California Assault Weapons Registration System Deadline Crash
courtesy dreamstime.com

As we learned from a California Supreme Court ruling earlier this week, the inability to comply with a law doesn’t cut much ice with the powers that be on the left coast.

California gun owners have until midnight tonight to register their “assault weapons” under the latest gun control scheme imposed on law-abiding firearms owners there. But as dailycaller.com is reporting, the surge of gun owners trying to comply is crashing the state’s online confiscation facilitation registration system.

All applications must be completed and submitted by Saturday at 11:59 p.m. PDT. With less than a day until the deadline, the California Firearms Application Reporting System (CFARS) has had difficulty processing the high volume of applications, according to the Firearms Policy Coalition. The spike in traffic repeatedly crashed the CFARS website, preventing gun owners from registering properly.

If firearms are not registered before the deadline, gun owners could be charged with a felony and receive up to eight years in prison.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), the California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA) and various other Second Amendment consulting groups and law firms are advising gun owners and have legal representation standing by.

Surely the state has plenty of help desk people standing by to assist. And the California DOJ will be lenient if the system continues to barf, right?

The State of California Department of Justice acknowledged the issues processing applications. Rather than extending the deadline, the Office of the Attorney General advised troubleshooting.

Good luck with that, Californians.

77 COMMENTS

  1. Yea, a bunch of power hungry, hypocritical, bigoted socialists giving conservative and libertarian gun owners a fair break. I’ll believe in unicorns and fairies before I believe in that.

    • Your neighbors would rat you out to the authorities. They also have sales records. You would be doomed. The federal government would support your downfall.

      • 1. No all ARs are “assault weapons.” A featureless build is not an AW. When the lower and the upper receiver are fully separated, it is not an AW, even if it would be an AW if the receiver halves were joined. 2. Sales records (and registration of all long guns since 2013) is not enough probable cause for a search warrant.

        • You’re citing the regulations and not the stutory law. The problem with this “law” is that the regulations have more “laws” about “assault weapons” than the actual law itself. The State has said that the regulations carry the weight of law and you can be charged with a felony for violating a regulation that never went through the legislative process and isn’t written in to statutory law. There is a provision in the penal code that says changes in the regulations are exempt from the legislative process, thus giving the State DOJ a blank check to write its own felonies. If The State wants to screw you, it just has to change the regulations without a single vote cast in the state legislature; it has all your information, the weapon’s information, and at least four detailed high definition pictures which YOU took and sent to them. They have all the information and evidence they need to write a search warrant and arrest you, without any need to get around those pesky 4th and 5th amendments.

      • And this is when you repel oppressors at all cost with all means avalible…that means using some of those “unregistered” rifles on the Nazi scum who show up to enforce this unconstitutional peice of shit law.

      • Some of us flat out don’t give a shit. If the guns I’ve legally purchased are ever subject to a registration and subsequent confiscation campaign, fuck em. NRA or no NRA, lawsuit or no lawsuit, civil war or no civil war. They can come getsome.

      • Sales records doesn’t mean you have it now. It just means you had it at one time in the past. Hide it well.

  2. The tree should be refreshed with blood now. But, instead it will just get worse in the most populated state. No rescue, no scotus appointment will save them or us. We must act, but I know we will not while we still have food enough to eat.

    • I agree Daniel, massive civil disobedience could render this unconstitutional law completely ineffective!

      • The law was ineffective as a means of “crime reduction” at conception. We all know fewer than 1% of any category of “gun crime” is committed with any “assault weapon” and only a fraction of those crimes are commited with any gun covered by this “law”. They fully expect mass non-compliance from ordinary people. This law is about controlling law abiding citizens through fear. This law will be used to spread fear by targetted high profile enforcement periodically showcasing the “power of the state” when they hammer some poor schmuck like you (and me).

    • So, has anyone, ever, gotten a letter from the gub’t advising mandatory firearm registration? I’m serious, here, I sure have not, and I suspect there would be armed insurrection if all the people of Texas received such a notification. How, exactly, does such a stupid requirement make it past the state’s armed individuals?

      • The system is working exactly as intended. The people who built the system despise g un owners, especially the ones who own the scary black ones. They would have declared them felons by fiat, but they couldn’t get away with that, so rigging the system was the next best thing.

      • Probably cackling with glee back at HQ, as they run the database on an Apple II on a 1200 baud USRobotics modem.

  3. Its time for Americans to stop being “Conned” by THEIR corrupt Big Government “Representatives”, to take stand and take back freedom/rights/and 🗽 Liberty by whatever means necessary!!!!! This is a fight for our basic god given RIGHTS!!! Fight the Future!!!!!
    —————————————————————-
    Quote from the Mel Gibson Movie The Patriot:

    Benjamin Martin: Why Should I Trade One Tyrant Three Thousand Miles Away For Three Thousand Tyrants One Mile Away?
    Benjamin Martin: Would you tell me please, Mr. Howard, why should I trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away?

