Photo Credit: Heather Bosch, KIRO Radio
Dublin, CA — Most gun owners in 2020 will tell you that a big reason they own a gun to defend themselves and their family. While many gun owners are also hunters, self-defense is what is on most gun owners’ minds — especially this year!
That’s why it makes no sense when a city passes a ‘safe storage’ law, forcing law-abiding citizens to keep their guns locked away and nearly impossible to access in the few short seconds they have when faced with a violent criminal.
But that’s the story in Dublin, CA, where a local media outlet reported on the Dublin City Council’s recent ordinance:
Gun owners in Dublin will soon be required to store their firearms inside a locked container or keep it disabled with a trigger lock while inside their home after the City Council unanimously approved the new ordinance at its meeting last week.
California already has similar laws in effect for guns in households with children living there, or that require a gun owner to store their guns from a household member who is prohibited from having guns.
“What we’re doing in this case is just expanding that definition beyond those two scenarios — children in the home or criminal record — and applying it to all households,” City Manager Linda Smith during a presentation at the Dec. 1 meeting.
Added to the Dublin Municipal Code, the ordinance known as Chapter 5.89 to Title 5, states, “No person shall keep a firearm within any residence unless the firearm is stored in a locked container or disabled with a trigger lock.”
Two exceptions were added: when the firearm is lawfully carried on an individual, or when it is under the control of a peace officer.
Councilmember Shawn Kumagai said the ordinance “will state clearly to our community that we embrace a culture of gun safety” and “safe gun storage helps to prevent unintentional and intentional injury and death of minors, helps prevent gun suicide, and deters gun theft.”
A staff report stated “the unsafe storage of firearms threatens public health and safety,” and that 54% of gun owners in the U.S. don’t lock away all of their guns. This year, there have been at least 236 unintentional shootings by children, resulting in 102 deaths and 141 injuries nationally. Seven of those were in California, resulting in two deaths and five injuries.
Of course, what the article doesn’t mention that California has nearly 40 million residents. So they had seven children hurt, two of whom later died of their injuries.
The Left Doesn’t Really Mind Dead Kids
While the death of any child is tragic, it’s ironic that the City Council of Dublin isn’t also banning abortion if they’re worried about saving the lives of children!
After all, 324 abortions are performed every single day in California, totaling more than 130,000 a year. For the City Council of Dublin, California, those babies don’t count.
But when it comes to guns, then two children out of 40 million is a “public health and safety” issue! In case our readers’ math is rusty, two children a year out of 40 million people is 0.000005%.
They Don’t Mind Dead Gun-Owners, Either
What will happen in Dublin will be exactly what has happened in other places where “safe storage” laws are passed. Criminals will realize that even the few citizens who own guns are not going to have easy access to them. If the criminal catches them off guard — pretty typical criminal behavior to use the element of surprise — the odds are staggeringly high that the homeowner won’t be able to get to their gun at all.
We reported last year about a case out of San Diego, California, where a homeowner’s son shot a home invader while the thug was grappling with his dad on the floor and repeatedly stabbing the father with a knife.
In that case, if the adult son had not been home to open the safe and get out a gun, there’s no doubt that this father would have been brutally murdered.
Ironically, the San Diego city council had passed their ‘safe storage’ law just 24 hours earlier.
And that’s what always happens when leftists pretend to care about saving lives by passing gun control. Innocent, law-abiding citizens who want to defend themselves from violent criminals are left defenseless by regulations that give those same violent criminals the upper hand.