Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
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“Experts” confounded by an increase in gun ownership in California. It’s almost as if telling people they can’t have an item designed for self-defense makes them want it more.

The California data measured against the national surveys show that while a smaller percentage of Californians own guns than the national average, the increase in ownership rates among Californians is far more pronounced than the nationwide trend.

It is unclear exactly why California has seen a large increase in gun ownership over the past decade but David Yamane, a professor of sociology at Wake Forest University who studies gun culture, told the Washington Free Beacon that while some of the increase is likely “artifactual,” it’s also likely the data undercounts gun ownership.

“The restrictive nature of gun laws and political culture of California, especially in the most populated areas, makes a low estimate realistic, but 8% is well below survey-based estimates of around 15% that I have seen,” he said. “And I would take any survey-based estimate as a minimum so the gun ownership rate is probably even higher then (sic) these government numbers say. So, this makes the situation confounding because you have a dramatic increase in the known gun ownership rate and yet even at the end of that increase at probably still under estimates actual gun ownership in California.”

– Stephen Gutowski and Charles Fain Lehman in Report: California Saw Huge Increase in Gun Ownership Over Last Decade Despite Strict Gun Laws

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69 COMMENTS

  1. “It is unclear exactly why California has seen a large increase in gun ownership“. I bet this idiot has difficulty tying their shoes too.
    There’s a list of reasons, I’d put number one as ‘the state doesn’t want me to have one, therefore…’

    • yup yup yup. The more they say no, the more people will buy before it is too late. Other reasons are in numerable “ghost guns” because then-Senator DeLeon said we shouldn’t have them (before the law requiring that they be serialized before they could be milled). There could be millions of ARs and AKs out there that have never been registered.

      As you say, there are other reasons as well. The UBC law, which records all transfers, likely doesn’t count all of the inherited guns out there that have never been registered. Then there are all of the people who moved here with guns who did not “volreg” them within 90 days as required by law–or ever, for that matter. Then there are all of the surveys that are likely low counts, because who answers them accurately anymore?

      Even then, and assuming 15% is a low number, we are so far below the national average as to make it understandable why gun owners have been so unsuccessful in defending against the ever increasing limitations on our rights–we don’t have enough gunnies to make a dent in the vote.

  2. The only restrictions in California are what kind of gun you can buy (after all a mini14 is not scary looking, thus much safer) and the ability to pass a test that anyone who knows the fundamentals should be able to pass if they can read (I wonder what the Californian policy is if you are illiterate?).

    Yes I know infringed and all, but Steve and Charlie admit it is a “culture” war.

    • Honest question here, have you ever lived in California as a gun owner?

      I have, and can state from personal experience that it is indeed restrictive, and can pose significant burdens when trying to purchase a firearm, especially from a private seller or when one lives any distance from an FFL.

    • So only california law enforcement should have firepower equal to the military????? Because california cops are so trust worthy???? Some school police departments got M79 grenade launchers from Obama. And select fire rifles.

      “Former Pasadena police officer agrees to plead guilty to illegal sale of more than 100 firearms”
      https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2018/09/07/former-pasadena-police-officer-pleads-guilty-to-illegal-sale-of-more-than-100-firearms/

      “Two Gardena police officers charged with illegally selling more than 100 guns”
      https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-gardenapolice-guns-dealing-20180326-story.html

      To be far California is not the only state with this problem.

      “Police guns are turning up in crimes, but ATF can’t talk about it”
      https://www.revealnews.org/article/police-guns-are-turning-up-in-crimes-but-atf-cant-talk-about-it/

      • That last article is suspect at best.

        Cops are selling newish, gently used and well maintained post-86 full autos to the public at rock bottom prices? I doubt rather strongly that this is true. I’m pretty sure A LOT of people on this board would be all over that in a heartbeat.

        The cops paid for the guns? Bullshit, the public paid for the guns on behalf of the police department. The cops didn’t go start a business, make their own money and use it to buy the guns. They didn’t even run a bake sale. They used tax money, that is, they used the public’s money.

        As such, those guns belong to the public in the first place and the public has the right to tell the department what to do with the unused/no longer wanted guns that the cops got via public funds.

        The ATF can’t tell a Department what happened to a gun after they gave it back to the public at a discount for having used it for awhile? Boo fucking hoo.

  3. Well, folks there need a supply of hidee guns (and ammo) so that they are still armed after the government confiscators have paid a visit.

    • Except that California has registration. So in principle they know what you have, or had best be able to account for it.

