That much, I agree with. The rightful owners should get their stuff back, so far as they can reasonably be determined.
Suppose they had a stolen gear shift know. Does this mean that the state has the right to steal their whole car or just take the shift knob?
Since when are gear shift knobs assigned VIN #s? There are specific violations that merit this punishment under California law, namely the use of parts with altered, defaced, or missing serial VIN #'s. These are major, structural parts of the vehicle. Everybody in the car-mod scene KNOWS exactly what that means - the parts are from a chop shop. If the ricers are gonna use parts they have every reason to know and believe are stolen, then I have no problem with the stated penalty being imposed. If they want to avoid such penalties, they should be more scrupulous about where they get their engines and trannys.
If you unknowingly purchase a stolen DVD player at a flea market does this mean that the state has the right to burn your house to the ground?
Reductio ad absurdum. A stolen engine in a car is an integral part thereof. A DVD player is not part of your house. However, if your house was being used to warehouse stolen DVD players that "fell off the truck", and they were discovered there while investigating you for cooking meth or fertilizer and diesel bombs in your kitchen, I could see a possible compelling state interest in removing said house from your possession. Your purpose in owning such premises consists of using them for illegal pursuits. The presumption is that, if returned to your keeping, you will return to the same illegal uses.
Thanks for the explanation of what exactly is behind this car crushing business, it helps to clarify things a little. So what parts of a car exactly are relavent under this law? What parts of a car are stamped with VINs, rather than just a serial number of some sort? It IS certainly suspicious, generally speaking, when serial number or VINs have been removed from anything.