California’s Tough Gun Laws Could Not Prevent East Oakland Tragedy
California’s gun laws are the toughest of any state in the nation, but they could not prevent this week’s East Oakland shooting that left seven people dead.
And short of banning semi-automatic weapons, it’s unlikely that any new laws could prevent someone from going on a shooting spree with the weapon that authorities say One L. Goh used to kill students at Oikos University. Even some of the most ardent gun-control advocates believe that’s the case.
“It wasn’t a failure of laws,” said Amanda Wilcox, who along with her husband, Nick, lobbies for the California chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “I just don’t see how our gun laws could have stopped something like that.”
Police say that Goh, a 43-year-old South Korean immigrant, used a legally purchased .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol. Police say they believe the gunman had four fully loaded magazines, each with eight rounds of ammunition. Under California’s assault-weapons ban, the maximum number of rounds allowed per magazine is 10.
In addition to the seven people police say Goh shot and killed, three others were injured, and several people were shot multiple times. Because there were more than eight shots fired, police are presuming Goh reloaded the gun.
Authorities reportedly have copies of the receipt for the weapon Goh purchased at a Castro Valley gun shop, but they have not divulged details other than to say what caliber gun it was and that it
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was a semi-automatic.
Police say Goh has not told them where he discarded the gun, but authorities conducted a search in the Oakland Estuary based on shoe prints found on the shoreline, which was along the route they believe he took to Alameda after fleeing the scene of the killings. He was later arrested at a Safeway. Police say they’re continuing to search for the gun.
Goh was troubled. A divorced father who lived under a mountain of debt and whose business had failed, he had difficulty keeping jobs and maintaining his studies. But Goh had no criminal past, no history of being hospitalized with a mental illness and no restraining orders based on domestic violence — three of the four classifications of people who are prohibited from buying firearms in California. (People younger than 18 are also prohibited from owning firearms.)
Gun-control advocates say a climate of permissive gun laws has made the United States one of the most violent countries in the developed world. Gun-rights groups maintain that equipping citizens with appropriate weaponry can prevent tragedies such as the Oakland shooting because the “good guys” can kill gunmen at the first signs of a shooting spree.
California goes beyond federal law in requiring background checks on individuals who seek to purchase firearms at both gun shops and gun shows. It also requires a 10-day waiting period for handguns and rifles.
Though there is no registration for gun purchases, the California Department of Justice keeps a database of all firearm transfers and sales — all of which must go through a licensed California firearms dealer.
California has approved 45 gun-control laws since 1989, when the state became the first in the nation to ban military-style assault weapons in the aftermath of the Stockton schoolyard shooting that left five children dead and 29 others wounded. In the past two decades, deaths dropped by 50 percent, while the decline in the rest of the U.S. was 30 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“That’s 1,000 lives saved in California that wouldn’t have been saved if our decline was just the same as the rest of the nation’s,” said Griffin Dix, president of the Brady Campaign’s Alameda County chapter. His 15-year-old son was killed in an accidental shooting by a friend.
“We’ve still got a long way to go to save more lives, but this state is doing well,” said Dix, who lives in Kensington.