“We must do more than mourn — we must act,” President Joe Biden said on Sunday’s shoot-out in downtown Sacramento that killed six. Biden called on Congress to ban ghost guns, pass “universal” background checks, ban assault weapons, and repeated the lie that gun manufacturers have special immunity from liability.
California already has “universal” background checks. It has “red flag” laws and domestic-violence gun confiscation (often, without any real due process). It has an assault-weapon and magazine ban, deputizing citizens to enforce them. California has safe-storage laws and a ghost-gun ban. The state has a firearm-sales record and the strictest gun-dealer regulation in the nation. It empowers local authorities to further regulate firearms but not to deregulate. It has raised the allowable age even to buy a shotgun or rifle from 18 to 21. In most municipalities, concealed-carry permits are almost impossible to get. California is home to 111 laws — not counting the thousands passed in cities and counties — that restrict “the manner and space in which firearms can be used,” according to Boston University School of Public Health. “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 Law Center. The only thing California hasn’t done is outright ban semi-automatic weapons, which is where all these incremental restrictions are meant to lead.