Two California Gun Bills and an Anniversary

One year ago (March 10, 2021), I reposted the above embedded video from my YouTube channel on Attorney Alan Beck’s Facebook page. An hour or so later, I checked my email and discovered that YouTube had deleted my channel. I appealed, but YouTube wouldn’t tell me why I was banned. Coincidentally, YouTube had deleted a Reason TV video from its YouTube channel. I contacted one of its publishers with whom I had corresponded, off and on, over the years. He asked me to forward the YouTube email to one of his attorneys, which I did. Apparently, YouTube wouldn’t tell his attorney why I was banned. After having my video channel for a decade without any strikes or even a warning, the deletion of my video channel was a surprise.

It turned out to be an early birthday present from YouTube. My videos receive more views on Bitchute alone than they ever received on YouTube. Surprisingly, I have posted the same video on Facebook and Twitter without being banned.,

But the main topic of this email is about two bills filed last month, before the California legislative deadline to file bills.

The first is “AB-2239 Firearms: prohibited persons” by a former RINO turned Democrat Assemblyman from San Diego, Brian Maienschein.

His bill would have prevented the possession of a firearm for a period of ten years for anyone convicted of misdemeanor concealed carry, misdemeanor carrying a loaded firearm, or misdemeanor openly carrying an unloaded handgun.

I say, “would have” because those misdemeanors were dropped in its first hearing before the Assembly Public Safety Committee on Thursday.

I don’t know why they were dropped from the bill. I tried to find a video of the hearing but it seems the hearings are no longer recorded and made available to the public. If I am mistaken and you have a link then please forward it to me.

Of course, the bill can be amended in the future, we will just have to wait and see.

The second bill is “SB-1386 Firearms: concealed carry licenses” by State Senator Melissa Melendez.

Her bill is the latest “shall-issue” CCW bill, of which there have been many, many filed over the years. She, like everyone who has come before her, has overlooked the fact that her shall-issue bill does not prohibit the Sheriff or Police Chief from placing onerous time and place restrictions on the license.

Nor does Senator Melendez seem to realize that it is the proof of licensure that the county sheriff or police chief delivers to the licensee and he cannot deliver it unless the attorney general has first given his approval. Nothing in her bill requires the AG to approve licenses. Nothing in her bill prohibits the Sheriff or Police Chief from limiting the validity of the license to the inside of one’s home every other leap year. Nothing in her bill prevents the sheriff or police chief from revoking the license for any reason, or for no reason.

Her bill as currently written simply strikes out the word “may” and replaces it with “shall.”

I am reminded that former Assemblyman Tim Donnelly once filed a shall-issue concealed carry bill that was sponsored by CalGuns.nuts. Existing law provides for the issuance of licenses to openly carry loaded firearms in counties with a population of fewer than 200,000 people. Those Open Carry licenses were valid statewide but in September of 2009, the California legislature passed AB-1363 that limited the licenses to the county of issuance and to residents of that county, notwithstanding a 90-day license for persons substantially employed in that county.

Tim Donnelly’s bill eliminated the subsections of PC 26150 and PC 26155 which provide for the issuance of handgun loaded Open Carry licenses. Had his bill passed, there would have been no Open Carry, loaded or unloaded.

Before he filed his bill, I had asked Tim Donnelly why he had not filed a lawsuit challenging California’s Loaded Open Carry ban. He told me that it was illegal for him to do so. That was a lie, but nonetheless, I asked him to cite the law which made it a crime for him to file a lawsuit challenging the Open Carry ban. I never heard back from him.

But there is still plenty of time for Senator Melendez to amend her bill to ban the issuance of Open Carry licenses. I have asked her several times where is her bill to repeal California’s Open Carry bans. She has never responded.

And to show that the gods still have a wicked sense of humor, I recently received an email from California State Senator Brian Jones asking me to donate to his campaign for the newly drawn 40th district, and to volunteer for his campaign.

During the floor debate on Assembly Bill 144, the unloaded handgun Open Carry ban, then Assemblyman Brian Jones told Portantino (the author of the bill) that he would vote for his bill to ban Open Carry if he amended it to make concealed carry shall-issue.

The California Legislative Information website has every bill filed in the California legislature dating back to 1999. It used to go back further but if you had searched the bills ten years ago (going back to the late 1980s) as I did, you would discover that what was true then is true today, no member of the California legislature has ever filed a bill to repeal any of California’s Open Carry bans, loaded or unloaded, not since 1989 and undoubtedly not before given that it was the 1980s legislature (including the Republicans) that enacted the bill that raised the threshold for carrying a loaded firearm from a reasonable fear of serious bodily injury.to “grave, immediate danger.”