AR Pistol California legal?

[RickD427]

They somehow just smell something illegal and search anyways. I know one who is a cop he tells me I can refuse a search and now they have to have strong probable cause etc etc.

Then on the other hand he tells me if he wants to search he’s gonna search as long as he can word his report properly

Well as long as you don't/shouldn't have a vehicle reeking of alcohol/weed; have visible alcohol, drug/para; have active warrant/expired/sus lic.; have visible tools/equipment like you planning a heist or something; have visible weapons...like a normal everyday law-abiding citizen, I don't see what probable cause they would pull to search the vehicle.

Sit in your vehicle, fart a nasty one or many if you can, as the officer gets close, slowly open the window and let it out. When the officer asks what that smell is, slowly express a large smile while making eye contact.

The nice officer must have a source of legal standing in order to lawfully search your vehicle. There are many different sources of legal standing. You've accurately keyed on one of them. If the nice officer has probable cause to search, they can search your vehicle as thoroughly as if they had a warrant without needing a warrant (U.S. v Ross). Keeping your car in order goes a long way toward denying the officer probable cause. But its not a complete bar to a search. If you're driving a silver Porsche with a black stripe, and there was a robbery in the vicinity where the suspect left in a silver Porsche with a black stripe, standby for a search, even if you did everything right.

An officer having a "Reasonable Suspicion" of wrongdoing ("Reasonable Suspicion" is a much lower standard than "Probable Cause") can briefly detain you, and make a non-intrusive search for weapons, while conducting a brief field investigation (Terry v Ohio). If you're in vehicle, the nice officer can also search the immediate area in the car for weapons (Michigan v Long). It's not necessary that you have done anything illegal in order for the officer to do a Terry detention. In the actual Terry case, the suspect merely walked past a store twice, and then conferred with a colleague on a street corner. The U.S. Supreme Court held that was suspicious enough to permit a brief detention.

A lot of vehicle searches, and a lot of found contraband with associated arrests, are based on impound searches. You can be doing every just right and legal, get rear-ended by a big truck and go to the hospital. The officer is going to have your car towed from the accident site, and will do a thorough search of it first. That's perfectly legal. The courts have recognized the need for officers to protect themselves from later reports that the Rolex watch in the glove box went missing.

But there's a few things the nice officer cannot do. One them is that they cannot use a refusal to provide consent for a search to support their finding of probable cause for the search. But the operator of the vehicle being searched has no way of knowing what information the officer possessed in order to assess the existence of probable cause, and therefore cannot conclude if the their refusal was considered by the officer as supporting a finding of probable cause. During my patrol days, I would often ask a motorist if they had "anything in their car that they shouldn't." I wouldn't ask the question without already having concluded that I had lawful standing to search. I'd ask the question to test veracity. Quite often, I'd get an admission to something minor, and if that was all I found, I'd end the detention with something like "you were honest, you get payback, no jail ride today."

 

[ar15robert]

The nice officer must have a source of legal standing in order to lawfully search your vehicle. There are many different sources of legal standing. You've accurately keyed on one of them. If the nice officer has probable cause to search, they can search your vehicle as thoroughly as if they had a warrant without needing a warrant (U.S. v Ross). Keeping your car in order goes a long way toward denying the officer probable cause. But its not a complete bar to a search. If you're driving a silver Porsche with a black stripe, and there was a robbery in the vicinity where the suspect left in a silver Porsche with a black stripe, standby for a search, even if you did everything right.

An officer having a "Reasonable Suspicion" of wrongdoing ("Reasonable Suspicion" is a much lower standard than "Probable Cause") can briefly detain you, and make a non-intrusive search for weapons, while conducting a brief field investigation (Terry v Ohio). If you're in vehicle, the nice officer can also search the immediate area in the car for weapons (Michigan v Long). It's not necessary that you have done anything illegal in order for the officer to do a Terry detention. In the actual Terry case, the suspect merely walked past a store twice, and then conferred with a colleague on a street corner. The U.S. Supreme Court held that was suspicious enough to permit a brief detention.

A lot of vehicle searches, and a lot of found contraband with associated arrests, are based on impound searches. You can be doing every just right and legal, get rear-ended by a big truck and go to the hospital. The officer is going to have your car towed from the accident site, and will do a thorough search of it first. That's perfectly legal. The courts have recognized the need for officers to protect themselves from later reports that the Rolex watch in the glove box went missing.

But there's a few things the nice officer cannot do. One them is that they cannot use a refusal to provide consent for a search to support their finding of probable cause for the search. But the operator of the vehicle being searched has no way of knowing what information the officer possessed in order to assess the existence of probable cause, and therefore cannot conclude if the their refusal was considered by the officer as supporting a finding of probable cause. During my patrol days, I would often ask a motorist if they had "anything in their car that they shouldn't." I wouldn't ask the question without already having concluded that I had lawful standing to search. I'd ask the question to test veracity. Quite often, I'd get an admission to something minor, and if that was all I found, I'd end the detention with something like "you were honest, you get payback, no jail ride today."

