Jennifer Mascia
Jennifer Mascia (courtesy CNN)

As strong as California’s gun laws are, it’s still easier to get guns there than it is in Europe, or Canada, or Australia, or New Zealand. The US began regulating gun access when we already had millions of guns in circulation. Other countries didn’t do that, so they don’t have this problem.

But here the gun lobby holds tremendous sway, and gun companies just want to keep selling guns. And they’ve been able to – our gun laws have been weakened considerably over the last 30 years, thanks to gun industry lobbying.

Half the states have permit-less carry. So where are the gun companies in all this? This is a corporate responsibility story too. They can set safety standards themselves if they wanted to, but they’re not.

California’s gun laws also end at California state lines. Several mass shooters in recent years have gotten guns from Nevada. Gun violence experts and law enforcement sources I’ve spoken to over the last few days all say the same thing: It’s nearly impossible to eradicate this violence completely when there are 400 million guns in circulation.

And mass shooters often don’t display behavior that rises to the level of a gun ban. That’s a high bar – involuntary mental health commitment, a felony, or a domestic violence conviction. California does have a system to take guns from legal gun owners who become prohibited due to a crime, the Armed Prohibited Persons System, but there’s a backlog.

The bottom line: This is what happens when you don’t have a strong federal system of gun regulation. Guns have a 100-year shelf life. If we banned them tomorrow, we’d still have gun violence for generations.

What we need is an all-hands approach that involves the gun companies, public health experts, and gun owners deciding that this violence isn’t sustainable, and that the time has come to set safety standards.

Until we all decide as a culture that we’ve had enough, this will continue – and gun companies will continue to profit from this bloodshed.

— Jennifer Mascia in Why California’s ‘strong’ gun laws are in danger

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

66 COMMENTS

  1. Cop claims Sig just went off (there’s video) so chief dumps Sig and orders glocks for all his cops. Happened in Montville, Connecticut.

    • she’d look cute in some Alexo leggings, a range jersey banging steel with her 2-gun setup. too bad she’s weetarded.

      • “gun companies, public health experts, and gun owners deciding that this violence isn’t sustainable”

        Oh, I think the violence is sustainable. At least until we no longer have anti gun totalitarians writing pieces like the one referenced in the article…

      • Taken from the comments to the video:
        “How do you turn a SIG 320 into a machine pistol? Toss it down a flight of stairs.”

        • WilliamWallaceTheThird, that is what I noted as well. IN the frame where the gun discharged, it appeared that the Sergeant’s forearm struck the butt of the firearm jostling it as the officer lifted the legs of the detainee, and at that moment it discharged.

        • So, let me get this straight: there are 8 cops, all wearing the exact same duty issued holster, a SafariLand Level III retention holster, and even after the Sig goes off by itself, not one of them says “dude, what the hell, why is your gun hanging half out of the holster?” Instead, after launching an internal investigation, with at least 2 cameras’ worth of proof and the testimony of the 8 officers involved, the police chief examines the gun, examines the holster, examines the videos, listens to 8 witnesses’ testimony, and makes his decision: “to hell with these Sigs, we’re moving to another gun platform.”

          You internet sleuths went frame by frame to come up with some excuse that the most widely-owned, widely-used holster in all of policedom was at fault, rather than the Sig P320 which has many many reported cases of unintended discharges?

          Occam’s Razor, guys. The Sig is a faulty design, it was faulty from the beginning, and the only unadulterated BULL SHIT here is the way Sig treated the whole issue. Instead of issuing a recall and fixing every defective gun they made, they put the responsibility on the customer by calling their fix a “voluntary upgrade”. And made no effort to reach out to those customers to let them know that the gun they were trusting their life to, wasn’t drop-safe and was a potential unintended discharge risk.

          It was bad business, it is bad business, and things like this are going to continue to happen.

