Damon Arthur, (Redding) Record Searchlight

Gun owners in California will see new laws go into effect in 2018 affecting assault weapons owners and how ammunition can be purchased.

Beginning Jan. 1, Californians can no longer order ammunition online and have it delivered to their home.

All ammunition has to be purchased through a state licensed firearms dealer, said Patrick Jones of Jones Fort gun shop in Redding.

While the end of online ammo purchasing begins in 2018, a second ammunition restriction kicks in beginning in 2019 when ammunition purchasers must pass a background check to buy bullets and shotgun shells.

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While the new state law, passed by voters in 2016, forces people to purchase ammunition from local brick-and-mortar stores like his, Jones said he was still against it.

He predicted people will go out of state to purchase ammunition to get around the new laws.

“It’s a tyrannical law and they simply will not do it,” Jones said.

Another law — referred to as the “bullet button ban” — also goes into effect this year. People who own assault rifles with magazines that detach with a bullet button are required to register their guns with the state Department of Justice by the end of June.

The bullet button is a device that requires a pointed tool, which can be the tip of a bullet, to release the rifle magazine. The state required assault weapon owners to register guns with bullet buttons or other other forms of detachable magazines.

However, owners can modify their guns to get around the registration requirement, said Rich Howell, general manager of Olde West Gun & Loan in Redding.

A semiautomatic rifle with such features as a collapsible stock, a pistol grip that extends below the trigger guard, a flash hider at the end of the barrel and a detachable magazine need to be registered in California, Howell said.

But manufacturers and gun shops have developed a workaround to make AR-15-type semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines legal under California law.

Remove the pistol grip, collapsible stock and flash hider and gun owners can keep the detachable magazine and no registration is needed, Howell said.

There are stock configurations that can be purchased that legally incorporate the pistol grip and stock, he said.

Gun owners can also have a different magazine release button — called a “patriot pin” — installed on the gun, he said. However, using a patriot pin enables the magazine to be released only after the action has been opened, slowing reloading time, Howell said.

The state Legislature may eventually outlaw the various ways manufacturers have found to get around gun restrictions, he said. If it does, they will develop new workarounds, he said.

“They can pass all the laws they want, and I can guarantee you we are going to find a way around them,” Howell said.

The third gun law that goes into effect in 2018 is the ban on carrying rifles and shotguns in unincorporated areas in counties throughout the state, Howell said.

However, that law won’t apply in Shasta County. Boards of supervisors of individual counties must enact the law before it goes into effect in their county, he said.

The Shasta County Board of Supervisors has not banned open carry of long guns in the county, he said.