California law is on line at Code Search; gun laws are principally in the Penal Code, but a few are in other Codes. Please note that the Penal Code was renumbered in 2012, and substantially all of the '12000' numbered sections were moved to the '16000' section, "Control of Deadly Weapons". Resources using the 12000s are out of date - even pages at the DOJ.
The text of the laws does NOT include the results of court cases; there is no requirement that the Legislature amend the codes when a court rules a part is unconstitutional or interprets the 'black letter law' differently. The prominent example is Penal Code 16840, "Loaded" - that was severely modified by the court case People v Clark (1996) 45 Cal.App.4th 1147 , 53 Cal.Rptr.2d 99.
California bills in the legislature are on line here. Bills are not yet laws. When quoting laws, it is much better to quote from the on line code than from a bill - there is a process of making bills conform with each other, performed when all the interacting bills have been Chaptered, and the actual law may be different from what is in the last versions of the bills.
The text of the laws does NOT include the results of court cases; there is no requirement that the Legislature amend the codes when a court rules a part is unconstitutional or interprets the 'black letter law' differently. The prominent example is Penal Code 16840, "Loaded" - that was severely modified by the court case People v Clark (1996) 45 Cal.App.4th 1147 , 53 Cal.Rptr.2d 99.
California bills in the legislature are on line here. Bills are not yet laws. When quoting laws, it is much better to quote from the on line code than from a bill - there is a process of making bills conform with each other, performed when all the interacting bills have been Chaptered, and the actual law may be different from what is in the last versions of the bills.
Last edited:
