Road Rage Incident Leads to Arrest of Lompoc Man

No lefty....This represents an IRRESPONSIBLE person in possession of a fire arm. Just like all the other irresponsible gun-toters out there like the gang bangers and dealers. Responsible gun owners (which is many of us great Americans) follow the law and respect the weapon as intended and certainly don't cruise around with a loaded gun pointing it at people. All the hoops we jump through to own a fire arm legally will never stop a fool like this from doing such things. So your comment is mindless. Think before you type please.

Steve O--you never will understand. People who don't respect the rules are not known as people who don't respect the rules until they don't respect the rules. The pretense that such people are aberrations is belied by the number of gun deaths and gun violent acts in this nation every day. However, one suspects that you might identify the 'good guys' by some form of biased observation that would draw lines about who could and could not have a firearm. Better just to have reasonable rules like most of the civilized world that regulates where and when and what can be possessed by people not in the 'well regulated militia' that our Constitution contemplated.

Just another responsible Toyota owner.

RHS, the high-capacity clip is illegal in CA and the serial number being filed off is illegal throughout the US. This person was never a responsible gun owner.

It's cute that you think you're a "great American". That's all it takes? Owning a gun?

Steve-O this country has a dire sickness with guns. It's high time we do something about it. NOBODY NEEDS GUNS! I absolutely abhor the gun culture in our country. It's sick.

I agree with Pitmix.

It is a felony, as is the clip.

"possession of an un-serialized firearm (misdemeanor)"

There should be NO gun related misdemeanors. All should be felonies. You have an illegal clip, felony. Wave a gun in public, felony. Serial number intentionally filled off? Felony deluxe! This is the problem. Our gun laws have no teeth, thanks to the NRA. Carrying a weapon with intent to use in a crime should ALWAYS be a felony.

small nuance if it doesn't have one vs. it begin removed/scratched off. At the DA's discretion those can be felonies as well.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=25850.&lawCode=PEN

"The pistol had the serial number removed"

Should be a felony, at least could be if the DA wanted.

Amen, Pitmix. I'd be happy to lock up irresponsible criminal gun wielders. GUN CONTROL NOW.

100% Sacjon!!! No mercy.

Clarification: For those who care, my 8:13 a.m. post is meant as satire.

9:41 - good to hear, but sadly, there are those who truly think this. They think the 2A was meant to say they can have whatever type of weapon they want, with zero restrictions. They are aching and yearning to fight the guv-rnmunt. I say let them.

The incident in this article is not related to "gun culture" but "criminal culture". There were three crimes listed for merely possessing the firearm in question. Several more crimes were added on for what he did with the firearm. What additional gun-control measures would have kept this firearm, which was already illegal in many ways, out of this CRIMINALS hand? He broke several serious laws already, what new law would this criminal have actually followed?

Rapists and murders don't follow laws against rape and murder.......

We don't necessarily need new laws (other than banning more types of guns, but that's for another day), we need to make those laws tougher. Make them sting. If you pull stuff like this, you go away for a long time, not just a few nights in County.

Two downvotes but can anyone propose a gun control measure that would have kept this firearm out of this criminals hands?

VOICE - sure, make it harder, if not impossible to own this type of gun. Handguns are meant for 1 single thing only - killing humans. No need for that. Other civilized countries don't allow them willy nilly, why should we? Time to grow up and get over the Second Amendment being a pass to owning whatever you want.

How? The gun/mag was already illegal to own. While you're last sentence is correct, there is no way you'll ever get handguns banned in the USA and owning a hand gun is about as far as you can get from "owning whatever you want". Contrary to what you've seen in the movies, handguns are close range weapons only.

2:27 - Exactly. Close range, and good only for killing people. Ban them.

How would banning handguns have kept this illegal firearm out of this criminals hand?

If you can't figure that out...

VOICE - how wouldn't banning handguns kept them out of his hands? You'll never know and neither will we, so quit with the 3rd grade "logic" and insisting we answer your (logically) unanswerable question.

It was already illegal, the guy clearly doesn't care about following our laws, so what additional law would this criminal listen to? Banning all guns won't make them disappear, especially from the hands of criminals.

Eventually it will.

To many guns already floating around. Plus, when they can be 3-D printed, with 3-D printing tech that is getting better by the year, they will just make their own. Even bullets are fairly easy to make, though I'm sure they'll be used much more frugally when you have to make it yourself.

Time to tax and regulate the living daylights out of ammunition, plus the components like gunpowder, brass, and primers.

Gun people love to correct the misuse of "clip" and "magazine". The difference is so slight as to be laughable.
"A “clip” is a small metal device that bullets slide into. The clip is used to load a magazine that is internal to the weapon."

What a joke.

On the other hand, if you're trying to communicate, it helps to be precise. You wouldn't want the law to say clip when you mean magazine.

We're not writing legislation here. A clip and magazine are commonly understood to be a means of getting a weapon to have multiple bullets to fire. If the intent of communication is to be understood, then clip serves just as well as magazine.

Only if you want to miscommunicate and obfuscate. A clip is just a way to load a (usually fixed box) magazine, after which it was often discarded. It is much slower than using a removable magazine. Repeating an error, even if the error is pervasive, does not make it right. It would be similar to advocating antibiotics for viral diseases.

That's obviously taking it too far. I'm all for stricter gun control, but charging someone with the same crime because their gun was stolen or taken and then used to commit that crime is silly. Yes more stringent gun control and less access to certain weapons, but you cant charge someone with murder because someone stole their gun and then used that gun to kill someone.

How about criminal negligence? What about the many parents who leave their firearms unsecured resulting in their kids or their kid's friends dying in accidents or by suicide?

Maybe not the same penalty (current legislation is appropriately being offered to reduce the felony murder rule so that the non-actor is not equally liable for the crime committed) but there should be some liability for those who do not take the burden of firearm ownership seriously. Civil lawsuit is still possible of course.

Duke, I didn't mean to include people who had their weapons stolen. Just family members and "friends" that took the unsecured weapon and used it in a crime. But use of stolen weapons in crimes is a really BIG problem now that so many people went out to buy guns in the last couple of years.
https://everytownresearch.org/report/stolen-guns-pose-a-tremendous-risk-to-public-safety/