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The State of California has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. One of the main components of California’s crackdown on guns is what we often refer to as the “California Roster” or just “The Roster”. With all the news lately about two of the challenges to the Roster in court not going the way that the State of California would hope I thought we could talk a little about the evolution of the California’s Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale.
Back on November 2nd, 1983, California mandated registering handguns with the State of California after the passage Proposition 15. Then in 1999, the California Legislature passed the Unsafe Handgun Act, which was enacted in 2001 with the requirements for the Loaded Chamber Indicator and the Magazine Safety Disconnect. Thereafter manufacturers had to submit firearms to the California Department of Justice, Bureau of Firearms for “safety testing”. If they did not comply with the new requirements (Colt, Glock, etc) then they did not get added to the roster of firearms “deemed safe” for civilian use.
Since this bill was enacted, more and more manufacturers have discontinued the models that were either grandfathered, or had the required elements, to make the roster and it has dwindled down to what it is today. The recent appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals by the State of California has left out the microstamping requirement, therefore the loaded chamber indicator (LCI) and magazine disconnect (MD) are still in play in the case of this challenge. The “Roster” will not go away, just the requirements for the LCI and MD would be removed and manufacturers would still have to submit handguns to the State Department of Justice for “testing” to be put on the Roster. While this will certainly add any number of new manufacturers and models to the roster it will still take time for the California DOJ to process them. How fast this will all happened depends on the court system of appeals and its desire to settle these lawsuits. Be patient it will happen in time, just not as fast as we would like it to be.
We have included a more in depth article (source listed below the article) to give even more detail about the California’s “Unsafe Handgun Act” of 1999.
California’s “Unsafe Handgun Act” of 1999 (UHA)
The UHA regulates the commercial sale of handguns by requiring the California Department of Justice (“CDOJ”) to maintain a “roster” listing all handguns that have been tested by a certified testing laboratory, “have been determined to be not unsafe handguns,” and may be lawfully manufactured and sold by licensed firearms dealers in California. Cal. Penal Code § 32015(a) (emphasis added). Under the UHA, all handguns are considered “unsafe” and may not be commercially sold in California unless the CDOJ determines them “not to be unsafe” and authorizes their inclusion on the roster. Manufacturing or selling an “unsafe” handgun, i.e., an “off-roster” handgun, is a violation of the UHA and subjects the offender to misdemeanor criminal and civil penalties, including up to one year imprisonment and fines up to $10,000. Id. § 32000(a)(1)-(3).
An “unsafe handgun” is defined as “any pistol, revolver, or other firearm capable of being concealed upon the person” that does not have certain safety features and does not meet firing and drop-safety testing requirements. Cal. Penal Code § 31910. The statute is broken into two subparts: first, it provides that a revolver1 is deemed “unsafe” unless it meets three specified criteria, id. § 31910(a)(1)-(3), and second, it provides that a “semiautomatic pistol”2 is deemed “unsafe” unless it meets six specified criteria. Id. § 31910(b)(1)-(6). The first three criteria apply to both revolvers and semiautomatic pistols: they must have a mechanical “safety device,”3 and they must satisfy fire testing and drop-safety testing requirements. Those three requirements were first enacted in 1999, see California Unsafe Handgun Act, 1999 Cal. Stat. ch. 248 (SB 15), and are currently set forth in Cal. Penal Code §§ 31910 (a)(1)-(3) (revolvers), and (b)(1)-(3) (semiautomatic pistols).
Over time, California enacted three more requirements for semiautomatic pistols— in addition to the safety device and testing requirements—for inclusion on the roster. Since 2007, semiautomatic pistols must have a chamber load indicator (“CLI”) and magazine disconnect mechanism (“MDM”). See id. § 31910(b)(4)-(5). A CLI is a “device that plainly indicates that a cartridge is in the firing chamber.” Id. § 16380. An MDM is “a mechanism that prevents a semiautomatic pistol that has a detachable magazine from operating to strike the primer of ammunition in the firing chamber when a detachable magazine is not inserted in the semiautomatic pistol.” Id. § 16900. Since 2013, semiautomatic pistols also must have “microstamping” capability. “Microstamping” is a set of “microscopic arrays of characters” that are imprinted onto the cartridge case of each fired round which can be used to “identify the make, model, and serial number of the pistol” used at a crime scene. Id. § 31910(b)(6)(A). 4 Accordingly, the UHA limits the manufacture and commercial sale of newer models of semiautomatic handguns to those that have a manually operated safety device, meet firing and drop-safety testing requirements, and have the CLI, MDM, and microstamping features. Stated differently, newer models of semiautomatic handguns that lack these safety features and have not met the testing requirements are deemed “unsafe,” may not be added to the roster, and may not be manufactured or commercially sold in California.
The UHA contains a few exceptions to its roster requirements. Semiautomatic pistols that were “already listed on the roster” when the CLI, MDM and microstamping requirements became effective are exempt. Cal. Penal Code §§ 31910(b)(4), (b)(5), (b)(6)(A) (“grandfather” provisions). Handguns that are sold to law enforcement officials, and certain curios or relics are also exempt. Id. § 32000(b)(3)-(4). Pistols used in Olympic target shooting are exempt, id. § 32105, as are handguns in private party transfers, in which two parties who are not licensed firearms dealers wish to enter into a sale. Id. § 32110(a). So, too, are handguns that are delivered for consignment sale or as collateral for a pawnbroker loan, and handguns used solely as props for video production. Id. § 32110(f), (h). The UHA does not restrict possession of off-roster handguns in the home or elsewhere; rather, its focus is to limit the manufacture and commercial sale of such handguns.
Manufacturers must also pay an initial $200 testing fee for a new handgun to be added to the roster. Id. § 32015(b)(1); Cal. Code of Regs. tit. 11 (“CCR”), §§ 4070-4072. Once a handgun is added to the roster, it is valid for one year, after which the manufacturer may renew the listing by paying an annual fee. 11 CCR § 4070; see id. § 4071. A handgun model may be removed from the roster for a variety of reasons, including if: (1) the annual fee is not paid; (2) the handgun model sold after certification is modified from the model submitted for testing; or (3) the handgun is deemed “unsafe” based on further testing. 11 CCR § 4070(c); see also Cal. Penal Code § 32015(b)(2) (stating any handgun “manufactured by a manufacturer who . . . fails to pay” the roster fee “may be excluded from the roster.”). In addition, in January 2021, the California Legislature accelerated the removal of semiautomatic handguns from the roster by requiring removal of three such grandfathered handguns for every approved semiautomatic pistol added to the roster (“three-for-one removal provision”). Cal. Penal Code § 31910(b)(7).