop, who had worked on the AWCA project since
>1989, was transferred.
>
>	Thanks to Mr. Lungren, "tens of thousands of California citizens" must
>either surrender their lawfully acquired property without compensation or
>become felons. Gun dealers throughout the state face felony prosecution, on
>individual counts, for each detachable magazine SKS they sold during the
>six years Mr. Lungren assured them it was legal to do so. Furthermore, the
>opinion does nothing to clarify what constitutes a "SKS with detachable
>magazine." Must the magazine be affixed to the rifle? With the rifle? The
>rifle in the owner's gun safe and the magazine buried somewhere in a box of
>miscellaneous parts in his/her garage?
>
>	On CBS's "60 Minutes" on February 5, 1995, Senator Dianne Feinstein
>declared, "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United
>States for an outright [firearms] ban, picking up every one of them, Mr.
>and Mrs. America turn them all in, I would have done it."  Thanks to Dan
>Lungren, Feinstein's fantasy is well on its way to becoming reality.
>Whether Mr. Lungren's fantasy of currying favor with the loony Left at the
>Los Angeles Times becomes reality, remains to be seen.
>
>
>
>
>What Should I Do?
>
>1. If a law enforcement officer attempts to confiscate your SKS, live to
>fight another day. DO NOT RESIST! Do get a receipt, though.
>
>2. Contact Governor Wilson and firmly but politely express your outrage at
>this situation. In addition to infringing the Second Amendment, the AG's
>position creates a taking of private property without just compensation
>(Fifth Amendment) and an ex post facto application of the Assault Weapons
>Control Act (Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 3).
>Gov. Pete Wilson
>State Capitol
>Sacramento, CA 95814
>Phone: 916-445-2864
>FAX: 916-445-4633
>
>3. Become active in your local NRA Members Council. You may call the
>Silicon Valley Members Council at 408-235-9175, 24 hours a day, for up to
>date legislative information or for information on contacting a Members
>Council in your area.
>


<snip>
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-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
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