mikeyp
NES Member
More of "I'm a cop, so I should be treated speshul"
Zachary Berg usually buys guns and ammunition with relative ease. After all, he’s a Sutter County sheriff’s deputy and needs them for his job. California’s stringent gun laws usually don’t apply to him.
But Berg couldn’t buy shotgun shells at his local hardware store in Yuba City prior to a duck hunting trip last month. He was rejected under California’s stringent ammunition background check program that took effect July 1, because his personal information didn’t match what state officials had in their database.
Berg was one of tens of thousands of Californians who have been turned away from buying ammunition at firearms and sporting goods stores, even though they appear to be lawfully able to do so, a Sacramento Bee review of state data shows. Between July 1 and November, nearly one in every five ammunition purchases was rejected by the California Department of Justice, the figures show.
Of the 345,547 ammunition background checks performed, only 101 stopped the buyer because he or she was a “prohibited person” who can’t legally possess ammunition, according to state Department of Justice data.
Yet another 62,000 ammunition purchases were rejected as well. Those people left empty-handed because their personal information hadn’t been entered into the state’s system, or the information on their identification cards didn’t match what officials had entered into the California gun registry database, which retail sellers must review when they do the ammunition background check.
“It’s a little ironic the fact I’m a deputy that I can’t buy ammunition,” Berg said. “But at the same time, anybody else who’s legally allowed to, they shouldn’t be denied based on address (errors). ... It’s just crazy.”
The rejection numbers are detailed in court documents Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego in response to a pending lawsuit that’s seeking to overturn to the new gun laws. The suit was filed by the California Rifle & Pistol Association. The case’s lead plaintiff is Kim Rhode, an Olympic shooter and National Rifle Association board member.
Becerra’s office declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation. But in court filings, the agency said the state’s rejection rate declined from 19 percent in July to 15 percent in October, a downward trend the agency says will continue “as familiarity with the system among ammunition vendors and consumers increases.” Becerra’s office also noted that ammunition purchasers have had better luck on the second try. For instance, 44 percent of purchasers who had been rejected in July were able to buy ammunition by November.
But to gun-rights advocates, the mass denials are confirmation of their long-standing assertion that liberal gun-control laws disproportionately burden law-abiding gun owners who follow the rules, even as criminals continue to acquire guns and ammunition without jumping through the regulatory hoops.
“The restrictions are not going on criminals. It’s not targeting criminal misuses. It’s targeting otherwise law-abiding persons in the way that they can exercise their rights,” said Daniel Reid, the western regional director for the National Rifle Association. “You’re seeing a handful of denials for prohibited persons and all these other people are being denied for clerical errors or administrative type issues.”
DATABASE REJECTIONS
The rejections appear to have occurred because of errors and omissions in the Department of Justice’s own gun-registration database.
Under the ammunition-background check law signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2016, as of July 1, Californians buying ammunition are required to pass the in-store background check, which involves vendors running a buyer’s name through the Department of Justice database to see if they have legally purchased a gun in recent years. Purchasing a gun in California is a separate process that involves a background check and waiting period.
Beginning in 2014, Californians who’ve bought a shotgun or a rifle are in the database, and handgun owners have been in the system for even longer. If a gun owner has a weapon in the database, and their government-issued identification card matches the gun registry, an ammunition buyer pays the state a $1 fee for each ammo transaction, and then he or she walks out of the store with their ammo in a couple of minutes.
Those who don’t have a gun in the Department of Justice’s system are required to pay the state a $19 fee and undergo a more comprehensive background check, a process that can take days, or they can go online and register a firearm in the database.
About 18 percent of purchases were rejected in the standard $1 background check process, according to the Department of Justice.
The DOJ says court filing says more than 19,000 ammunition buyers weren’t in the database at all, so they were denied when they went to buy ammo. More than 22,000 were rejected because of address mismatches, many of them due to having moved since they last bought a gun. Nearly 8,000 people had names in the state’s gun registry that didn’t match their identification, according to the Department of Justice filing.
