CA DOJ and San Bernardino County DA's

[hardkore909]

I recently attended a meeting held by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department's Crimelab's Firearms Division. I found out something kind of interesting. It seems in San Bernardino County that the DA him/herself is not the actual person who decides if an assault weapon is actually an assault weapon like the DOJ memo's state. The Firearms Specialists for the SBSO Crimelab are actually the ones who make the determinations and their conclusions are what is being used by the DA's here to decide if they want to file charges or not file charges. Just some info I thought people in SB county might want to be made aware of. I spoke with one of these "specialists" and somewhere between kasler, harrott, sb23 and OLL's without sb23 features I lost him. He told me i needed to ask his boss since he was the real "specialist" and did not want to give me bad info. I was given a very generic answer of, "Just send in the weapon and we can determine if it is infact an assault weapon or not." <<< that applies to our in custdoy weapons.

[Shane916]

"Just send in the weapon and we can determine if it is infact an assault weapon or not."

Yeah..... Hopefully you say no and pass on that one

[SemiAutoSam]

As long as the weapon is not on the RR or Kasler list and its in compliance with SB23 its legal.

These people act like its brain surgery when its very black and white.

[hardkore909]

What i'm waiting for is an oll in legal config. to come in and i will ask the case agent to request an exam for questionable rifles so i can have some department letterhead stating if it comes back legal. if it does we are money and i will share to all in sb county.

[Piper]

This one is as funny as "hey do you want to register your long guns"?

[bwiese]

The problem is, "What is an AW" is both a legal decision and a technical one.

This is the fundamental unresolved problem with CA's AW laws.

Techie crime lab folks may look at details of whether or not it's a Stoner or Kalashnikov design and then say it's a "series" member. The DA has to read Harrott. Same thing with "SKS" - a crime lab guy may say it's a "Yugo SKS" but it's not an SKS.

These people are technical, not legal, analysts. Combine that with a 29yr old female junior DA who hates guns and knows nothing of 'em, and you have a recipe for a clusterfluck.

Some crime labs have smart people that actually know the laws too - like Santa Clara County, who has an ex-ATF guy that's a gunnie. This presented issues in last year's RAAC Saiga case when the asst/assoc DA concealed crime lab reportage about rifle's status. The crime lab was smart and would not make an official legal statement that a firearm was or was not an illegal AW (i.e, whether or not out of Harrott territory, because that's a *legal* decision outside their purview) but noted it wasn't listed by a banned make name and had no evil SB23 features.