12125-12133
PENAL CODE
SECTION 12125-12133
12125. (a) Commencing January 1, 2001, any person in this state who
manufactures or causes to be manufactured, imports into the state
for sale, keeps for sale, offers or exposes for sale, gives, or lends
any unsafe handgun shall be punished by imprisonment in a county
jail not exceeding one year.
(b) This section shall not apply to any of the following:
(1) The manufacture in this state, or importation into this state,
of any prototype pistol, revolver, or other firearm capable of being
concealed upon the person when the manufacture or importation is for
the sole purpose of allowing an independent laboratory certified by
the Department of Justice pursuant to Section 12130 to conduct an
independent test to determine whether that pistol, revolver, or other
firearm capable of being concealed upon the person is prohibited by
this chapter, and, if not, allowing the department to add the firearm
to the roster of pistols, revolvers, and other firearms capable of
being concealed upon the person that may be sold in this state
pursuant to Section 12131.
(2) The importation or lending of a pistol, revolver, or other
firearm capable of being concealed upon the person by employees or
authorized agents of entities determining whether the weapon is
prohibited by this section.
(3) Firearms listed as curios or relics, as defined in Section
478.11 of Title 27 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
(4) The sale or purchase of any pistol, revolver or other firearm
capable of being concealed upon the person, if the pistol, revolver,
or other firearm is sold to, or purchased by, the Department of
Justice, any police department, any sheriff's official, any marshal's
office, the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, the California
Highway Patrol, any district attorney's office, or the military or
naval forces of this state or of the United States for use in the
discharge of their official duties. Nor shall anything in this
section prohibit the sale to, or purchase by, sworn members of these
agencies of any pistol, revolver, or other firearm capable of being
concealed upon the person.
(c) Violations of subdivision (a) are cumulative with respect to
each handgun and shall not be construed as restricting the
application of any other law. However, an act or omission punishable
in different ways by this section and other provisions of law shall
not be punished under more than one provision, but the penalty to be
imposed shall be determined as set forth in Section 654.
12126. As used in this chapter, "unsafe handgun" means any pistol,
revolver, or other firearm capable of being concealed upon the
person, as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 12001, for which any
of the following is true:
(a) For a revolver:
(1) It does not have a safety device that, either automatically in
the case of a double-action firing mechanism, or by manual operation
in the case of a single-action firing mechanism, causes the hammer
to retract to a point where the firing pin does not rest upon the
primer of the cartridge.
(2) It does not meet the firing requirement for handguns pursuant
to Section 12127.
(3) It does not meet the drop safety requirement for handguns
pursuant to Section 12128.
(b) For a pistol:
(1) It does not have a positive manually operated safety device,
as determined by standards relating to imported guns promulgated by
the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
(2) It does not meet the firing requirement for handguns pursuant
to Section 12127.
(3) It does not meet the drop safety requirement for handguns
pursuant to Section 12128.
(4) Commencing January 1, 2006, for a center fire semiautomatic
pistol that is not already listed on the roster pursuant to Section
12131, it does not have either a chamber load indicator, or a
magazine disconnect mechanism.
(5) Commencing January 1, 2007, for all center fire semiautomatic
pistols that are not already listed on the roster pursuant to Section
12131, it does not have both a chamber load indicator and if it has
a detachable magazine, a magazine disconnect mechanism.
(6) Commencing January 1, 2006, for all rimfire semiautomatic
pistols that are not already listed on the roster pursuant to Section
12131, it does not have a magazine disconnect mechanism, if it has a
detachable magazine.
(7) Commencing January 1, 2010, for all semiautomatic pistols that
are not already listed on the roster pursuant to Section 12131, it
is not designed and equipped with a microscopic array of characters
that identify the make, model, and serial number of the pistol,
etched or otherwise imprinted in two or more places on the interior
surface or internal working parts of the pistol, and that are
transferred by imprinting on each cartridge case when the firearm is
fired, provided that the Department of Justice certifies that the
technology used to create the imprint is available to more than one
manufacturer unencumbered by any patent restrictions. The Attorney
General may also approve a method of equal or greater reliability and
effectiveness in identifying the specific serial number of a firearm
from spent cartridge casings discharged by that firearm than that
which is set forth in this paragraph, to be thereafter required as
otherwise set forth by this paragraph where the Attorney General
certifies that this new method is also unencumbered by any patent
restrictions. Approval by the Attorney General shall include notice
of that fact via regulations adopted by the Attorney General for
purposes of implementing that method for purposes of this paragraph.
