I heard on the radio this morning about some vile person with a huge cache of weapons that may have been trying to assassinate the First Lady…
Curious, I tracked down this article: “Sniper Rifle, Military Grade Guns Found In California Student’s Trunk”
Wow, that’s a nice rifle. I followed the links until I got to the local station’s website: “SDSU student arrested after weapons cache discovery.”
There are three separate videos on the local station site, but it boiled down to a 20 year-old with fake ID trying to score some booze, and he had guns in his trunk. The MILITARY-GRADE guns were 4 Mosin-Nagant rifles (two with extra scary bayonets), a GSG-22, what looks like a break-action, double barreled Coach-gun, some variety of 1911, an SKS, and a PSL. Assuming he bought them a year or two ago, that entire “cache” probably doesn’t even add up to the cost of the rifle in the top photo.
You can spot gun cases in the video, discarded in the background, so he was likely transporting them legally. It’s only illegal to buy a handgun under the age of 21 in California. The minimum age to own one is 18. According to the second video, Moore was charged with 3 weapons violations: Possessing an Assualt Weapon with a Detachable magazine, one with a Flash Suppressor, and one with a Thumbhole stock. The Mosins, the shotgun, and the 1911 aren’t even close to running afoul of California’s “Assault Weapons” Ban. The GSG-22 is exempt because it’s a .22. The SKS is one of those guns that scares liberals, but in California it is only banned if it has a detachable magazine. This leaves any possible trouble to the PSL. It’s hard to tell from grainy pictures on the video, but the PSL looks to have its stock muzzle device on it – a muzzle brake. The thumbhole stock is only illegal in the presence of a detachable magazine, so the big question becomes, “Did the PSL have a bullet-button?”
Update: 10/29/2012: Thanks to user “1 2 many” on Calguns.net who was kind enough to let me use his photo of a PSL with a bullet button.