Zachary Berg usually buys guns and ammunition with relative ease. After all, he’s a Sutter County sheriff’s deputy and needs them for his job. California’s stringent gun laws usually don’t apply to him.
But Berg couldn’t buy shotgun shells at his local hardware store in Yuba City prior to a duck hunting trip last month. He was rejected under California’s stringent ammunition background check program that took effect July 1, because his personal information didn’t match what state officials had in their database.
Berg was one of tens of thousands of Californians who have been turned away from buying ammunition at firearms and sporting goods stores, even though they appear to be lawfully able to do so, a Sacramento Bee review of state data shows. Between July 1 and November, nearly one in every five ammunition purchases was rejected by the California Department of Justice, the figures show.
Of the 345,547 ammunition background checks performed, only 101 stopped the buyer because he or she was a “prohibited person” who can’t legally possess ammunition, according to state Department of Justice data.
Yet another 62,000 ammunition purchases were rejected as well. Those people left empty-handed because their personal information hadn’t been entered into the state’s system, or the information on their identification cards didn’t match what officials had entered into the California gun registry database, which retail sellers must review when they do the ammunition background check.
“It’s a little ironic the fact I’m a deputy that I can’t buy ammunition,” Berg said. “But at the same time, anybody else who’s legally allowed to, they shouldn’t be denied based on address (errors). ... It’s just crazy.”
The rejection numbers are detailed in court documents Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego in response to a pending lawsuit that’s seeking to overturn to the new gun laws. The suit was filed by the California Rifle & Pistol Association. The case’s lead plaintiff is Kim Rhode, an Olympic shooter and National Rifle Association board member.
Becerra’s office declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation. But in court filings, the agency said the state’s rejection rate declined from 19 percent in July to 15 percent in October, a downward trend the agency says will continue “as familiarity with the system among ammunition vendors and consumers increases.” Becerra’s office also noted that ammunition purchasers have had better luck on the second try. For instance, 44 percent of purchasers who had been rejected in July were able to buy ammunition by November.
But to gun-rights advocates, the mass denials are confirmation of their long-standing assertion that liberal gun-control laws disproportionately burden law-abiding gun owners who follow the rules, even as criminals continue to acquire guns and ammunition without jumping through the regulatory hoops.
“The restrictions are not going on criminals. It’s not targeting criminal misuses. It’s targeting otherwise law-abiding persons in the way that they can exercise their rights,” said Daniel Reid, the western regional director for the National Rifle Association. “You’re seeing a handful of denials for prohibited persons and all these other people are being denied for clerical errors or administrative type issues.”
DATABASE REJECTIONS
The rejections appear to have occurred because of errors and omissions in the Department of Justice’s own gun-registration database.
Under the ammunition-background check law signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2016, as of July 1, Californians buying ammunition are required to pass the in-store background check, which involves vendors running a buyer’s name through the Department of Justice database to see if they have legally purchased a gun in recent years. Purchasing a gun in California is a separate process that involves a background check and waiting period.
Beginning in 2014, Californians who’ve bought a shotgun or a rifle are in the database, and handgun owners have been in the system for even longer. If a gun owner has a weapon in the database, and their government-issued identification card matches the gun registry, an ammunition buyer pays the state a $1 fee for each ammo transaction, and then he or she walks out of the store with their ammo in a couple of minutes.
Those who don’t have a gun in the Department of Justice’s system are required to pay the state a $19 fee and undergo a more comprehensive background check, a process that can take days, or they can go online and register a firearm in the database.
About 18 percent of purchases were rejected in the standard $1 background check process, according to the Department of Justice.
The DOJ says court filing says more than 19,000 ammunition buyers weren’t in the database at all, so they were denied when they went to buy ammo. More than 22,000 were rejected because of address mismatches, many of them due to having moved since they last bought a gun. Nearly 8,000 people had names in the state’s gun registry that didn’t match their identification, according to the Department of Justice filing.