BELLEVUE, WA – Wednesday’s tragic shooting incident on the UCLA campus in California serves as yet another reminder that restrictive gun control laws and so-called “gun-free zones” provide a dangerous illusion, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.
“California has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, including universal background checks, and state lawmakers are presently working to add more,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “But those laws, and the fact that firearms are not allowed on California college and university campuses, has once again provided a false sense of safety to the thousands of students and faculty affected by Wednesday’s crime, which appears to be a murder-suicide.
“While authorities are still sorting out what happened,” he added, “it is clear that simply writing a law or adopting a rule is not going to deter someone bent on committing a violent act. It should have been abundantly clear after San Bernardino that pursuing a policy of restrictive gun control has been a failure in the Golden State.
“Sadly,” Gottlieb observed, “too many lawmakers in Sacramento are deliberately blind to this fact, and their likely reaction to the UCLA incident will be to propose still more laws that only restrict the rights of law-abiding California residents. That’s not common sense, it’s nonsense.”
Gottlieb extended his sympathy to the victim and his family, and the UCLA community. He also congratulated university police and Los Angeles police for their quick response.
“It is both amazing and disappointing that some people still consider designating an area as ‘gun-free’ and passing a bunch of gun control laws is going to somehow deter, much less prevent, anyone from causing mayhem,” Gottlieb stated. “Someone determined to cause harm is not going to be dissuaded by a sign or a statute. It is about time that state lawmakers, gun control extremists and newspaper editorial writers figured that out.”