        • TexTed, contrary to your belief, if you had reviewed the video, you would have seen when the officer whose gun discharged, lifted the legs of the detainee, the sergeant on the detainee’s left side, struck the officer’s butt of the Sig with his left forearm. The gun was not property holstered and discharged. I reviewed the vid 10 times and discovered the above on my fifth review.

  2. The 4th estate is far more dangerous to the Freedoms of the citizenry, than all the firearms. Regardless of whose hands they are in.

  3. And yet, ZERO mention of actually putting criminals in prison.
    Is that just a foreign concept to these people?

    • Mr Ghost, it seems to be very clear that POTG are anathema to these people and the criminal committing acts of violence are only trying to take care of their needs.
      These people have no respect for POTG and their pity for criminals is unhealthy at best.

      • The ye olde “victims of society” taking what they needed for survival schtick.

        As Karl said “each according to their abilities and each according to their needs”.

  4. I wouldn’t blame Jennifer Mascia for her being completely unaware of just how biased of a writer she is and how much what she is doing is not journalism. I blame the j-school she went to for teaching… no indoctrinating her in liberal dogma vice training her to be an objective and even skeptical reporter. It’s a basic theorem from computers that applies to the daily world–garbage in, garbage out.

    • Ignorant garbage in = ignorant garbage out?

      Morons can’t figure out they are being manipulated.

      • Part of it, also requires the integrity to admit one was fooled. Good luck with that one especially when “prestigious” degrees are involved.

        • Lol yeah just never underestimate the ability of pride to make smart people fall for stupid shit.

  5. “California’s gun laws also end at California state lines.”

    TRUE!!! And so does California’s ‘gun violence’.

    “It’s nearly impossible to eradicate this violence completely when there are 400 million guns in circulation.”

    With all of those guns circulating about as they do, it seems a miracle that any of us are still alive.

    Wait, there goes one now, circulating, circulating. Seems like those safe storage laws are not working…guns are getting out, getting around, and getting about. None of us are safe!!!

    • The only way a gun purchased in Nevada could be used in a mass shooting in California is if it was purchased by an in state resident and illegally imported into California. Or stolen out of state and imported. Now my recollection is imperfect, but I seem to recall that mass shooters here typically lawfully purchased their firearms, and some have illegally modified them (for example modifying an AR to add a pistol grip and a 30 round mag). Any California resident purchasing a gun in another state must still comply with California law, which includes a transfer through an FFL with a back ground check and a ten day wait.

    • “…guns are getting out, getting around, and getting about.”

      Partying without adult supervision? 🙂

  6. Well, you learn something new every day if you pay attention…. guns have a 100 year shelf life !!
    I guess I have to throw a couple of mine out.

    • “…guns have a 100 year shelf life !!”

      I have to wonder – Metal-wise, would springs deteriorate over time? Since in a gun, they are stored with some degree under compression or tension, centuries from now will springs expire?

      It’s simple enough to make new springs from piano wire, so are guns effectively able to survive 5,000 years of storage?

  7. Another sneaky toe tapping busy body trying to convince Gun Control History illiterates to buy a concocted line of crap called Gun Violence.

    And once again, Violence is Violence. That means those who criminally misuse bricks, bats, knives, fists, feet, vehicles, etc. will certainly criminally misuse firearms and vice versa.

    Bottom line…For law abiding citizens backed into a corner the answer to Violence has always been Self Defense.

  8. Neither an advocate nor a journalist but just another talking head.

    The US is a very special and unique place and that absolutely IS being acknowledged here. It is a nation set apart from all the rest.

    • RE: jennifer mascia…”The bottom line: This is what happens when you don’t have a strong federal system of gun regulation.”

