Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) echoed President Joe Biden’s State of the Union (SOTU) gun control push by calling for national passage of the same laws that have been failing to stop high profile shootings in California for more than 30 years.
Breitbart News reported that during the SOTU, Biden demanded an “assault weapons” ban and universal background checks. California has had an “assault weapons” ban since 1989 and universal background checks since 1991, yet the state has also been ground zero for some of the most high profile shootings the U.S. has seen.
Just a few of those high profile shootings are:
- The Santa Barbara attack (6 killed on May 23, 2014)
- The San Bernardino attack (14 killed on December 2, 2015)
- Yountville Veterans Home of California attack (4 killed on March 9, 2018)
- Thousand Oaks Borderline Bar and Grill attack (12 killed on November 7, 2018)
- Orange, California, VTA Line attack (9 killed on March 31, 2021)
- Downtown Sacramento attack (6 killed on April 3, 2022)
- Goshen attack (6 killed on January 16, 2023)
- Monterey Park attack (11 killed on January 21, 2023)
- Half Moon Bay attack (7 killed on January 23, 2023)
Shootings have become so common in California that on June 22, 2023, the Public Policy Institute of California noted, “Attacks that injure or kill at least four people have begun to inch up: in 2023, Californians have experienced a mass shooting every six days.”
Despite the impotence of an “assault weapons” ban and universal checks against such shootings, Newsom pushed for them nationally on Thursday night:
Newsom mentioned a waiting period in his X post, which is another gun control in California that failed to prevent the shootings listed ab