Gun control: How a US liberal learned to love guns

[Straw Man]

56. Oh FFS. How about the LA Times?

Airline pilot Bill Doss actually wrote to the California Justice Department to confirm that his SKS rifle was legal to bring into the state. The department told Doss--and hundreds of others--that the law only applied to one type of SKS rifle and that his was legal. Then a court read the law more broadly and made thousands of people accidental felons because they had relied on the department's position. An unprecedented retroactive immunity law, which included a multimillion-dollar SKS buy-back program, was passed in 1998.

Then there are problems with registrations. The law requires "assault weapons" to be registered and establishes grace periods. Preferring to know where these guns are and believing the law allowed it, former Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren continued to encourage and accept grace period registrations through 1998. Handgun Control Inc. sued him. When Bill Lockyer was elected attorney general, he dropped the opposition to the Handgun Control lawsuit. As a result, thousands of registrations were invalidated and owners were "dispossessed" of their guns without any payment. So in California, registration indeed did lead to confiscation.

-- http://articles.latimes.com/2001/jul/23/local/me-25465

Surely they fact-check their op-eds. Or do you require a notarized eyewitness statement?