      • I’ve often wondered what would happen if authorities paid a visit to try to confiscate a registered firearm, only to not be able to find it. What if the owner moved it out of state? What if the owner had a change of heart, and destroyed the firearm and melted it down in fire? Lost it in a boating accident? Are they going to arrest you for not possessing an item? How is that going to work in court? I realize that the judiciary in liberal states has been largely compromised, but say the owner lives in a conservative community and the case is brought before the judge of that community. How does that play out?

        (These are rhetorical questions, though I suspect I’ll get answers from the more cynical commenters).

        • This is why they want to criminalize not reporting lost or stolen firearms.

          So you can’t hide guns from the government.

        • The CA DOJ recognizes that the gun owner database is too unreliable to support the issuance of a subpoena or warrant. For one reason, a seller is not required to report the sale. For two, purchases of used firearms are not cross-referenced to purchase records, so once an owner, always an owner. For example, I gave my son a handgun when he lived up in Washington. The transaction was all handled according to federal law, with the gun sent to a Washington FFL, and a background check performed there. He vol registered it when he moved back to California. I’d bet dollars to donuts I am still showing as the registered owner in the database.

      • OK, theoretically speaking, you hide your pre-registration guns and get some cheap shotguns that are registered for the confiscators. Alternately, grind off or drill out the serial numbers of your preferred registered hidee guns and report them as lost or stolen.

        In states like Texas and Arizona that are going the way of California, NOW is the time to be preparing.

        • Yes, but does Cali have any laws on the books making possession of an un-registerd firearm a crime, even if you are the owner of it?

          We *really* need to try to get a challenge to firearm registration requirements in front a friendly SCOTUS and slap that crap down…

    • Typical TAG comments, the growing gun culture in California is a GOOD thing, but still need to inject that they are coming for your guns.

      (Unless they shoot 20 people, then it is the government’s fault for NOT getting the guns)

      • “…but still need to inject that they are coming for your guns.”

        They *ARE*, binder. They don’t even bother to disguise it much that’s what they want to do.

        Maybe *you* think Leftists are benevolent towards 2A rights, but I hold no such fanciful illusions about those rattlesnakes…

        • binder is a strong supporter of the bump stock ban, according to him a bump stock is a machine gun.

          i trust nothing he says.

      • @Blinder- videos on YouTube right now of CA state police collecting AR pistols due to how/when they were registered.

        “They’ve” been coming after your guns since the 1930’s!

  4. I’ll give you two reasons:
    1. Because the more you tell people they can’t have something the more they want it.
    2. People realize the state governments intention is to make it harder and harder to obtain something so they are accumulating it while they can.

    Same thing has happened here in NY. People who never had guns or AR platforms are accumulating them at a faster rate than they were before the SAFE ACT became law.

      • I remember a joke about Delaware where 5% of the population admits to owning a gun, 40 odd percent want a ban and 55% are damn liars. Seems to apply elsewhere.

    • Yep. This is called “patterned evasion of social norms”. When traditional behavior gets proscribed by law, people will invent new ways of continuing to do the things they’ve always done. Prohibition invented bathtub gin. The 55mph speed limit invented a sophisticated radar-detector industry. Gun control promotes increased gun-sales. Once result of gun-control is that America is arming itself. Just sayin’.

  5. Thankfully I dont live in Kommifornia. But if I did. Id own at least one of everything they tell me I cant have. Legal or otherwise.

    • Florida may be headed that way, just like Illinois. Get a few antigunners in high government positions and it’s downhill from there. Look at New Mexico. Who’d have thought they’d ban private sales before some lefty states? Oregon? Washington? I always thought of the western states as the ‘free’ states.

      • They were. Then a bunch of New Yorkers and Massholes invaded California and Colorado. Then the new breed Californians invaded Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and New Mexico. They’re even working on Arizona, Idaho, and Montana.

        • That’s the belief of most of the commenters here. I believe it is a strong contributing factor, has been and still is. But 2 other factors are the POTG belief that “it can’t happen to my state”, AND the speed at which misinformation spreads via social media and that people are willing to accept it as truth. As POTG we need to fully understand our enemy (the leftist anti’s) and counter the factors we can control, but we still need 2A leaders to unify us.

        • The Californians have virtually taken over Missoula and the “Cali Triangle” between Kalispell, Whitefish, and Columbia Falls. That’s why I like it over here in the NE corner of Montana. No citidiots ever last over here. It goes to -40 in the winter, and the ones that don’t freeze to death, hibernate till spring and then split for the coasts, ASAP. As much as I dislike the extreme cold, I’ll put up with it to keep the riff-raff out.

