California Senator Leland Yee, who was later convicted of arms trafficking, attempted to have the bullet button outlawed in California, as did U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein at the federal level; both attempts failed. On April 20, 2016, California state lawmakers gave initial approval of a bill that prohibited the sale of rifles with the bullet button. This was in response to a December 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, despite the fact that the perpetrators, Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, used rifles that had their bullet buttons illegally removed. In July, the legislation was signed by the governor, and sales of bullet button-equipped rifles in late 2016 were reported by the "Los Angeles Times" to have doubled in anticipation of a January 1, 2017, ban on sales of new such rifles.