California Senate Back Increase In Age To Buy Long Guns

I think I’ve written before that the state of California has never met a gun control measure that it didn’t like. If I didn’t before, I have now, and it’s true. They’ll jump on any anti-gun bandwagon they come across.

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The latest example is that the state is considering following Florida’s lead by requiring everyone to be 21-years-old before buying a gun. In fact, the state Senate has already given the measure the thumbs up.

California would raise the age for buying rifles and shotguns from 18 to 21 and bar people from buying more than one long gun each month under a bill advancing in the Legislature.

It’s been a frequently debated topic nationwide after a Florida high school shooting that killed 17 people.

The Senate on Tuesday approved the measure by Democratic Sen. Anthony Portantino of La Canada Flintridge, sending it to the Assembly on a 23-10 vote.

See?

Of course, this won’t accomplish a damn thing. After all, if a shooter can’t buy a gun, he’ll get it another way.

The Parkland killer bought his weapon, but the Santa Fe High School shooter stole the weapons he used. And he wasn’t the only one to do so. Many mass shooters steal their firearms from a family member. Most famously, the Newtown killer murdered his own mother and stole her AR-15 before committing his atrocity.

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Others are old enough that they’re not barred from buying guns in the first place. Perhaps most famously was the Las Vegas killer. No law on the books, even in California, would have stopped him from buying guns.

So what exactly do they hope this law will accomplish?

In truth, I suspect the answer is nothing. This isn’t trying to solve a problem. This is legislative theater. It’s a dance to make it look like something is being done to prevent such a tragedy as Parkland from happening within California’s borders, but everyone knows this won’t stop anything.

Meanwhile, California is a large enough and wealthy enough state that they could pay for research that would delve into why these things happen. By doing so, they might learn how to really prevent these kinds of attacks from taking place, but they won’t. The public might learn that so many of the sacred cows held up as the answer to everyone’s problems are, in fact, bovine excrement.

So they’ll keep dancing this dance, trying to pretend they’re doing something and grasping at any new straw that comes along to help them continue the delusion.

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In this case, they’re going to bar legal adults from purchasing something they are old enough to buy in almost every other state. They’re treating legal adults like children.

While some legal adults probably are immature as hell–I sure was back in the day–this law doesn’t differentiate between those and the majority of people within that age range who are responsible individuals. These are people who are married with children, holding jobs, and trying to make a life for themselves, and now the law is looking to prevent them from protecting all that they have?

That’s all that will be accomplished by this nonsense.

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