
Category: Being a Stranger in a very Strange Land
![]()

California’s mandatory background check law to buy ammo went into effect on Monday, and it’s not going well. The system is reportedly running very slowly with no customer support.
“I’ve had one customer, and I had to turn them away because I couldn’t get into the system,” Don Reed, owner of DGS Ammo & Airguns in Sacramento, told ABC News. “He seemed a little bit perturbed. … There’s a lot of people feel like they’re being held hostage suddenly — punishing the people who’ve been doing it the right way.”
“So far it doesn’t work at all. My system doesn’t let me access it,” said Steve Converse of Ade’s Gun Shop.
“I can’t believe the amount of paper it wastes,” remarked Scott Emmett, the manager of the Ammo Bros store in San Diego. “This one transaction for two types of ammo was almost eight pages long.”
Emmett said the system was down for the first 45 minutes and there was no support. “I sat on the phone for about 40 minutes and no one answered.”
In 2016, California voters approved the law and it’s just now coming into play. The law requires background checks for all ammo sales, and there are three kinds of checks.
Here’s the breakdown from the California Department of Justice, which administers the law.
- Standard Ammunition Eligibility Check: This eligibility check can be used by an individual whose information matches an entry in the Automated Firearms System and does not fall within a class of persons who are prohibited from owning or possessing ammunition. A determination may be completed in approximately 2 minutes. The fee for a Standard Ammunition Eligibility Check is $1.00.
- Certificate of Eligibility Verification Check: This eligibility check may be used by individuals who have a current Certificate of Eligibility to acquire or possess firearms. A determination may be completed in approximately 2 minutes. The fee for a Certificate of Eligibility Verification Check is $1.00.
- Basic Ammunition Eligibility Check: This eligibility check can be used by individuals who do not possess a current Certificate of Eligibility to acquire or possess firearms, or do not already have information entered in the Automated Firearm System. A determination may take several days to complete. The fee for the Basic Ammunition Eligibility Check is $19.00.
If you’ve registered a firearm in California, then you’ll probably qualify for one of the first two checks that cost just $1. You’ll need a valid California Driver’s License.
But, if you’re a new shooter you’ll be waiting days to get your bullets. Oh, and you’ll have to add $19 to the cost of that box of $6 shells. At least you’ll be able to buy more ammo under the same check for 30 days.
If you’re an out-of-stater, you simply cannot buy ammo in California.
The California DOJ says the law should keep ammo out of the hands of those deemed unfit. “The eligibility checks ensure purchasers are not prohibited from owning or possessing ammunition due to a felony and/or violent misdemeanor conviction or warrant, domestic violence restraining order, or mental health issue.”
The California Rifle and Pistol Association says they are “working in the field and in the courtroom to stop these ridiculous laws.” They have filed an active lawsuit against the Attorney General, Rhode v. Becerra.
Kim Rhode, an Olympic gold medal shooter who shoots thousands of rounds every week and is negatively affected by this law, is listed as the plaintiff in the case. The National Rifle Association is also involved in this suit.
This background check law was joined on July 1st by the law banning all lead from hunting use, though it can still be used for target shooting and self-defense.
With this huge impediment to purchasing ammo, how will the Pitman-Robertson revenues be affected? If you and I go to the range, and you give me some shells to shoot, is that an illegal transfer? Will this law lead to stockpiling ammo and illegally bringing ammo across state lines?
A Franklin Park man who broke a Chicago TV news crew’s camera equipment has been sentenced to spend more time in prison than many of the city’s recent gun offenders. His is a topsy-turvy story from a town that claims to be serious about fighting gun crime.
Ismael Pereda, 47, pled guilty Wednesday to knocking over two spotlights and a news camera that an ABC7 crew had set up for a live shot near Water Tower Place around 5:15 a.m. on Dec. 23rd. The damage was estimated to be $40,000. At the time of his arrest, Pereda was AWOL from a case in which he was accused of battery and resisting police in Franklin Park.
After receiving Pereda’s plea this week, Judge Timothy Chambers sentenced him to one year in prison with 182 days credit for the time he spent in jail before entering his plea. Pereda was shipped off to the Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet on Thursday. He arrived, underwent processing, received the state’s automatic 50% sentence reduction for good behavior, and was paroled the same day, according to state records.
Nonetheless, Pereda spent far more time behind bars than most people who pled guilty to carrying firearms illegally in Chicago.
