The permits are essentially permission to import (and in the process REGISTER) AWs into the state.  Over the last 25 months that the ban has been in effect, exactly ZERO permits have been approved.  Unless you're one of those $100,000-per-year donors to Davis or Lockyer's re-election campaign, you can forget about it.

It's the same with machine-gun permits, which require STATE (not just local CLEO) approval to buy/transfer.  Even the movie biz machinegun rentals can no longer operate in the PRK, which is one of the reasons so many movies are being made in Canada and Australia now.

-Troy

First, as has been mentioned, forget the permit. Even [i]IF[/i] you could get one, they are highly cost-prohibitive, with firearms storage requirements second only to Fort Knox, not to mention the high cost of the permit itself.

Second, Troy is right about the movie gun rental business. Stembridge liquidated their inventory as a direct consequence of a Caliban edict that made it illegal to sell machine guns [i]out of state![/i] Stembridge couldn't sell them in state or out of state, so what was he to do with them? He saw the potential for his collection to become worthless, so he sold most of his stuff on Bower's board, and some of the collectibles like guns used by John Wayne, Errol Flynn, etal, were sold privately.

Stembridge could have gone to court but he saw the handwriting on the wall. Their demise was really a shame because they had been supplying guns to the movie business going all the way back to the silent movies in Charlie Chaplin's heyday.

Only one gun rental company stuck it out AFAIK and decided to go to court if they had to, but they were on the verge of going out of business about a year ago. They may have already gone under for all I know. It's remarkable how the TV and movie industry has all but abandoned California. What was once California's golden child is now California's bastard child. In fact, a few weeks ago Gray (RED) Davis announced a multi-billion dollar incentive (Hollywood welfare) package to get the entertainment industry to bring their dollars back to California.

I haven't seen the movie, but they often use non-functinoal rubber gun casts for the on-location scenes, and shoot the actual shooting action elsewhere (a sound-stage or another location).

They also break the law frequently, such as cutting down a shotgun to make a "sawed-off", using it for the duration of filming, then destroying it as soon as shooting is done.  This is totally illegal, but they have de facto license to do this from the local cops, as they provide lots of jobs and money to the area, including armed security for off-duty cops.

-Troy

The permit system is simply there to provide politically-connected insiders with a way to bypass the law.  No one with any experience believed for a second that they would be made available to any "normal" person, and to date, ZERO permits have been issued.  That's what happens when the police and/or government officials have "discretion" on whether to issue permits, be it CCW or AW.  It becomes a crony system.

-Troy

Dave_G, the info I got about Stembridge Gun Rentals came from a good friend of mine who worked there over ten years. Then he went to work for ISS, another movie gun rental company. AFAIK, ISS is still in the business of renting machine guns and high capacity magazines [i]in California![/i]. ISS may not be the only one left, but at present they're the biggest, but they have nowhere near the inventory Stembridge had.

Stembridge closed their doors around the summer of 1999, before SB23 went into effect. There were no new laws that went into effect at that time. What did them in was a ruling from CA DOJ and the fact that movies and TV shows are increasingly shot in Canada. Canada is very friendly to the TV/movie business and there are numerous movie gun rental businesses up there.