Where I Am, And Why I'm Staying

In reference to this thread over at Wirecutter's Knuckledraggin' My Life Away, about a new CA-compliant mag (reviewed by Tam, no less, review linked in the OP) to workaround the latest semi-auto "assault rifle" frenzy in state capitol Excremento, CA, bloghost Kenny and I have gone back and forth.

And when I write a reply this long, you can damned sure bet it's going to be a post here, because laziness, or thrift. I killed and cooked these electrons, and now they're on the menu here.

So please, read the OP and the replies over there, and then join our show, already in progress:

"First, terminology:
When I say ARs I mean CA's misnamed "assault rifles" of all types.
There are easily 10M of those floating around.
One retailer in SoCal has been selling 1000-1500/week for over 10 years. That's 3+M right there.
 

But as the Legos of the gun world, AR-15 clones are definitely the most numerous.
The people that own them own multiples.
At one point a full-built AR-15 clone was cheaper than most decent handguns from the Big Three. 

Guys would walk in and buy 10 AR-clone lowers for $500-700, then have the completion parts - uppers, lower parts kits, etc. - (all not a firearm) shipped to their door.
I know multiple people who have enough to fill a military armory rack or two, and they're average.
Varmint/target shooter, couple of telescoping stock M-4geries, solid stock, .300 Blackout, 2-4 in pistol calibers from 9mm to .45, and then got bit by the .308/AR-10 bug.
It adds up. 

That's not 25% of the state's pop., probably more like a couple of million folks, but it's a crapton of rifles, and I've seen it at gun counters times beyond counting, as a customer, and as occasional help. 

I won't say how many I have, or had, but I've sold two extras, and have a number of unbuilt lowers just gathering dust, besides the rifles.
And I'll probably buy some more de-nutted featureless ones just to have something I can take to a local range. 

The only place I can't shoot non-conforming ones is in-state, in public.
Private land ranges are catch me-fuck me if I dared, but pulling the takedown pins, and going to Vegas or AZ with boxes of parts is a semi-annual event. It takes 5 minutes to make a shootable rifle, and five more to make it a gaggle of parts I can own but not assemble in-state. So I break no laws coming nor going.
And I can attend courses out-of-state anywhere I want to drive. 

If someone can't afford a tank of gas and a weekend off, I feel for them. 

And yeah, this state's going to go broke, and self-destruct. I'm counting on it. And I'm not alone.

But I'll surrender this portion of American territory to the people making it Calizuela when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

I'm glad you're happy where you are, really I am, but I was born here, and I'll die here. And when the whole rotten Stalinist wet dream they've fornicated it into being comes down in a flaming wreck, I like my odds of getting my state back, because no one in the other 49 is going to give two wet farts to helping them out when they go bankrupt. Please, don't! 

That's a feature to me, not a bug.

Hate on the Leftards in Excremento all you like; I share your opinion of them. There is nothing too evil, too stupid, or both, that they wouldn't do.
And them going down like Soviet Russia is the plan. It happens every time it's been tried.

Maybe grandkids can experience what this state was like when I grew up here. Once 10M illegals self-deport, and the toothless banjo-playing misfits of liberalism from the Other 49 move back in with their cousins, because there's no more welfare gravy train here. 

Just don't hate on people because they don't want to join you in your Appalachian paradise. (Besides, if we all did that, and TN's population was doubled by refugee "Californians", you'd hate it, the locals' kids would be priced out of their home state, and you'd just want to move again, amirite?) There's really no place to run in the long run. And if TN starts getting stupid, like FL and TX and ID and MT are already doing, where to next...? (Oh, and bonus points, even though it won't be your fault, you'll be blamed anyway as being one of those " damned Californians who f****d up the state" you're in now if/when that happens. Even though that will probably be New Yorkers other east coast city folk and such.) 

I wish it was actual Californians crapping in their punchbowl (for any value of that from Oregon to Florida); it'd be fair return for what their misfit cousins did to CA. 

I'm happy for anyone who's happy where they live, especially those who love their home state, natural or adopted. I've seen most of this country, and there's plenty of reason to like where you are, wherever that is. (Buffalo and Cleveland probably excepted.) 

But I'm pissed as hell about what's been done to mine, and I plan on being an ornery disagreeable sonofabitch to those that are screwing that pooch here until I see them on fire, or swinging from lampposts. 

Pensions alone are going to blow the whole thing up in a few more years, if the entire world's economy doesn't take the mother of all sh*ts first. 

And then, those readily-convertible-but-legal-now ARs may come in kind of handy.
Which is exactly what keeps @$$holes like CA senators Fineswine and Kneepads up sleepless at night. 

I hope you can understand that, even though it's not the course of action you chose.
And I salute the makers of any device, like the magazine mentioned in the OP that sabotages our would-be overlords' attempts to de-gun the populace. The lazy asstards who decided CA was "too hard" to sell products to can kiss my @$$, eat sh*t, and die.
But the ones who've gone out of their way to monkeywrench socialism here from where they are, like his holiness, St. Ronnie Barrett, who made a CA-compliant M-82 that isn't a .50BMG just to piss off the liberals in this state, and won't repair cop .50BMGs until they let civilians here buy them, are rock stars. 

Thanks for the time and the space, Kenny.
And keep doing what you do.
It's funny as hell every day, and a better news source than ABCNNBCBS and Drudge, combined, whether you meant for it to be or not.