U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- Former federal prosecutor Charles Stimson told Fox News Digital that the nation’s crime problem lays at the feet of “soft-on-crime district attorneys,” not guns, and that assessment comes at a time that Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villaneuva says vaccine mandates could cause him to lose thousands of employees.
Stimson’s assertion also coincides with a renewed attack on the “constitutional carry” movement by Shannon Watts, founder and head of the Michael Bloomberg-supported Moms Demand Action organization, claiming in an email blast such laws “allow people to carry concealed handguns in public without a permit, without training, and without a background check.”
“Even far-right extremists and white supremacists” would be able to carry without a permit, her email gasps.
It’s the perfect storm of colliding philosophies, further intensified by Joe Biden’s gun control policies which will be more of a problem for law-abiding gun owners than criminals if they actually become law. He hinted in that direction in conjunction with a meeting he held with “Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and committee ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to discuss the impending vacancy to the court after Justice Stephen Breyer retires,” Fox News reported.
“You know, there’s always a renewed national debate, every time we nominate, any president, nominates a justice, because the Constitution is always evolving slightly in terms of additional rights, or curtailing rights,” Biden reportedly said.
The president could get considerable push-back on that theory from those who say the Constitution is a legal document rather than a “living” document. Biden has historically backed increasing restrictions on Second Amendment rights, and he has repeatedly, and wrongly, argued the amendment does not protect a right for everyone to have a gun.
Meanwhile, during his interview at Fox Digital, Stimson insisted, “Guns don’t commit crimes, neither do knives and hammers, people do. It’s a red herring to focus on guns rather than the harder issue of how to enforce the law fairly and hold criminals accountable.”
Perhaps this explains the results of a new Rasmussen survey, taken with the National Police Association, revealed: “58% of Likely U.S. voters believe a law permitting an appointed state oversight committee with the ability to remove state attorneys from office if they won’t prosecute violent crimes would improve safety.” On the other hand, only 21 percent disagreed, and the remaining 20 percent aren’t sure.
Another revelation of the Rasmussen poll is that 54 percent of voters “believe safety would be improved by a law permitting state attorney generals to appoint a special prosecutor if the local district attorney refuses to carry out their responsibilities.” Only 24 percent disagree, and 22 percent were not convinced one way or the other.
Stimson formerly worked as an Assistant US Attorney in D.C., Fox noted. And he backed his claim with a stunning statistic.
According to Fox Digital, Stimson “compared the murder rate in Philadelphia to San Diego, two similarly sized cities. Last year under (Prosecutor Larry) Krasner’s watch, Philadelphia suffered the bloodiest year in its history clocking 562 murders, he said.
“There were 48 homicides that same year in San Diego under DA Summer Stephan, who he called a more law-and-order Democrat,” Fox added.
But “law-and-order” Democrats seem to be the ones pushing vaccine mandates in California, bringing the problem right back to rest in Villaneuva’s lap, because a dramatic manpower loss on the scale he described could compel more citizens in his county to buy guns.
CNN reported the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will review a proposal March 15 that “would empower the county’s personnel director to override department heads and discipline employees who don’t comply with the vaccine mandate in place since October 1.”
Just the threat of fewer lawmen and women on patrol could result in a rush to gun stores as increasing numbers of Californians living in Los Angeles County—described by CNN as “the most populous US county”—could become their own first responders. That might make for an interesting dilemma for Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, identified by Stimson as one of the soft-on-criminal prosecutors he was criticizing. Stimson calls them “rogue” prosecutors, and he also included prosecutors in San Francisco and Chicago, according to the Fox News Digital report.
Public concerns are not without merit. As reported by Fox and other sources, FBI data for 2020 says homicides were up 30 percent last year over 2019. The news agency also reported, “The murder rate in 22 major U.S. cities was up 44% in 2021 compared to 2019 and 5% compared to 2020, according to a study from the non-partisan Council on Criminal Justice.” People see that data and become alarmed, especially when they are also hearing about efforts to defund local police agencies. In Los Angeles County, that concern is amplified by fears of massive manpower reductions because commissioned law enforcement officers apparently are resisting vaccine mandates.
In many, if not most California counties, it is difficult to get a concealed carry permit, making the notion of permitless carry more attractive to honest citizens who feel the need for personal protection without the necessity of obtaining a permit. Not that it is likely California will ever adopt a constitutional carry statute, with a Democrat-dominated Assembly that would have to be dragged kicking and screaming to even a “shall issue” level of licensing.
But Watts, in her frustration, is probably right. By the end of this year, it is possible “more than half” of the states will have adopted permitless carry—as was the case when the nation was founded; no permits were necessary—making her brand of gun control an even tougher sell.
Much may depend upon how the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Arguments were heard in that case back in early November, and a decision is expected sometime in late June. The case challenges New York’s restrictive carry permit policy, but California’s law could easily be impacted if the high court declares “good cause” requirements to be unconstitutional.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
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