Never been searched but going by what friend told me.but I don’t leave anything out that can raise suspicion either. Never anything illegal in vehicle either but then again I no longer live in ca when I go there to shoot with family guns are transported legally but I’d rather avoid a search so make sure everything is out of sight too.

Funny I had a Chp years ago get me for speeding he asked if I had anything illegal in work truck said no but then he said marijaina cocaine meth bazookas grenades switchblades throwing stars nunchucks etc. I looked at him and laughed said why the long list he laughed and said back you ask if anything illegal they say no but do details they will admit to one thing I mentioned.

 

[MunnyShot]

Well as long as you don't/shouldn't have a vehicle reeking of alcohol/weed; have visible alcohol, drug/para; have active warrant/expired/sus lic.; have visible tools/equipment like you planning a heist or something; have visible weapons...like a normal everyday law-abiding citizen, I don't see what probable cause they would pull to search the vehicle.

Sit in your vehicle, fart a nasty one or many if you can, as the officer gets close, slowly open the window and let it out. When the officer asks what that smell is, slowly express a large smile while making eye contact.

Every car they pull over reeks of marijuana and alcohol since smells can't be detected on a body cam and can lead to probable cause.

 

[miles888]

Miles, You've got a pretty good summary here, but there's more to the story.

Statutes exist to define what the law is. Statutes have to go through the entire legislative process in order to become law. Regulations are adopted by the agencies that enforce statutes. They are for the purpose of interpreting the content of statute(s). They have to go through an abbreviated review process before the regulation goes into effect.

Because of this, there is a well worn path where agencies are tempted to use the regulation path to expand the content of a statute.

There is a clear example of DOJ doing this in the case of Bullet Button Assault Rifles. The statutes define "Assault Weapons." They make no distinction between BBRAWs and RAWs. The plain text of the Assault Weapon statute is not violated if a person removes the bullet button from an RAW an installs a regular magazine release in its place. The weapon does not become any "Assaultier" under the statute. But DOJ has sought to prevent the conversion of BBRAWs into regular RAWs through regulation (see 11CCR5477). Agencies cannot create new law through regulation, but what DOJ did in this case was to hold that removing the bullet button created a "new" weapon, and one that was not registered, thus making the possessor liable to prosecution under PC 30605.

DOJ has not yet created a similar regulation for the conversion of SSE firearms into semi-auto, But they have published guidance taking the same position regarding SSE conversions. Please see the third bulleted item in the red highlighted section of their web-page: https://oag.ca.gov/firearms/certified-handguns/search

It is important to note the weasel-wording in the use of "may" in their admonition concerning the manufacture of unsafe handguns. It's there because the position is untested in court, and to the best of my knowledge, has not been run through the review process required by California's Administrative Procedures Act.

That’s an interesting parallel. I think the point would still stand with ARPs not having been tested in court though.

Where there’s a statute in place for BBRAWs, there is none for ARP conversions. If I am missing a distinction please make me aware.

On that note, I was recently told by a CCW instructor that claiming you no longer are in possession of an SSE lower through CFARS, then subsequently filing that you are now in possession of the same lower in semi auto configuration is sufficient for compliance with the DOJs letter.

From what he told me the DOJ is only concerned you aren’t manufacturing more than 3 guns per year. So long as you tell them, you’re good.

Any insight toward this?

 

[ChallengerScatPackClub]

You are correct on an AR pistol violating the CA AWB, which most AR pistols in circulation do not.

But there is also the roster to consider. The roster is the list of "unsafe" handguns, where "unsafe" is defined as: has not gone through safety testing. And manufacturing an unsafe handgun is prohibited. Single shots are exempt from the roster. If someone takes something that is a single shot and therefore not an "unsafe handgun" (as that term is defined in the law), and then makes it semi-auto and therefore no longer exempt and therefore an "unsafe handgun", it stands to reason that they have just manufactured that unsafe handgun. Here the phrase "stands to reason" means: obvious enough that a judge might easily agree with it.

