California DOJ Stop Enforcing Underground Gun Control Regulation

SACRAMENTO, CA —-(Ammoland.com)- Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) a pro-gun rights advocacy organization based in Sacramento, announced that California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has agreed to stop enforcing an illegal “underground” gun control regulation. A copy of the Department of Justice’s notice can be found on FPC’s “Regulation Watch” Web page, http://www.dojregwatch.com.

The DOJ’s certification notice, sent to California’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL) by new Interim Director of the Bureau of Firearms, Brent E. Orick, is a response to a legal petition filed late last month by Raymond DiGuiseppe, an attorney and former California deputy attorney general, on behalf of FPC and three other civil rights organizations. The petition challenged a DOJ gun control regulation related to the State’s “1-in-30-days” handgun purchase limit as an illegal “underground regulation.”

The groups say they filed the petition after Becerra’s DOJ had maintained an illegal underground regulation in spite of it being struck down in a unanimous Court of Appeal published opinion as well as being subject to a permanent injunction issued in early May. The California Code of Regulations defines an “underground regulation” as “any guideline, criterion, bulletin, manual, instruction, order, standard of general application, or other rule, including a rule governing a state agency procedure, that is a regulation as defined in Section 11342.600 of the Government Code, but has not been adopted as a regulation and filed with the Secretary of State pursuant to the [California Administrative Procedure Act] and is not subject to an express statutory exemption from adoption pursuant to the APA.” (1 C.C.R. § 250(a).)

“It’s deplorable that it took this long and this much effort to get California’s top law enforcement officer to follow the law,” said Craig DeLuz, a spokesperson for the petitioning organizations.

According to State law, the OAL must now file the petition and the certification with the Secretary of State, publish a summary of the petition and the certification in the California Regulatory Notice Register, and provide a copy of the certification to the petitioners. (1 C.C.R. § 280.)

FPC and two of the petitioning groups are also litigating against Attorney General Becerra and DOJ over a number of other legal issues, including what they believe are illegal and unconstitutional “assault weapon” regulations, the State’s confiscatory ban on so-called “large capacity” firearm magazines, and DOJ’s denial of access to public records and information about their firearms-related rulemaking activity.

Ironically, Attorney General Becerra recently said that, “Here in California, we respect the Constitution and follow the law.”

About the Firearms Policy Coalition

Firearms Policy Coalition (www.firearmspolicy.org) is a 501(c)4 grassroots nonprofit organization. FPC’s mission is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially the fundamental, individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

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