Gun Sales Soar in California

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, September 7, 2016:  

The study released last year by Calgunslaws.com confirmed what most Second Amendment supporters already know: more guns equal less crime. John Lott’s breakthrough analysis, which was published in June 1998, proved it for everyone except hardcore anti-gunners. They immediately ganged up on Lott, questioning his analysis to the point where Lott issued a second and then a third edition responding to his critics and expanding his proofs.

But for anti-gunners like California State Senator Loni Hancock, the logic and the proofs still escape her. Sponsor of one of the batch of anti-gun bills that Governor Jerry Brown signed into law on July 1, she explained her illogic:

These so-called “high-capacity magazines” are not for target shooting or hunting. Their sole purpose is to kill people in the shortest period of time.

In a video from the recent Orlando massacre, you can clearly hear at least 22 rounds being fired in rapid succession from inside the building. If the shooter had to stop to reload, he might have been stopped and lives would have been saved.

Let’s unpack the illogic. Those “high-capacity” magazines are a figment of anti-gunners’ imagination. It’s a made-up word laden with negatives but without any explanation as to why a 10-round magazine would be any less dangerous than one containing 11 rounds. The manufacturers make them for two reasons: the guns are designed to carry, in the most popular models (e.g., Glock), up to 15 rounds. Why? Because customers like them!

Those customers don’t buy Glocks or other brands with the intent of mowing down the nearest unarmed citizen they find. They are merely exercising that precious right enshrined in the Second Amendment: to keep, bear, carry, and shoot them.

Second, simply because she heard (she said) 22 rounds going off during the horrific Orlando massacre, doesn’t mean they all belonged to the shooter, or that he had a magazine that carried 22 rounds. She wasn’t there. She just heard what she heard.

Third, she made a number of assumptions. If the shooter was limited to the “officially” declared magazine holding just 10 rounds he would have had to reload his firearm twice, giving someone still standing an opportunity to tackle the thug before he wreaked any more havoc. But would there have been anyone there with enough backbone or fortitude or courage to run, unarmed, towards gunfire?

Next, it’s all about “might.” Said Hancock: the thug “might have been stopped” and “lives would have been saved.” That’s a pretty big assumption on which to base an argument that infringes Second Amendment rights for more than 99 percent of the population.

Finally, what assurance does Hancock have that the shooter was following the rules, limiting his firearms only to those on California’s Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale (if he lived in California). Or only buying magazines that contain 10 rounds. Why, none at all. It’s all pure conjecture.

But something perverse is happening in California. As the door closes on legitimate, legal Second Amendment rights by law-abiding citizens to own firearms, they are running, not walking, to the nearest gun store to enjoy that right until they can’t. As Christopher Lapinski, the operations manager at Last Stand Readiness & Tactical, a gun store in Sacramento, told Fox News: “The whole anti-gun movement – taking guns from [law-abiding] citizens – literally has everyone and their grandmother buying firearms before they can’t get them anymore….”

Lapinski is exploring closing his shop and moving to another more gun-friendly state. But in the meantime he is enjoying the rush of customers taking advantage before the hammer comes down.

Californians started buying up firearms with a vengeance since 2003 when the state mandated that only those passing a written test would be permitted to buy a firearm. In that year they bought 126,233 of them. Eleven years later, in 2014, they bought 512,174 of them – a four hundred percent increase!

And just what has happened to violent crime and firearm homicides over the period? Violent crime dropped from 570 instances per 100,000 population in 2003 to 340 per 100,000. Firearm homicide dropped from 4.7 incidences per 100,000 to 3.4 per 100,000. As attorney D. C. Michel, author of the study, noted: “[This analysis that] shows a strong correlation between handgun sales and falling crime … positively certifies that California is safer when its people [are allowed to] exercise their right to own [firearms].”

This is hardly a recommendation by this writer for even stricter gun control laws in California. It already requires passing of a written test in order to buy a firearm (as noted above), but purchasers are only allowed to buy a gun on the state’s Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale. Manufacturers of those “approved” firearms had to submit samples to the state for testing and pay a fee for the privilege. As that list has shrunk over time, thanks to zealous anti-gunners in the state legislature, it has sparked lawsuits over its infringement of Second Amendment rights.

In the meantime, violent crime has dropped, just as John Lott showed that it would in his ground-breaking studies. So in California we have a perverse situation: Anti-gunners want to disarm the populace in order to reduce violent crime (or so they say). But in the process Californians are arming themselves at record rates, causing crime rates to drop.

Of course, all those statistics and logic and history become moot once California has achieved its goal: only police and criminals will have guns. When that happens expect California to turn into Chicago.

Sources:

John Lott’s first edition of More Guns, Less Crime

CBS: California Bans High-Capacity Gun Magazines, Bullet Button Loophole

Fox News: Sale of firearms that use bullet buttons surge ahead of new California gun law

California’s gun laws

Calgunlaws.com: More Guns = Less Crime; California Style