So, I'm going to completely ignore the whose-country-is-more-dangerous pissing match and you should too. I want to do some disambiguation because at first this whole SB249 made no sense to me.
However, as a gun owner in Washington State, I'm a little confused by both California's specific breed of the Assault Weapons ban and the pragmatism of the bill itself. I have an AR-15 myself, and I go to gun shows and the like, and I can say I see TONS of AR's (and other rifles) which violate California's assault weapons ban. For example, I'd never seen an AR that
didn't have a pistol grip until I saw them online just now. I had also never heard of a "bullet button".
Apparently, it goes like so: Any rifle-sized, semi-automatic, centerfire
RIFLE with a
removable magazine AND a pistol grip, flash suppressor, folding stock, or some other things (including grenade launchers, which I would expect to just be illegal on their own) is an illegal assault weapon. The "Bullet-button" exists only to skirt California's assault weapon law by removing the removable magazine part, and basically still having a removable magazine. I can completely see why they want to ban that, it's basically a loophole! The weapon you see below is a standard AR-15 in all 49 US States other than California, you can see it has a grip like a pistol. In California, you can attach a bullet button and boom, at the cost of a slower reload (and having to have no more than 10 rounds in a magazine) it's legal!
However, I think there are some huge problems with the initial ban itself. First and foremost, people will immediately use another loophole: the "featureless" AR-15: This doesn't have a pistol grip. It also can't have some mundane features, like a flash suppressor.
I REALLY recommend you watch the second video link in the OP, which features a weapon like this. As you can see, it reloads faster and has larger magazines than the current "bullet button" loophole design.
I do not see how this bill could possibly make people safer, as it is currently written. Keep in mind that the assault weapon ban prevents various kinds of rifles from being used, but NOT pistols. It bans short rifles and pistols with foregrips, which are more accurate than pistols, but I wouldn't say less "dangerous". I understand fully automatic weapons were banned not only because they were effective, but because of the danger of collateral damage. Currently, it would be legal to have a pistol with no foregrip that fires as many .556 rounds as an illegal AR-15: It would be just as deadly, but less accurate.
Keep in mind as well, that (as far as I'm aware) the
extremely power .50 caliber Browning Machine Gun round is still legal in California, and is used in rifles such as the one below, which can kill you through a wall or whatever. That's fucking scary, if they are trying to limit the amount of firepower a citizen can have, that seems like a logical place to start. It would be legal, because it is not semiautomatic.
I think the philosophy of rifles being more dangerous than pistols is a poor one; the rest of US firearms law considers a hidden weapon to more dangerous than a powerful weapon. SB249 will cause major inconveniences to AR-15 owners in California, but will not prevent AR-15s which are as or more powerful than the "bullet button" ones from being available. Even if certain AR-15's were illegal, anyone who really wanted one could easily acquire one out-of-state and bring to California, which would be trivial if they already were dead set on murdering somebody with their particular favorite kind of rifle.
Lastly, I see there is a strong anti-gun sentiment among many of you. I understand, really! But I would like you to know that shooting for hunting or sport is much more common than you probably realize. You might even be surprised to see who you know has a gun! In fact, I know a lot of gun owners who don't even vote republican (though I'm not gonna lie, there's some right-wing nuts too and if you visit a gun show you'll definitely see a republican majority). AR-15's are a somewhat expensive rifle used mostly for sport; they are not typically a murderer's weapon of choice. Cheaper and more convenient pistols, in my opinion, present a bigger danger and most people who are going to commit a crime with a firearm just take whatever they can find. I would also argue, though this is less certain, than banning guns because they are powerful simply means that only people already intent on breaking the law will have powerful guns.
Senate Bill 249, judging by my research, will not make California one iota safer. It will just cause a lot of inconvenience for AR-15 sport shooters. If you are strictly anti-gun and do not believe that citizens should possess deadly weapons, then you should encourage bills which do so directly. Just trying to pass every bill which restricts firearms will not help you cause. This bill in particular suggests that the people writing it do not really understand the weapons they are regulating, and presenting bills like this will only rally people in opposition of firearms regulations.
In short, taking things away from people is bad, and people dying is bad. Unless you're certain that taking things away will prevent enough people from dying to be worth it, don't do it. I don't think anyone's life will be saved because every AR-15 owner in California has to buy a featureless grip.