Roderick Trice was also in Chambers’ court on Wednesday. The 21-year-old was facing four felony gun charges after police said they found a loaded handgun during a traffic stop in Uptown on Nov. 23. According to police, Trice told them that “It’s an old gun and I only have it for protection. I’m trying to get my FOID (Firearm Owner’s ID card).”
In exchange for his guilty plea on one count of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, Chambers sentenced Trice to two years probation and 50 hours of community service. Prosecutors dropped the other three felonies.
![]() |
| Graham was arrested on the 600 block of North Michigan. | CPD; Google |
Recently, 21-year-old Sheldon Graham was in front of Chambers.
Graham had been charged with multiple weapons counts, including Class X armed violence and possessing a handgun with a defaced serial number after police said they found him with the pistol in a car on the Magnificent Mile last November.
He pled guilty to one count of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon in a vehicle and Chambers sentenced him to two years of “first offender gun probation” and 50 hours of community service. Despite being charged with a Class X felony (the most serious crime category other than murder), Graham was allowed to go free after his arrest by posting a $500 deposit bond.
In another case handled by Chambers, two Indiana men each pled guilty to having a pair of firearms in a car that they were sitting in near the Magnificent Mile on June 22 last year. Chambers sentenced 25-year-old Kyle Kostro and 21-year-old Joseph Buncich to two years of “first offender gun probation.
David Williams, 24, recently pled guilty to having a loaded handgun in a Jaguar that was parked on the Hubbard Street bar strip in River North last summer and also received two years of gun probation from Chambers. Williams went free after his arrest by posting a $1,000 deposit bond.
![]() |
| Lancheros | CPD |
Chambers gave the same sentence to Daniel Lancheros, a 23-year-old who was accused of having a handgun while riding as an Uber passenger near Western and Foster in February 2018. Police said Lancheros is a Latin King who scored 354 out of a possible 500 on the department’s Strategic Subject’s List, which “purports to identify which Chicagoans are most likely to be involved in violence, either as a victim or perpetrator.”
But Chambers isn’t the only judge who gives gun offenders less time than the guy who broke Channel 7’s equipment.
Judge Catherine Haberkorn recently sentenced 27-year-old Jewvon Davis to 18 months probation after he pled guilty to possessing a handgun on the street in Old Town last November.
Police said in a report that Davis told them that he works in the area and he brought the gun with him from the South Side and he had been walking around looking for a guy who had threatened to shoot him.
![]() |
| Youkhana | CPD |
Lazar Youkhana, a retail clerk who fired “two, maybe three” warning shots while pursuing two boys who stole bottles of Hennessey from his liquor store, receive one year of probation from Haberkorn. Youkhana cut a deal with prosecutors who agreed to drop two felony weapons charges and reduce a reckless discharge of a firearm count to reckless conduct.
A Riverdale man who was found with a gun in his car during a traffic stop in Lakeview last December and allegedly told cops he carries a weapon “because it’s Chicago” was sentenced to one year of court supervision by Haberkorn recently. Valladay went free after his arrest by posting a $150 bond.
Haberkorn gave two years of “first offender probation” to 21-year-old Samuel Conley of Romeoville. Conley was arrested at North Avenue Beach last Fourth of July weekend after cops reportedly found a 40-caliber handgun with an extended magazine in his backpack at a liquor checkpoint.
Judge William O’Brien gave two years of “first offender probation” to Mario Hernandez after the 18-year-old pled guilty to flashing a handgun near Oak Street Beach in May 2018.
Zion Davis was arrested last November after a Marshalls store security officer found a loaded handgun in his jacket while processing the 18-year-old for allegedly shoplifting at the chain’s Lincoln Park location. Police said Davis admitted to purchasing the firearm from someone he met on Facebook. O’Brien allowed Davis to pled guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge and handed him a sentence of 18 months probation.
O’Brien also approved a reduced charge for 37-year-old David Rhodus, who was accused of holding a loaded handgun on his lap as he sat in a Lincoln Park bar on Feb. 4th, 2018. Rhodus, who had a FOID but not a concealed carry license, was sentenced to two years probation.
Finally, there’s the case of Indianapolis resident Lapre Apple. A group of police officers who were standing in line at a West Loop fast food restaurant noticed that the man standing in front of them—Apple—had a gun with an extended magazine sticking out of his waistband.
