Come January 1, California gun owners will have yet another set of hoops to jump through as Governor Gavin Newsom continues his relentless pursuit of law-abiding citizens. The new law, ostensibly to impede the manufacture of 3D-printed guns via a proof of age restriction and mandatory verification that the recipient of parts and pieces (more on that in a minute) will not “manufacture” without a manufacturing license, more than three firearms per year.
As usual, it’s unclear if the law considers changing out a trigger “manufacturing,” but that’s typical of the broad, yet shallow lengths anti-gun legislators will go to in order to make life more difficult for law-abiding citizens. Criminals, as everyone except apparently politicians know, aren’t bothered by regulations.
If you’re selling online parts or accessories, you can either wait for a positive digital confirmation of age or ship the accessory to an FFL for a scheduled pickup where the FFL will be required to do the age verification.
But California’s new law is more than an age verification to impede “ghost gun” manufacturing. It’s actually designed to slow, if not stop sales of repair or replacement parts and tools to work on firearms. It also creates a de facto registry. While California won’t have the names of all gun owners, it will certainly have a listing — a registry — of everyone who buys gun parts.
Interestingly, Californians don’t have to provide a government identification to vote (a utility bill will suffice), but you’ll need to provide a license or other identification to buy a gunsmith’s hammer or a screwdriver.
The law expands the definition of a firearms accessory . . .
…means an attachment or device designed or adapted to be inserted into, affixed onto, or used in conjunction with a firearm that is designed, intended or functions to increase a firearm’s rate of fire or to increase the speed at which a person may reload a firearm or replace the magazine., or any other attachment or device described in subdivision (a) of Section 30515 of the Penal Code that may render a firearm an assault weapon when inserted into, affixed onto, or used in conjunction with a firearm. The term firearm accessory also includes any other device, tool, kit, part, or parts set that is clearly designed and intended for use in manufacturing firearms.
Essentially, this rather broad and vague interpretation includes virtually anything except possibly reloading, cleaning and other gun gear (does a magazine pouch enable you to reload faster?).
The requirements for a seller aren’t designed to streamline the checkout process. It will require. . .
– notice on manufacturing if receiving firearms pasts of accessories
– acknowledgement by customer of receipt and understanding of notice
– verification of proof of age- must be over 18
– Signature with clear and conspicuous markings on package stating “Signature and proof of identification of person aged 18 years or older required for delivery”
– Requirement that purchaser provide carrier with identification and sign for the package
– Address for delivery must match address on identification received for age verification.
Those requirements wouldn’t apply to delivery to an FFL, wholesaler, certain law enforcement or the military. The requirements also don’t apply to the carriers transporting the products.
I asked my UPS driver how he’d handle these requirements. He laughingly pointed to his brown shirt and said “These letters say U-P-S, not A-T-F. I’m not in the regulator business, I deliver packages.”
The notice required by California law requires the recipient of the part, piece, whatever to sign and date the form, acknowledging the fact they realize it is
generally a crime in California to manufacture more than three firearms per year, manufacture a firearm using a three-dimensional printer or CNC milling machine, manufacture for the purpose of selling or transferring ownership of that firearm to another individual who is not licensed to manufacture firearms, or to manufacture for the purposes of selling, loaning or transferring that firearm without the required background check initiated by a licensed firearms dealer, allowing, abetting, of facilitating the manufacture of a firearm by a person legally prohibited from possessing firearms, or causing the manufacture of assault weapons, machine-guns, undetectable firearms, unsearlized firearms, unsafe handguns that are not on the department of justice roster of handguns certified for sale in California or other generally prohibited weapons.
Apparently the news of the Supreme Court rulings in the Heller and Bruen cases hasn’t made its way into California, but it’s virtually certain that 2A organizations there and nationally will be waiting at the courthouse steps by, if not before, January 1 to challenge this latest attempt to help a few more gun-related businesses to head to less restrictive areas.
As always, we’ll keep you posted.
Ah, KKKalifornia, the ‘patient zero’ of the West Coast; Messed Coast. KKKalifornia has never met an unconstitutional anti-gun law it didn’t fall in love with, and the state continues to defy SCOTUS rulings (because John “Windsock” Roberts won’t borrow a set of balls and crack down on unconstitutional and defiant district courts and circuit courts. Roberts is a spineless clown).
KKKalifornia, NY, NJ, MA, HI and a few other Leftist sh*tholes will continue this crap as long as they are allowed to get away with it. We need MajorSkidmarks to come in and ‘splain it all to us, how Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution expressly authorizes universal gun control. Not much historical value, but it’s a good laugh.
Remember…about 42% of voters across our State are registered Republicans, so please stop lumping us all together. We’re simply blocked out due to the legalized cheating here that the Dems themselves have put into place. Republicans comprise 42% of the state, yet have only 16% of the legislative representation, and Newsom has vowed to use this week’s Prop 50 to gerrymander further and reduce that all the way down to 7%.
I’ve been buying parts (which is still legal as I write this today) in preparation for this new ban on Jan 1. Amazing how a clearly unconstitutional and tyrannical law can be passed quickly, but the fight to reverse it takes years, money, and repeated trips up and down the appellate eschelons.
Haz,
I love California (the physical place) as much as or more than you do. The government, OTOH, is one of the worst state governments in the country. My personal plan is to wait until the idiot Leftist/fascists run it into ruin, the economy collapses (Silicon Valley is even moving out, and agriculture has been hamstrung by idiot “green” regulations for going on 20 years, and Hollyweird is doing most of its filming in other states or overseas), and then buy up some nice land, cheap.
In the meantime, my only advice is GTFO of Dodge. KKKalifornia cannot recover from its Leftist idiocy short of a ‘crash and burn’ scenario. Interesting thing – cities can go bankrupt, states can’t (they are sovereign entities). Governor Hair Gel has already taken a (bogus) $17B surplus and turned it into a $45B+ deficit. And that doesn’t include the fact that CalPers is underfunded to the tune of about $30B (at least).
If you’re planning on riding out the crash en situ? I wish you luck, my friend.
“increase the speed at which a person may reload a firearm or replace the magazine.”
Taping magazines together will be a crime and tape will be outlawed. They may enact that any person in possession of more than 1 magazine and any kind of tape is in violation. And a person is not allowed to let an ejected magazine fall to the ground/floor etc. The magazine must be caught by the off hand so as not to facilitate the speed at which a firearm is reloaded. Speaking of “off hand”, a one armed person is out of luck.
Trump Administration Cuts Off Funding Spigot to More Gun Control Groups.
https://www.ammoland.com/2025/11/trump-administration-cuts-off-funding-spigot-to-more-gun-control-groups/