    • “All you gun owners that can should leave.”

      No….. I want to play my fiddle when it finally burns down. I just have to remember to convert my money and invest in “Free America” before California becomes a People’s Republic.

  4. Registration=confiscation. Or change your name to a Mexican surname(or Guatemalan?!?). Coming soon to my state…I’m stocking up.

  5. California gun owners’ salvation may be on the way with the retirement of US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. If so-called “Assault Weapons Bans” are found unconstitutional by a US Supreme Court with a solid conservative Constitution respecting majority, California’s draconian gun control laws may go the way of slavery!

    • ‘salvation’ in a few years or decade give or take or maybe??

      I still say that all firearms manufacturing should take a stand and NOT sell to anyone in cali including cops!

      • The we will build our own. It is easy to find lowers manufactured in California–both 80% (which have become more hassle than they are worth) or stripped lowers.

    • “California gun owners’ salvation may be on the way with the retirement of US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.”

      Don’t count on it until we see SCOTUS grant cert. on an AWB.

      SCOTUS rumor is Roberts agreed to be the new ‘moderating voice’ of the court to Kennedy so he could retire.

      We’ll need at least one more solid vote, preferably two…

  6. You know, after I got my car registered, the gub’mint came and took it away. In paranoid NRA fantasy land.

    • Folks like you are why we have trump now. You’re going to be pissing acid after November.

    • You’ve apparently got your head stuck in Nanci Pelosis twat you leftist shitbag. Shouldn’t you be busy today with all the other shibags trying to destroy our borders? Dipshit.

    • Vehicle registration also ended all car accidents, in deranged leftist fairy tale land.

    • You know, after everyone got their car registered, there were no more car accidents, no more speeding motorists, no more drunk drivers or road rage. Clearly registration is a magical tool that solves complex societal ills… for a nominal fee.

      Registration and licensing schemes are the gov’mint version of Scientology’s Dianetics.

      • Good story. Actually, all those things (and more) are TAXES!!! Give me money, I’ll pretend to return you some kind of stupid value, you can pretend to have fulfilled your promises to your voters. Then you and I can split the money! Cool, huh? Anyone who is awake should be able to figure this out.

    • “..You know, after I got my car registered, the gub’mint came and took it away.”

      You should try not paying the bill they send you every year for that car you registered in your name and gave them proof of ownership and then see how long you keep your car.

      • Drawing the parallel between car ownership and gun ownership is the mark of stupidity in the gun control debate. The orginal poster is a moron.

        They won’t take your car for failing to register any more then they’ll take your gun for failing to get a CCW. Now, if you have it (gun or car) in public and get caught, then ya, it will get confiscated. Having it (car or gun) unlicensed and unregistered on private property is just fine.

        The only two major differences between a car and gun are: 1) More people are accidentally killed by cars then intentionally killed by guns meaning cars are astronically more dangerous than guns, and 2) Anybody (meaning ANYBODY) can go to eBay, buy a car without a background check, and have it delivered to their front door without going through a dealer, registering it, or obtaining any kind of license.

  7. Any guess when registration turns into a round up? Because that’s the purpose and everyone knows it. Few of any criminals are registering shit today and the few crazy people who might fly off the rails won t be on the cops radar. We’ve seen how they handle people who threaten and intimidate. So much for see something say something.
    If you’re a productive skilled person capable of earning money anywhere leave .CA. forget that Good Fight stuff, they have too many people backing them. Ca is lost.

    • Anyone who doubts that confiscation is the goal of registration, you need to explain, right here, what else could registration accomplish?
      “Registration” is constantly espoused as a goal, but who has ever explained, “why?”. What would it accomplish? How would my life be made better?
      If every individual part of a firearm is individually numbered and registered, with every grain of gunpowder, every case, bullet, and primer somehow individually registered, then when they are all put together and the gun is pointed at your face, will you not die if the trigger is pulled? Registration accomplishes NOTHING!!! Just try arguing with that, it isn’t possible. The ONLY thing registration can facilitate is confiscation. Which means, to begin with, if you have been told that something else is the goal, then you have been lied to. No real reason to delve into all the other obvious questions until you deal with that, you have been lied to. Real simple, NO ONE is stupid enough you can’t understand that, so simple it needs no further explanation. Registration can only assist confiscation, anyone told you different is a liar, can we start actual communication, now?

