{"id":79695,"date":"2022-04-07T17:53:19","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T22:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=79695"},"modified":"2022-04-07T17:53:19","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T22:53:19","slug":"79695","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=79695","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

California\u2019s gun restrictions are a failure<\/a><\/p>\n

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IN SUMMARY<\/strong><\/p>\n

California has the nation\u2019s most restrictive gun laws but they have failed to stem the increase in gun ownership, the availability of illegal guns by criminals or gun violence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Inevitably, last weekend\u2019s horrendous fusillade of bullets on a downtown Sacramento street that left six people dead and at least a dozen wounded generated demands for new gun controls in state that already has\u00a0the nation\u2019s most restrictive firearms laws<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, if anything, what happened just two blocks from the state Capitol underscores the folly of believing that \u201cgun violence\u201d can be meaningfully reduced by trying to choke off the supply of firearms \u2013 any more than the prohibition of liquor or the war on drugs succeeded.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s gun laws have hassled law-abiding hunters and gun hobbyists and some are\u00a0in danger of being declared unconstitutional<\/a>. However, Californians\u00a0already own more than 20 million rifles, shotguns and handguns\u00a0<\/a>and are buying hundreds of thousands more each year.<\/p>\n

Nor have these laws prevented the lawless from obtaining weapons via theft,\u00a0smuggling from other states<\/a>\u00a0or the illicit manufacture of untraceable \u201cghost guns.\u201d Indeed, state restrictions have made the black market even more lucrative, mirroring the side effects of Prohibition and the decades-long drug war.<\/p>\n

Initial evidence indicates that those who fired more than 100 rounds in a street crowded with bar and nightclub patrons probably were violating one or more gun laws. The\u00a0two brothers that police arrested<\/a>\u00a0and are suspected of involvement in the mass shooting were charged with illegal possession of weapons \u2013 one for possession of an illegal fully automatic firearm.<\/p>\n

So why, if California\u2019s much-vaunted gun control laws have failed to choke off the supply of legal and illegal weapons, do politicians continue to claim that enacting even more will have an effect?<\/p>\n

Some may believe it, the evidence notwithstanding, while others want to appear to be doing something about a problem because they don\u2019t have any other answers. And those who propose and enact new gun laws are often woefully ignorant about guns or even existing laws.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the shooting, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg lamented to a radio interviewer about California\u2019s difficulty in reducing the number of guns, saying, \u201cYou just have to go to a gun show in Reno to buy an assault weapon without a background check and come right back to California.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advocates of more laws often cite a \u201cgun show loophole\u201d but it\u2019s a myth.\u00a0Under federal law<\/a>, one must be a resident of Nevada and undergo a federal background check to legally buy a gun in Reno.<\/p>\n

Moreover, while California professes to have banned \u201cassault weapons,\u201d the state\u2019s\u00a0definition of them involves cosmetic features<\/a>, rather than their lethality. Perfectly legal semi-automatic rifles that lack those features are available for sale everywhere in the state.<\/p>\n

The newest effort at gun control in California, backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, would authorize personal lawsuits against the manufacturers and sellers of illegal assault rifles or ghost guns, mirroring a new Texas law allowing suits against those who perform abortions.<\/p>\n

The legislation,\u00a0Senate Bill 1327<\/a>, is just a stunt \u2013 one of Newsom\u2019s periodic jabs at a rival state. Those who could be sued under the bill are already committing criminal acts in California and a federal law prohibits suits against manufacturers of legal firearms, including the \u201cassault weapons\u201d that California and a few other states purport \u2013 but fail \u2013 to outlaw.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is this:\u00a0Actor Alec Baldwin\u2019s claims notwithstanding<\/a>, guns don\u2019t fire on their own. Someone must accidentally or purposely pull the trigger and that should be the focus of efforts to reduce violence \u2013 such as more vigorous enforcement of laws banning gun possession by felons and those under court order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

California\u2019s gun restrictions are a failure IN SUMMARY California has the nation\u2019s most restrictive gun laws but they have failed to stem the increase in gun ownership, the availability of illegal guns by criminals or gun violence. Inevitably, last weekend\u2019s horrendous fusillade of bullets on a downtown Sacramento street that left six people dead and … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goobermint","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79696,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79695\/revisions\/79696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}