Violent crime jumped last year in California. That rise in crime brought to an end the state's eight-year trend of decreasing crime. In cities with populations of 100,000 or more, serious crime rose 3.5 percent.

Statewide, forcible rapes went up 6.6 percent, homicides went up 3.9 percent, and motor vehicle thefts increased by 8.9 percent. In Los Angeles alone, the overall homicide figure went up 27.5 percent. Serious crimes also rose in Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose.

But wait!

There is one county in California where crime is not increasing. In this particular county there has, in fact, been a 29 percent decrease in violent crime in the past year! That county would be Orange County Santa Ana, Disneyland, Newport Beach, etc.

Would any of you care to guess why some people think crime is dropping in Orange County while it's climbing throughout California? Could it possibly be that Orange is the only urban county in California that allows its citizens to carry concealed weapons? Carrying a concealed weapon is virtually taboo elsewhere in the state, unless you're a celebrity, a politician or someone guarding a celebrity or a politician.

Predators in California are enjoying a field day. Californians have recently been treated to a host of other restrictions on their Second Amendment rights. They have to wait 10 days to take delivery on firearms purchases. They've been restricted to one gun purchase per month. They can no longer buy, sell or trade high-capacity magazines made before the 1994 ban. And they had to register so-called assault weapons with the state before January 1, 2000.

The people who abide by these laws are, by definition, law-abiding citizens. People with criminal intentions are just not going to march off and register their guns. They don't care about these laws because they don't obtain their guns through normal commerce. Do you see what's going on here?

Violent crime is increasing in areas where gun-hungry politicians are engaging in a concerted effort to disarm their constituents. People who own guns make their homes and neighborhoods hard targets for criminals.

Disarm those people and the criminals will run wild. Why? Because they know they won't be shot if they attack someone or steal a car.

But criminals are afraid to commit crimes in the city of Orange ... because they know citizens carry weapons. They don't know if a victim will offer armed resistance. So they move on to other places where they know their victims are unarmed. Like, say, Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles is working on new legislation requiring fingerprinting of gun buyers and making sales of small, easily concealed handguns illegal. Los Angeles City Councilman Nick Pacheco said, "I don't believe in any firearms being owned by civilians under any circumstances, concealed or not concealable."

And San Diego's NBC affiliate, KGTV, is planning a gun buyback this weekend to "help keep our communities safe."

Of course, they probably won't listen if you tell them that criminals don't usually buy their guns through licensed dealers, and that you have to collect about 60,000 guns before you can be statistically assured of saving one life. You'd be injecting logic into a purely emotional anti-gun movement. And logic is anathema to the gun grabbers.