Quoted:
Alright, I feel like an idiot here, but I have one postban AR - what are you guys talking about when you refer to "registering" your AW's (prebans I assume)????
View Quote
You're no idiot Dave, you just live in a normal state.
In Californistan there have been two laws, one passed in 1989 and another in 1999, that stigmatized all AR-15 type rifles and many other firearms as "assault weapons". The last AR-15 I acquired (legally) was at a gun show in June 2000, and I'd bet it's one of the last thousand or so bought in the state (legally).
Both AW laws required owners of existing arms to pay a $20 fee and register them with the Caliban Ministry of Justice. Once registered they can be kept and used (with some restrictions) but never sold or transferred (even by inheritance) to another individual inside Californistan.
Of the hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of state-defined AWs in Cali, only a few tens of thousands have been registered. The deadline is long past, and there is no way to legally buy an AW or register one you already own. They've become like the hundreds of thousands of military weapons that disappeared when troops came home from WW II and Korea and 'Nam and never got registered with the BATF under the amnesty periods (because they were stolen government property or because people didn't want to be on a list).
I registered two of my ARs and a few other items so I could shoot them on public ranges without excessive fear of persecution. I didn't register everything I could have registered - during 1999 it was possible to avoid having some items become "AWs" by reconfiguring them.
I take an AR to a range on occasion. Usually I don't because I don't want to wear them out. They're part of my TEOTWAWKI kit.