<![CDATA[Oakland]]>

Oakland is reeling right about now due to the shooting at high school earlier this week. It’s the kind of thing that would shake up any community.

I get it.

However, it seems the mayor there is seizing the opportunity to call for federal gun control.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf on Thursday called on the “obstructionists in Congress” to take action to stop the flow of guns into Oakland after a school shooting wounded six people Wednesday.

“I want to acknowledge that Oakland, California, has long struggled with gun violence and has made incredible progress,” Schaaf said in a press conference Thursday. “And yet we will never be able to address this alone, or in isolation, without federal leadership.”

The shooting is the latest in a series of devastating violent incidents in Oakland, with nine people killed in as many days and more injured. Four of those deaths occurred in a 24-hour period between Sept. 19 and 20. The spate of homicides has prompted city leadership to announce a ramping up of police presence in Oakland, and to renew calls for federal gun-control reform.

However, Schaaf provides absolutely no evidence of any gun control policy being considered having any impact on anything.

I mean, California has tons of gun control, and none of that seems to help.

After all, here’s what the police think about this shooting:

Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong said officers suspect the shooting on Wednesday specifically targeted at least one person — and possibly multiple people — at the school. He said footage at the King Estates campus, which contains three schools, showed at least two shooters and an accomplice, but there could have been more.

“We do believe that this incident is group- and gang-related,” Armstrong said. “We believe that this is related to ongoing conflicts in our city that has driven violence.”

In other words, these aren’t otherwise law-abiding citizens who are flipping out suddenly and killing folks. This is likely tied to criminal organizations, which gangs are, and not private citizens obtaining firearms lawfully.

I mean, we don’t even know how these shooters got their guns.

But Schaaf is pushing an agenda, not facts.

The truth of the matter is that gun control won’t solve this. Most of the guns used by people like this are stolen. Even if they’re stolen from out of state, it’s not evidence that federal gun control is needed. Anti-gun states tend to have fewer gun owners. That’s because they have fewer people interested in owning guns.

As a result of that, thieves are able to steal fewer guns to fuel the black market demand, so those guns come in from out of state to meet that demand.

Federal gun control won’t change that, though, since law-abiding citizens will still buy guns and likely still face the possibility of them being stolen.

But Oakland’s problems have less to do with gun control, or the lack of it, and more to do with the attitudes by law enforcement.

Last year, Cam wrote about how a law-abiding citizen who stopped a robbery was arrested on gun charges. Oakland’s police chief said then that they wanted “good witnesses,” which really just means good victims.

“What we really don’t want to do is bring any additional issues that threaten safety into the equation,” Armstrong continued. “Having armed people out there tends to not be helpful. Officers sometimes have to determine who they’re trying to encounter and that also makes it unsafe for all of us. So while I appreciate those who have stepped forward and are looking to help our community members and be there and intervene, I think you can do that with your voices, you can do that with making phone calls to the OPD, but allowing us to come in and respond.”

The problem with that outlook is that police are rarely in a position to respond in time to stop an attack like the one that occurred Monday afternoon. Armstrong as much as admits that with his statement that citizens should watch a crime take place rather than try to save someone being robbed and assaulted, so they can offer their detailed description to police once they arrive.

Now, would that make a difference in a shooting on a school campus? Probably not.

But when law enforcement essentially calls for letting the bad things happen, you can’t be overly surprised when they do.

That also means Oakland’s problems are its own, and there’s no reason for my rights to be infringed because they can’t keep their own house in order.

Stray bullets are awful. The travel until they run out of energy or they hit something. If we’re all very lucky, what they hit is a wall or a tree or something. If not, they may hit a person.

That’s apparently what happened to one Oakland woman. Now, her daughter is calling for more gun control.

A woman was hit several times by stray bullets while she was asleep in her Oakland, California, home last month.

The woman in her 60s was sleeping alongside her husband in their Little Saigon residence at the 1100 block of 10th Avenue when was shot three times shortly before 5 a.m. on Aug. 17, reported ABC7.

Officers responded to the scene and recovered multiple shell casings. The victim was taken to a local hospital, where she is now listed in stable condition.

…

Roxana has called for change to gun laws and says she hopes the Oakland police will provide their family with an update soon.

“It’s yet another tragedy and another indication that we need to get guns off the street. We need to do everything possible to reduce the level of gun violence,” Oakland City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas told KTVU.

Now, the report doesn’t say anything about specific measures the daughter wants to see enacted, so I’m not sure if she mentioned any or not. I’m curious, though, just what she thinks will do what California’s legion of gun control laws currently don’t.

I mean, while we don’t know who fired the shot, it’s unlikely it was some law-abiding citizen performing some lawful action. Oh, if we were talking about the outskirts or something a bit more rural, I could believe that it might be the result of someone target practicing and not being aware of everything like the elevation and angles of where they were shooting and they failed to provide any kind of a backstop.

Careless, but possible.

But in the middle of Oakland? Yeah, doubtful.

So, what’s more likely is that one of Oakland’s less law-abiding citizens popped off a couple of shots without any care as to where the bullets would land and that is what eventually struck the sleeping woman.

Yet California already has universal background checks, background checks on ammunition, magazine restrictions, restrictions on certain kinds of firearms, registration of certain kinds of firearms, red flag laws, and a host of other gun control laws already on the books.

So, what else?

Just what law will finally end this scourge of violence?

I ask because it’s clear that all of the other laws California’s gun control advocates wanted didn’t do the trick, so what law will suddenly do what all those other laws have failed to do?

Don’t worry, because I already know the answer. There’s not one.

There’s no gun control law that could have stopped it. That’s because the kind of people who pulled that trigger don’t care about little things like laws. They’re going to do what they want to do and damn the consequences.

After all, they’re not going to be paying them–at least, that’s what they all think.

So I get the daughter wanting to do something, but there’s not much she can do that will make a difference on this, I’m afraid.