There are a ton of other ways to get a gun illegally, this is just the cheapest and least reliable one. Without knowing the denominator, the numbers are useless. Also very much doubt that the traceability of legal guns is that useful.
And yes, cops are being melodramatic here. The police rebellion that started somewhere around George Floyd's murder is continuing well beyond complaining about Chesa Boudin and Larry Krasner and Tish James and heck, Bill De Blasio. It won't stop until every police budget is iron-clad by statute and oversight is one again powerless. Nobody gets an opinion on police patterns and practices other than police, lest they pout.
There are ways to get a gun illegally, even here. But most people do not have easy access to guns. Neither the Police expects you to have one (so they don't pull their gun on slightest pretext) nor people who are stupid can use them by accident.
There are shootings. But these are rare and usually involve only police and bad actors.
But there are no school shootings, there are no people killed by roadside because they look like they tried to pull their gun, there are no people killed by their children by accident, and so on.
The scariest thing I have seen is US Police officer pulling their gun for a regular traffic stop (because the windows were tinted) and then killing the driver (because he looked like he is "reaching" for a gun).
It is sick and it is not right and it is all caused by gun proliferation.
https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/05/06/poland-no-longer-rate...
That doesn't say anything about guns. And the US isn't that much of a democracy either these days, despite having most of the window dressing.
Bringing up the democratic status in this particular conversation doesn't add to the understanding of the issue.
If anything if an undemocratic country like Poland can make streets safer than the supposed paragon of democracy, it should be even more argument against unrestricted availability of firearms. Unless you are of the opinion that these deaths are somehow necessary for democracy.
This is generally true. Many guns used in crimes are stolen, "tracing" the gun usually means getting it back to the original owner.
Also note that seizures are the metric in the article, not acts of violence. Non-serialized guns are a no-no in CA.
Well, there’s this:
> Detectives have linked the untraceable weapons to 24 killings, eight attempted homicides and dozens of assaults and armed robberies since January, according to the report.
The 24 killings mentioned in this article would then represent about 10% of 2020 gun murders. That seems significant to me, especially if it continues increasing.