        • New Mexico isn’t really that surprising.

          Santa Fe is the desert version of San Franciso.

          They’re so dumb that they left all the junkies alone to the point that they started shooting up in public on The Plaza and nearby. The solution was to hide them because obviously as long as tourists don’t see the junkies the disease and crime problems disappear.

          This is a city where about 10 years ago a guy breaks into a house and attacks a lady. He throws her on the bed in her room telling her to get undressed. She reaches under the pillow, pulls out a 9mm and blasts the guy into the hearafter. An investigation finds that Mr. Dead Guy has multiple warrants for forcible rape in NM and Texas and that his DNA matches another dozen rapes, five in Santa Fe.

          There is a massive public outcry against the cops… for not taking away her gun. She’s basically run out of town on a rail for… owning a gun and for killing someone who “didn’t deserve to die”.

          I could go on for pages and pages.

          The only good things about Santa Fe are the restaurants, the weather and The Outdoorsman.

  6. “California Gun Ownership More Than Doubles Over the Past Decade” Well, that’s probably the best method for those who elect to stay there to flip the bird at those who would lord over them. I doubt the government will be willing to go out and round everyone (or their guns) up, nor expect much compliance with the Draconian measures they are trying to foist on the population.

    Personally, I say to the people of California: Triple the numbers!

  7. Yep Commieforina is a model for us all…as is ILLinois. Did folks stop getting high? Speeding? Cheating on their taxes? Or their spouse?!? Stock up…a war is coming.

  8. ““Experts” confounded by an increase in gun ownership in California.”

    Perhaps the good people of California realize their betters in Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles can’t or won’t be there when they really need them….?

  9. It is another way of giving the demoidiots the FU.

    Once people understand they have rights, they wake up from the nightmare.

    • Folks across the US are waking up, but at slower rate than state gov officials are coming up with anti 2A bills. What can we do besides, “not complying”?

      • Well, we could fight back by educating the sheeple in the truth. But many of us are already doing that.
        In fact, I think we are winning handily. That is why the huge gun control push right now. Because the elite know they are losing this war( not that they would ever admit it), and are desperate enough to try a grab for the brass ring right now, before it’s too late. But they always get everything backwards, due to extreme stupidity.
        It’s already too late. They’re on the back side of the power curve now, and everything they do only deepens the stall. All the propaganda hasn’t fazed Trump. The crooked election system was unable to throw the game to Killery. Even the big federal gun control push is likely to fail(that’s why they changed their strategy to concentrate on the States), and even if it doesn’t, the people have clearly shown that they will not comply anyway. The more lies they tell, and the crazier they get, the more people slip through their fingers.
        The only way out for them is a 180 degree turnaround, but that they will not do. Instead, they’ll just keep adding power until they crash and burn. That’s my prediction anyway.

        • Kenneth, many people that own firearms are not interested in”Protecting” their rights, someone else will do it. Others aren’t immersed in the political side and believe the government.I still have friends in Ma .Ct , NY that have no quarrel with UBCs ,”so what if the gov has a list, they won’t come after us ,we have a right”. They are owners but not fighters for the cause …..someone else will do it.

  10. Why does the word TYRANNY come to mind? This communist like state government continues to march down the path of servant (legal law-abiding American citizens) CONTROL. using the FALSE FLAGS of safety, crime prevention and the ever present way over used “save the children.
    WARNING AMERICA. Kalifornia is like an STD. Infectious and spreads. It’s happening NOW.

  11. I’m an American who lives in a zip code in CA. The constitution is the law of the land. Fuck those idiots in sacramento.

    • I never considered myself a Californian. I too am an American who strongly believes in our Constitution. It blows my mind the CA govies have time to be anti 2A when CA has larger issues: housing crisis, taxing people to death, education, traffic congestion, water, etc.

  12. All good Americans can and should help nullify these Anti American Socialist view points , we are not a serfdom yet??? take back the night

    • There are two registered Democrats here for every registered Republican. We’ve lost every battle on the political front before it has even started. The courts, federal courts have a similar demographic, and the Ninth Circuit is dominated by Democrats–although the President has been making some inroads there.

  13. Likely, this guy is a professor and uses the word likely about a stat that can be verified by checking sales records or the number of background checks run? Leftist apologist= jackass.

  14. 1st it was the red coats against the colonies, then the greys against the blues, & now it’s the reds against the blues,,,, so let’s get readdddyyyy,,,
    Get it on….!!!

  15. Just read this in the Washington Post, Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent. Looks like they want to get their liberal bent back to the Supreme Court by adding a few more justices to the current 9 of their picking.

