- [Narrator] Take a look at these two guns.
One is an AR-15 Style Rifle,
that's been altered with something called
a Juggernaut Tactical Hellfighter Kit.
The other is a classic Colt AR-15.
The two guns look kind of different.
But they have a lot of the same features.
And a lot of similarities in how they shoot.
The biggest difference you actually can't see.
One has been illegal in California
for more than 30 years, which is why we had to use a photo.
The other you can buy at a local gun store.
Over the past few decades lawmakers in California
have repeatedly tried to ban
what they define as assault weapons.
And each time gun manufacturers responded
by making small changes so they could continue
selling that style of gun in the state.
One of these guns, an AR-15 style rifle
was used in April in a shooting
at a synagogue near San Diego.
Despite California's bans, the gun the shooter was using
was perfectly legal in the state,
according to law enforcement officials
familiar with the investigation.
To understand how this happened,
you have to look at how guns in the state have evolved.
First here's the Colt AR-15 again.
This is approximately what AR-15s looked like
back before the state's first ban in 1989.
And what they still look like in states
that haven't passed bans.
It has a pistol grip and a flash suppressor,
features that California lawmakers have since said
make the weapons particularly dangerous.
This type of gun was banned in 1989
after a gunman entered a school
in Stockton, California, and opened fire.
He killed five, and injured 32 others, using an AK-47.
After that, the state passed the Roberti-Roos
Assault Weapons Control Act,
which bans certain guns by name.
- There was a lot of outrage, and this was the impetus
for the first assault weapons ban
in the nation, in California.
- [Narrator] In response, gunmakers started
developing similar guns with different names.
That meant that guns like the Colt AR-15
were changed slightly and resold
with names like the Colt Sporter.
Then, in 1999, lawmakers amended the law
to ban weapons with specific parts.
Such as semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines,
pistol grips, thumbhole stocks, folding stocks,
grenade launcher, flash suppressors,
and forward pistol grips.
But there was a way around this.
Guns with fixed magazines could keep these features.
- One of the areas they focused on was making it
harder for mass shooters to reload
and have as many rounds of ammunition in their magazine.
The definition of a fixed magazine
was that you couldn't remove it without a tool.
And the manufacturers realized that
a tool could be a bullet.
- [Narrator] So gunmakers modified guns so the magazines
could be changed with a single bullet,
which met the state's definition of a tool.
This allowed them to keep the banned features
and still sell guns with magazines
that could be changed without much trouble.
This became known as the Bullet Button Loophole.
This bullet button modification
was legal in California for around a decade.
Then, in 2015, two shooters stormed a holiday gathering
in San Bernardino, California, and killed 14 people.
They were carrying AR-15 style rifles
with bullet buttons they had bought in California
and then illegally altered.
After the shooting, lawmakers tried to pass new legislation.
This time they focused on closing
the Bullet Button Loophole.
- This incident caught the attention
of a state lawmaker by the name of Steve Glazer.
And he decides he wants to try to close
this so-called Bullet Button Loophole.
And so he does something to ban these bullet button guns,
and what he does is changes the definition
of a fixed magazine to one that cannot be removed
without the disassembly of the firearm action.
- [Narrator] The law passed, which meant
bullet button guns were banned.
And yet again modifications were made
so that more AR style features could be kept.
Remember the AR style rifle with
the Juggernaut Tactical Hellfighter from the beginning?
The Juggernaut Tactical Hellfighter
is a kit that alters an assault style rifle
so that users can change the magazine
by cracking open the action just a hair, like this.
Gun dealers say this legally counts
as disassembly of the firearm action.
So gunmakers started here.
And decades later, after multiple assault weapon bans,
they ended here.
- If you talk to any gun dealer or person who shoots guns,
they'll tell you a California compliant AR-15,
as they are called, shoots just the same as a normal AR-15.
The bullet's going just as fast.
- [Narrator] Smith and Wesson, Ruger, Colt, and Juggernaut
did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson from the National Shooting Sports Foundation,
a trade group for gun manufacturers,
said of the state laws, "They're basing the bans
strictly on cosmetic features that have no bearing
on the operation or the function of the firearm."
A spokesperson for the California state attorney general
declined to comment on the modified weapons.