Repealing CA Gun Laws with a Vote?

[Tbrad10]

How to pass pro gun legislation

Why Can't we get pro gun legislation passed by the voters? There is about 23% of Californians that are gun owners. Not a bad voting block if they would take the time to register and vote. With that 23% there must be spouses and friends that do not own guns but also support gun rights giving us maybe a 46% voting block. With that amount of voters we can vote for anything and anyone we want and get it. Basically with the voter turn out the way it is we would be the majority. This can only happen if and only if we stick together and vote just like the constitution allows us to. The same constitution that gives us the right to keep and bear arms.

In other words stop hiding from the government and let's use our power of the vote to take back the government.

[Librarian]

Next, I would say we could all come up with examples on how the wording of the proposition should look like. Some people would say to hire a legal person. But that is not required and for what its worth, in my opinion, a proposition such as this would probably look better coming from a grassroots movement.

Horrible idea, truly epically bad.

If you think our legislators do a poor job, imagine what real amateurs can do.

Raise some money; develop a theme; hire a marketing firm to do some research and run some focus groups - and believe the results.

[ap3572001]

I'm not terribly familiar with how the political system in California works so bear with me,

I remember back in 03 when they collected 1 million signatures needed to have a recall for Governor. So my question is, there's millions of gun owners in California (from what I've heard anyways).

Couldn't we collect enough signatures to have a measure on the ballet in time for November to have some of these gun laws already on the books repealed with a majority vote?

If so, has this ever been attempted? It seems like the most logical way besides going to the Courts. And we all know how impartial the courts in California are in regards to gun rights.

I feel that NO gun related law should become a law unless IT CLEARLY HELPS TO INSURE PUBLIC SAFETY.

Handgun roster, bullet button, 500rd of ammo, etc laws, should have NEVER become laws because they DO NOT help public safety in ANY way.

Being an LEO for long time, I can tell You that crooks do not pay attention to ANY laws.
All quality handguns are plenty safe, reporting 500rd of ammo will not save any lives, an AR with a BB and a ten round magazine will kill the same way as the one w/o one and 30 round magazine.

etc.

[Uxi]

lol if the gay marriage and tax increase issues didn't teach anyone, it's keep putting it on the ballot every single time until you get the result you want. Don't forget the hyperbole and smearing demonization of those who don't toe the leftist line, either.

[2nd amendment believer]

Ok, my 2 cents worth. First of all, as this is always on my mind, the most important issue here is that a ballot referendum forever rules the legislature over anything they come up with. (That is the best part of our state constitution.) They are getting away with this crap because we let them. A man from Egypt told me once that it is our fault for letting the legislature get away with it. He wished his country was as free as ours to actually do away with the corruption, and couldn't believe our apathy.

Cases in point: Prop 215, I.E. HS11362.5 takes the cops out of the picture on medically recommended marijuana, and therefore the SB420 didn't stand. In addition, prop 19 almost passed due to the lazy's who didn't want to bother with getting a recommendation damn near voted it in... until the MASSIVE grass roots effort with little to no money campaigning hard, and by word of mouth, viral emails, and taking advantage of the opposition anti marijuana "Nixonites" and shot down prop 19 because it really just gave one man the power to profit off of the 13 billion dollars of a business that the "weedies" built themselves, regardless, and in the face of the L.E. community and their inexhaustible resourceful lobby. My point is, nothing ventured, nothing gained! Meanwhile, in Colorado, the jerks who voted to ban certain gun rights found themselves out of a career in a heartbeat, from what? A grass roots movement to oust them for their insolence.

An additional point here is that I believe our community has had enough of this crap and with the recent anti gun events and the massive push by the gov'mint to disarm us, (all conspiracy theories aside), what I have seen is the general public getting panicked and buying everything they can get their hands on, especially AR type rifles, and high cap mags. Most important to me is how many black rifle shops have spring up all over California. They MUST be making a profit, which means that a record amount of AR type black rifles and parts are being sold, and not just to conservatives either. To lefties, centers and conservatives alike. If anything, what we have learned is that anti gun legislation sells guns!!!

In conclusion, I firmly believe that we can abolish all or most anti gun legislation in California, one petition and subsequent ballot initiative for each offending law, simultaneously, by spreading them at every gun shop, every Big 5, every Kmart, every shooting range, every event, every show, and with the grass roots effort seen with the weedies. Hell, most of them would vote for it also, as they are being told they can't defend their weed patches with guns against the crooks who come to steal it with guns! (L.E. included...) but if we don't try, we won't know.

I would personally rather actually give money to our brothers and sisters who are actually doing this than sit on my *** and do nothing. I would stand on the corner and gather signatures, would you? I am not afraid, I am proud! There MUST be a teem of lawyers out there in our camps that would pen the bills. We just have to spread them around and get those petitions signed. We only need one vote over 50% to pass them. Think about it: We pull this off, the criminals in our state house can NEVER do this to us again. I think that is reason and motivation enough to at least TRY. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Talk minus action equals ZERO. Live on our feet, or die on our knees!

