" Indeed, according to Wikipedia, "The gun laws of California are some of the most restrictive in the United States."

So, what are gun-control advocates in California going to do now? Make their gun laws even more restrictive?

For 20 years, I have been writing that people who are going to kill other people with guns don't give a hoot about gun laws. After all, at the risk of belaboring the obvious, if a person doesn't care about obeying a law against murder, he's not going to care about violating a law against taking an assault rifle into a food festival.

But ordinary, law-abiding people do care about obeying gun laws. That's because many of these laws make it a felony offense to violate them. That means jail time, big fines, and a serious criminal record. Even when it's just a misdemeanor offense, oftentimes a conviction can also mean jail time.

For most people, violating the law in order to have a means of self-defense is just not worth the risk. The chances of being caught in a place where some mass murderer is indiscriminately shooting people is relatively low and, therefore, not enough to justify the risk of a felony conviction if caught with, say, a concealed handgun for self-defense.