Mercury News: Opinion - Moving Beyond Thoughts and Prayers to Solutions on Guns

All of California’s gun control laws couldn’t save Jose Hernandez III, one of the nine victims of the Valley Transportation Authority mass shooting. Despite our best efforts to achieve gun safety, there is still a catastrophic cost. It is a bill we all must pay.

In California, we have a 10-day waiting period to purchase a gun. It’s illegal for anyone who doesn’t have a license to carry a gun in public. To buy a handgun, you must be at least 21. Yet guns are California’s third leading cause of death among kids. A gun suicide occurs every six hours. A mass shooting leaves an innocent person, such as Jose Hernandez III, dead every eight days. It’s always a terrible price to pay. Jose was a family man, a master mechanic and a guitarist in his church band. A disgruntled employee with a semiautomatic handgun killed Jose and eight others just a five-minute walk from my office.