“California has the toughest gun safety laws in the nation.” —Gavin Newsom Problem is, it has made no difference. Take-aways California’s suicide rate is low due to demographics. California’s gun homicide rate is slightly below average and tied with states with nearly no gun laws. Gun laws and gun homicide rates do not correlate at all, denuding claims about “toughest gun safety laws.” The suicide slide
Continue reading →There must be an election coming. The current California governor is making presidential maneuvers and the New York Times appears to be propping up his (inaccurate) statements about guns. I lived in that politician’s home turf for 22 years, during his political rise, so I have a deeper than average interest – and knowledge – of what the reality is, and in which alternate reality the politician resides. Main Take-aways California’s gun homicide rate is exactly the national average. Their overall suicide rate is rising, but is 29% lower that national averages, which bends the curve on gun suicide rates. For mass public shootings, California has 17% more incidents and 60% more deaths than the national average. The New York Times agitprop In a rather choice bit of partisan hackery, the New York Times (NYT) makes the following assertions about California and guns.
Continue reading →The Gun Facts project received a provocative question: “We’ve had a few years of California’s Prop. 63. Can we point to any numbers that show whether the ammo background check law is having the desired effect?” The answers are: “Yes, we have numbers; no, it didn’t have an impact; but there are a lot of gotchas in the analysis.” The two experimental states Both New York and California passed laws that require criminal background checks before you can buy firearms and gun ammunition from a gun shop. New York passed their law in 2013 and California in 2017. These two states –The State of COVID and the State of Emergency – passed these measures along with other gun control actions (California, for example, established procedures for enforcing laws prohibiting firearm possession by specified persons), so it is technically impossible to weed out just ammunition retailing as a factor. But we … Continue reading →
“Bury the lede” is an old newspaper trade term for not disclosing the interesting part of the story until so late in the article that few people read it. Paragraph #1, Senator Bedfellow gave money to a shelter for battered women; paragraph 48, Senator Bedfellow was charged with wife beating in 2006. It is a propaganda tactic, and it is used too often in gun policy research. In this case concerning suicides in California, the stunt was aided and abetted by the California government. Woe, thy name is Wintemute Long ago, a doctor with zero criminology credentials started publishing on gun control topics. His early research was, in a word, hilarious. One chunk of his intellectual effluvium used “observational evidence” about people at gun shows in two states. Generalized, the assumption the doctor made was that if Bill asked his friend Ted about a firearm for sale at the gun … Continue reading →
Page 10 in the appendix is a handy place to put a statement like: No significant relationships existed between gun shows and firearm injuries along known trafficking routes or when California’s 10-day waiting period was excluded. That is where one of many key clues about the lack of viability of a recent piece or research was filed. That tax money from the federal (NIH) and California (U.C. Berkeley) governments was used to generate this paper and the minor media frenzy that followed should give voters something to consider at election time. Key takeaways Raw data shows lower rates of California death and injury after gun shows. Even after questionable adjustments to the data, rates of change in gun misuse were small, possibly within random variations. Controls for other influences (confounding variables) were odd and incomplete. Unexplained, undocumented adjustments leave the quality of the research in grave doubt. No verification that the misused guns … Continue reading →
Nobody has ever accused California’s Lieutenant Governor of being well informed. Sadly, he insists on proving it. Emboldened by presidential politicians strutting for gun control, Gavin Newsom is supporting a public ballot initiative to bring Californians four new forms of gun control. [EDITOR: It is noted that Newsom is running for Governor] Clear in his proposal is an utter lack of understanding about the nature of crime, violence and guns. Without exception, the proposals will: Do nothing to address the common and recurring forms of gun violence. Possibly push illegal activities to more underground means. Harass and legally imperil legitimate gun owners and hobbyist. So what doesn’t Gavin understand about gun policy? Nearly everything (and this opinion comes from someone who has lived in and around San Francisco for 20 years and watched Newsom’s dementia up close)? His proposals may be ignorant, but the method of announcing his support was … Continue reading →
The media was lightly abuzz, echoing without critical review a study that said states with strict gun control laws had fewer kids carrying guns. As with all studies the media fails to study, there is far less here than meets the eye. The report itself has too many lapses to even consider it worthwhile, except perhaps as a case study in poor research methodology. The major defects to this study include: Raw data source and its collection are suspect. Major omissions of U.S. states and territories. Selection of specific years that ignore trends in juvenile gun misuse. Raw Data, Unintentionally Cooked Let’s ignore using the Brady Campaign Scorecard – unlike the authors of the study currently under my microscope – as the definition of good/strict gun control laws. We have repeatedly shown that Brady scores have no correlation to violent crime. The real problem is less with the Brady Scorecard … Continue reading →
Are gangs on the run in Los Angeles? No, but their violence may be abating, and it has nothing to do with gun control. The state of California (a.k.a. the State of Emergency) recently published a pair of decadal crime reports. Buried in the data is evidence that despite a backward-thinking mania, California has enjoyed a drop in violence without an increase in gun control. At first blush, the decline appears to be uniquely tied to Los Angeles County, and to a brace of 1993 era laws that targeted criminals. The big take away is that from 2005 through 2012 (the latest date for which we can compare Cali stats against the rest of the nation) California violent crime has shrunk impressively. Part of this is due to the fact that the rest of America is not the violent cesspool known as L.A.! SoCal can only improve, edging ever closer … Continue reading →
Some gun control groups claim that California’s drop in violent crime since the early 1990s is due to gun control. But a causal review of California gun-related legislation shows that when violent crime started falling in the Golden State, there was no significant gun control legislation. If not gun control, what then explains the drop in violent crime in general, and firearm crimes in particular starting around 1993. My preliminary research indicates it is traceable to California’s Three Strikes law and the firearm penalty enhancements passed in that same year. But it is worth digging into the data to see if we can understand why. Up to 1993, violent crime in California was significantly higher than the rest of the country. Like most other places, robbery was a leading cause of violent crime. In fact, in the pivot year, robbery accounted for 38% of all violent crime. The rate of robbery as a subset of … Continue reading →
One reason constitutional rights are made inviolate is because judges have been known to violate them. If passed, a California law will be invalidated due to this principle. Cali is considering giving judges to power to take away a person’s guns based on something less than evidence. Known as AB1014 and the Ex Parte Gun Violence Restraining Order bill, the law would empower a judge to revoke the Second Amendment if a person is claimed to be a danger to himself or others. This is one of several knee-jerking reactions to the recent Santa Barbara slashing/shooting/driving homicides homicides. The idea is that is a friend, family member, neighbor or perfect stranger claims you are armed and nuts, the government can take away your firearms. Lack of real evidence is the issue. The law as currently written requires a judge to consider squishy evidence such as written or oral statements by … Continue reading →
