Free Republic

California’s rate of gun deaths has declined by 10% since 2005, even as the national rate has climbed in recent years. And Texas and Florida? Their rates of gun deaths have climbed 28% and 37% respectively. California now has one of the 10 lowest rates of gun deaths in the nation. Texas and Florida are headed in the wrong direction. Obviously, factors beyond a state’s laws can affect the rate of firearms deaths. The national health statistics take into account differences in the age distribution of state populations, but they don’t control for every factor that might affect gun deaths.

Signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom last September, Assembly Bill 173 amended state firearms laws to allow California to turn over gun owners’ personal information to gun violence researchers. Finding there was no “emergency” to warrant restraining California from sharing millions of gun owners’ personal information with gun violence researchers, a federal judge Wednesday declined to block the state’s enactment of Assembly Bill 173.U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns heard from attorneys for Jane and John Does and Attorney General Rob Bonta regarding a constitutional challenge to Assembly Bill 173, a law which amended California firearms laws to authorize...