If there's a terrible idea to be had, someone in California has tried to make it into law...and probably succeeded.
That's especially true if it has anything to do with guns. Take, for example, a recent gun law that requires gun stores to provide pamphlets all about the supposed dangers of firearms. A terrible idea, but some gun rights groups aren't just rolling over.
In fact, the law is being resoundingly criticized, such as this from the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms:
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms says California’s new law requiring firearms dealers to provide gun buyers with a pamphlet warning about the dangers of gun ownership amounts to “legislative social bigotry.”
“This new law, AB 1598, is just another effort by anti-gun Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom to discourage Californians from exercising their constitutional right to become gun owners,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “At what point do Californians tell lawmakers in Sacramento they’ve had enough of Democrats’ dishonest demagoguery? Demonizing guns is a deceptive strategy designed to fool people into believing something is being done to prevent violent crime, when the opposite is true.
“Why not force car dealers to provide a pamphlet to each customer, telling them about the dangers of driving,” he wondered. “Owning a car, especially in California, is more dangerous than owning a gun. More people were killed in traffic accidents in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, than from gunshot wounds that year. But nowhere in the Golden State are car dealers being forced to hand out pamphlets warning motorists that getting behind the wheel is hazardous to their health.
“Why are Gavin Newsom and California lawmakers singling out guns instead of cars,” Gottlieb asked. “After all, gun ownership is protected by the constitution, but owning a car isn’t. If the Democrats who pushed this into law wanted to discourage owning something which is dangerous, they should have studied their own data. According to the Long Beach Press Telegram, the state suffered 4,013 traffic fatalities in 2023 while The Trace said California logged 3,208 gun-related deaths for the same year, the most recent period for which data is available.
“All this proves Gavin Newsom and his Democrat colleagues aren’t really interested in saving lives,” Gottlieb observed. “They’re interested in reducing gun ownership by discouraging people from buying guns, and forcing gun dealers to act as their surrogates in the process. It’s really pathetic.”
"Legislative bigotry" is actually a pretty good description and so is calling out the fact that they don't require this for most other products.
There are those that do come with warnings, admittedly, but these are things where just exposure or ordinary use can result in some kind of health ailment.
What California's attempt at indoctrination does is use flawed studies to push the idea that just owning a gun means you're more likely to die as the result of a gunshot, which isn't remotely true.
Nearly every "gun death" you care to name is the result of someone's willful decision. Sure, negligent discharges happen and can be fatal--too many people have been killed with supposedly unloaded guns to say otherwise--but those account for only a tiny fraction of the lives lost due to a gunshot. Every other fatality is because someone decided to pull that trigger.
This isn't like being exposed to a chemical that might cause cancer. Whether you get cancer or not is still not ultimately up to you. Plus, that knowledge at least equips you to decide if you want to be exposed to something.
But guns aren't like that at all. First, plenty of people who don't have a gun get shot and killed every year, including in California. Simply refusing to have a gun doesn't really make you any safer.
This is about scaring people. It's about terrifying people into not exercising their right to keep and bear arms, and it's absolutely disgusting.
