Giving it Your Best Shot in a Very Blue State

 

LA Times Headline, July 6th: Handgun sales across the state jumped 65.5% amid pandemic

Like so many Americans, liberal Californians are reacting to the unchecked proliferation of guns among criminals, rulings that seem to limit the ability of communities to ban assault weapons and gun homicide statistics that are truly frightening; they want defensive guns in response. People cooped up with loved ones during the pandemic watched the status of “loved” rebound into ultra-violence. Gang violence also escalated. “‘While violent crime rates are still well below their historical highs in the early ’90s, the increases we’ve seen during this pandemic are unacceptable,’ [California Attorney General Rob] Bonta said. ‘In California and across the country, gun violence in particular continues to be a uniquely American health crisis.’

“Statewide, there were 2,202 homicides reported in 2020, an increase of 31.1% over the year before, according to a separate report released Thursday [7/1] by the state Department of Justice. Bonta said the vast majority of those homicides involved guns… The surge in gun purchases has taken place nationwide. Bonta said the FBI’s national background check system processed a record 39.7 million checks last year… Nearly 1.17 million new firearms were registered in 2020 in California, with handgun sales up 65.5% from the year before. The number of long-gun purchases jumped 45.9% from 2019… Last year, there were 686,435 new handguns sold in California, eclipsing the previous record of 546,254 in 2016.

“With gun violence also surging, state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta called on local law enforcement to step up efforts to reduce shootings, including use of a state law that allows judges to order temporary removal of firearms from people deemed a public danger.” Patrick McGreevy writing for the July 6th Los Angeles Times. Firearms cross state boundaries seamlessly. Gun shows where background checks are sparse in one state, generate weapons sales that somehow find their way into “gun control” states. And despite the statistic that only one in thirty civilian gun homicides can be labeled “justifiable,” the mythology of owning a gun for self-defense persists.

Indeed, so much of that gun violence comes from guns “borrowed” or stolen from legitimate owners, often turned against the owners themselves. Children often stumble upon badly stored guns with disastrous results. And even the mentally ill, clear domestic abusers, and particularly convicted criminals have absolutely have no trouble procuring any level of weapon they can afford (or can “lift”). An AR-15, able to spray bullets to kill dozens of people in a matter of seconds, can be obtained in any state in the union, regardless of efforts to limit ownership. Reports of mass shootings in the United Staters are no longer considered aberrant or unusual. 

Gunmakers, facing financial challenges because guns just don’t wear out, enlisted the National Rifle Association as their marketing wing in the mid-1970s to change the social perception of the “right to bear arms.” This effort resulted in what has to be one of the greatest “success stories” in marketing history. There is almost one gun in this country for each and every resident in the country, children included. The dramatically corrupt NRA, struggling with trying to file bankruptcy by reason of lavish and illicit perks accorded to its senior management, even managed to elicit a distorted Supreme Court victory in 2008 (Heller vs District of Columbia) that for the first time twisted an amendment intended to benefit the citizen soldiers of our Revolutionary War (the “well regulated militia” which was the focus of the Second Amendment) into a generic citizen right to own guns with very, very limited rights of any governmental bodies to impose necessary restrictions.

Without a reversal in the distorted view of the right to bear arms, unlikely with a conservative Supreme Court, there is unlikely going to be any serious containment of escalating gun violence. And we can expect any effort at any governmental level to impose even the most reasonable controls to be immediately challenged in the court system, with hopes that a gun-radical Supreme Court will further erode the possibility of meaningful gun control. According to a Pew Research Report (May 21st), Americans have mixed feelings about gun ownership. Some of that report’s findings:

• Around half of Americans (48%) see gun violence as a very big problem in the country today.

• Roughly half of Americans (53%) favor stricter gun laws, a decline since 2019.

• Americans in rural areas typically favor more expansive gun access, while Americans in urban places prefer more restrictive policies.

• More than four-in-ten U.S. adults (44%) say they live in a household with a gun, including about a third (32%) who say they personally own one.

• Personal protection tops the list of reasons why gun owners say they own a firearm. 

“Recent mass shootings in California include a May attack in which a gunman killed nine colleagues at a light rail yard in San Jose. Co-workers had said before the shooting that the gunman exhibited worrying behavior… In March, a gunman killed four people, including a child, and injured a fifth person at an office complex in Orange. The [Los Angeles Police Department] recently reported that shootings were up nearly 67% during the first four months of this year compared with the same period in 2020, while homicides were up 26%.

“Although judges in California issued a record 1,285 gun violence restraining orders last year, Bonta noted that some counties are making little use of the law adopted five years ago after a mass shooting… Law enforcement agencies in San Diego and Orange counties sought the most restraining orders, 483 and 140 orders, respectively, while only 30 orders were issued in Los Angeles County even though it has a high level of gun violence compared with other parts of the state.

“Meanwhile, Bonta tentatively weighed in favorably Thursday [7/1] on a proposal given initial support by the San Jose City Council that would implement the first requirement in the country for gun owners to carry liability insurance to cover taxpayer costs involved in gun violence… ‘If it’s lawful — the liability insurance proposal — and it saves lives, then I think it’s something worth serious consideration,’ Bonta said, adding that he would need more details about the proposal before making a final determination.” LA Times. 

What is abundantly clear, our current interpretation of gun rights and the massive proliferation of assault weapons form an existential threat to us all. Should facing a random bullet be considered an ordinary risk of living anywhere in the United States? And remember, California’s gun laws are so much stricter than those found in almost all red states.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we do in fact seem to live in a country where courts and legislatures seem to place greater value in unrestricted gun ownership than we do in protecting our children.