There was another mass shooting late on Sunday afternoon. What, you didn’t hear about it?

Or did you? Like the weekly update of how many people were shot and killed in Chicago over the weekend, this shooting in San Pedro, California, won’t be widely discussed as a horrific example of “gun violence.” After all, it happened in California, and even though it fits the definition of a “mass shooting,” the Los Angeles Police Department have no suspects, no descriptions, and no apparent motive. So this must mean it is a “local crime story!”

At least seven people have been injured after reports of a shooting at Peck Park in San Pedro.”

Two of the victims have died after being transported to a local hospital, Los Angeles City Fire Department captain public information officer Erik Scott announced during a press conference.”

Sky2 was over the scene as a Los Angeles Police Department officer performed CPR on a male victim.”

It was originally reported that at least four people were injured in this shooting.”

The shooting took place at the park’s baseball diamond after a dispute between two parties broke out during a game, according to LAPD.”

But wait, California has all sorts of strict gun laws! Who on earth would disobey these gun laws and commit a mass shooting???

LAPD said there is no one in custody at this moment and it’s unclear how many suspects were involved but there were numerous shooters.”

Well, surely Governor Gavin Newsom is rushing to the cameras to condemn this mass shooting… um, nope. Maybe his Twitter feed says something? Well, no, the most recent tweets hours after the shooting were all about monkeypox, forest fires… oh, wait, here’s something!

California will be the first state to allow individuals to sue those spreading illegal assault weapons and ghost guns.
 
If states like Texas can use laws to put women in harm’s way, then California will use that authority to protect lives. pic.twitter.com/UolhK8EnOm

— Office of the Governor of California (@CAgovernor) July 22, 2022

Oh. Um, yeah, about those “gun safety laws” working, there, Governor… I see a few problems.

As we covered on this blog last week when Newsom was busy signing his gun bill, he has already signed one bill earlier in July that would allow “victims of gun violence” to civilly sue the gun manufacturer. His second bill was all about mocking the Texas abortion law that allows for civil lawsuits against anyone involved in providing an abortion. Newsom’s new law would allow people to sue anyone who illegally distributes “ghost guns” or “assault weapons and parts.” Somehow, neither of these two bills looks like it would have been effective in either stopping, or punishing, this mass shooting.

First, there were reportedly “multiple shooters” – which would seem to indicate a possible gang-related connection. Apparently gang warfare is not REAL gun violence, even though guns were clearly used to shoot multiple people. The Los Angeles Police Department is clearly concerned that there WAS a mass shooting, but they don’t seem to be able to do much about it.

Second, with no identified suspects, and no identified weapons, Newsom’s civil lawsuit scheme falls apart. After all, you can’t file a lawsuit without evidence that someone is at fault. (I mean, you CAN, but it’s a waste of time and money, and no good lawyer is going to help you out.) So much of that law depends on the police arresting and charging the shooter or shooters, and recovering a weapon as well. Unless you have make and model of an actual firearm, how do you sue the gun manufacturer? This was bad law anyway, because we don’t hold car companies accountable for drunk drivers. We don’t hold knife manufacturers at fault for a stabbing. Why are guns so special? (Yes, that was a rhetorical question.)

Third, who has standing? Will the people who were shot and survived sue someone? The more pressing question is, will they talk to police about what happened and help identify a suspect? The citizens of California, who have supposedly been “empowered” to sue those who distribute “assault weapons” – how do they use this mass shooting to sue anyone? This is a politically inconvenient shooting, because it doesn’t fit Newsom’s tidy little mass shooter narrative.

And because it doesn’t fit the narrative, it will promptly be memory-holed, like all other politically inconvenient shootings. And the media will helpfully forget that it ever happened – just like all the shootings in Chicago over the weekend.

Once this shooting is buried by the media, then Gavin Newsom can still stridently claim that his gun laws are DOING SOMETHING™ and that California will NOT tolerate acts of gun violence. And the odds that anyone is ever brought to justice for the two deaths on Sunday quickly fade away. Apparently, some gun violence is more violent than others.

Featured image via DreiKubik on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license