The officers secured the handgun and arrested Apple, who said he had a concealed carry license in his home state, but not in Illinois. Police said they found 350 suspected ecstasy pills and $3,202 cash in Apple’s pockets.
Judge Steven Watkins sentenced Apple to 12 months of court supervision after the 21-year-old pled guilty to aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. Prosecutors dropped narcotics charges and three additional weapons charges in the deal.
Meet the POS Thug Memphis is Rioting Over

Meet Brandon Webber, the POS criminal that the city of Memphis is protesting over, because his dumb ghetto thug ass pulled a gun out on some cops, and got himself killed.

Classy fella, I know. It gets better.





Pretty much every single picture is of him flashing drug money, smoking weed, or brandishing a weapon. (And don’t tell me it’s not drug money, because something tells me you don’t pick up that much straight cash working at anything legitimate.) Smart people that get paid in cash hide it….because there’s this thing called “taxes” and shit.
Keep in mind, that he was being served in the first place by US Marshalls, because he was wanted for shooting a man 5 times and stealing his car.
This girl says it best right here….
Far cry from the innocent father of two that the media and all his friends presented….



Yea, I don’t think he made a “positive impact” to the guy he robbed and shot, just saying.
Look, I’m not saying that all cops are perfect and egregious abuses of power and and bad shootings don’t occur….but why the fuck aren’t those instances the ones that the media decides to highlight?
Why pick a POS like this to jump up on a soap box about it? Oh that’s right….because creating division in our country is what the Leftist narrative is all about. It’s the cops fault this punk ass kid died, and not you know….his own shitty choices and actions or anything.
You see, Democrats don’t want people to succeed. Successful people that worked for it (not poofy, spoiled actors) tend to be conservatives. Soon as you see those taxes coming out of your check, you start questioning where they go.
Democrats want you to stay ignorant, uneducated, and live on a pitiful, meager existence of welfare so you never rise above whatever stature you were born into. Don’t get a job, or marry the father of your child or you won’t get this welfare check. Just remember to keep voting blue because the “evil” rich republicans want to take it from you.
The Left’s narrative is bullshit, don’t fall for it. And certainly don’t fall for “it’s the cops fault some thug got killed” either. If you look at the stats, it’s not even close to being the problem.
And for the record, I actually had a POS criminal cousin that subsequently died from being a POS. I can’t remember if the cops shot him, he crashed his car, or if he overdosed, because I honestly never really cared enough to remember. I wasn’t happy he died, but he totally brought it on himself. Let’s keep it real, the world’s probably a better place without him. You won’t catch me crying on the evening news about it, or lying about what a great person he was.
Personal responsibility, it’s a crazy concept…you should try it.


https://youtu.be/gfqeDVXyy0c

World War II is over and instead of the expected Depression. America enters into a Golden Age for most of its Citizens! God how green with envy am I! Grumpy
The Race War The Left Wants
It really is astonishing to see how the left in this country is working itself into a frenzy of race, sex, and gender hatred. It is moving out of the academic fringes and well into the mainstream. Take a look at what the (Latino) schools chancellor Richard Carranza in New York City ordered the administrators and principals in the massive urban school system to undergo. The New York Post reports:
City Department of Education brass are targeting a “white-supremacy culture” among school administrators — by disparaging ideas like “individualism,” “objectivity” and “worship of the written word,” The Post has learned.
A presentation slide obtained by The Post offers a bullet-point description of the systemic, supposedly pro-white favoritism that Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza claims must be eradicated from the DOE, and provides just one insight into his anti-bias training efforts.
The list — derived from “Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups” by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun — names more than a dozen hallmarks of “white-supremacy culture” that school administrators are expected to steer clear of.
Here’s a graphic the Post created, taken from the training. If it’s too small for you to read here, click on this link, and you’ll see a bigger version:

I hope you will read it, in detail. The basic argument is that the fundamental qualities of professionalism, achievement, logic, clear thinking, and literacy are manifestations of white supremacy. The unavoidable corollary is that mediocrity is racially authentic. The NYC schools system adopted the toxic Acting White philosophy as a guide for its administrators. Andrew Sullivan writes:
I’m often told that the social-justice left’s assault on individuality, meritocracy, and achievement is a figment of my imagination, or only true in isolated pockets of super-woke academia. But here is one of the largest school systems in the country imposing this ideology on its most important employees, mandating lessons in “whiteness,” allegedly firing women solely because they are white, and indoctrinating an entire generation into associating the virtues of objective truth, academic excellence, and reason with the worst kind of bigotry. If you want to know why liberal democracy is in peril in America, mandatory indoctrination in critical race and gender theory is a factor not to be underrated.
