MICHIGAN COALITION FOR

RESPONSIBLE GUN OWNERS

"Promoting safe use and ownership of firearms

through education, litigation, and legislation."

MONDAY E'NEWS

Gavin Newsom is Conceding He

Has to Amend the Constitution

An Op-Ed by Dr. John Lott...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is conceding that the U.S. Constitution needs to be amended before he can pass his gun control wish list. But he doesn’t have the votes. Democrats control only the governorship and state legislatures in 17 states — far short of the 38 states needed to ratify a constitutional amendment. Nor do they have the votes in Congress.

Newsom wants to raise the age of gun ownership to 21, impose background checks on private transfers of guns, require waiting periods for buying guns, and enact an assault weapon ban.

California has the country’s strictest gun control laws, but it shouldn’t hold itself out as a model for the rest of the country to follow. California’s per capita rate of mass public shootings has consistently exceeded the rate in the rest of the country. The rate is much lower in Texas, but gun control groups give the state an “F” grade. Since 2010, California’s mass public shooting rate per capita has been 43 percent higher than Texas’ and 29 percent higher than in the rest of the U.S. From 2020 on it has been even worse; California’s rate was 276 percent higher than Texas’ and 100 percent higher than the rest of the country.

The main argument in favor of raising the gun ownership age is that 18, 19, and 20-year-olds commit firearm-related crimes at relatively high rates. That is true, but the issue is whether those who can legally buy a gun commit crimes. About 90 percent of murderers already have a violent criminal history and are already banned from buying a gun. Data show that young people who can pass background checks tend to be at least as law-abiding as older people. A ban only affects those who could otherwise pass a background check and legally buy a gun.

Gun control advocates push federal background checks on the private transfer of guns to stop mass public shootings, but they wouldn’t have stopped even one mass public shooting in this century. They also claim that they have stopped 4 million dangerous people from buying a gun. But they should say that there were 4 million “initial denials.” A system that looks for roughly phonetically similar names (e.g., “Smith” and “Smythe”) and ignores middle names doesn’t allow for much accuracy. It is one thing to stop a felon from buying a gun. It is quite another to stop a law-abiding citizen from buying a gun because his name is similar to a felon’s

There is no reason for these mistakes. Private companies could never do employee background checks this way, and the errors overwhelmingly discriminate against black and Hispanic males.