Dan Weintraub has a transcript of a recent interview with the KFBK radio host Tom Sullivan in Sacramento. Unfortunately, Sullivan didn’t ask what Arnold was going to do about the gun-related bills that are still on his desk. They did briefly discuss his alleged reason for signing AB 50, the .50 BMG ban, however:

SULLIVAN: One of the — well, in fact, there was an article in the Sacramento News and Review with Jill Stewart, who also writes for LA Weekly. “The harebrained content of bad bills proposed by legislators is progressing from dumb to dumber,” and goes through a long list. So, you’re talking about the silly bills, and she too has a long list of silly bills.

But when it comes to some of these controversial ones — I mean, I presume you could probably count on one hand the controversial bills. You’ve got 4 or 5 — I forget how many, I think it’s 4 — about guns. You’ve already signed one on limited 50 caliber. I’ve got some email saying, you know, what’s the matter with the Governor on that? You know, somebody that was very upset with you about that.

[...]

GOVERNOR: As much as, like I said, with the gun situation, with the 50 caliber rifle that’s supposed to, you know, shoot an apple off someone’s head from a mile and a half away. So, you know, after doing research we found out that this could be a danger for terrorism and all this stuff, so therefore we should put it in a category of an assault weapon, and therefore outlaw it.

So, there are reasons like that, although I believe in having guns. I’ve shot guns and pistols and go out practicing all the time. But there are certain weapons like that we have to be careful, because in the end we want to protect our law enforcement community, and we want to protect the people of California.

Sigh. Unfortunately, neither Sullivan nor the Governator seemed to notice the irony of discussing “silly” bills in one breath and AB 50 in the next. It would be interesting, though, to see the “research” that supposedly shows that .50 BMG rifles would be useful for terrorism and all this stuff, and if so, why this caliber has rarely if ever been used in a crime before. It would be even more interesting to see what part of the research indicates that a ban on .50 BMG rifles in California only will do a f’n thing to stop any terrorist from getting his hands on such a weapon if he wanted one, which he probably doesn’t. I’ll take a tiny bit of comfort from Arnold’s insistence that he generally supports the right to bear arms, but in the end, actions speak louder than words.

SB 1140 and SB 1152 are real turkeys, which Arnold has yet to sign or veto. If he vetos both, after having signed AB 50, he may be positioning himself as a moderate on the gun control issue, just anti-gun enough to piss off us gunnies, and just pro-gun enough to disappoint the Dianne Feinsteins of the world, while pleasing no one. That’s better than having a true gun-grabber like Feinstein in office, of course, but in the long run it will not be good for the state, as each governor will sign just a few more bad gun laws, veto the rest, and wait for the next governor to repeat the cycle. We saw that with George Deukmejian, who was by far the most conservative governor California has had in my lifetime (or memory, anyway), but who also signed the 1989 “assault” rifle ban. We saw it with his successor, Pete Wilson, who signed one law requiring the “I’m not an idiot” test for handgun purchases, another extending handgun registration requirements to new residents moving in from other states, and third prohibiting police chiefs from issuing CCWs to residents of other cities in their county (they were already prohibited from issuing to residents of other counties). We saw it with Gray Davis, who beefed up the “assault” weapons ban, and also signed the “junk” gun ban that added unnecessary red tape to all sales of new handgun models, including my .50 S&W revolver, before telling the Legislature he’d had his fill of new gun laws, at least for a while. On the flip side, only one of these three, Pete Wilson, actually managed to do anything good for gun owners. He signed the bill that lowered the handgun waiting period from 15 days to 10, but even that came at a political cost of raising the waiting period for long guns to the same amount. So by and large, the history of compromising in California is not good, and won’t become so until/unless we elect a Legislature that is not controlled by GFWs. Some analysts think Arnold’s popularity will help the Republicans pick up a few seats this fall. If it does, and all the other GFW bills get their well-deserved vetos, I will almost be able to forgive Arnold for banning huge, bulky rifles I can’t afford anyway. Almost.