CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 29, 2022 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“STATE’S GUN
LAWS HELP QUELL TRAGEDIES, SHOULD BE COPIED”
Yes,
there have been several examples of completely unprovoked mass gun violence in
California. But no, it’s not nearly on the same scale as in the rest of
America.
Yet,
there is some commonality: Most mass crimes committed with firearms in this
state over the last several years were perpetrated by shooters aged 21 and
under. Just like recent massacres in Texas, Illinois, Buffalo, NY and many
other places.
But gun
mortality rates in California are far lower than in other states, especially
the big ones we are most often and most appropriately compared with.
In 2020,
researchers say, this state’s rate of firearm deaths was one of the lowest in
America, at 8.5 per 100,000 residents. That compared with 13.7 per 100,000
nationally and in Florida and 14.2 per 100,000 in Texas, where Republican Gov.
Greg Abbott prompted state legislators last year to make open and closed
(hidden) carry pretty much a universal right. All this came before the U.S.
Supreme Court this summer made open and closed carry essentially a nationwide
right for adults.
While
some Californians will die and have died in shootups like the 2019 Poway
synagogue incident and a springtime Sacramento mass killing, residents of this
state are about 25 percent less likely to die from a bullet wound than other
Americans.
That is
thanks to a panoply of state laws, some governing ammunition purchase, some
dealing with background checks and others with age limits.
These
laws are one reason we don’t hear much about “Saturday Night Specials” anymore.
Those were cheap handguns with low standards for design and safety, readily
available for street-corner purchase. Recent California laws cut that trade far below its previous levels.
Now we hear more about “ghost guns,” often home-built from designs available on
the Internet.
One new
law pushed and quickly signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom this year will use the
principle okayed by the Supreme Court when it ruled a current Texas
anti-abortion law constitutional:
The Texas
law allows private citizens to sue anyone who promotes or assists an abortion
in any way, even if the plaintiff has never met the abortion patient or
provider. That law puts anyone who helps a woman get the procedure at risk for
major monetary penalties.
Newsom
has now put makers, designers, dealers and on-line promoters of ghost guns at
similar risk.
There’s
also a Newsom effort to make Californians much more aware than they are today
about the state’s 2014 “red flag” law, allowing family members and a few others
to request court orders forbidding firearm access for persons with mental
illness or emotional problems, considering them risks to themselves and others.
This law
has been little used, but the gun lobby is now working to stymie proposals for
similar rules in other states, alleging they violate the Constitution’s Second
Amendment. So far, there are few signs this idea will catch on significantly
across the nation. Still, Newsom promised last month to invest $11 million in
state education funds to promote it here.
President
Biden wants national laws to go much farther than California’s in controlling
firearms, asking for a ban on private ownership of assault weapons and
high-capacity magazines often used in school shootings and other multi-fatal
incidents.
He also
wants to eliminate the federal law giving gun makers immunity from financial
liability when their products are used to kill dozens, as in Uvalde, Tex., and
the 2012 Sandy Hook school shootings in Connecticut.
Even
after 15 Republican senators joined Democrats to pass a gun control bill in
June, there’s no reason to believe its funding for red flag protections will be
used in most states. GOP governors like Abbott often claim mental illness, not
guns, causes most mass shootings. If that’s true, why don’t they even try to
enforce the new national red flag rules or push similar state laws?
The
bottom line: Newsom is right in saying California is safer – even if far from
completely safe – because of its gun laws. And if, as is often intoned piously,
we’re all in this together, let’s see more states adopt the kind of laws that
now protect Californians more than most others.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias
at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most
Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It,"
is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
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