I may have seen it years ago, based on his implicated reference regarding the televised bank shoot-out in (LA I think) California a dozen or so years ago.
He is referring to the 1989 Stockton California Cleveland Elementary School shooting by Patrick Purdy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockton_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Purdy
Which resulted in the 1989 California assault weapons ban of a named list of semi-automatic rifles (from memory, named weapons included AK-47, SKS, Colt AR-15, Striker Street Sweeper, Steyr Aug, FN-FAL, etc.). Media coverage portrayed Purdy as using an AK-47. He used a Type-56 purchased in Oregon. This also resulted in one of the more poorly implemented gun control measures in California since it banned items by name. Some lawsuits failed and at a later date, the AG expanded the list retroactively forcing one of the few gun grabs in the state (mostly on confusion over what was and wasn't an SKS.).
This was the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapon Control Act of 1989.
This legislation has not been used as a model since, as its implementation failed to regulate subsequent availability of non-Colt AR-15 receivers and FAL receivers reimported or manufactured by companies other than Fabrique-Nationale.
The North Hollywood Bank Robbery (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout) by Larry Eugene Phillips, Jr. and Emil Matasareanu in 1997 (during Brady) is different in that they used modified semi-automatic weapons (AK, HK91, and AR-15) and were also wearing level III or possibly IV body armor (home made).
There is also another event in 1993, The 101 California Street shooting spree (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/101_California_Street_shootings) with a Tec-9 (banned since 1989).
Patrick Purdy's shooting spree at a Stockton grade school and Gian Luigi Ferri's shooting spree at a law office at 101 California Street resulted in California's legislators supporting the Brady bill in 1994.
In 2000 California upped the ante to single evil assault weapons, modelling after the characteristic criteria from Brady but defining an assault weapon based on a single evil characteristic with the feature list:
semi-automatic with a detachable magazine and any 1 of:
- pistol grip
- thumbhole stock, collapsible stock, folding stock
- bayonet lug
- flash suppressor, flash hider, threaded barrel
- grenade launcher, grenade adaptor
- night scope
- forward vertical grip
and I think also flame thrower, but might be wrong about that one.
AR-15's disappeared from california for a time until manufacturers figured out two workarounds - an axe-head shaped pistol grip that went straight back to the stock, or a fixed magazine loaded off of a stripper clip from the upper receiver.