Big breh niner. Got two questions for you ese, would I be able to purchase a semi auto rifle in az and keep it in Cali and can I have a medical card and still be a gun owner
I think this is accurate, it's all real confusing, but...
As a AZ resident you can buy a long-gun (hunting rifles and the like) there, then when you move to CA and become a CA resident; keep it. If the move is happening after 01/01/14, it'll need to be registered, the same rules that apply to handguns now (I think it's $20). They don't specifically need to be CA compliant, just registered within 60 days of coming in. But you cant have mags larger than 10 rounds, unless its kept disassembled as a 'kit'.
If you're referring to an AR-15 style gun, it needs to feature CA compliant features before being brought in, i.e., 10 round mag, bullet button, and not be of a make that's been previously banned and not CA registered here.
Example:
If you have to come here, check the make and model of all your AK/AR rifles and check it against the CA DOJ's "assault weapons" list. If it's on the list, you can't take it, period.
If your AR/AK rifles aren't listed on the ban list, then you can take it, just be sure to install the required bullet button device on the gun. Thankfully, the device is not permanent and can be switched back to regular configuration should you move out of state or visit home with your guns.
Those last two are very important. If you own, for example, a Colt AR15A2 and you want to slap a bullet button device in it and call it good, you'd be a felon. All of Colt's AR15 rifles are listed on the banned list, so essentially there's nothing you can do to make the rifle legal. You could use the upper and all the lower parts, but you'd have to use a lower receiver that's off the list, such as a Stag-15 or a Spikes ST15 or something that's not on the list. If you owned a Stag-15, for example, then all you'd have to do is install the bullet button device, and the rifle is perfectly fine, so long as you don't use 30-rounders with the gun
This link is a flowchart to determine where you're long-gun falls.
CalGuns Foundation AW Flowchart
The short answer, you can never bring an 'assault weapon' into CA, ever. So if what you has is, and you can make it not, then its ok...lol...
With your medical card:
As far as the federal gov, atf is concerned, absolutely NO, marijuana is a drug point, blank, period as far as the feds are concerned, and if you use drugs you cannot own a firearm.
BUT!
1) This has no bearing on anything you'll be bringing into California.
2) When you buy a gun in CA there's no telling you have a card unless you volunteer that info, and why the hell would you do that?
Gun shops don't/wont cross check if you're on any kind of medical list, and since you're stating on your required federal registration form that you do not use controlled substances, unless you reek like weed or offer the gun salesman a hit, nobody should know anything, and you'll be fine.