California Democrat Pushing One-a-Month Gun Purchase Limit

California State Senator Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada-Flintridge) is pushing legislation to limit gun purchases to one-a-month.

Handgun purchases are already limited to one-a-month, and Portantino wants to add long guns, too, so that residents can either buy one handgun or one long gun each month. He describes the ability to buy more than one long gun a month as “a loophole” that needs to be closed.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Portantino said, “This is not the Wild West. California’s in the 21st century, and you shouldn’t be able to walk into a gun store and come out with an arsenal.” He added, “[The bill] is basically just saying, ‘People, be reasonable, take a timeout.’ We should not have such a proliferation of weapons out in main street California.”

Portantino says the bill will prevent straw purchases, where individuals buy guns for the purposes of selling them to people who are “ineligible” to buy or own them. He says, “About half of the guns seized by state Department of Justice agents from people ineligible to own them are long guns.”

Of course, there are only two kinds of guns–long guns and handguns.

Moreover, Portantino misses the fact that it is already illegal to buy a gun for someone who is ineligible to buy one on his own. His bill will do nothing to stop people who are already willing to break the law on straw purchases. This is why Sam Peredes of Gun Owners of California said Portantino’s bill “does not prevent straw purchasers from breaking the law. They are only passing laws that affect law-abiding citizens. This doesn’t affect criminals.”

This is a reminder that measures like universal background checks are insidious and lead to more gun control. California, for example, has universal background checks, which means people cannot buy or sell a gun unless in the presence of a representative of state. Firearm registration and gun confiscation laws were added to such checks. Added to these were “high capacity” magazine bans and a requirement that Californians undergo a background check to buy ammunition. And now, the government that has taken control of Second Amendment rights is attempting to dictate how many guns people may purchase each month.