  8. A lot of lazy Californians will regret waiting until the last minute (not like taxes). The state had sales records and recently allocated more money for seizing weapons out of “criminal” hands with overwhelming Republican support – if you bought your weapon featureless you are OK, but if you bought a lower to build something, expect to get harassed. Seems like the only way to stay clean is to not buy semi-auto anything because the State will change the rules when they feel like it.

    • Would hope the crash is caused by spoof registrations. Cmore Butts registers his M41A Pulse Rifle at Hollywood Bowl 2301 N Highland Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90068.

      • The ‘joke’ will be on the ‘spoofers’ if the database logs originating IP addresses, son…

        • How is that? Send me the addresses, I will register 100,000,000 full auto .9mm subguns in a week. What’s the problem? Penalties are geared to punish those who do NOT register their guns, right? Those who live in CA, that is. When the laws are unenforceable, jump in their shit! And I would include my IP address (whatever the —- that is, and my home address as well, if that helps.

    • Eh, like others have said, there are ways around the states tomfuckery. Separate the upper and lower, go featureless (im utilizing both tactics at the moment, cant wait to PCS out of CA) and thats all in the word of the law on what they consider an ‘assault weapon’. But! People would be foolish to think that at some later date, featureless and dis-assembled AR’s wont come under fire. We’re constantly under fire:(

  9. There comes a time in every mans life, and indeed every nations history, that one must draw a line in the sand, and say there is a point beyond which they must not advance. We as a nation are rapidly approaching this time now.

    Ronald Reagan gets a lot of heat in these forums, and some of it is merited. But he was very correct in the threat the future of liberalism present to the US. Because we are on the precipice of the next armed conflict here in America, I feel this excerpt from his speech, A Time For Choosing, is very appropriate.

    “Now let’s set the record straight. There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace — and you can have it in the next second — surrender.

    Admittedly, there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face — that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand — the ultimatum. And what then — when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we’re retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he’s heard voices pleading for “peace at any price” or “better Red than dead,” or as one commentator put it, he’d rather “live on his knees than die on his feet.” And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us.

    You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin — just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it’s a simple answer after all.

    You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we will not pay.” “There is a point beyond which they must not advance.” And this — this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater’s “peace through strength.” Winston Churchill said, “The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we’re spirits — not animals.” And he said, “There’s something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

    You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

    We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

    • you are spot on. those of us who love liberty have a duty to fight back. if we dont win then the world will be in slavery for generations until those come through again that will continue the fight. i for one would rather fight and if need be die than live even one day as a slave. with every passing day i want less and less to do with the traitors and weak of society who would rather us all be slaves. no i dont wish to die but if it be my time then i will face it.

    • Then why did Reagan sign FOPA ’86, push for the ban on “assault weapons”, and push the Brady Bill (as in James Brady his press secretary)? ….. He was very much of the mindset: “You little people don’t need a high capacity weapon war to kill Bambi.”

  10. Why would you ever comply with a registration scheme you know to violate your right to bear arms? Why?

    Complying with the law is an admission of its credibility…register, you are complicit in your eventual gun confiscation. Don’t be a fool…cause fools are soon departed from their legally, enumerated, GOD given right.

    Idiots!

    • Agreed. You don’t need to fight and kill and die, just ignore it. You never heard about it, nobody told you, just ignore it.

  11. So when you register your assault weapon, do they send you some sticker – a yellow star or something?

  12. It makes it easier to confiscate your guns when the government ensures the registration mechanism is broken. This is not an accident. But you do have legal pot in California. The 1970s and 80s marijuana legalization leadership was and is still anti-gun civil rights. You can have sex in public on days the government gives you permission. The sexually liberated have always been anti-gun civil rights.

    There might be 7 million gun owners in California. But maybe 1000 of them really care about guns rights enough to make them more important than sex in public rights or legal pot rights.

  13. CA DOJ probably counted-on people waiting until the last minute to “Register” and knew the CFARS website would not handle the strain. Long gun purchases have been “recorded” by CA DOJ since January 1, 2014, so if a Californian bought an AR since that date they are known to CA DOJ already, but NOT “registered”. Be aware.

    Likely, there will be lawsuits filed over the crashing CFARS website, but the outcome and what may happen in the interim is anyone’s guess. California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA.org) is a good resource for information.*

    If you are a CA gun owner with a “registerable” AR-15 (or several), I strongly urge you to take advantage of available options such as separating the upper and lower, and modifying the rifle to “CA Compliant”. Remember you can keep the parts you change-out against future improvements in CA Law, as there is no current prohibition against doing so.

    The Laws in California are excessive and illegal (Constitutionally), but the Democrat Tyrants in Sacramento have the legitimacy to enact and enforce these egregious “Laws” at present, and the will to enforce them against you. The risks you take are your choice, but the damages you may suffer could be irreversible.

