Westside Story Newspaper – Online The News of The Empire – Sharing the Quest for Excellence
By Joe W. Bowers Jr. and Edward Henderson | California Black Media
Last week, the California Department of Justice’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention (OGVP) released their August data report of gun violence in the state. According to the report, California’s gun death rate is 43% below the national average. If the gun death rate in the nation matched California’s over the last ten years, nearly 140,000 gun deaths could have been avoided.
Attorney General Rob Bonta credits this lower percentage to California’s gun laws and prevention policies.
“The time for thoughts and prayers alone has come and gone. Enough became enough so long ago that it’s now merely a faint memory. The time for action is now,” said Bonta in a letter featured in the report. “The progress we’ve made is undeniable, but it’s hardly finished.”
In recent years, the nation has lost an average of 45,000 people to gun violence per year. Additionally, people in the United States have a 25 times higher chance of being killed by a gun than people living in other high-income countries.
In California, “from 2016-2021, there were 69,136 gunshot wound incidents in California that resulted in death or required urgent medical attention in the form of hospitalization or emergency department care,” according to the report.
