Reporting of Gun Sales
Re “Unfinished Gun Laws,” editorial, Jan. 16: Whatever Assemblyman Jack Scott’s AB 273 proposes regarding private party handgun transfers, The Times is dead wrong when it says, “State law requires merchants to report sales to the state Department of Justice, but there is no such rule for subsequent sales between private parties.” In fact, for nearly 10 years it has been unlawful in California for a private party to give or sell a handgun to another private party without using the services of a licensed gun dealer or small county sheriff’s department to make the transfer. The only exceptions are transfers between spouses, siblings, parents and children. All such transfers involve a record of sale to the Department of Justice, a background check and a waiting period.
While this is apparently a matter of indifference to The Times and its gun-owner-hating comrades, this rule has been just as utterly ineffectual in halting criminal violence as have the rest of the gun control laws already on the books--and as will be AB 273 and the rest of what’s now in the hopper in Sacramento.
LEE SMITH
Culver City
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Registration of cars and the licensing of car owners is voluntary. It is only required if the vehicle is to be driven on public roads on public property. Failure to register a car is not a criminal offense. It does not result in confiscation of the car or penalization of its owner.
An unregistered vehicle may be driven by an unlicensed driver on private roads on private property. An unregistered vehicle may also be transported on public property without breaking any law. If we would like to hold guns and their owners to the same regulations that apply to cars and their owners, we need to know what they are.
JALILA AISSI
Laguna Hills
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The Times calls on Gov. Gray Davis to sign laws requiring citizens to register their firearms and be licensed by the government to own firearms. For the anti-gun lobby and its lackeys in the government and the media, gun laws will be “finished” when nobody has the right to own guns anymore.
DON HEADLAND JR.
Morro Bay