California Dreamin’
No 30-shot AR? You have other good rifle choices
Old lever actions are still strong self-defense guns if applied properly by a motivated shooter.
These are replicas of the Henry (top), 1866 (middle) and 1873 Winchester rifles.
I get quite a few students from California, and they very well understand how jacked up the state is in regards to the liberal-leaning, goofy laws—especially when it comes to guns. Many have homes, jobs and, most importantly, families they need to stand by, so they hang on. Bluntly, if you are a gun owner and you try to do the right thing, living a decent life there is harder than woodpecker lips.
They have something so stupid, I am not quite sure I have figured it out yet. It has to do with AR-style rifles; they have a list of two or three things the gun has to have and not have—like no bayonet lug. What, no bayonet lugs?! I digress. So the really stupid begins, as they must have a key-like or bullet-nose-like latch/button to load or open the action to load… OK, my non-college-educated-dumb-only-finished-high-school mind gets lost.
All right, so I can have all this dumb, legal stuff on what basically amounts to a non-functioning AR, or I can buy a Mini-14 as long as I have only 10-round magazines. Just so I get this right, I can have a semi-auto rifle based on a made-for-war weapon like the Garand or M1 Carbine as long as capacity doesn’t exceed 10-rounds.
If you live in California, I got news for you. Buy a Mini-14 and a box of 10-round magazines. Ruger will be happy and you can defend yourself and family more than “pretty well”; however you’ll need to practice loading a bit. Then again, unless 12 turds attack you, you should be fine. Remember, you’ll have 11 rounds in your Ruger: one chambered and 10 in your legal magazine. It’ll be OK if you’re in a fight for your life. And if you practice loading a bit, you can reload and pick up the 12th apparently very brave guy, who kept coming while 11 of his buddies went under the bow of the boat during frontal assault on your Ruger rifle. So, a Ruger is good.
You can own these in California. Just remember to get the correct muzzlebrake thing and a 10-round magazine… life will be good.
Big And Stupid?
Under California law, I can have the M1A (like the .308 M14 I carried in Vietnam for 18 months). Yeah I know, I gotta have a 10-round magazine, but trust me, loading the M1A in a fight is real easy. That I have done before. You can get pretty good at it if need be, so just buy a bunch of 10-round magazines and you’ll be able shoot the .308 through cars, walls, buildings, telephone poles and stuff out to distances of 400, 500 or 600 yards (with practice).
I think the California M1A has to have a special muzzlebrake thing and no darn bayonet lug, but I think I can work around all those details. Cool.
The old lever-action rifles in .33 Winchester, .45-70 and .45-90 are
in fact still viable rifles, and the calibers are no slouch either.
Cowboy Cool
This is great—the Duke would be proud of California. Next, I can have a lever action operating in a totally ambidextrous manner, reasonably small and compact, yet using all kinds of good, powerful ammunition. And remember, based on the year it was made, it is a relic. So an 1886 Winchester lever action in .45-70 or .45-90 is legal to defend myself with in California? Darn, I am really put out over this ability to use an inferior relic to defend myself. Throw in a Winchester 94 in .30-30 or even .44 Magnum and you might have a chance to be pretty viable during a conflict. Yes, your lever rifle can hold more than 10 rounds, yet you lever guys will have to practice loading as well. Cowboy-action shooting has brought a lot of these guns out of the closet and got a lot of new products on the market; so the lever-action users or wannabe users have lots of options to choose from.
Tombstone Humor?
I understand this column might offend or might seem slightly cynical to some people, but it’s funny. If wife Heidi and I take the guns we legally own, and drive 25 miles south of where we live, we will instantly become the biggest criminals since Bonnie met Clyde.
Sadly, the idiots who have ruined California are sliming their way northward up the I-5 corridor. As California has gone, so Oregon has went — and Washington is worse. Washington has Seattle (the tower thing served as a locator beacon for stupid). Don’t think so? Check out the convoluted laws regarding auto weapons and suppressors in Washington State. See? I told you.
Anyway, you California folks hang tough and get lots of 10-round magazines to use in the only rifles you can own. Even if they are crappy rifles—not! Oh yeah, FYI, these would be pretty good rifles in Nebraska, too.
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