Skelton: California proves that stricter gun laws save lives
States with lax gun controls have some of the highest gun death rates. Starting with Mississippi.
Fewer guns plus more gun control add up to less gun carnage. That’s logical. And it’s a fact.
California is proof.
So is Mississippi.
We’re a state with arguably the nation’s strictest gun laws. And we’ve got one of the lowest rates of gun deaths.
States with lax gun controls have some of the highest gun death rates. Many are Southern red states. Starting with Mississippi.
“We must be doing something right,” says Garen Wintemute, director of the UC Firearms Violence Research Program.
Wintemute is a career researcher, as well as an emergency room doctor who has treated countless gunshot wounds. He tends to be cautious with his rhetoric.
But not so much the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which doesn’t mince words.
It grades California with an “A” for gun control. “Overall, California has the strongest gun safety laws in the nation and has been a trailblazer,” it reports.
Mississippi gets an “F” from Giffords: It “has the weakest gun laws in the country and the highest gun death rate.”
That’s backed up by the National Center for Health Statistics. For 2021, the year with the latest data, it reports that Mississippi had the nation’s highest gun death rate of nearly 34 per 100,000 people.
That includes homicides, suicides and accidental shootings.
Other states with weak gun control laws and high gun death rates include Louisiana, Alabama, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, South Carolina and Oklahoma.
Mississippi also has one of the nation’s highest gun ownership rates, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Slightly more than 50% of the state’s residents have firearms in their homes.
Contrast that with California, where the gun death rate was 9 per 100,000. There are seven states with even lower rates.
California’s gun ownership rate is one of the very lowest, with 16% of households having firearms.
Meanwhile, some of California’s strongest gun laws — the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, a required background check on ammunition buyers — are being challenged in lawsuits filed by gun rights advocates who have been inspired by the firearms-friendly U.S. Supreme Court.
A monumental pro-gun decision last year by the Supreme Court threw out a New York law restricting who could carry concealed loaded guns. In effect, the court also invalidated California’s similar law.
Legislation to replace the old concealed weapons law with one that passes Supreme Court muster is this year’s biggest gun bill in Sacramento.
“You don’t need a gun to go to your daughter’s soccer game,” the bill’s author, Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Burbank, keeps repeating. “You don’t need a gun to go to Dodger Stadium. You don’t need a gun to go to where alcohol is sold.”
Portantino’s bill, SB 2, would ban concealed weapons in government buildings, schools, medical facilities, churches, playgrounds, athletic fields and bars.
It would impose uniform statewide standards for issuing permits to carry concealed weapons. No longer would it be at the local sheriff’s discretion.
The Senate sent the measure to the Assembly recently on a 29-9 vote. Most Democrats voted “yes.” Republicans were opposed.
The Assembly recently passed a more problematic bill, which now heads to the Senate. It would impose an 11% excise tax on the sale of guns and ammunition, raising $160 million annually. The money would fund gun violence prevention programs.
It’s a good cause. These programs work. But they should be paid for out of the state general fund. It’s a societal problem. Everyone should kick in. Not just hunters and target shooters. Lots of bad guys steal their guns anyway and would never pay the tax.
Gov. Gavin Newsom should pony up general fund money to pay for the worthwhile programs and avoid taxing law-abiding gun owners.
Control their guns. Lay off their pocketbooks.
George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist.