Mortdooley wrote on Jan 29
th, 2023 at 10:51pm:
California has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, ...
There are too many guns in the U.S. to completely prevent gun violence in any given state, the experts said. Gun violence is continuing to affect a large number of Californians, but at much lower rates than other states.
While 3,449 people died from gun violence in California in 2020, the state still has one of the lowest gun death rates in the country at 8.5 deaths per 100,000 people -- about 37% lower than the national average, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Gun homicides in California, at a rate of 3.9 per 100,000 people, is much lower than Texas' rate of 6.1 per 100,000 people, figures from Everytown shows.
California's gun laws, while wide-reaching, don't target everyone who is at risk of committing violence, Barnhorst said. For example, California's background checks dig a little deeper than what's available in the federal database, so California will catch more at-risk people than other states.
But, the background checks are not going to catch everyone, especially those without a criminal history, those who have never been psychiatrically hospitalized or who don't meet any of the other criteria for prohibition of owning a gun, she said.
In addition, at-risk purchasers could be answering questions on the background check untruthfully, especially questions regarding substance abuse and mental health problems, Lori Post, director of the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told ABC News.
"I think it just makes common sense that people willing to commit mass shootings are also willing to lie on background checks," she said.
Experts explain why California is still rife with gun violence despite some of the most stringent gun laws in the country