Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
According to California governor Gavin Newsom, all it takes to “end gun violence” is to have waiting periods, universal background checks, a ban on gun sales to adults younger than 21, and a total prohibition on so-called “assault weapons”. According to reality, however, states like California can have all those restrictions (and dozens more) and still be home to incidents like this:
A manhunt has been launched by police in in San Francisco after 9 people were shot in a “targeted and isolated incident” Friday night.
When officers arrived at the scene in the city’s busy Mission District “they located multiple sets or multiple victims suffering from apparent gunshot wounds,” Eve Laokwansathitaya, a public information officer with the San Francisco Police Department told NBC News early Saturday.
She added that medics transported the victims to local hospitals. “We can confirm that there are nine victims that were struck by gunfire and they are all expected to survive,” she said.
“We believe that it was a targeted and isolated incident,” she said, although she did not offer a motive for the shooting and no arrests have been made in connection with the incident.
According to the San Francisco website MissionLocal, the nine individuals who were shot were victims of a drive-by shooting at a party outside a local skate shop.
According to an attendee of a party on the corner, the shooter fired into a crowd of about 20 people that had gathered outside Mission Skateboards, a skate shop on the corner that was hosting an outdoor party featuring a DJ, street taco stand, and “Made in the Mission” merchandise.
“Everybody was chilling listening to music and you just hear some little bottle rockets, some little firecrackers or something,” said the attendee, who declined to provide a name. “And then all of a sudden you see people just start running.”
The attendee said the crowd scattered and he saw multiple people on the ground, having been shot. He said others were “shot in the leg” and “limping around.”
Thankfully no one was killed, but that outcome has far more to do with luck and the shooter’s bad aim than the dozens of gun control law on the books in California. San Francisco is one of the most hostile locations for legal gun owners in the state; not only does the city not have a single gun store or publicly accessible range where folks can train with their firearms, but until the Bruen decision came down the San Francisco Sheriff basically refused to issue any concealed carry licenses as well. That’s changed somewhat in the year or so since SCOTUS tossed out the “may issue” policies in place in New York, California, and a handful of other states, but applicants are still waiting for six months or more to be approved, and as of March less than 300 residents had applied for a license; a sign that many locals believe the sheriff’s office is still playing games with their right to armed self-defense.
No matter how many possessory laws are aimed at those who are trying to lawfully exercise their Second Amendment rights, the violent criminals like the tool who fired into a crowd of partygoers are largely untouched. Politicians like Newsom proclaim that all we need are a few California-style changes to our Constitution to end “gun violence” completely, but reality met his rhetoric on the streets of San Francisco Friday night and disproved his hypothesis in a matter of seconds and a flurry of shots fired.