legal question magazines

[eldonvieira]

Hope to get a good answer. I lived in CA in the 90's and had several standard capacity magazines. I then moved out of CA then moved back in in 2001. I left the 10+ mags out of state as I no longer had firearms for them. If I obtain a firearm that they would work in would I be able to bring the mags back into the state since I had them in the state prior to the ban?

[Purple K]

Unfortunately no. You have to have had them prior to the ban and continuously in California.

[eldonvieira]

thought so but wanted to check as I am looking at a gun that I could use them in

[dantodd]

My understanding is that as long as they are the same physical magazines that you took out with you then they can come back to the state.

[Librarian]

Unfortunately no. You have to have had them prior to the ban and continuously in California.

Law doesn't say 'continuously' - it excepts

(23)The importation of a large-capacity magazine by a person who lawfully possessed the large-capacity magazine in the state prior to January 1, 2000, lawfully took it out of the state, and is returning to the state with the large-capacity magazine previously lawfully possessed in the state.

[bwiese]

I lived in CA in the 90's and had several standard capacity magazines. I then moved out of CA then moved back in in 2001. I left the 10+ mags out of state as I no longer had firearms for them. If I obtain a firearm that they would work in would I be able to bring the mags back into the state since I had them in the state prior to the ban?

Yes.

If you owned/possessed/acquired hicap mags for even one microsecond before 1/1/2000, you were grandfathered in.

In addition there is no requirement that the mags were acquired by a CA resident, only that the mags were owned/possessed/acquired within CA before the 1/1/2000 cutoff. An AZ resident who'd bought the hicap mags at a CA gun show in 1995 could legally bring those particular individual hicap mags into CA - either moving here or visiting here. Hicap mags legally owned inside CA before this cutoff date can in fact move in & out of California with their owner (regardless of his original or current residency).

[Because of a separate area of law, do not use a hicap magazine in a semiauto centerfire rifle or semiauto pistol as a locked/fixed nondetachable magazine. ]

[Purple K]

Thank you for the correction.