San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan revealed at a press conference Thursday that the two shooters behind the previous day’s mass shooting had enough armaments with them to kill a small town. Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, the alleged shooters, “are believed to have fired about 76 rifle rounds” during a confrontation with police, according to Burguan. Officers also found “over 1,400 .223 caliber rounds” on the suspects’ bodies or in their vehicle, as well as “over 200 9mm rounds.” The shooters also had a pair of assault rifles and a pair of pistols.
Though Burguan noted that “there’s some question still about whether” some of the guns were legal in California, he added that “we do know at this point that the four guns” appeared to be purchased in a “legal purchase.” He also added that he is not aware of any law restricting the volume of ammunition they carried.
Although some of the guns they used may turn out to be illegal in California, that fact merely emphasizes how state gun laws can be undermined if they are not enacted throughout the nation. Defenders of weak guns laws frequently cite examples of jurisdictions with strong gun laws and high murder rates as evidence that gun laws cannot work. In reality, however, guns frequently travel from states with weak laws to states with stronger ones. In Chicago, for example, which is frequently held up as an exemplar of a city with both strict gun laws and much violent crime, an analysis found that fifty-seven percent of the city’s guns came from out of state — most notably from Indiana and Mississippi.
In any event, while state and local gun laws are undermined by other states with weaker laws, strong state and local laws are still more effective than nothing. A 2013 report by the Center for American Progress determined that “the 10 states with the weakest gun laws collectively have a level of gun violence that is more than twice as high — 104 percent higher — than the 10 states with the strongest gun laws.”
Update:
Although the guns were apparently purchased legally, according to Chief Burguan, it’s now being reported that they were illegally modified.
BREAKING ATF confirms both rifles were illegal. One modified to hold 30-round magazines. Suspects attempted to make the other automatic.
— Brett Kelman (@TDSbrettkelman) December 4, 2015