California’s method of registration required for “assault weapons” means soldiers deployed during the registration process were unable to enter their firearms into system.

As a result, those military personnel now run the risk of losing their firearms and could even face criminal charges for possessing unregistered weapons.

The NRA-ILA reports:

[The] CA DOJ’s chosen method of requiring all applications to be submitted online and include photographs of the firearms has prohibited many members of the military currently on deployment from registering. Because many members of the military were required to leave their personally owned firearms at home while on deployment, they were unable to obtain the required photographs for registration. And for those who somehow managed to obtain the required photographs, they were still faced with CA DOJ’s online registration system consistently crashing.

Failure to register could lead to criminal charges. And the NRA-ILA makes clear these charges could be felonies.

How do military members know whether their personal weapons fall under the category of “assault weapons” in California, and were therefore required registration? They could check the California Assault Weapons Identification Guide, but the one posted by the state is from 2001 and a current guide is “under revision.”

The CA Attorney General’s office says a more current guide–circa 2017–“will be released in the near future.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.