    With Gavin Newsom having a better than fair chance of being elected Governor in November and Xavier Becerra also likely to be elected as Attorney General in California, it is going to get even worse for CA Gun Owners, as these two are determined to disarm Californians with a vengeance. John H. Cox is the Republican Nominee for Governor and strongly pro Second Amendment and Steven Bailey is the Republican Nominee for Attorney General and is endorsed by Gun Owners of California. Please seriously consider voting for Cox and Bailey in November to break the Democrats’ stranglehold on California.*

    *I am only expressing my opinions as a private individual. I am a member of CRPA and intend to vote for Cox and Bailey in November as a personal choice against Newsom and Becerra. Cal Guns and Gun Owners of California are also good resources for CA gun owners to obtain firearms law information relevant in the State.

    • I strongly advise you to completely ignore the laws unless you have been personally notified of them, return receipt requested. Does some CA law *require* you to monitor the state news, as in North Korea? Really? Jury trial, I want it tomorrow (right to speedy trial), someone is going to convict you of not registering? Really? If you believe that, you really, really need to get the fuck out of that state.
      Guys, complying with unenforceable laws is lunacy. Shooting yourself in the foot. Let’s stop.

      • No Government entity is required to “personally notify” anyone of new laws or changes to existing laws.
        No law requires anyone to know the law, but “ignorance of the law” does not constitute a viable defense in a Court of Law.
        California will prosecute people for not complying with the “registration” laws, which is what makes the inability to register, IF someone chooses to do so, a serious problem.
        I am not concerned about being prosecuted, but I am concerned about my fellow Californians because I have met so many in the past year who are completely ignorant of the laws and related deadlines. It is bad enough these CA Laws violate the Constitution and are allowed to stand by the Fed and the Courts. It is worse when people are prosecuted, incur huge legal defense costs and end-up convicted of a Felony because of a bogus law they knew nothing about.
        At the same time many gun owners in CA make no effort to be informed and support our pro-gun organizations. Many stupidly vote for the very people who are infringing their RKBA year after year.
        No, I will not leave.

  14. So, since California de facto seceded from the U.S. via no longer recognizing the U.S Constitution, does that mean we can stop sending federal taxpayer money to that state for things like wellfare, medicaid/care, infrastructure, etc.?

    I’m sure in doing so we’ll eliminate no less than 10-20% of our national debt in the process.

    Good riddance!

    (if only)

    • “The LAO also cites figures from a March 2016 report by the Pew Charitable Trusts. It found the federal government spent nearly $356 billion in California in fiscal year 2014, for salaries and wages, grants, contracts, retirement benefits and other benefits. That same year, California paid about $369 billion in total federal tax — or about $13 billion more than it received.”

      California recieves $0.99 in federal revenue for every $1 in federal taxes it pays. The average state receives $1.22 for every $1 taxed.

      Your scheme would result in adding $13 billion to the annual federal deficit.

      • Try my scheme, then. Since they want all these giveaway programs, CA needs to assume our $21 trillion national debt. Vote was 49 states to one. Have fun, now.

  15. So they made a law you can’t comply with, because their admin system is broken.

    It’s almost like the point of laws isn’t having you obey them, but that you can’t. Someone said, you can’t rule innocent people.

  16. This sudden rush to comply with an unjust law is disheartening. I figured with all the Molon Labe and III% stickers out there that there wouldn’t be so many willing to give them up.

  17. Let’s see……7 million gun owners in the State; 250,000 refuse to register; 1 to 3 years per court case each; cost per day per prisoner per year sentenced; up to 7 years each; etc. What a unique way to BANKRUPT a State!!

    I say get as many People Of The Gun to refuse to register and tie up the State’s courts with appeals. Once in the Big House, execute as many meaningless lawsuits over not showing reruns of Beavis & Butthead or serving Kosher meals as possible. Look, you’d be getting three square meals a day, free medical and dental, and the Socialists will baby you forever once you get out as a “victimized person”.

    • 7 million gunowners and 250,000 *agree* to register. Now do the math. CLEARLY unenforceable.

  18. Can we please just kick this communist shithole out of the union already?

  19. Wtf this is bullshit. I have pistol version of these guns as well, missed the deadline cus I didn’t fuckin know about it.

  20. California is hoist in the petard of what they were to damned dumb to vote against. In my perhaps jaundiced view, that
    is the long and the short of it.

  21. Serious question to the laywers browsing TTAG. How does something like this bypass the prohibition on ex-postfacto laws? Does the fact there’s a grace period really allow legislatures to not allow grandfathering provisions and prosectutions for legally purchased and owned (until ex-postfacto law) property? What’s the case law or jurisprudence permitting this?

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