“California has the strongest gun laws in the United States and has been a trailblazer for gun safety for the past 30 years,” says Giffords.org on its website.
If you didn’t know, Giffords is the gun-control organization founded by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
California has an “A” rating on the group’s annual gun law scorecard and implements the following:
However, all of these laws failed to stop a mass shooting in the state’s capital this past Sunday.
Per local media, six people were killed and 12 others were injured when a gunfight broke out involving at least two people in Sacramento’s downtown district.
While an investigation is ongoing to determine how the incident unfolded and what prompted the gunfire, President Biden put forth his thoughts on how the country can eliminate these attacks in the future.
Along with touting his administration’s “comprehensive gun crime reduction strategy,” Biden said, Congress needs to “Ban ghost guns. Require background checks for all gun sales. Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability.”
In short, more gun control.
But this makes no sense. Not only does California already have those laws on the books (with the exception of the repeal of the PLCAA) and they didn’t stop the perps, it appears that they were only marginally applicable in this case.
As Alan Gottlieb, the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation noted in an email to GunsAmerica, “Biden’s answer to the tragic Sacramento killings is a shell game.”
“Ban ghost guns. They were not involved. Require background checks for all gun sales. The criminals were prohibited people who would never have undergone a background check. Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Reports say they used an already illegal fully auto machine gun. Repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability which would have had no impact on stopping this violent act. The President needs to reload his brain before he shoots his mouth off,” said Gottlieb.
“The rest of us are asking,” Gottlieb continued, “What were these violent criminals doing out in the street with prior arrests and outstanding warrants?”
Biden’s call to essentially foist California’s draconian and ineffectual gun laws on the rest of the U.S. has nothing to do with “saving lives” or stopping criminals and everything to do with chilling the 2A rights of law-abiding citizens.
It’s hard to see it any other way when it’s abundantly clear, based on what transpired over the weekend in Sacramento, that disarming good guys doesn’t make bad guys less dangerous.