By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
The Los Angeles Times is reporting a “troubling trend” in California violent crime, which includes an “increased use of firearms in homicides and aggravated assaults” despite passage in recent years of increasingly restrictive gun control laws.
The report quotes Magnus Lofstrom, policy director of criminal justice and a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. His take: “It is particularly in the last few years that we have seen an increase in violent crime involving firearms.”
The newspaper reportedly analyzed crime data from the California Department of Justice showing an increased use of firearms in homicides by an alarming 40.6 percent in 2020, while assaults involving firearms were up 29 percent that year, over the figure for 2019. The trend continued into 2021, and last year, according to the Times, “the rate for 2022 remains noticeably higher than pre-pandemic figures. Guns were used in 71.2% of homicides and 21.8% of assaults in 2022, compared with 68% and 16.9%, respectively, in 2019.”
Still, the anti-gun Giffords Law Center brags on its website how California “has been the first state in the nation to adopt a number of gun safety reforms, ranging from assault weapons restrictions and strong background check requirements to extreme risk protection orders and domestic violence protections.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed more gun control legislation, as noted by a news release from his office.
The governor’s announcement pointed to “SB 2…strengthening the state’s public carry regulations; SB 452…requiring microstamping on handgun cartridges to help trace guns used in crimes; AB 28…enacting a first-in-the-nation effort to generate $160 million annually on the sale of bullets to improve school safety and gun violence intervention programs; AB 455…keeping guns out of the hands of potentially dangerous individuals; AB 725…updating the definition of a firearm to include ghost gun parts; and AB 732…strengthening the process for removing firearms from people who are prohibited from owning them.”
Several gun rights groups including the Second Amendment Foundation have filed suit against SB2, and just days ago submitted a brief to the court supporting their motion for a preliminary injunction.
SAF is joined in the case by Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation, California Rifle & Pistol Association, Gun Owners of California, the Liberal Gun Club and nine individuals. The case is known as May v. Bonta. The “Memorandum of Points and Authorities” was filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Southern Division. They are represented by attorneys Chuck Michel, Michel & Associates, and Don Kilmer, Law Offices of Don Kilmer.
Proponents of California’s gun control laws have invariably promoted them as important to reduce violent crime. The LA Times story suggests all of these laws have failed, and there is no indication that any of the new laws will produce better results.
