NY Post Op-Ed Calls Out California’s Latest Gun Control Measures

We’ve spilled a lot of digital ink on the new gun control laws coming to Virginia, and not without reason. They’re egregious infringements on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. They’re awful.

California, on the other hand, is where we’re used to seeing such egregious infringements. Yes, we’ve talked about them, but California could come out tomorrow and say they’re going to round up all of the guns in the state, and no one would be particularly shocked. They’d be outraged, yes, but not totally surprised.

However, bad ideas from California are like a virus. They eventually spread to other states, then a lot of decent people are screwed over as a result, and an op-ed in the New York Post is calling a couple of their latest measures out.

To start with, author John Mac Ghlionn starts by talking about the state’s new Glock ban, and how it’s ridiculous and a deflection from the real issue, namely, people trading in the auto-sears, which are expressly illegal under federal law, that Glock had no hand in designing or making, but is still being punished for it.

And it’s not even a total ban of Glocks. It’s just new Glock sales, which means Kamala Harris’s Glock is going to remain legal.

The restrictions apply primarily to future buyers, effectively creating a familiar, two-tiered reality in which political elites and grandfathered owners keep their firearms while the next generation faces increasingly limited choices.

It leaves the Second Amendment looking more like a limited-time retail promotion than an unalienable right.

I’m not going to lie, I love that last line there.

The fact that it’s accurate is part of why I love it. It’s completely true, because the reality is that by banning Glocks, not because the guns are unsafe, but because an illegal device they never intended to be used with their guns can be used, it means that any other gun can be banned by them whenever they can concoct a scary enough reason.

And all despite the fact that the hysteria of these things is drastically overhyped.

However, another measure rolling out this year is probably just as bad, if not worse.

Beginning July 1, firearms dealers will also be required to complete comprehensive, state-approved training designed to help them identify customers who might pose a danger to themselves or others.

On the surface, the measure sounds entirely reasonable, even noble. Nobody wants firearms falling into the wrong hands or arming someone who hears voices in the drywall.

The catch, as always, is the inevitable consequences of these supposedly well-meaning grand plans. Once private businesses are forcefully transformed into behavioral screening centers, subjective judgments hijack the purchasing process.

What actually constitutes suspicious behavior? Who decides the baseline for mental stability at a retail counter? What protections exist for ordinary individuals who are wrongly flagged based on an employee’s personal biases, political views or a simple misunderstanding?

Suddenly, a minimum-wage store clerk is acting as a state-mandated psychologist with the power to deny a constitutional right, transforming a retail transaction into an amateur interrogation.

Conservatives and civil liberties advocates nationwide should pay very close attention to this shift. California has a long, documented history of exporting its political trends to the rest of the country. Policies that begin as Petri dish experiments in Sacramento almost always become the blueprint for progressive lawmakers elsewhere.

Mac Ghlionn cites examples of how this is true, including the state’s emissions standards that impact literally every car sold in America.

But let’s talk about this state-approved training for a moment. 

I think the offering of training to identify straw purchases and such might not be the worst idea I’ve ever seen. However, the problem is that this is about “suspicious behavior,” which is a lot broader and will potentially involve jamming up a lot of people who shouldn’t be.

For example, let’s say I go to Bass Pro Shops with my wife. I want to look at the guns, but I don’t want her seeing it. Maybe it’s a present for her, or maybe I don’t want her trying the whole “But we could spend that money on painting the bedroom” thing. So, I’m acting a little squirrelly while my wife looks at whatever she looks at when we go to a Bass Pro.

Will that minimum-wage clerk recognize I’m just trying to avoid my wife, or will he potentially think I’m trying to avoid anyone else, including off-duty police officers?

What if the buyer is stressed out and jumpy because someone just threatened to kill them? Will that count as suspicious? I mean, if someone is trying to kill them, they most definitely need a gun, but they might be denied because the clerk is worried he’ll get in trouble if the guy does something to someone.

Admittedly, most gun store clerks make more than minimum wage. As retail gigs go, you can do a whole lot worse financially, at least on average. However, that still doesn’t mean they should be required to evaluate someone’s behavior based on what the state of California–or any other state, for what it’s worth–thinks is suspicious. It’s one thing if the “buyer’s” buddy is clearly making the decision. It’s another to try to make them evaluate anything beyond that.

And yes, this is unlikely to stay in California. Bad ideas never stay put. It doesn’t even matter which side of the aisle comes up with a bad idea, it won’t stay there. It’ll go somewhere else and screw up other people’s lives.

The right to keep and bear arms matters, and it is an individual right. While every anti-gunner seems to think that rights can be limited, that only applies if someone is harmed by the misuse of that right. You shouldn’t be banning an entire category of guns because criminals can import a device from an enemy state (China) and slap it on a gun that was never intended to be “converted,” and you shouldn’t try to dictate what behavior is too suspicious for someone to buy a gun, especially when there can be innocent reasons for such behavior.

Not that California will ever stop unless someone makes them.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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