  16. Looks like the article is about “Court Packing” that they have been proposing, since Kavanaugh was appointed to the Supreme Court.

  17. Typical. They don’t like how the game is going, so they move the goal posts….or add more yards to the field. Chicago has that covered. They just ‘allow’ dead people to vote. That way, they always win.

  18. The court-packing threats are just to scare Roberts so he’ll screw over conservatives and be the 5-4 swing vote against guns and for abortion. For example:

    1. New York State Rifle and Pistol Association vs NYS Oyez
    2. June Medical Services vs Gee

    Roberts will be the Democrat’s swing vote “to save the integrity of the institution.” This is a really easy prediction to make after watching John “Penaltax” Roberts bend over backwards three times rewriting the Affordable Care Act so it would pass judicial review.

  19. I like to think we gun owners are bright bunch….show a hands…how many of you would answer a survey like that, or your doctor If asked If you’re a gun owner..HONESTLY?
    Didn’t think so

  20. I relooked that picture over, the guy holding the gun, now I’m really pissed. So that’s the look of the ones whom want to disarm Us. This is MY country, if they want to live here fine, but theyve got to support MY country, not tear it down.

    • The pic is the infamous former Senator Kevin De Leon when he was lobbying for a ghost gun ban. He infamously stated that these guns should be banned because they are capable of shooting 60 rounds per second. (No mistake: he repeated himself.) He is also the guy that lost a bid to replace DiFi, during which campaign he admitted that half his relatives here are undocumented. I’ve always wondered what he is up to since his political career seems to be over. Maybe he will run for governor in eight years when Gavin (us all a hard time) Noisome terms out. (By hen, I am not sure that anyone will WANT to be governor. Noisome will have blown through the multi-billion dollar surplus that Brown left the state, the roads will still need repair, and the public employees retirement system will still have a 200 billion dollar funding shortfall. But we may have “universal health care,” even if it bankrupts the entire state.

  21. I know a lot of people who have bought guns because fuck you, that’s why.

    I have a feeling that with Californians historically rebellious culture, that is a stronger trend for that reason than elsewhere. Although to be fair, the orange fascist dictator being elected might explain more recent changes.

  22. I had no interest in owning a gun until CA had 3 bills pending – one of which would have banned the sale of all semi-auto long guns, in 2016. Within a few months I was the proud owner of 3 AR-15s.

    I and most other people will always want what the government tells us we can’t have. It is why Obama was the best gun salesman America has ever known.

  23. Unfortunately, Gutowski and Lehman have made a major error in their article: One cannot use the APPS data to infer how many gun owners might be in CA.

    APPS is supposed to contain the info in people who have been banned from possession by virtue of their criminal acts or by court order. There is no method proposed in the article, nor am I aware of any other method, to correlate APPS people with gun owners in general.

  24. Am I the only one who can’t help but think of Biggie’s Going Back to Cali? Seems like be pretty well summed up the only reasons to go to California back in like 93.

    “See it’s all about the cheddar, nobody do it better
    Going back to Cali, strictly for the weather
    Women and the weed…”

    • I have made a very good living for myself here in CA. And there’s a lot to be said for the weather. The biggest problem here is the dem super majority. We have more gun owners than nearly all other states. But we are still totally outnumbered. And the dems believe they are a separate country from the US and can violate rights at will here.

      I’m patiently awaiting CA’s ‘George Wallace’ moment.

  25. This is all statistical BS based on counting the number of entries in their DROS database, which is really a count of how many guns were sold since 1991. Almost everyone who owned a gun before 1991 and hasn’t bought one since isn’t on the list. So, number of guns sold 1991-2009 equals 2009-2019, or last 10 years is same as previous 18. It shows an uptick, but there are lots of reasons. Some is population growth, some is pre-94 buying to beat the law, some is people not caring about registration and starting to buy again. However, a huge change was is 2014 to what goes in the DROS database. Prior, only handguns and “assault weapons” were recorded. After 2014, all handguns and long guns are recorded. It seems reasonable that the numbers would double after 2014 if there’s close to a 50-50 split of handguns to pump and break shotguns, bolt action rifles, .22 semi autos (not “assault weapons”), etc.

  26. I never had an AR until last year. With all the hoopla about banning them and what not I figured I would get at least one just in case. I bought an AK in 97 when the so called import assault weapons “ban” was in effect but that was the last rifle I bought until 2018. I do like it and should get a couple more. One for my son who is only 5 now and one with a longer barrel and also a .300 AAC would be cool too.

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