Take a look at this fantastic passage from the Post story. It’s George Orwell by way of Bonfire Of The Vanities:
“It requires discomfort,” said Matt Gonzales, who serves as an outside adviser on the DOE’s school diversity task force and is a director of New York Appleseed, an advocacy group for school integration.
“Having to talk about someone’s own whiteness is a requirement for them to become liberated.”
Several recent attendees of the DOE’s overarching implicit-bias training sessions — mandatory for all, including teachers — have bristled at the program’s emphasis on the inherent insidiousness of “white” culture.
White employees who object when accused of harboring deep-seated bias are branded “fragile” and “defensive,” one insider who received the training has said.
But [Schools Chancellor Richard] Carranza said on Monday that such skeptics often don’t realize their own biases until they are forced to confront them and that they are likely the ones who need the training the most.
“It’s good work. It’s hard work,” Carranza said. “And I would hope that anybody that feels that somehow that process is not beneficial to them, I would very respectfully say they are the ones that need to reflect even harder upon what they believe.”
Got that? Resistance to the claim that you are guilty is evidence of your guilt. The book I’m writing about resisting the new soft totalitarianism has a lot to do with this kind of thing. I remind you that this is not something from the fringes of the far left, but was the diversity training course for administrators in the world’s largest public school system (serving 1.1 million kids).
A couple of years ago, when I wrote about a (now former) Texas A&M philosophy professor, a black man, and his racist, anti-white rants — including speculating favorably on the idea that black liberation might require killing whites — many people on the left (including the Chronicle Of Higher Education) howled that I was being racist. I don’t think they were being cynical. In their circles, it’s normal to allow persons of color to speak in anti-white terms. They’re completely inured to how immoral, offensive, and dangerous this sounds to people outside their bubbles.
I have said in this space for years that the illiberal left — and this demonizing of straight white men is totally illiberal — is calling forth demons with this kind of talk. What do they honestly expect straight white males — and the women who are married to them, and who have them as sons — to do? Roll over with their bellies up and whimper for mercy, like a liberal Protestant pastor, or an English department associate professor? Every time the left engages in rhetoric like this, or worse, institutes programs (like the NYC schools training) to institutionalize anti-white, anti-male, anti-heterosexual bigotry, they give implicit permission for straights, for whites, and for men to act on their own prejudices against minorities. And they incentivize straight white males (and, um, allies) to vote for anti-left politicians, if only as a matter of self-protection.
In the wake of Trump’s 2016 victory, prominent liberal scholar Mark Lilla denounced identity-politics liberalism as toxic and self-defeating, and wrote a book about it. He was vilified on the left for his position, and even denounced by a Columbia University colleague for — yep — “making white supremacy respectable again.”
MH, a liberal reader of this blog, posted this 2018 USA Today column by Saritha Prabhu, who is worried about this trend on her own side. Excerpts:
As you’ve probably noticed, bashing straight white men, especially of the conservative kind, is very fashionable these days.
You seemingly can’t escape it — you switch on cable TV, or “The View”, read The Washington Post or The New York Times, and see liberal pundits verbally attack white men for this or that.
It’s become often enough that it is seemingly now normal to just casually attack a broad group of the country’s citizens.
And sometimes race is inserted gratuitously even when it isn’t an issue, like during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings: the Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee were attacked as old white men.
Besides, there is the strangeness in the spectacle of certain white people calling out certain other white people on their whiteness.
What gives? What is happening is that everyone’s id is now not just out in the open, it has gone berserk.
Yes. When I was in Australia last week, I saw a common theme on the left, denouncing Alabama’s strict anti-abortion law, was that it was passed by “straight white men.” As if that were enough to discredit it. As if it had not been signed by a female governor. None of these facts matter. It is enough among many on the mainstream left simply to associate an idea with straight white men to discredit it. More Prabhu:
Whenever I hear someone on TV bash white men, my overriding feeling is “Excuse me, but I really don’t want to be a party to this.”