      Clearly the clueless fraulein jennifer mascia does not know what happens each and everytime with a strong centralized system of Gun Control/Regulation…

      Bottom line? Abolished Gun Control like its sidekick Slavery…jennifer mascia.
      https://youtube.com/watch?v=WlItbl9SOAg&feature=share

  9. like most anti-gun she constructs her rant with little lies…for example…

    “They can set safety standards themselves if they wanted to, but they’re not.” (in relation to the firearms industry).

    thats a lie.

    but its not her version of ‘safety’ …the very dangerous ‘safety’ she wants which is, aside from ensuring serious injury or death when the gun is needed for defense, a defacto gun posession ban in effect. Ever notice how every ‘gun safety’ thing of the left wing has a tone of denying you access to your gun, in effect ‘banning’ you having it … so in her ignorance and drinking the left wing false narrative cool aid … she thinks the firearms industry doesn’t do anything for safety.

    and not to forget she is literally paid by anti- gun interests to toe a line and only do what they say. she is not a journalist, she is literally a paid shill.

  10. CNN….a place where idiots get interviewed by idiots while being watched by idiots.

  11. Maybe she should just move to one of the countries she feels is doing such a good job? Obviously she believes that their system of government is much better than ours.

  14. “If we banned them tomorrow, we’d still have gun violence for generations”
    We’ll ban them just like drugs right? China and the Cartels will smuggle them (guns) over the open border just like they do with drugs, these people are complete morons.

    • The key to believing in the efficacy of leftist policy is to not expound on the details or logistics. Just repeat the slogans like a yogi mantra.

  15. Until we decide, as a culture, that we’re ok being victims of democide, genocide, ethnic cleansing, slavery and all the other murderous oppressions suffered by disarmed populations, we’ll keep buying guns.

  16. Jennifer, where do I turn in my “expired” WWI SMLE in .303 British? Do I return it to King Charles since it has a crown seal with King George’s name on it?

  18. IRS Issues Major Warning, Reverses Decades-Long Policy. (probably because they are beginning to fear the people, which is how its suppose to be. But, this only indicates its ‘unarmed’ agents will stop visiting and Joe has that new army of all those thousands of newly armed IRS agents)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SQiD5WbisQ

    • Well, there is a major election coming up. Chicago can show the world they mean business. Otherwise its all just meaningless pap.

    • Simply owning a gun does not mean anything. We are given the current stats on firearm sales on a regular basis here on TTAG. But that information only means so much. People buying guns does not mean voting Republican or that the buyer feels patriotic. Owning these things doesn’t indicate that someone is psychotic either. Going to a dealer and paying $80,000 for a new vehicle is not emblematic of the buyers’ wealth. Most people can get a loan and buy it. That doesn’t mean it can be paid back any more than owning firearms indicates political leanings. This idea that I saw for myself here on this website that a new gun owner will likely vote for Trump is just as much head-in-the-sand thinking as the left uses when it’s said that when a firearm is in the home it increases the likelihood of family getting shot.

      People think Trump is a pro2A conservative. He is not and never was. DJT is not a gun guy. It wont stop me from giving him my vote but there are a great many things people get confused about with all this.

      I know your not saying otherwise really. But this is a response to that video.

  21. There is no amount of industry regulation or governmental registration in the world that will prevent criminals from selling stolen guns out of the trunk of a car in the ghettos, or smuggling them from somewhere else. Even Australia, an island nation, has a multitude of smuggled arms in circulation notwithstanding its total bans.

  23. Someone should test her blood to see what drugs are present from what she stated in that article. So much false information that has no basis of fact. Pure ignorance of the subject. But she is so sure that she knows so much more that the POG do!

  24. So who gets my out of date 15th century matchlock? Or my 17th and 18th century flintlocks?
    or my 1850’s vintage pepperbox?
    All well over the 100 year shelf life. All still in functional condition.
    And, all fully capable of inflicting damage upon whatever target is chosen.
    Next issue is exactly what law, ban, restriction, licensing/registration scheme, or confiscation scheme is going to stop anyone with evil or criminal intent from arming themselves, or finding an alternative method in order to commit whatever acts of violence they so choose? Humans have always been rather creative in finding methods to commit violence against each other. Unless and until we as a society choose to deal with the human side of the violence issue, not 1 thing will change. Sorry kids, it isn’t the implement used but the hand and mind using it.

Comments are closed.