That's your choice, but I would again point out that a huge number of middle class Californians are voting with their feet. If you don't make $500k/yr in California, you can't raise a family in a reasonable way honestly, at least in large parts of the state. If you can't afford private schools, a $2MM house, then good luck out there.
++ Didn’t know all of my friends were that wealthy. Don’t know how we did it on less than a fifth of what you think is necessary.
Sorry, you have the highest welfare rate and the highest inequality rate, not poverty rate, you are correct there.
++ Big state, lots of labor intensive agriculture, thus lots of poor farmworkers; lots of wealthy, thus lots of house cleaners, nannies, gardeners.
One of the big problems people often miss in comparing states is the growth rates and legacy burden. Most blue states have no growth except for a few pockets carrying the states. What does Cali look like without Silicon Valley? Not great. A huge part of your tax revenue is tied to those silicon valley capital gains. The debt levels in most of these blue states are simply enormous. The next downturn will likely break Rhode Island and Illinois. No one wants to live in most of these places. California has some positives, but again, the middle class making $80k-300k are pouring out.
++ My wife and I made towards the lower end of that as do friends and neighbors in our relatively high-priced neighborhoods and did ok. Some moving out, others in, much like everywhere. The housing market is driving much of the problem, true, as we probably would have trouble buying our house now, but Silicon Valley is just *this* couple of generations’ boom. I heard about the unaffordability of housing here back when the only computer was Univac and filled a room. It’s all happened before since logging, furs, gold, etc. The neighborhoods have been ruined by successive waves of newcomers, each grumbling about the new arrivals that follow them. When I first came here in the early 60’s I learned the phrase “he doesn’t have a Chinaman’s chance,” a phrase still in use, of people admitting to the poverty of and bigotry against Chinese. Now that phrase is invalid, long since gone, replaced by people grumbling about the latest wave of Chinese overachievers in our universities, buying property, etc., reminiscent of the bigotry against Jews I saw in New York back in the day.
This too shall pass... The more things change... Probably a dozen more corny old phrases apply.
Here's the problem, I am assuming you are talking about universal background checks with what "your side proposes". How many of these gun crimes do you think it would stop? The answer, also researched exhaustively, is almost zero. It turns out almost no guns that are being used for crimes are going through the very limited circumstances where a transfer occurs without a background check. More importantly, tons of people get denied access to guns by the checks already. It simply isn't a common occurrence that someone goes to a gunshow or a family friend to acquire a gun when they knowingly cannot. Instead they buy one on the blackmarket or steal one, which is common.
The SCOTUS has upheld reasonable regulations and limitations. This can be easily seen to restrict weapons in "sensitive areas" such as schools, airports etc. These are also places that tend to have existing armed security. Do you need a gun in a courthouse that has a dozen or so armed cops in it? Do you need a gun in an airport with a hundred armed cops? Probably not and that's why the court is ok with it. Now, do you need a gun in a park? Maybe, there is a valid argument there. Do you need a gun in a bar? Well it depends, most states say no if you are consuming alcohol, again a reasonable action. Can you ban handguns or other commonly held weapons? The court has said no. Can you ban large mags? Probably not at this point. Heller really screwed the anti-gun crowd when it comes to an AWB/mag cap ban when they talked about "firearms in common use".
You can do a simple internet search for "FBI/ATF research on the effects of the AWB ban". It's a rather exhaustive and detailed report that was widely reviewed and analyzed. It is also regularly cited for its conclusion that the AWB ban (which included a high-cap mag ban) had no measurable impact on gun crime at any level.