I actually know Grant fairly well, we were neighbors in my old neighborhood about 10 years ago. Couldn't meet a nicer, harder working guy, did firewall network engineering for AT&T at the time I think. He bought a Ruger handgun from a police officer, went through the required FFL dealer/transfer procedures, filled out the ATF registration forms, and apparently the handgun wasn't on the magical "CA Dept of Justice Approved List" so the ATF went after him like an arms smuggler. This was a regular Ruger handgun, lets not miss sight of that. In Nevada or Arizona, it would be perfectly legal to buy in a parking lot.