Quote:
Originally Posted by Bainter1212
I totally understand where the law is on this one.....however, why did the DOJ give him the certificate if this is a misdemeanor??? Is it an "honor system" type of thing?? Is someone going to come back through and check the system, and THEN going to make a stink about it??
I've been wondering about the "voluntary" form as well. How do they determine if the gun was obtained before or after the mandatory registration law was passed?? Does anyone at DOJ bother to check this stuff?? As far as my understanding goes, there is a spot on the form that asks WHEN you got the gun. If it wasn't C&R or intra-familial, how does that not raise red flags???
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It is, in fact, something of an honor system, with Stupid Prizes for detected errors.
Here's the long explanation on registration --
http://wiki.calgunsfoundation.org/Firearms_registration
If some gun pops up for the first time via a VOLREG, there simply is no information for DOJ to use to detect any irregularities in the chain of transfers.
It's even possible for a 'known' gun to move out of state, be legally transferred under that state's laws, and come back to CA to be re-registered by a new resident or transferred back in via the intrafamilial route through an FFL. Besides the known incompleteness and errors in the database, such occurrences as 'it used to belong to Bob, but now it is being transferred from Joe to Tom' just don't raise eyebrows at the administrative level.
The state law says, if you do not have a license, and the transfer is not otherwise exempt (intrafamilial, 50-year-old long-gun, inheritance) the buyer and seller must use an FFL to mediate the firearms transfer. That's the whole Private Party Transfer thing. That's been true since 1991.
See also the wiki --
http://wiki.calgunsfoundation.org/Bu..._in_California