Rifle for California
 

So unfortunately I am PCSing to a base in California and I was wondering what you guys think would be a good rifle for self defense/SHTF/range use/whatever while still being legal. Obviously I have to leave all my ARs and AKs back in free America. I do plan on becoming well versed in California laws of course before i bring stuff over the border and I do realize that a defensive gun use in California could wind me up in a pile of legal trouble. Currently all i plan on bringing is a glock 19 with a lot of 10 round magazines. My current idea is for either a 308 bolt gun maybe in a scout configuration or perhaps a 30 30 lever gun.

SKS? Mossberg MVP? Get a shotgun?

Just watch them ban anything that isn't a single shot .22

PCSing, lol won't you already have your government issued m4 carbine????
On a side not I have heard they looking at a bill to ban all semi auto rifles. Barring that SKS rifle/mini14/su 16 or you can look into surplus military bolt action service rifles. If the laws though go the way of banning semi auto rifles I would just get a 12 gauge pump with a extended mag tube and call it a day.

SKS won't fly in Cali if it's one of the Yugoslavian ones that can take rifle grenades, those apparently have a "grenade launcher." Got to protect people from the menace of drive-by rifle grenadings!

I think the grenade launching muzzle is just one of the features that will make a semi-auto rifle with a removable mag banned isn't it? As the SKS has a non removable magazine isn't the number of features it has irrelevant, or is the legislation there different now than the classic AWB?

Look up the laws. There are ways to get an AR without all the bullshit. All you need is certain things not on that rifle and it can still work. It's bullshit that they made all these laws and then passed a law that says politicians are immune to them

An SKS seems like a good idea that I hadn't considered. Too bad they are going for 400 and up nowadays

I wouldn't want to run the risk of the doing everything right and either getting hit by some ass hole State Trooper that doesn't like peasants having guns or the Cali legislature passing another ban.

A good lever gun in .30-30 will do you good. Unobtrusive. Hits hard. Easy to find ammo for.

A friend of mine brought up a great idea, an unconverted saiga in 7.62x39. It is decently powerful and has a fairly common round. I keep it neutered for the time that i am there and when i return to friendly territory i can convert it and get a pretty decent AK out of it

Whatever you pick, just make sure not to use it until any intruder(s) actually enter your house, otherwise they can actually press charges against you for assault/attempted murder/whatever.

It's beyond stupid, I know, but that's liberals for you. You have to actually let someone kill you before they've actually done anything wrong. :rolleyes:

Nope, Yugo SKS is specifically banned as a destructive device, the ones with detachable magazines get dinged as "assault weapons." I mean nevermind that this ruling would presumably ban every weapon with a NATO 22mm flash hider.

Hadn't seen that specific ban before, but that is bizarre. The Cali assault weapons ban reads "A semiautomatic, centerfire rifle that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and any one of the following: 1) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon; 2) a thumbhole stock; 3) a folding or telescoping stock; 4) a grenade or flare launcher; 5) a flash suppressor; or 6) a forward pistol grip", so if a rifle with a grenade launcher is illegal, why list it as a feature that would turn a detachable magazine rifle into an AW? And as you say, there are a large number of other weapons that take the NATO standard 22mm grenades that are not affected. I assume the reason that they picked on this one is because it is actually called a grenade launcher, as opposed to other weapons where part of the barrel just so happens to be 22mm wide.

Looking into the wording of that ban it kind of reads like they banned it because they misunderstood what it was. It reads "The factory brochure claims that the grenade launcher launches a 22 mm (approximately .80 caliber) grenade." To me this reads as if they banned it based on the "the barrel or barrels of which have a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter" part of the DD definition. This is not the case with this gun though, as the 22mm is the external rather than internal diameter.

Also, and this is a more general US gun law question, can a state deem something to be a destructive device? Isn't this defined by the NFA and overseen by the BATF, not the California DOJ? Granted, they could still ban the firearm by name but that isn't what they did in this case.

Either way, looking into it you can still legally have a Yugo SKS in CA, you just need to either remove the grenade launcher itself, or make it incapable of a grenade sliding over it by doing something like welding on a sleeve, or even just laying down a line of weld.

I'd imagine a state would define it since the US is a federal rather than a unitary state, so any power not explicitly reserved by the central government belongs to the state governments. State can say how it's going to enforce a Federal law and as long as they're not playing too loose with the description that's ok, IIRC.

My advice would be don't go to CA. :rolleyes: As that isn't really an option it seems, SKS or something of the like works - IF you can manage to jump through all the hoops to where it's ok. I like the idea of a lever-gun though for home defense I've always been a fan of the shotgun. Plenty of power and less worry about over-penetration. That and in the case of pump guns they almost always dodge most of the even looniest loony liberal firearms laws without a bunch of dancing like you have to do with 'evil' rifles.

Well, you'd be right. Sense is the one critical thing those who write and signed off on those laws seem to seriously lack. After all, they were the same ones who decided to ban guns 'by name' rather than by type or features first, almost solely because they truly thought only certain brands of guns were causing violent crime - And when they did, gunmakers simply renamed their models and thus were in full compliance even though many of 'banned' firearms actually changed little if at all. Anyone using the slightest bit of rational and intelligent reasoning rather than charged emotion and sheer arrogance would have seen that's what would have happened, but whatever.

Evil Tim has it in a nutshell - Individual states can make their own exclusions in addition to the existing federal regs. Thus yes while there are 'federal' classified destructive devices a state could also have 'destructive device' laws of their own, if they so choose.