[2nd amendment believer]

Ok, that was 10 cents worth. I have to add, and you can hate me later, or not: I am a slightly left of center kind of guy. Financially conservative, I want to give them as little as possible due to how they have spent what we already give them, against our will. Socially slightly liberal, however, socialism has the problem of being great until we run out of other people's money... I work for a living and want to spend my money my way and not "transfer my wealth" without my consent... Still, I would love to have cheap healthcare... I digress... Anyway, more twisted is that I actually voted for Finkstein and Boxer and Brown because they fought to keep the drilling rigs from screwing up our coast like they did Louisiana, (where I'm from originally), and now of course, totally regret it. Duh.... You can't hate me for that any more than I do. I don't know what the hell it is with the demorat party that they seem to think that this issue is a worthy one, but they lost my votes FOREVER. Not that I want to get all political here, my point is all walks of life and all kinds of Americans will be pro second amendment rights activists given the chance. NObody wants to be trampled under foot. Even my Mom hates guns in her house but will NEVER allow the government to remove our right to bear them! She would vehemently vote for any ballot initiative that removes the anti gun legislation, the AW ban, the high cap mag ban, the registration of ANY firearm, because she is a historian and a school teacher, and actually a "Nixonite"... SO would all her compatriots! School teachers one and all!

My first lesson in American politics was waking up exactly 50 years ago today and watching the Caisson carrying JFK to Arlington. I was 5. My grandmother was a librarian and taught me how to shoot. According to her brother and sister, she always got the deer on hunts. My grandfather served in WWII, as did my Uncles, my father served in the Navy. All of them would be appalled by these draconian laws, and if alive today, would vote for repealing every one of them, regardless of Sandy Hook, Columbine, and all the rest. They would say arm and train the teachers! To our elected officials they would say, "How dare you!"

Whatever. C'mon people, let's come together on this and get it done regardless of our party affiliations, political differences, religious beliefs, etc! Without our god-given inalienable right to bear arms, we are all doomed as the greatest experiment in democracy. How ironic that the leaders of the free world go down in tyranny? Those lawmaker's actions should be proof enough of their intent. Not on my watch, not without a fight, how about you?

[chainsaw]

This thread is so wonderfully rich in fail (a few posts from Gray, Librarian, etc. excluded). Here is yet another example:

Why Can't we get pro gun legislation passed by the voters? There is about 23% of Californians that are gun owners. Not a bad voting block if they would take the time to register and vote. With that 23% there must be spouses and friends that do not own guns but also support gun rights giving us maybe a 46% voting block. With that amount of voters we can vote for anything and anyone we want and get it.

A. Wrong. The figure I know is that about a quarter of all Californians live in a household that has guns (the number might be 23%, it might also be a third, the real number is not well known). Which probably means that about 1/4 of all voters live in a household that has guns (at least one), but not necessarily all of them are pro-gun voters themselves. It also means that about 3/4 of all voters live in a household WITHOUT guns.

B. If your statistic were true, and really 46% of all voters were pro-gun, then how to you explain that anti-gun measures are often winning with about 2/3 margins?

Sure, you might claim it was low turnout. But that claim is nonsense, for a variety of reasons. First, the turnout in the recent Sunnyvale election was not particularly low (it was somewhere between 30% and 50%, I haven't spent a few hours to calculate the exact figure). Second, if (as people here sometimes claim) the pro-gun vote is totally energized, then the low turnout should actually help the pro-gun side. And lastly, as a proponent of a measure (for example a pro-gun measure) you can pick which election you go on, and you can target it for a high turnout or low turnout election.

Here's the reality: Statewide, and in the high-population coastal areas, only about 25% of the voters can be relied on to vote pro-gun. Add to that about 10% random vote, and we can expect votes to go about 60% to 65% anti-gun, the rest pro-gun. This follows closely the democratic versus republican vote.

In addition, any measure (whether statewide or local) requires an enormous amount of effort. My usual figure is $10 to $20 per vote, but with efficiency of scale, it might be somewhat cheaper. For a statewide election, that works out to $50M to $100M, and thousands of dedicated, hardworking volunteers (I mean people who put in a few hundred hours apiece). As the gun rights community in California demonstrates, this is incredibly far away from reality.

If someone wants to expand gun rights in California, it won't happen through legislative effort, and it won't happen through ballot measures. The attempt to make it happen through court battles has been tried (first and foremost by the CGF), and it has resulted in being somewhere between useless and harmful (precedent-setting anti-gun cases like Peterson v. Denver or Hoffman v. San Mateo). The NRA has had a little bit of luck with stopping the most extreme anti-gun local legislation, but I think their luck just ran out (because their opponents are beginning to be smart, and having their laws written by competent professionals). The correct way to expand gun rights is to convince the anti-gun majority that (a) guns are not bad, and (b) gun people are not evil and knuckle-dragging. We are failing item (a) every time another mass shooting happens, and the conduct of gun people (with this forum being Exhibit A in California) causes item (b) to fail.