California has encountered multiple setbacks concerning its new firearm restrictions, prompting delays and leaving certain measures up in the air, The Washington Free Beacon reports.
Although the state passed a law redefining the term "assault weapon" and banning gun magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, multiple agencies have prevented its full implementation. U.S. District Judge Roget T. Benitez issued an injunction preventing the law from taking effect.
"The regulation is neither presumptively legal nor longstanding," he said in his ruling. "The statute hits close to the core of the Second Amendment and is more than a slight burden. When the simple test of Heller is applied, a test that persons of common intelligence can understand, the statute is adjudged an unconstitutional abridgment."
The California Department of Justice also tried to register all guns with a “bullet button” for reloading, but this was quickly condemned by the Office of Administrative Law, which found that the department had tried improperly to avoid a public comment period.
Another difficulty in the regulations' rollout came from the requirement that ammunition sales be done only from dealers with special licenses. Dealers were supposed to be able to apply for one online and subsequently enter an online database of licensed dealers.
However, the DOJ failed to get either the application portal or the database up by the July 1 deadline to apply. On Jan. 1, 2018, if the sites are not up and running, dealers will be unable to sell ammunition without licenses they are not able to apply for.
"California Gov. Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, and the state's legislature have created a system of gun-control laws that are so complicated and so full of problems that the attorney general and thousands of DOJ lawyers can't figure out how to make them work without illegally creating new regulations," Firearms Policy Coalition president Brandon Combs told the Free Beacon.
"I think that a number of things are contributing to the delays, including the fact that DOJ doesn't really want people to exercise their right to keep and bear arms. They don't prioritize civil rights, especially ones they don't like."
He added it will take years for the state to find a way of making its new gun regulations functional.
"I think that California's gun-control laws have finally become so complicated that we're now in probably a two- to three-year period of the state trying to figure out how to clean up the mess it made and make the laws enforceable," he said.
"These delays are really just a symptom of how insanely overbroad and complicated the system has become."
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