According to Firearm Chronicles
By now, anyone who follows gun rights news knows that California isn’t a great place to be a gun person. Your choices on handguns are severely limited to just what’s on a particular list, a list that is shrinking as models are discontinued and no longer sold, and your choices of tactical rifles are even more so. Sure, most hunting weapons are untouched, but the Second Amendment doesn’t say a damn thing about hunting.
However, there’s a kind of firearm that made it through the cracks of California state law. It’s not quite a pistol, not quite a rifle. It’s made life in California just a bit easier for some.
So, of course, California lawmakers are looking to ban it.
California lawmakers this week are poised to use a budget maneuver to ban a new type of gun in a move that drew bipartisan criticism in a legislative committee hearing Wednesday evening.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration describes the firearm as an assault-style weapon that’s a cross between a rifle and a pistol. It doesn’t neatly fit into either category, however, because it lacks a shoulder stock needed to be a rifle and has a barrel too long to be a pistol.
Representatives for Newsom argued at a Senate Budget Committee hearing that the gun was designed to circumvent California gun control laws and that the policy change would close the loophole.
Jay Jacobson, president of the company that manufactures the firearm, disputed the administration’s characterization of the gun. He said the gun his company Franklin Armory manufactures, called a Title 1, is in a separate category from rifles and pistols and that the company has worked for years to ensure the weapon would be legal to sell in California.