Test your legal knowledge - High cap mag bans...

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Dave3006

New member
CA, MD, NY, HI and other occupied states have a variety of blatently unconstitutional laws. As a result it is illegal for the inmates of these once great states to import certain so-called high capacity magazines.

My question - If the magazines were shipped from a free state (AZ,WA,NV,UT,OR, ect..) to an occupied state (CA,HI,MD,NY,ect..), would the shipper be committing a crime? I know the importer would.

In essense, is a free citizen of Arizona bound by the illegal laws of the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia. These laws are not federal. They are state laws.

(Sometimes I just like to mentally torture myself trying to understand the assinine nature and implications of these laws)
 
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Tall Man

New member
Every seller of full -capacity magazines with a web site on the Internet usually offer the same disclaimer, which is that magazines of certain capacities will not be shipped to certain states. The states are then illustrated somewhere on the vendor's web page. Your state may be included in this list. The shipper's refusal to ship to certain states protects them from committing a crime. What else could be gained by adhering to such a policy? It is a simple and logical response to what is, unfortunately, unlawful restrictions placed upon them and the consumer.

I'm not going to compare one state to another, vis a vis how the laws of one state may unfairly affect the resident of another. We already know that this is happening. What you may be thinking is, How can I circumvent unconstitutional laws, laws that could punish me if I am caught breaking them ? There are ways to do this, chap, but you'll have to discover them without my assistance.

Respectfully,
TM
 
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Dave3006

New member
Tall man, you did not answer the question. I am not seeking to break this law. I am just doing legal research.
 
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Erich

New member
I'm a lawyer.

Doing legal research on a firearms message board is a bad idea.

(And, no, I didn't answer your question either.)
 
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Dave3006

New member
Why is it bad to understand the law? For crying out loud. I already explained that I am not seeking to break the law. Have gunowners become sheep to the extent that they not only follow the laws. But, they dare not even talk about them.

Pretty pathetic.
 
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Andrew Wyatt

New member
you could be charged with "conspriacy to violate california state law", if you shipped them to california.

I conversed with a firearms dealer in vegas last year duting the WC 3 gun match about this.
 
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Erich

New member
(Man, I really thought this was self-evident.)

Okay, it's not bad to understand the law, but trying to get correct information in this manner is a bad idea because you want to get it exactly right.

I know what I'm doing with regard to the law of the state in which I practice (in fact, I helped make some of that law). But I wouldn't begin to start sounding off about the law of another state.

Because I wouldn't know what I was talking about.

I might have a pretty good idea about that other state's laws, and I might know exactly what to do to research it, but it would be wrong to start shooting my mouth off without doing that research.

The responses you get probably won't be from lawyers who've done legal research to give you the right answer with regard to each of the states you mention. There's a chance that you may get some incorrect information by asking "What is The Law?" here at TFL (or on any other internet message board). I've certainly read posts on the law by people who did not know what they were talking about.

Now, I know there are social workers, cops, gun dealers, convicts, laymen and teachers who may be totally accurate when they state their recollections of what the law is in a given area. But, The Law is so complicated that there's actually an entire profession dedicated to dealing with it. And to be admitted to this profession a person must to obtain a postgraduate degree and pass a difficult 3-day professional exam. And (believe it or not! ;) ), within that profession there are varying degrees of competence, not to mention specializations.

Accordingly, I would advise that if you are interested in getting accurate information about this complicated area, you ought to talk to someone who either possesses accurate information or knows how to get that information. And, because it would be difficult to tell whether any given poster is accurate, I would counsel that an internet message board is probably not the right place to go.

So, Dave, it's not a question of being a "sheep" or being "pathetic", it's a question of being accurate in an area that demands accuracy.

[Swiftly edited because I was a patronizing jerk in the first edition of this post. My apologies to anyone who read it.]
 
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CWL

New member
I'll apply interstate corporate law to try and answer your question, because this is how you'd probably get nailed. It's rough and dirty, but should give you the idea:

1) businesses wanting to conduct trade into and out of CA must be registered with the State of CA, pay appropriate taxes, insurance, and conduct trade in accordance with existing CA laws (etc. hi-cap magazine ban);
-this does give you many rights and protections as well, since CA is still a very business-friendly state:

2) businesses which choose not to incorporate or register in CA and which still conducts trade in CA, are not viewed as a legitimate business and thus has no rights in the eyes of CA law.
-any claim and/or suit would almost automatically go against them. Damages from such claims ARE viewed legitimate by the courts of other states.

