Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) responded to Wednesday’s San Jose firearm-based attack by claiming that California gun control still works.
Newsome tweeted: “Some people (…meaning the GOP and NRA) like to point to horrific shootings like yesterday’s and say CA’s strict gun laws don’t work. The reality is that is simply not true.”
He then went back to 1933 and focused on the “rate” of gun deaths instead of the number of gun deaths.
Newsom wrote, “CA has the 7th lowest gun death rate in the nation.”
Pointing to the “death rate” allowed Newsom to bypass mentioning that California gun control has not stopped the state from witnessing mass shooting after mass shooting during the last decade.
For example:
- ABC 7 reported that “seven people were killed and three were wounded when a 43-year-old former student opened fire at Oikos University in Oakland, California,” on April 2, 2012.
- Twenty-two-year-old Elliot Roger “killed six people and wounded 13 in shooting and stabbing attacks in the area near the University of California, Santa Barbara,” on May 23, 2014.
- Breitbart News highlighted that Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik opened fire in a San Bernardino, California, Health Department Christmas party on December 2, 2015, killing 14 people.
- The Associated Press wrote that 39-year-old Kori Ali Muhammad shot and killed three people in downtown Fresno, California, on April 18, 2017.
- ABC 7 noted that 38-year-old Jimmy Lam “opened fire inside a San Francisco package facility, killing three people and injuring several others” on June 14, 2017.
- Twelve people were killed when a gunman opened fire inside the Borderline Bar & Grill, in Thousand Oaks, California, on November 7, 2018.
- Breitbart News covered a shooting that left three killed and 12 injured on July 28, 2019, at the Gilroy, California, Garlic Festival.
- The New York Times reported an October 31, 2019, shooting that left five dead in Orinda, California.
- On November 18, 2019, the Guardian ran a column titled “Ten Dead After California Sees Three Mass Shootings in Four Days.” Those shootings included the Santa Clarita shooting at Saugus High School and the killing of four individuals during a “family party” in Fresno.
- KTLA reported that a child was among four people killed when a gunman opened fire at a business park in Orange, California. The New York Times noted that the child was a nine-year-old boy.
- On May 26, 2021, a Valley Transportation Authority maintenance worker used handguns to kill eight innocents.
Moreover, following the San Jose shooting the Los Angeles Times noted that there were 11 workplace shootings in California between 1986 and 2011.
California has an “assault weapons” ban, universal background checks, a red flag law, a 10-day waiting period on gun sales, a limit on the number of guns a law-abiding citizen can purchase in a month, a “good cause” requirement for concealed carry permit issuance, and numerous other guns controls, as well as controls on ammunition sales.
Another of Newsom’s post-San Jose shooting tweets said: “We need commonsense gun laws — NOW.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.