Everyone knows what happened last week. Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik walked into a San Bernardino, California, social services center on Wednesday and, armed with two assault-style rifles and two handguns, opened fire.
The couple’s .223 caliber rifles had the power to penetrate bullet-proof vests and even walls, and in a time where mass shootings have become almost commonplace in America, the attack still raised eyebrows and a lot of questions in a state that has the strictest gun laws in the nation.
California’s gun laws require background checks that include checking felony convictions, certain misdemeanors, and mental-health holds, including guns sold at gun shows. Then the state has a 10-day waiting period. The weapons used by the killers were assault-style rifles purchased legally in California under the state’s assault weapons ban due to the “bullet button loophole.”
The “bullet button loophole
The “bullet button loophole” refers to a button mechanism that releases the ammunition magazines on assault rifles, requiring the use of a tool to eject the magazine. The button made them legal to possess in California. Actually, some gun-makers in the state specialize in making assault-style rifles that comply with California state law, says the Huffington Post.
Another state law that went into effect in 2000 banned the sale or transfer of high-capacity magazines. The DPMS A-15 that Malik used had been modified to use a 30-round magazine, and the Smith & Wesson M&P15 that Farook used had been modified in an attempt to make it work like an automatic weapon.
Meredith Davis, a spokeswoman for the ATF, told The Huffington Post on Friday that both rifles had been illegally modified. But even if the assault-style rifles had been illegal to purchase in California, all someone would have to do was drive over the state line to a neighboring state, like Arizona or Nevada, where gun laws are very loose.
So with the strictest gun laws in the nation, California still became the state to have the second largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. State lawmakers immediately began voicing the need for additional gun laws, as did President Obama. Even the New York Times jumped into the fray with a front-page editorial calling for stricter gun control laws.
Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles, who is going to introduce legislation banning people on the no-fly list from purchasing guns, agrees additional laws would not stop every person wanting to shoot someone, but he added, “But it does make sense to make sure that the people who have been deemed too dangerous to even board a quick flight to Vegas, that they are not allowed to go out there and buy guns and chemicals en masse.”
The LA Times today cited the different gun laws on the books in California, including a 2013 veto by Governor Jerry Brown on a bill that would have banned semi-automatic rifles with magazines detachable by any means. In his veto message, Governor Brown said he didn’t “believe that this bill’s blanket ban on semi-automatic rifles would reduce criminal activity or enhance public safety enough to warrant this infringement on gun owners’ rights.”
As I like to say, the bottom line is this: Stricter gun laws would not have prevented the San Bernardino terror attack. California does have a tight grip on gun laws, but it didn’t make any difference. The two terrorists were not on any watch lists, they had purchased the weapons legally, and from all accounts were the all-American family.
So how would anyone know more about them unless we were to become a police-state, where every movement and everything we do and say is being monitored? As someone said on the news yesterday, if someone had been armed, maybe the massacre would not have happened.
