There’s a new gun law going into effect today in California and it has gun owners buying tons of ammo:
THE HILL – Gun owners in California are stocking up on ammunition as the state’s new law requiring background checks to purchase ammo takes effect.
The new law, which goes into effect Monday, makes California the first state in the country to require background checks for ammo purchases. In the week ahead of the law’s implementation, gun owners were flocking to stores to buy ammo, according to USA Today.
“Everybody that has a gun … knows about the law that’s upcoming,” Daniel Kash, LAX Ammunition president, told the news outlet. “People are stocking up right now, basically.”
Leave it to California to be on the cutting edge of gun control.
With this new law, you are not only forced to buy ammo in person but you have to pay a dollar for them to run the background check every time you purchase ammo:
Proposition 63, the gun control measure placing restrictions on ammo purchases, was overwhelmingly passed by California voters in 2016 but is only now going into effect because of the implementation language in the measure.
Under the new law, all ammo sales must take place in person, even if the initial purchase was made online, individuals will have to come in and pick up the ammo in-store.
If a gun owner is already in the state’s registry and cleared with a background check, they will only pay a $1 processing fee each time they go to buy ammo to run the background check as a “spot check” to ensure there are no new criminal convictions or mental health red flags.
What about the person not in the state’s registry, the new gun owner who’s decided they need to protect themselves at home? How long does it take for them to buy ammo and how much do they have to pay? And how long do they have to wait?
Also if this new system is anything like the “instant” federal system, it will be anything but “instant”, leaving gun owners days or weeks without ammo.