Personal Liberty | Ben Bullard

California Governor Jerry Brown has but to sign a bill passed by the legislature for homemade guns both past and future to become illegal in California, except under strict conditions that document the weapons with government-issued serial numbers.

The state legislature approved SB 808 last week, sending the bill to Brown’s desk for a signature to enact it into law. The bill, which made national headlines for its Democratic sponsor’s so-sad-it’s-funny press conference in January, will essentially ban the manufacture of 3D-printed guns, as well as set severe restrictions on other forms of DIY firearms.

Here’s the video from that non-event, staged by state Senator Kevin de Leon:

Here’s more on the bill from Guns.com:

…SB808…would require a state Department of Justice Bureau of Firearms background check and authorization before assembling a firearm in the home of a state resident. Additionally, before this could be granted, the candidate would have to show proof that building the gun would not violate local city or county codes.

It would further require those who in the state that have already made their own gun after December of 1968 to obtain and engrave or affix a DOJ-issued serial number and prohibit the sale, transfer or inheritance of these guns.

In a final step, all guns made by unlicensed homebuilders would have to be serialized, have that serial number logged by the DOJ, and kept on record. Furthermore, homebuilders would have to pay a fee.

Noncompliance could result in up to a $1,000 fine and/or a year in prison.

De Leon described the legislation as taking a “modest approach to address these new threats to public safety” in a press release last week, noting that recent advances have opened the way for “dangerous individuals” to “manipulate technologies at the expense of public safety.”