In any state or country, a sufficiently determined person can get his or her hands on a gun. But how determined the person has to be varies based on gun control factors. In a country like Japan, with very tight gun control, it's a huge and risky effort, so most criminals don't bother. Their murder rate is about a twentieth what ours is. In the US, there are states where guns are extremely easy to obtain, and ones where they're more difficult. That difference shows up in our murder rates, as well. Our worst murder rates are in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Missouri, and Arkansas. Care to guess if they're high- or low-gun-control states?
As for California, it's a relative success story on that front. Its murder rates aren't ultra-low, to be sure (e.g., compared to New England), but they're lower than average for our country: 30th in the nation, specifically. And that's despite grappling with what would ordinarily be considered factors driving up the risk of murder. For example, it's our nation's most urbanized state. 95% of all Californians live in cities, and usually urbanization is considered a risk factor for violent crime. It's also an extremely ethnically diverse state, which increases the chances for cultural friction. And it has a very low median age, meaning a disproportionate share of the population is in its peak crime years. So, why, with all those challenges, is the California murder rate not a lot higher? I think gun control helps to explain it.
