What year did handgun registration begin

[Wyseguy]

[taperxz]

[Quiet]

What year did handgun registration begin

My dad has a friend who owns a Colt Gold Cup that he bought from a friend in the early 80’s. No paperwork. He is willing to sell it to me, but is hesitant because it was never registered in his name. I doubt that will be a problem, because I don’t think that CA had any registration in the early 80’s. What do you guys think?

08-07-1924 = Dealer Record Of Sale (DROS) of a handgun was reported to CA DOJ. This process registered the handgun with CA DOJ.
01-01-1991 = Private party transfers of firearms must be done through a CA FFL dealer.

Which means...

During the 1980s, it was CA legal to transfer firearms without having to be done through a CA FFL dealer and without any paperwork needing to be done.

As long as the the transfer of the firearm to you is done through a CA FFL dealer, then it will be legal.

[????? ????]

[Quiet]

The term “Dealer Record of Sale” was created by Statutes of California 1917, chapter 145, by which a gun dealer was required to provide a carbon duplicate of a Dealer Record of Sale of Pistol or Revolver to local law enforcement upon completion of a handgun sale. This same law was amended by Statutes of California 1923, chapter 339. For some reason, people in this forum say handgun registration is because of the 1923 law, not the 1917 law, even if the two are identical.

In any case, it was the Dangerous Weapons Control Law enacted by Statutes and Amendments to the Codes of California 1953, chapter 36, that created Penal Code section 12077, which required a Dealer Record of Sale of Pistol or Revolver be sent to Sacramento as well as to local law enforcement.

Submitting DROS electronically started on January 1, 1998.

1917 = DROS was sent to local LE agency. Local LE agency was not required to send that info to CA DOJ or to other LE agencies and also not required to retain that information.
1924 = DROS was sent to CA DOJ. Which started a central repository for the information.

[????? ????]

1917 = DROS was sent to local LE agency. Local LE agency was not required to send that info to CA DOJ or to other LE agencies and also not required to retain that information.
1924 = DROS was sent to CA DOJ. Which started a central repository for the information.

https://clerk.assembly.ca.gov/sites/...s.pdf#page=699
Chapter 339, section 9 is at pages 699 to 701 of the PDF.

Compare to Statutes 1953, chapter 35 at https://clerk.assembly.ca.gov/sites/...rs.pdf#page=53 at pages 53 to 54.

The Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation in Sacramento is identified in the 1953 law, and not mentioned at all in the 1923 law.

[Librarian]

AB 263 (Hawes) was introduced in 1923 and effective in 1924 - so its text would be in Statutes of 1924 (Nope, they did not do annual until much later); 263 (P 3, section 10) provides a copy of DROS must be mailed to the Secretary of State, one retained by the dealer, one sent to the local LE and one to the county Sheriff.

But it's nice that people read that old stuff.

ETA I finally figured out how to get into the Clerk's archive, (Thank you! I did not know that was there!) and I see there is no 1924 summary, but 1925 (there's no even-year listing between 1881 and 1966, it's those 2-year legislative sessions) ... I do not see Hawes in the 1923 statutes, and I cannot search the image-PDF of 1925 to find Dealer's Record of Sale.(Don't need to, see below)

Ah, I think I see what happened. 'Mail to Secretary of State' was in the bill as introduced in January but NOT in the amended bill passed in June. Need to read down to p 27 of the 263 .PDF.

So, tell-the-state indeed waited for a later bill.

Sadly, I cannot fix the wiki paragraph on that - no longer have write access.

-----------------------------------------

Let me unpack that; perhaps it can keep others from the same errors.

Gene Hoffman paid for the research service to identify when DROS was implemented; I got it (Hawes AB 263), and looked just into the first part of the .pdf.

So, first error, I did not see I had been given the whole set of versions; I read the bill as introduced and stopped. The approved version is there, too, and is what is in the Statutes of 1923. The amendments dropped the requirement to send a DROS copy to the CA Secretary of State.

Second error: 'this is how they do it now, therefore this is how it always has been'. In 2021, the Legislature publishes a list of new laws every year. They've done that since 1966.

So I expected the 1923 bill to be in such a document labeled "1924". Wrong expectation.

[taperxz]

AB 263 (Hawes) was introduced in 1923 and effective in 1924 - so its text would be in Statutes of 1924; 263 (P 3, section 10) provides a copy of DROS must be mailed to the Secretary of State, one retained by the dealer, one sent to the local LE and one to the county Sheriff.

But it's nice that people read that old stuff.

[????? ????]

What year did handgun registration begin

AB 263 (Hawes) was introduced in 1923 and effective in 1924 - so its text would be in Statutes of 1924; 263 (P 3, section 10) provides a copy of DROS must be mailed to the Secretary of State, one retained by the dealer, one sent to the local LE and one to the county Sheriff.

But it's nice that people read that old stuff.

[Librarian]

No, see my ETA above for where I think I erred; you're right about the law.

[Tyke8319]

It's really great to see a healthy discussion and exchange in lieu of cyber fist fight.