Reasonable Gun Control Laws Don’t Work if They Are Not Enforced

 

“This morning our city has a broken heart. This is a senseless and unacceptable tragedy… 

Thoughts and prayers aren’t nearly enough. We must do more as a city, as a state and as a nation. 

This senseless epidemic of gun violence must be addressed.” 

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, on March 4th after the biggest mass shooting in the United States this year

"We know these lives were not the only lives impacted by gun violence last night. And we equally mourn for those victims and families who do not make national headlines… But we must do more than mourn; we must act." 

Joe Biden, April 4th.

There are blue states, like New Mexico, that allow open carry guns. And you will find that liberal states with fewer big cities and larger rural populations, like Vermont, are where gun ownership is still treasured. Some blue states, notably Illinois, throw their hands up because anyone can drive to a neighboring state, like Indiana, where buying a semiautomatic pistol or an assault rifle is exceptionally easy. Chicago is a dangerous town, as we all know. But in lefty California, where gun laws are strict and tight, constantly facing right-wing, Second Amendment diehards challenge every gun law that state might pass. They needn’t bother. 

Writing from Sacramento, Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton tells us (March 7th): “California has the toughest state gun laws in the nation. But that’s irrelevant if they’re not adequately enforced — and they’re not… ‘We need to enforce more of the laws that we have,” state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta acknowledges. ‘The rise in violent crime throughout the country is almost entirely because of guns.’… In particular, he adds, ‘ghost guns are a new challenge we need to rise to.’… They’re unregistered guns that are assembled from purchased parts. It’s practically impossible to trace them to a violent owner so they can be seized…

“[Yet] there are about 24,000 Californians the attorney general’s office knows about who possess guns and legally shouldn’t. But it can’t recruit enough state officers to grab the weapons and make a dent in the list. The job is dangerous, and the pay isn’t competitive… ‘We have the most restrictive gun laws in the country,’ says Sacramento County Dist. Atty. Anne Marie Schubert, who’s running for attorney general as an independent. ‘But you have to have the funding to take the guns off the street. There are ghost guns everywhere right now.’”

Of course, California is about to pass a law with severe penalties for making, dealing in and owning ghost guns. But so what? There isn’t a parallel effort to prioritize taking guns off the streets. So what, you might ask again. Is it ironic that the latest mass shooting took place very earlier on a Sunday morning (April 3rd) in California? How about in Sacramento, not too far from the State Capitol? The deadliest shooting in that city’s history? At least two shooters opened up in an exchange of gunfire outside a section of downtown with lots of nightlife. When the bullets stopped flying, six people lay dead and another dozen were taken to or found their way to the nearest hospital. It was the worse shooting in the United States so far this year. Over a hundred gun casings were found.

Ever since the 2008 Heller vs District of Columbia Supreme Court case, pretty much ignoring the “well regulated militia” wording, finally established that the Second Amendment gave Americans a fundamental right to bear arms, red states have expanded the right to carry guns, often openly and increasingly concealed. Blue states have gone the other way, facing an angry NRA in court. That the Amendment was passed in an era of flintlocks and muskets did not seem to matter. Assault weapons and semiautomatic pistols were acceptable under Heller. That one gun homicide in 35 (used to be 30) is justified is a statistic in search of national policy that reins in the proliferation of guns that is still shocking to the rest of the world. 

Indeed, the mythology of self-defense still creates the number one reason people have guns. But a 12-year study in California debunks one of the biggest “protecting my family” myth of all. As reported by Melissa Healy in the April 5th Los Angeles Times, “Between October 2004 and the end of 2016, adults in the state who didn’t own a gun but took up residence with someone who did were much more likely to die a violent death than people in households without a handgun, researchers from Stanford University found.

“Those who lived with a handgun owner were almost twice as likely to die by homicide as their neighbors without guns, the researchers found. More specifically, adults who lived with a handgun owner were almost three times more likely to be killed with a firearm than Californians in households where no handguns were present… In addition, people who lived with a gun owner and were killed in their homes were especially likely to die at the hands of a spouse or other intimate partner. Among the 866 homicide victims who died in their homes during the period studied, cohabitants of handgun owners were seven times more likely than adults from gun-free homes to have been killed by someone who ostensibly loved them.” Gun deaths just keep rising.

But the biggest mass US shooting of 2022… so far… in the Capitol of Gun Control… is even more shocking. Heck, we don’t react much at all to school mass shootings anymore, and certainly not much to criminals having a bullet-laden field day that just happens to generate lots of collateral damage. Usually, the only real public reaction is a surge in gun sales, fearing that perhaps gun control “crazies” just might pass some limiting statutes to stem the flow of guns, track gun homicides officially or take steps to protect the general public.

Back to Sacramento. News reports tell us that at “least one handgun — later discovered to be stolen — was recovered. The rapid gunfire heard on videos suggested that a semiautomatic weapon may have been used… At least one handgun — later discovered to be stolen — was recovered. The rapid gunfire heard on videos suggested that a semiautomatic weapon may have been used.” LA Times, April 4th. 

“The Sacramento Police Department said it arrested 26-year-old Dandre Martin and charged him with assault and illegal firearm possession following an overnight investigation. He was taken into custody late Monday [4/4] and faces a charge of being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm, Sacramento Police said. Police described him as a ‘related suspect,’ but did not offer any additional detail about his alleged involvement.” MSM New, April 4th. Two days later, Daviyonne Dawson, 31, caught on camera wielding a firearm (probably not the fatal weapon) after the shooting, and Smiley Martin, 27, who faces charges of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a machine gun, were also arrested. Police believe that this gang rivalry involved at least 5 shooters.

If this happens in the state with some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, what exactly does “reasonable gun control” really mean? Gun control? Seriously? Good luck with that. So what, you might ask again.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I beginning to think we are not going to get much more than Buddhist prayer wheels – spinning with “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families” – as our best effort to control the gun pandemic that has infected the United States.