Smith & Wesson, Sturm, Ruger, to stop selling guns in California

◼ Smith & Wesson announced it will stop selling its handguns in California rather than manufacture them to comply with the new microstamping law. The other publicly traded firearms manufacturer in the U.S., Sturm, Ruger, also said this month that it will stop new sales to California. - Emily Miller/Washington Times

The announcement late Wednesday came a week after the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for firearms manufacturers, filed suit against California for requiring that all new semi-automatic pistols that are not already on the state’s approved gun roster have the microstamping technology.

...The District of Columbia is the only other place in the country that has mandated microstamping. It was supposed to go into effect on Jan. 1, but the city council passed an emergency measure in December to postpone it until 2016.

A spokesman for Phil Mendelson, the city council chairman who wrote the D.C. law, told me that, “The decision to delay was made recently in order to piggyback on the California program and create more of a market for gun manufacturers.”

In other words, there were no manufacturers willing to stick this unproven contraption on their firearms, which meant no new ones could be sold in the city.

While that would fit with the District’s anti-gun agenda, the politicians are clever enough to know that banning all new guns would just help the plaintiffs in the Heller II case that is challenging all the registrations laws written in 2009.

Microstamping is simply a ban on guns. California and D.C. will have a short period to enjoy their gun grab until the courts rule that this dictate violates the Second Amendment.