3) no business would risk this just to sell a couple of mags.
 
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Dave3006

New member
Eric, my apologies too. I actually only wanted to understand the ramifications of this law. Sure, the make me mad. It is not worth breaking them. The time will come when just having a firearm in some of these states will be a crime. I am sure I will break the law then. Not yet.
 
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Erich

New member
Well, with us all being interested and active, G-d willing it won't come to that! Cheers, Dave! erich
 
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M700

New member
CA, MD, NY, HI and other occupied states have a variety of blatently unconstitutional laws. As a result it is illegal for the inmates of these once great states to import certain so-called high capacity magazines.
Click to expand...


I think you mean NJ not NY
 
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Southla1

Member In Memoriam
This is an interesting thread with some interesting responses.

I wonder if an individual(not a business) from another state was asked by a friend in California to send him a Californina illegal magazine and he did if the shipper would be comitting a crime in the eyes of California?

(Of course if it was shipped with no return address I guess California would play pure D hell finding out who sent it VERY EVIL GRIN )
 
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uzi4me

New member
IT IS LEGAL TO SHIP HI CAP MAGS TO NY STATE ..

HOWEVER .. I AM NOT VERSED IN SHIPPING HI CAP MAGS TO NY CITY ... THATS ANOTHER STORY ...
 
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Correia

New member
Isn't this pretty much an unenforceable law? Drive to Nevada, buy a stack of magazines. Its not like they have serial numbers on them. You don't need an I.D. in another state to buy magazines. Then if somebody asks, you just happened to have them in your garage before the ban. How could you be prosecuted for this? It is unprovable.

What a bunch of crap. I consider myself to be a law abiding citizen, but when the laws are nonsensical crap, I just can't seem to feel guilty about breaking them.
 
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bastiat

New member
businesses which choose not to incorporate or register in CA and which still conducts trade in CA, are not viewed as a legitimate business and thus has no rights in the eyes of CA law.
Click to expand...

If they have no property or employees in the state, or perform no major services inside the state, then it falls under the insterstate commerce clause of the constitution. Ammoman doesn't need to incorporate under CA law just because he sells there. And he's still a legitimate business under the eyes of the law.

I'm not talking about the legalities of the mag sales here, I'm talking about whether a foreign (i.e. out-of-state) business needs to incorporate and register to do business in a state which they have no property or employees.

If you want an answer to the 'can the seller be charged' issues, check the nra web site for a link to the corresponding legislation. The answer should be there, and you'll get it from the horses mouth.
 
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DMK

New member
What I don't understand about this is how can a citizen be expected to intimately know all the firearms related laws of all the states. It's tough enough just to figure them out in your own!

Even if you were to break a law such as the mag laws discussed, how could you be prosecuted? Wouldn't your own state have to arrest and extradite you before you could be charged?

A CA official for example certainly wouldn't have juristiction over me in NC as long as I stayed here. I doubt very much if the local officials would waste their time with petty stuff like this.

Disclaimer: For entertainment purposes only
(Just to make the lawyers happy :D J/K! )
 
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Southla1

Member In Memoriam
DMK, I am not an attorney but I do know that your home state would have to arrest you and California (or some other state) would have to do an extridation of you from your home state to California (or some other state). hopefully your home state will have more sense than California and not bother to arrest you.
 
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Cheapo

New member
Anyone given serious thought to challenging such criminal laws as impermissible state action affecting interstate commerce?

The ideas of excluding "illegal" items seem a bit weak when applied to those that are:

A. Part and parcel of Constitutionally-protected (NOT GRANTED/CREATED) rights;

and

B Implicated in such a miniscule proportion of the total usage of the same items.

I mean, would a ban on XYZ copy machines pass Constitutional muster if the legislation in occupied State Kommunist was based on less than 1/2 of 1% of those machines being used by counterfeiters and child pornographers?

I doubt that even concoted "legislative findings" could save such a law from even the rational-basis test!

Ugh. The inmates took over the assylum about 40 years ago.
 
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