A few months ago the Supreme Court forced CA counties to begin issuing concealed carry weapon permits: https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/media/legal-alert-oag-2022-0.... Previously it was up to the discretion of the county's sheriff to issue them, which meant only well-connected people had them.
More armed citizens isn't the ultimate solution (people need mental and financial help) but it's better than the current situation.
There's one study that showed that carrying made things worse for yourself:
> Results. After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P < .05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P < .05).
And every county is slow walking the actual issuance. I would be surprised if there has been any material increase in CCW issuance in the last 180 days.
Allowing law-abiding citizens to have guns to defend themselves against crimes that the government refuses to prevent, yes.
If the governments would do their basic job, the vast majority of law-abiding citizens would not need guns for self-defense. But our current governments are sadly unwilling to do their basic job.
You need to read the fine print. Although the graphic you linked to claims that these things "may increase" violent crime, when you click through to the "supporting evidence", it turns out the evidence for that is "limited".
Also, the pages talk about "homicide", but that term, at least as it's usually used in such general studies, includes justified self-defense homicides. So if total homicides do in fact go up as a result of these laws, that could be because criminals who would have gotten away with their crimes before the laws were passed were instead killed by their intended victims in self defense. That's not a problem, it's exactly what the laws are for.
If the government not only is not willing to do its duty to enforce the laws against crime, but even has the gall to claim that that's not the government's job, then all the more reason why law-abiding citizens will be motivated to exercise their right to keep and bear arms.
It may work well in certain European countries, but in certain others (i.e. Spain) the police will actually take the side of the criminal that's stolen your house and all your property within it as long as they can claim to have "resided" longer than 24 hours (a pizza delivery receipt is fine). You then have to sue, wait for up to 3 years to get a court order to "evict" the new occupiers, and be ok with losing everything you once owned. This is the result of going soft on criminals. Now there are organized crime syndicates that steal houses wholesale and "resell" the new keys for 1000 euros
Should we take them away from the cops as well, so only criminals can have them? Or should we allow law abiding citizens to defend themselves, so you have an option other than becoming a victim?
What laws are worth if they aren't protecting me? I might be unable to protect myself, right? A strong young man may have a physical force advantage over an old disabled woman, right? So the idea is that the police should enforce laws which say it's illegal to harm me, which we're calling "police protecting me"?
Law protects "order". That mostly means "protects the interests of the rich". Sure, avoiding rampant crime to the point that it's an obstruction to commerce is the cops job. Stopping the mugger/killer/rapist that's attacking you personally isn't.
If the cops have a choice of stopping 2 crimes or the crime happening to you, they're going to choose the 2 crimes. Presumably you and definitely I would choose to prevent the crimes happening to ourselves. Thus, self defense.
They are a paramilitary force lacking the civilian supreme command that, in the US, the actual military has, empowered by but not obligated to act to enforce the law, an independent and centralized power center.
No. We should eliminate the cops (who have actively contributed to the current problem as a political protest to lobby for more control) and rebuild SF law enforcement as a non-monolithic function distributed in domain-specific units throughout local government (that component of the solution is not specific to SF, but SF is more accutely problematic than most places.)
Probably less of the total manpower directed to enforcing the law should be armed with firearms, an armed paramilitary force is not a universal solution, but there still should be armed enforcement.
More armed citizens isn't the ultimate solution (people need mental and financial help) but it's better than the current situation.