The fundamental premise of the gun control movement is that more guns inevitably results in more crime. The only way to make the U.S. safer, then, is to reduce the number of firearms in circulation. That means making it more difficult to purchase firearms, but also going after the guns that are already in the hands of legal owners; either through attrition, or as we’re seeing in Rhode Island this session, through prohibiting the continued possession of firearms that were lawfully purchased.
As Dr. John Lott covered in his seminal work, “More Guns, Less Crime,” the fundamental premise of the gun control movement is a lie. Crime trends in the United States rise and fall over time, while the number of guns in circulation has climbed steadily over the decades. Since 2020, for instance, we’ve witnessed a huge surge in both gun sales and violent crime, but over the past couple of years crime has plunged across the country, while there are still more than 1-million firearms being sold each and every month.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta touted the state’s crime figures this week, boasting that last year the Golden State had the fewest number of homicides, suicides, and “firearm deaths” since 1968. What Bonta didn’t highlight during his press conference, however, was that California has far more firearms than it did just a few years ago.
CA says legally recorded firearm owners increased by 21% between 2021 and 2025. pic.twitter.com/jbApuxkPDB
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) April 21, 2026
That factoid is buried in Bonta’s new report entitled “A Strategic Plan to Sustain California’s Record Progress Against Gun Violence,” which calls for things like expanding the use of “red flag” orders, going after “ghost gun factories,” and lavishing money on community violence intervention programs… and, of course, keeping all of California’s restrictive gun laws in place.
While Bonta acknowledges that the number of legally-owned firearms in California has increased by 21% since 2020, his boast about that figure proving that the state’s gun laws have not impeded the lawful commerce in arm is dead wrong. Elsewhere in his report, Bonta admits that the state’s new 11% excise tax on firearms and ammunition hasn’t been the revenue generator lawmakers were expecting.
It’s funny that the report says MA and NY spend more on violence intervention programs, so they are safer.
That’s nonsense; they have ALWAYS had lower homicide than California. It’s mainly a function of demographic differences between the states. pic.twitter.com/ZBrvrOEUdz
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) April 21, 2026
Yes, when you tax something you get less of it, but the fact that the revenue raised from the Second Amendment sin tax is far below projections is also evidence that the state’s gun control regime is impeding lawful commerce in arms; even more than what legislators anticipated. It’s not just the 11% tax that’s keeping some Californians from exercising their right to keep and bear arms. It’s the entire structure of California’s gun laws; unreasonable and unreliable background checks on ammunition sales, prohibiting gun shows on state-owned property, keeping many popular firearms off-limits to residents because they don’t include “safety features” mandated by the state, and a host of other draconian regulations in between.
Those laws haven’t eradicated gun ownership or halted all gun sales, but the numbers would be even higher if the state didn’t make it so expensive, time consuming, and legally dangerous to exercise our Second Amendment rights. Those infringements are suppressing lawful gun ownership to some degree, and as Bonta’s report shows, there’s simply no reason to believe that fewer guns (and fewer gun owners) is necessary to reduce “gun violence.”
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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