In 1989 California lawmakers puked up one of the first assault weapons bans in U.S. history and in subsequent years added tweaked it and added such blanket restrictions as prohibitions on .50BMG (because there are so many crimes done with these…). While the California Department of Justice has tried really hard to ban anything that is AR-15ish or AK-47like, all enterprising gun owners have had to do is use devices such as ‘bullet buttons’ and low-capacity magazines to be able to own one today.
Still, between 1989 and 2001, the state allowed the registration by civilians of grandfathered guns. Well through Guns.com I did a public records request to CA DOJ and obtained their list of registered guns, all 145,253 of them. A detailed analysis found some really interesting things.
Here’s a snapshot of the top 25 manufacturers for example:
- 28,259 Colt Mfg, almost all Sporters and AR-15 type rifles
- 16,665 Chinese Norinco/Polytech/Clayco rifles, primarily AK and SKS pattern guns in 7.62mm
- 14,797 Bushmasters, almost exclusively XM-15 series rifles
- 9,158 Heckler & Koch firearms, with Model HK 91, 93 and 94 rifles accounting for the majority
- 4,529 Springfield Armory rifles, primarily M1/M1A 7.62mm guns
- 4,528 IMI guns including 179 Galil rifles and 4301 UZIs of multiple types in 9mm and .45
- 4,199 Armalites including 291 AR-10s and 1046 AR-180s
- 3,124 Eagle AR-pattern firearms
- 2,924 Intratec branded guns, all variants of the TEC-9/AB-10 and TEC-22 pistol
- 2,732 Ruger firearms, mostly Mini-14 and Mini-30 rifles
- 2,199 FN/Browning/FNH with mainly FAL and FNC type rifles listed
- 2,189 SWD guns mostly Cobray and M10/11/12 MAC-style pistols
- 1,876 Arsenal made AK-pattern rifles in 7.62mm
- 1,461 DPMs, all AR-15 variants
- 1,457 Austrian Steyrs, almost all AUG-series 5.56mm rifles
- 1,303 Korean Daewoo firearms in several variants, almost all 5.56mm rifles but also 16 DR300s in 7.62 and 5 DP51 pistols
- 1,170 Franchi shotguns in the uber-scary SPAS 12 and LAW12 varieties
- 1,132 CAI/Century guns, primarily 7.62mm rifles
- 1,082 Hungarian FEG guns, mostly SA85 AK-style rifles
- 914 Auto Ordnance, typically all Thompson 1927 style carbines
- 770 Imbel L1A1 type rifles in 7.62mm
- 693 DSA rifles, all SA58 models
- 526 Enterprise Arms 7.62mm rifles
- 496 Berettas including some 122 AR-70s and 60 rare BM-59s
- 445 SIGs, including 122 P-series pistols and 139 SG550 5.56mm rifles
- 392 Benellis, split roughly between their M1 and M3 tactical shotguns
The rest of the 3,000~ word report over at Guns.com along with a photo gallery of some of the more interesting guns here.
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