The problem with this argument (which is very similar to the problem of the BBRAW conversion by removing the bullet button) is that the DoJ uses an interpretation of the term "manufacturing" that is not unambiguous. Their stance is: Before there was no unsafe semi-auto handgun, now there is one, therefore someone must have manufactured it. The act of "manufacturing" is if someone creates a tangible object of a specific class, which did not exist before. Changing the class of an object constitutes manufacturing, even if the object (the lower receiver) is not physically modified in the process. That definition may fly in court, or it may not. There is another definition of manufacturing, which is more along the lines of what a machinist or gunsmith would think: Take an object (like a chunk of aluminum), and change its dimensions and configuration (for example by milling, welding and drilling), until it functionally becomes a different object. Under that definition of manufacturing, an AR pistol is not manufactured when it gets turned from single-shot to semi-auto, and instead reconfigured with different accessories (upper). That definition of manufacturing may fly in court, or it may not. I have highlighted in bold italics the direction the opinion might go which would land the person in jail.

Now, who gets to decide how the word "manufacture" is defined? The law fails to do so, meaning we're leaving that task to a judge (or multiple if the case goes to appeal). Because the meaning of the words in the law is ultimately a question of law, not of fact, so judges as the trier or law get to decide it. Now, if someone knows all the judges in their jurisdiction, and can predict well enough how they would decide if you were arrested with the AR pistol, the decision becomes easy. In most places and for most people, that's unlikely, leaving a risk of prosecution. I happen to know all the judges who do criminal trials in my county (I live in a small county and am involved in legal shenanigans). Therefore I don't have an AR pistol, nor do I remove the bullet button on my BBRAWs. YMMV.

This right here. We are in a liberal state where they are always finding reasons to hang you, even if you are the good guy and slap on the wrist if you are the bad guy. Not worth being a test case. spend a little extra money and get yourself an off roster registered semi auto AR pistol. Even that was a headache. Remember when ATF was like hey braces are illegal, nevermind now they’re not, wait they’re illegal again, nevermind. Also when they started to say that you cannot have certain accessories like red dots on them or they cannot be over a certain weight limit. Is this still going on?

 

[Plenty_Pack_556]

That’s an interesting parallel. I think the point would still stand with ARPs not having been tested in court though.

Where there’s a statute in place for BBRAWs, there is none for ARP conversions. If I am missing a distinction please make me aware.

On that note, I was recently told by a CCW instructor that claiming you no longer are in possession of an SSE lower through CFARS, then subsequently filing that you are now in possession of the same lower in semi auto configuration is sufficient for compliance with the DOJs letter.

From what he told me the DOJ is only concerned you aren’t manufacturing more than 3 guns per year. So long as you tell them, you’re good.

Any insight toward this?

Yea, i'm not outing myself.

With the amount of F-ups CADoJ had when people were trying to register their ARs few years back-ish tells me not to throw myself under the bus that they are driving.

 

[RickD427]

That’s an interesting parallel. I think the point would still stand with ARPs not having been tested in court though.

Where there’s a statute in place for BBRAWs, there is none for ARP conversions. If I am missing a distinction please make me aware.

On that note, I was recently told by a CCW instructor that claiming you no longer are in possession of an SSE lower through CFARS, then subsequently filing that you are now in possession of the same lower in semi auto configuration is sufficient for compliance with the DOJs letter.

From what he told me the DOJ is only concerned you aren’t manufacturing more than 3 guns per year. So long as you tell them, you’re good.

Any insight toward this?

Actually, there is no statute that treats BBRAWs differently from RAWs. The distinction exists only in regulation.

There is an existing regulation governing the removal of the "Bullet Button" from BBRAWs. There is no corresponding regulation governing the conversion of SSE weapons to semi-auto.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "DOJ's letter." The only materials that I'm familiar with are the BBRAW regulation and the information concerning SSE conversions on their "Safe Handgun" webpage (Both previously cited). Submitting a sequence of CFARS reports would no nothing to show compliance with the regulation. The SSE webpage is only informational. It has no force of law. Please note that CFARS, as well as all other government databases, only serve as a repository for information. Their acceptance of information does not establish the veracity of the information reported, nor does their failure to take action upon the submission of a report indicate an "approval" of report's content.

I'd be very careful about accepting advice from CCW Instructors, or anyone else for that matter. When you're looking at the potential for jail time, or the loss of firearms rights, never blindly accept what anyone says. Always ask them to cite their sources and authorities, then go check them for yourself. A responsible source of information will cite their sources to you.

I am completely unaware of any California statute, or regulation, that prohibits folks from manufacturing more than three firearms in a year. There are a bunch of statutes that address the manufacture of firearms. But then I'm now retired, and I fled the state upon retirement, so I don't stay as closely informed as to the statutes as I did when I was working.

 

[AA2323]

rule of thumb, never use an SSE converted handgun / AR pistol in self defense situation, that is a can of worms not worth opening. However, IMO as a range toy it's no more risky than how people "configure" their ARs when they get to the range. YMMV regarding comfort level

 

[Willy916]

So my uncle is LEO. Can he go into a gun store and purchase a stripped lower as a pistol lower?