California’s gun laws, some of the nation’s strictest, did not keep Samuel James Cassidy from obtaining two semiautomatic handguns and using them to kill nine coworkers, and himself, at a San Jose rail yard. The lesson, a gun control advocate said Thursday, is that strong gun laws can’t always prevent violence, and people need to watch their friends, relatives and coworkers for signs of danger. But a firearms advocate said the real lesson is.
Skip to main content
Currently Reading
Editorial: Why massacres like the San Jose shooting aren t as inevitable as they have come to seem
FacebookTwitterEmail
A Valley Transportation Authority display of the shooting victims.Josie Lepe/Special to the Chronicle
Shootings such as the one that killed nine transit workers in San Jose on Wednesday can engender a sense of futility about gun violence. California has the strictest gun laws in the country, according to one analysis, and yet the Bay Area just suffered its deadliest gun massacre to date. What’s the point?
Such fatalism is understandable in the shadow of an atrocity. It’s also wrong.