I’m putting this in GQ because I’m not interested in a debate (though I’m sure some may want to turn it into one, in which case, Mods…feel free to move it). I shall not participate.
I saw on the news this morning that they’ve reversed the “No Guns In DC” law. They’re saying this could have a big effect on similar laws in Chicago and (Boston?).
I’m anti-gun (and married to a gun owner). You guys can feel free to argue if you want, but I just want to know if those laws in those cities had any effect on gun crimes and gun accidents since the laws were enacted.
They have had zero effect on gun crime because criminals ignore the law. Kinda by definition. Gun accidents…yeah, probably. Just because there were fewer guns in households. No way of telling how many drug dealers accidentally shot each other, nor of telling how many people were victimised because they had no means of defending their homes from said criminals.
Thanks for the reply. Does anyone track gun accidents? I was looking more for crime and accident statistics. I figured that the law would be mostly ineffective as far as crime goes, but I was interested in hard numbers, if there are any.
I’d also like to see a stat on guns used against intruders, if there is such a thing.
I haven’t read that thread yet. I don’t know if it answers the question you asked in the OP about whether or not the laws had any effect on gun crimes and accidents.
I got this link emailed to me just yesterday. This article has links to a PDF of an FBI study on assaults on police officers.
The FBI did a study of assaults on police with guns, entitled Violent Encounters: Felonious Assaults on America’s Law Enforcement Officers. What they found was that out of the 33 handguns used to assault officers 32 of them were obtained illegally. (Chapter 4 bottom of page 8 top of page 9). The one legally obtained gun was a man who several years after buying the gun was advised by his shrink to get rid of any all all guns in his possession. He did not follow this advice.
On page 10 of that chapter is a rather telling quote from one offender
I have no numbers in front of me, but I seem to recall a large minority of gun deaths in the US are suicides. If there are a few less guns in circulation, does the suicide rate drop as people are forced to use less effective means to off themselves?
At some point in this matter, you’re going to come across John Lott. Some people buy him, some don’t, but I note him because he is an economist, not a typical right wing advocate, and brings to bear a fairly academic, unimpassioned approach.
His view is that gun ownership (particularly concealed carry) reduces crime, and he tries to back it up with heavy statistical analysis.
As others have noted, firearms used in violent crimes (aside from domestic disputes) are predominantly obtained by illicit methods. And if violent crime statistics in the United States are any measure, passing gun prohibition laws generally results in a higher availability of illegal firearms, and often use thereof. Violent crime rates (firearm related and otherwise) have been on a significant decline since the early 'Nineties (coinciding with the post-'Eighties economic boom) despite media perception otherwise, and claims that gun control laws had anything to do with this are spurious at best.
The biggest problem with most gun control laws, Constitutional issues aside, is that they are in fact a diversion from dealing with the root problems of violent crime (socioeconomic divides, lack of educational and vocational opportunities, lack of parental supervision and direction, et cetera), and are often unenforcible to boot. The flashiest of gun control laws, like the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (the so-called “Assault Weapons Ban”) was in fact a transparently useless law; most of the characteristics by which it defined an “assault weapon” were either cosmetic (folding stock, pistol grip), or essentially useless for crimes (bayonet lug). You can make legitimate case for restricting certain functional features, like selective/full auto capability, muzzle energy, et cetera, or for background checks, training, whathaveyou, but the fact that gun control proponents fixated on cosmetic features that look ugly but have no affect on the use of the weapon for criminal purposes underlies their whole strategy; fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
In order to establish the actual efficacy of gun control laws you’d have to correct for the propensity for crime across the board. Once you do that, it becomes apparent that the availability or lack thereof of legal firearms has little verifiable effect one way or the other on crime rates. Certainly, many of the cities with the most restrictive firearms laws (D.C., New York, Chicago) were not visited by a sudden reduction in crime upon passage of these laws; conversely, many states and nations in which firearms ownership is common and even prevelent (Montana, Vermont, Switzerland, Israel), violent crime is not a serious problem.
In the simplest terms possibly, gun laws do not affect gun crimes because criminals do not obey laws! What gun laws DO do, in general, is restrict law-abiding citizens from owning them and protecting themselves making them more vulnerable. I won’t get into any debates here in GQ but this reason seems so intuitive I find it hard to believe so many lawmakers are anti-gun. <shrug>
I can carry concealed in Boston and I am just a private citizen. Boston’s laws are for Bostonians, not Massachusetts residents and the issue consists of two things:
Many high capacity rifles are banned within city limits.
Boston denies concealed permits to most everyone as policy within the laws, not by a specific law. Other cities and towns are free to set their own policy within prescribed limits. Boston is simply draconian with their interpretation and stonewalling.
In short, it ain’t gonna change anything in Boston itself until they get a chief who digs guns because there never was a ban on handguns in the first place… only annoying hurdles that mostly affect the poor.
The most curious thing about the so-called ‘gun control debate’ is the persistent belief that any such debate actually exists. There is no debate, by which I mean the opposing sides never actually engage on the same turf or by the same rules. It’s like having two guys and a deck of cards - one thinks they are playing Poker and the other thinks they are playing Gin. It won’t be much of a game, because they can’t agree on the rules or the purpose.
It’s simple. The pro-gun people will refer, forever and a day, to the responsible use of guns, especially the scenario of the peaceful person wishing to protecting him/herself. The anti-gun people will refer, forever and a day, to the irresponsible use of guns, especially the scenario of the whacko lunatic blasting innocent people to death.
If you look at picture A, guns look like a good idea. If you look at picture B, um, not such a good idea. That’s it. That’s as much of a ‘debate’ there is.
What’s more, why do people in the States still act like this is some sort of ongoing debate, when it is clearly moonshine to suppose that it will result in any actual change in terms of guns being available and used? There is not, and never will be, sufficient political will to try and get rid of guns in American society. So the guns are staying, like 'em or not.
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