I am a brown, female immigrant and I can assure these leaders and pundits that there’s no anger coursing through my veins at white people or men as a group.
One can have historical and contemporary awareness of inequities and injustices, without having hateful feelings toward the ordinary white citizens around us.
Today’s Democratic Party is predicated on having and expressing open hostility toward white citizens. They are making the dangerous bet that most minorities and immigrants will jump on the white-male-bashing bandwagon.
But it could backfire and turn off many voters. If you ask most minorities and immigrants, they’ll probably tell you they just want a fair, equal shot at the American Dream, and that they’re not angling for racial payback or Civil War Take 2.
The leadership class of the Democratic Party is not listening to Saritha Prabhu. Nancy Pelosi said last week that the opposition to abortion consists of “guys, guys, guys, guys, just white guys, guys, guys”. In fact, men and women hold abortion views — pro-life, pro-choice, or mixed — in the same numbers. And:
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Call me crazy, but I think you’d have to be out of your mind as a person who is straight, white, male, or some combination of the three, to vote these identity-politics Bolsheviks into office. They actually want people at each other’s throats over race, sex, and gender. They actually want to turn America into Yugoslavia. What other explanation could there be? They’re going to find out that the United States is not the faculty Senate.
PA HB 768: DETAILS, MEET DEVIL
I’m not up on the political scene in Pennsylvania, so I can’t say how likely this is to pass and get signed into law. I hope in-state human/civil rights supporters have this on their radar.
First, the bill requires mere private citizens to register every firearm other than some antiques. That’s bad enough.
The registration process would a pain in the nether regions. Two passport-style photos taken within the past 30 days, fingerprinting, background checks. Any crime of “violence” — not just felony, or misdemeanor domestic violence — ever is a disqualifier. There is no “shall issue” in this; the State Police can still deny your registration.
And should they deny your application, you’ll have a mere ten days to get a lawyer and file an appeal. If you lose, you’ll have to dispose of the firearm(s) you naively told them you have. That’s another devilish detail; there is only one legal way to do so: Turn it over to the State Police. No compensation. You can’t sell it, or move it out of state.
Registration would be annual. And being the cynical sort — think of the nastiest implementation of a law, and plan for it — I see another potential problem.
Applications for renewal shall be made by a registrant 60 days prior to the expiration of the current registration certificate.
That’s rather specific. Not within 60 days of expiration, not no later than 60 days prior to. 60 days exactly.
State Police: “Sorry, Mr. Smith. Your renewal application is 61 days before your registration expires. Disapproved! Turn in that gun.”
Sucker: “But your office is closed tomorrow. Can I renew on Monday?”
SP: “Nope. That would be 58 days, past the deadline.”
And then we get to Section 5. Additional duties of registrant. I’ll just skip past the parts about notifying the police of thefts and any change in any detail on your registration certificate (did I mention you have to carry that around with the firearm, not safely stored in your file cabinet?) within 48 hours.
(3) Keep a firearm in the registrant’s possession unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock, gun safe or similar device unless the firearm is in the registrant’s immediate possession and control while at the registrant’s place of residence or business or while being used for lawful recreational purposes within this Commonwealth.
You might think that’s the usual (un)safe storage requirement that victim disarming politicians have been trying to foist on honest gun owners, in an effort to provide safe workplaces for criminals (hard to shoot a violent intruder with a locked up defensive tool). Read it again. Slowly.
Unloaded, and disassembled or locked away. With only threeexceptions.
1. In the registrant’s immediate possession and control while at the registrant’s place of residence.
2. In the registrant’s immediate possession and control while at the registrant’s place of business (and that has to be listed on your registration application).
3. While being used for lawful recreational purposes.
There are no exceptions for defensive carry. I suppose you could argue that shooting bad guys is fun, but that might trash your self-defense claim.
There are no exceptions for transporting the firearm from residence to work (or recreational shooting area). There are no exceptions for taking it to a self defense class.
I think that was intentional. It looks like it was modeled on the New York City restriction currently being appealed to the Supreme Court, but written to evade any favorable — to gun owners — SCOTUS ruling: We don’t restrict where you can take it, like NYC did. It just has to be nonfunctional while you transport it.
Please tell me Pennsylvania RKBA groups are on this and will stop it.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
(More Tip Jar Options) |



