U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- The senseless homicides of six in Sacramento are tragic. It is a shocking and sober reminder that criminals have no respect for the law or for human life.
That’s why it is appalling that politicians immediately leaped to calls for more gun control without knowing even the basic facts of what transpired. President Joe Biden and Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom used these senseless murders to call for a bevy of gun control items even before the crime scene was processed.
Gov. Newsom released a statement that read, in part, “The scourge of gun violence continues to be a crisis in our country, and we must resolve to bring an end to this carnage.”
President Biden joined the gun control chorus. He expressed sympathy for the victims of the crimes, but added, “…we must do more than mourn; we must act.”
Police are still hunting suspects – arresting two individuals so far – and they recovered a stolen firearm from the crime scene. That was enough to spur Gov. Newsom and President Biden to rehash their tired gun control wish list.
Crime
Crime, unfortunately, is up nationwide. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR) showed a 29 percent jump in murders in 2020, the most recent data available. The overall violent crime rate, which includes murder, assault, robbery, and rape, rose 5 percent during the same period, according to an NPR report. Homicide rates were up 31 percent in California. Statewide, 1,606 people were killed by guns in 2020, the first year of pandemic lockdowns, the most recent year for which data is available.
President Biden and Gov. Newsom pitched increasing gun control as the answer. Yet, California has the strictest gun control laws in the nation. This latest incident shows that gun control laws aren’t reducing criminal activity or increasing public safety. A stolen firearm was recovered at the scene. It’s a crime to unlawfully possess a firearm in California. One suspect was arrested a day after the crime and it turned out he was a felon, charged with unlawful firearm possession and assault with a deadly weapon.
One suspect was already the subject of a Riverside County warrant issued in 2015 for allegedly inflicting corporal injury on a spouse, according to court records. The second suspect was also charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a machine gun. It’s against the law to transfer a firearm without a background check. It’s also against the law to carry a firearm openly in public and firearms can only be carried with a concealed carry permit issued by a county sheriff. If this firearm was stolen, the criminal carrying it illegally clearly didn’t obey any of those laws. Gun control is not working. The obvious answer isn’t to double down – unless you are more concerned about politics than you are about real solutions for public safety.
The hard truth is there is more of this political game-playing going on in California and across the nation. Gov. Newsom “reimagined” policing during the wave of “defund the police” calls. He signed legislation in 2021 that adjusted qualified immunity standards for police and created a process to strip police of their badges for misconduct. At the same time, criminals were getting a free pass.
As a result, smash-and-grabs became increasingly common, even in posh communities such as Beverly Hills. District attorneys refused to hold criminals accountable. San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is facing a forced recall over his city’s out-of-control crime. Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón is facing his own recall with 200,000 signatures collected for a November ballot possibility. Prosecutors revolted against District Attorney Gascón after he instituted soft-on-crime policies including ending cash bail, banning prosecutors from appearing at parole hearings, and from seeking sentencing enhancements.
Wrong Answers
Fixing America’s crime wave must start with enforcing the law. Gov. Newsom is calling for more gun control laws, but one article in the wake of Sacramento’s tragedy explained that the governor is running out of scapegoats.
“When it comes to gun laws, California’s legislators have passed some of the most stringent regulations in the country, checking off nearly every box on national gun control advocates’ wishlist,” wrote Dale Kasler of The Sacramento Bee. “California legislators may attempt to pass laws allowing individuals to sue firearm manufacturers and retailers for the criminal misuse of lawfully sold firearms, but such suits would run afoul of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).”
President Biden repeated his gun control wish list in his statement following the horrific murders.
“We also continue to call on Congress to act,” he said in his statement. “Ban ghost guns. Require background checks for all gun sales. Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability.”
All those, except repealing PLCAA, are already law in California. These were the answers President Biden proposed, yet it’s clearly not working – and he knows it. Their premise is flawed. They’re attempting to control the gun, not the criminal.
Bad Data
That might be because gun control politicians and the groups supporting them always knew their gun control proposals are a house of cards. A recent examination by RAND Corporation of 27,900 gun control research publications found just 123, or 0.4 percent, tested the effects of their gun control proposal rigorously.
“We took a look at the significance of the 123 rigorous empirical studies and what they actually say about the efficacy of gun control laws,” wrote Aaron Brown and Justin Monticello for Reason.com. “The answer: nothing.”
The authors added that the gun control studies aren’t just useless in their data, they can be harmful to law-abiding citizens and those who are subjected to the gun control laws they promote.
“Not only is the social science literature on gun control broadly useless, but it provides endless fodder for advocates who say that ‘studies prove’ that a particular favored policy would have beneficial outcomes,” they wrote. “This matters because gun laws, even if they don’t accomplish their goals, have large costs. They can turn otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals, they increase prosecutorial power and incarceration, and they exacerbate the racial and socioeconomic inequities in the criminal justice system.”
The reality is that criminals participate in criminal activity. By definition, that’s what they do. Criminals also, by definition, have no respect for the law and, as is becoming increasingly apparent, for life. More gun control laws won’t stop them. Enforcing laws and locking them up does. But I guess that makes too much sense for the Biden and Gavin administrations.
About The National Shooting Sports Foundation
NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearm retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations, and publishers nationwide. For more information, visit nssf.org
These gun-grabbers will never blame crime on the criminals because they enjoy saying gun violence this and gun violence that too much. You never hear baseball bat violence,2×4 violence,knife violence,..just gun violence.
we have 3% of the population committing 65% of the violent crime and murder.
When do we get the guts to say that young black males are the problem?
“Statewide, 1,606 people were killed by guns in 2020″
It’s “WITH” guns. Using the propaganda term of “by guns” is asinine. It implies that the gun did the killing, not the operator.
It’s easier to villanize an inanimate object rather than to address the criminal element that the idiots on the left encourage to be lawless . Criminals kill people guns are just one tool available to these people who do not respect life or laws .
“Political Leaders Must Face Reality”
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…………
At this point it is clear to see.
There are armed criminals the world over.
In a general population they are not of great enough numbers to be a threat to government power.
The threat to government power is an EFFECTIVELY armed citizenry.
All “gun control” is intended to turn an effectively armed citizenry that is a threat to government power, into an INEFFECTIVELY armed citizenry that is NO LONGER a threat to government power, and is vulnerable to whatever the government intends to do to it.
The reason these states and counties within are so soft on crime, gun related or not is so simple. To incarcerate these criminals is expensive. To let ’em walk is so much cheaper for them. It’s all about money, nothing to do with justice. Just look at how much money has been spent in California on the “high speed train to nowhere”
“Plausible deniability” deny knowledge of or responsibility for any damnable actions committed by members of their organizational hierarchy, This is the image of the democratic party in power today.