A whole lot of bad ideas come from California. Yes, a lot of them are related to the regulation of firearms, but not all of them.
But it seems there is a second-order effect, an unintended consequence (maybe) of all those laws that are going to have an even bigger impact on people's Second Amendment rights.
While Hollywood is free to use guns as horrifically as they want and the state will not just let them but explicitly provide loopholes for the film and television industry, regular folks have a much harder time. That impacts the people who sell guns. And not all of it was necessarily intended to impact them at all.
And a lot of places are shutting down and/or leaving the state entirely:
Right off the bat, California is a horrible place to own a business, and I’m talking about any business, not just a gun store. If you don’t believe me, you may be surprised by the number of companies and some of the names on the list fleeing the failing state since 2020. Sure, you know Elon Musk took off faster than Gavin Newsom violating his own COVID-19 lockdown, but did you know about Chevron, Neutrogena, Blaze Pizza, McAfee, Hyperion, Edelbrock Group, Charles Schwab, Oracle, Pabst Brewing and many more? In light of this, it should not come as any surprise that gun stores are being run out of business as well.
The land of high taxes, higher regulations and politicians that are so high they don’t know what day it is has claimed the lives of two small firearms shops in the Fresno area last month alone, with South Gate Firearm Supply closing its doors after five years and PRK Arms calling it as well after sixteen. Owners of both stores attribute the downfall to crippling California gun laws and high taxes.
“It hurts… I wish we could stay open…. Just isn’t sustainable,” said Ryan Farrell, owner of South Gate Firearm Supply.
In addition to rent increases, out-of-control energy costs, workers’ compensation, insurance and inflation factors plaguing all businesses, especially those in California, Farrell says the closures are “95% because of these regulations.”
It's hard enough to run a gun store when you're in a state that tries to make it as hard as possible for you to sell a gun. It's another entirely when the state's economic and environmental policies, among others, make it difficult for anyone to do business. Couple that with ridiculously high taxes and what you get is a recipe for disaster.
While the gun control groups keep talking about this massive gun industry they're convinced secretly runs everything, the truth is that most gun-related companies are small to mid-size businesses. Gun stores are almost always small businesses. While there are chains like Walmart and Bass Pro Shops that sell them, too, and could likely weather some of this, most of them are mom-and-pop stores with a small handful of employees, if that. A lot are just family businesses.
These companies can't just shrug off all of this.
But for the regular shmuck on the streets, this becomes a problem.
It's not exactly easy to exercise your Second Amendment rights when there's nowhere around you to buy a gun.
California is a universal background state. You have to have an FFL to conduct even a private sale of a firearm. Without that, you can't lawfully buy anything, which means law-abiding citizens might have trouble buying and selling firearms to one another. If they have them, they have other avenues for purchasing guns.
I don't think this was intentional, either.
Don't get me wrong, Gov. Gavin Newsom isn't exactly the kind of person to be heartbroken by the idea that people can't buy guns, but I just don't think anyone in power in California is smart enough to figure and plan this far out.
Either way, this is an issue in general, especially for gun rights.