The NRA has long said that California Gov. Gavin Newsom never saw a gun control bill he didn’t like. In case you needed proof, consider that legislators quickly revived the idea of gun rationing—a notion that didn’t make it past then-Gov. Jerry Brown last year, but one that is likely to sail through the process now.
Newsom, in the aftermath of a tragic shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill in November in Thousand Oaks, has made gun control his top mission.
"I've been as transparent on gun issues as any candidate for higher office in decades," Newsom told reporters in November. "I think we can even do more and better."
First step, limit the number of firearms a person can buy within 30 days to one.
California is not the first state to think that limiting gun purchases could stop crime. Maryland and New Jersey have restrictions in place, and Virginia once had a law to that effect, but it was repealed.
What Newsom doesn’t say when he pushes for more restrictions is this: California has a litany of gun control laws on the books. Whether you consider its 10-day waiting period to buy a gun, its ban on “assault weapons,” controls on sales of ammunition or whatever else, none of those kept the Thousand Oaks shooting from happening. What they do accomplish is this: they make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves. See, bad guys don’t much care about following the law. But when people with evil intent know that normal citizens are more likely to be armed, they might think twice about carrying out their ill will. That’s one of the reasons why cities like Baltimore, Chicago and Washington, D.C., have high crime rates, despite the fact that they seriously restrict our Second Amendment right.
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