The microscopic array of characters required by this section shall
not be considered the name of the maker, model, manufacturer's
number, or other mark of identification, including any distinguishing
number or mark assigned by the Department of Justice, within the
meaning of Sections 12090 and 12094.
(c) As used in this section, a "chamber load indicator" means a
device that plainly indicates that a cartridge is in the firing
chamber. A device satisfies this definition if it is readily visible,
has incorporated or adjacent explanatory text or graphics, or both,
and is designed and intended to indicate to a reasonably foreseeable
adult user of the pistol, without requiring the user to refer to a
user's manual or any other resource other than the pistol itself,
whether a cartridge is in the firing chamber.
(d) As used in this section, a "magazine disconnect mechanism"
means a mechanism that prevents a semiautomatic pistol that has a
detachable magazine from operating to strike the primer of ammunition
in the firing chamber when a detachable magazine is not inserted in
the semiautomatic pistol.
(e) As used in this section, a "semiautomatic pistol" means a
pistol, as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 12001, the operating
mode of which uses the energy of the explosive in a fixed cartridge
to extract a fired cartridge and chamber a fresh cartridge with each
single pull of the trigger.
12127. (a) As used in this chapter, the "firing requirement for
handguns" means a test in which the manufacturer provides three
handguns of the make and model for which certification is sought to
an independent testing laboratory certified by the Attorney General
pursuant to Section 12130. These handguns may not be refined or
modified in any way from those that would be made available for
retail sale if certification is granted. The magazines of a tested
pistol shall be identical to those that would be provided with the
pistol to a retail customer. The laboratory shall fire 600 rounds
from each gun, stopping after each series of 50 rounds has been fired
for 5 to 10 minutes to allow the weapon to cool, stopping after each
series of 100 rounds has been fired to tighten any loose screws and
clean the gun in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions, and
stopping as needed to refill the empty magazine or cylinder to
capacity before continuing. The ammunition used shall be of the type
recommended by the handgun manufacturer in the user manual, or if
none is recommended, any standard ammunition of the correct caliber
in new condition that is commercially available. A handgun shall pass
this test if each of the three test guns meets both of the
following:
(1) Fires the first 20 rounds without a malfunction that is not
due to ammunition that fails to detonate.
(2) Fires the full 600 rounds with no more than six malfunctions
that are not due to ammunition that fails to detonate and without any
crack or breakage of an operating part of the handgun that increases
the risk of injury to the user.
(b) If a pistol or revolver fails the requirements of either
paragraph (1) or (2) of subdivision (a) due to ammunition that fails
to detonate, the pistol or revolver shall be retested from the
beginning of the "firing requirement for handguns" test. A new model
of the pistol or revolver that failed due to ammunition that fails to
detonate may be submitted for the test to replace the pistol or
revolver that failed.
(c) As used in this section, "malfunction" means a failure to
properly feed, fire, or eject a round, or failure of a pistol to
accept or eject the magazine, or failure of a pistol's slide to
remain open after the magazine has been expended.
12128. As used in this chapter, the "drop safety requirement for
handguns" means that at the conclusion of the firing requirements for
handguns described in Section 12127, the same certified independent
testing laboratory shall subject the same three handguns of the make
and model for which certification is sought, to the following test:
A primed case (no powder or projectile) shall be inserted into the
chamber. For pistols, the slide shall be released, allowing it to
move forward under the impetus of the recoil spring, and an empty
magazine shall be inserted. For both pistols and revolvers, the
weapon shall be placed in a drop fixture capable of dropping the
pistol from a drop height of 1m + 1cm (39.4 + 0.4 in.) onto the
largest side of a slab of solid concrete having minimum dimensions of
7.5