Gun crimes don’t link to gun laws
The Washington Times‘ research into the linkage between gun laws and gun crimes shows no relation between the two. States with stricter gun laws tend to have higher rates of gun crime;
For example, New York, even before it approved the strictest gun-control measures in the country last week, was ranked fourth among the states in strength of gun laws by the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence, but was also in the top 10 in firearm homicide rates in 2011, according to the FBI.
Meanwhile, North Dakota was near the bottom in its firearm homicide, firearm robbery and firearm assault rates, but also had some of the loosest gun laws and worst compliance with turning over mental health records to the background check system.
Analysts said the data underscore that there are no simple or easy broad answers to combating gun violence, which is a complex equation involving gun-ownership rates, how ready authorities are to prosecute gun crimes and how widely they ban ownership.
But, in an environment when legislators feel an impulse to do anything in order to justify their jobs, facts don’t have any place in the discussion. If Dianne Feinstein’s Scary-Looking Weapon Ban passes and more gun crimes happen, it will be because her law didn’t go far enough. Two of our most famous gun crimes happened during the last weapon ban – the Columbine shooting and the DC sniper. And there was the spate of school shootings during Bill Clinton’s last year in office.
The Times continues;
“There do appear to be some gun controls which work, all of them relatively moderate, popular and inexpensive,” the researchers wrote. “Thus, there is support for a gun-control policy organized around gun-owner licensing or purchase permits (or some other form of gun-buyer screening); stricter local dealer licensing; bans on possession of guns by criminals and mentally ill people; stronger controls over illegal carrying; and possibly discretionary add-on penalties for committing felonies with a gun.
“On the other hand, popular favorites such as waiting periods and gun registration do not appear to affect violence rates,” he said.
So, the “do something” knee-jerk legislation doesn’t affect gun crime, but government doing the job they should be doing anyway does seem to have some effect. But people who write laws for a living, think they can appear to be doing something useful by writing more laws. Well, there was a backlash from voters in 1994 and there will be another one next year.
Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists
The Times is a bit late to the party on this. I published a short study showing no link between stricter gun laws and firearms homicides here at TAH last June.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=30444
Maybe I’ll send them the link.
I think the writer is taking a couple things out of context in that NY includes NYC, whereas NoDak doesn’t have the metropolitan areas that NY has. Metropolitan areas have more concentrated crime rates, including with guns, than the rural areas. Maybe they could have used Texas as an example, instead, to compare to NY? The gun grabbers don’t know anything about firearms, which is painfully obvious, and they don’t want to be educated on them, because they are either too afraid of them, or they prefer to live in ignorance, but you are right, there’s going to be a huge backlash at the polls.
BTW Has anyone seen any camera footage from Sandy Hook of Lanza walking to the front doors, so that we could see that eeeeeevil “assault rifle” he had? The reason I’m asking is I finally watched the NBC “Today Show” footage from a couple days after the shooting, where they state that 4 handguns were found inside the school and not an “assault rifle”. So; where did it go? We were told immediately, even before Lanza’s body was cold, or before we even knew his name, that he had a “Bushmaster”, a “glock”, and a “Sig Sauer”.
Maine has one of the lowest gun crime rates (and violent crime rates) in the nation.
Yet, the only time you will be asked to register a firearm is if you purchase it through a retail dealer.
Maine has no permits, no registration, no background checks, etc and that is why a large number of folks buy their firearms through private sales, cash only. In fact, there is a LARGE list of firearms every week in the classified publication called “Uncle Henry’s”.
Maine is also an open carry state, and a “shall issue” state.
I may be alone here in my beliefs, but I do not believe in ANY form of gun laws. You should be able to purchase and carry any weapon you can afford. No background checks, no permits, no registration, no nothing. The government has absolutely no business in knowing what you or I or anyone else owns.
Our laws should not be prophylactic, but based upon responsibility for one’s actions. We don’t demand liquor stores do a background check for DUI’s before selling to you. We don’t demand car dealers do background checks for vehicular homicide or DUI before selling a car to you. Yet we kill thousands more of our citizens every year through cars and booze than with firearms.
It’s time to repeal all of our gun laws and get our government scaled back to only those things permitted by the Constitution.
DiFi’s proposed legislation would outlaw all three of my Evil Black Rifles and all but three of my rifle and pistol magazines. With a vote in Congress, I could be immediately turned from a law-abiding citizen into an unarmed subject.
Interesting times.
They missed the point. There is a positive correlation between self delusion of gun opponents and gun laws. A byproduct, no less important and tied to the self delusion, is that the gun haters get to FEEL that they have accomplished something to make the world a better and less frightening place. Facts schmacks. Kumbaya.
Facts schmacks. Kumbaya.
Aka..the Liberal platform.
The last thing we need are more Gun Control Laws. Just look at any of these mass shootings, and you’ll see that a bucketful of laws that already exist were broken, more won’t help. Another fact is that these shootings took place in “Gun-Free Zones”, something that guarantees these cowards a free-for-all with next to zero chance of being shot back at, I think THOSE need to be banned!!
Less than 10k homicides with firearms committed in 2011. Less than 400 with rifles. All of this in a nation with more firearms than citizens(320 million). Premise here is we are incredibly responsible society that is armed to the teeth. Deal with it hippies.
Being a scared bitch doesn’t negate other’s 2nd amendment rights nor does it facilitate the creation of laws which infringe upon it.