DO GUN LAWS REDUCE CRIME ? A careful reading of the literature of gun-control advocates shows a glaring deficiency: an overwhelming lack of evidence that what they propose has succeeded in reducing crime in any of the states or localities in which it has been tried. And every type of "gun-control" law proposed in Congress _has_ been tried -- everything from requiring waiting periods, to licensing dealers, to licensing owners, to registering individual firearms, to prohibiting manufacturing of certain types of guns, to an out right prohibition (for most residents of New York City and the District of Columbia) upon the private ownership of handguns. There are an estimated 20,000 local, state, and federal laws of every sort and description now on the books. If gun laws worked -- that is if they did reduce crimes of violence -- there _would_ be a correlation between a certain level of restriction, and a certain amount of crime control, as reflected in differences in crime rates in localities with and without such laws. But if the advocates of such laws have sought -- or found --such a correlation, they have been uncharacteristically quiet about it. Until the mid 1970s, few studies had been conducted on whether gun laws were necessary or would work to reduce the amount of violent crime.[1] Advocates of restrictive gun laws have either assumed the mere citation of crime data, interspersed with colorful examples of gun related accidents, suicides, and homicides, was proof enough that guns were a problem solvable by a national law; or they used the most rudimentary social science techniques, and tried to show a relationship not between not gun availability and violent crime, but gun crime and gun availability. Only one sophisticated study had claimed that gun laws reduce violence -- and that study, by Geisel, et al., economists at Carnegie-Melon University (1969), contended that legislation such as the recently enacted New Jersey gun owner licensing law would "save between 21 and 32 lives per million per year."[2] Geisel, et al., tried 30 different factors for gun laws and social variables before finding a combination that appeared to fit the facts, causing one scholar to point out that "such random testing could produce weights that are the result of chance correlation...and consequently are probably useful for _only_ this one set of data, and severely limiting the generalizability of their conclusions." Evidence that this criticism was correct is that in the two decades since the New Jersey law was enacted, during which the social factors would have changed relatively little, the New Jersey murder rate has nearly doubled, far surpassing the changes in neighboring states without the claimed benefits of a highly restrictive gun law.[3] --------------- "Crimes Committed With Guns Would be Reduced if Fewer People Owned Guns..." --------------- A much publicized, but less scientific, study was the "Staff Report" to the President's "Violence Commission", by Newton and Zimmering (1970),[4] which concluded that _crimes committed with guns would be fewer if fewer people owned guns_ -- which is akin to saying that there would be fewer truck accidents, if trucks were banned from the highways. In attempting to support their conclusions, Newton and Zimmering relied heavily upon the _percentage of crimes committed with firearms_, in selective U.S. and foreign cities, all the while cautioning that cultural differences made such comparisons chancy. In their comparisons of the _percentage_ of crimes with guns in U.S. cities, they largely ignored the total crime rate, as if murder or robbery with a gun were more heinous than the same crime committed with another weapon. However, even their limited finding that reducing _handgun_ ownership among the general public would reduce handgun crimes has since been questioned by one of the authors of the "Staff Report", Franklin Zimmering. In 1975 a study of the Gun Control Act of 1968 (which he found ineffective in curbing the interstate flow of the firearms that it prohibited), Zimmering stated that his earlier hypothesis might have to be modified, in light of the increasing firearms crime in areas with lower than average gun ownership.[5] Zimmering wrote that levels of handgun ownership would have to become much lower before they could be kept out of the hands of the "violence-prone" subculture, thereby reducing handgun violence, but he did not attempt to prove the hypothesis. However, by recognizing the existence of a lawless element -- one which disobeys gun laws as well as laws against robbery and murder -- Zimmering appears to be approaching the heart of the "gun crime problem," which is actually a social problem; enactment of gun laws has absolutely no effect on social conditions. Certainly the experience of New York and Washington D.C., fail to show that the reduction of legal handgun ownership reduces firearm related crime. Since New York's tough gun law was compounded by the Gun Control Act of 1968, which made it a felony to get a gun from outside the state, gun involved robbery and homicide have increased 50% -- and the overall crime rates have skyrocketed compared to the rest of the nation and other big cities. And since Washington D.C. adopted a virtual handgun ban effective February 1977, until 1982, when an NRA supported mandatory penalty for violent misuse of guns was adopted, violent crime increased twice as fast as in big cites generally, and firearm involvement increased while remaining the same in other big cities, although the homicide rate has doubled.[6] -------------- Krug...Found That Crime Rates Were Not Higher in Areas of High Gun Ownership -------------- Such results would not be surprising to those familiar with mathematical studies on the relationship between gun laws, gun availability, and criminal violence. The earliest studies showed no demonstrable correlation between firearm laws and crime rates, but only between socio- economic factors and crime.[7] In 1967, Dr. Alan S. Krug, an economist at Pennsylvania State University, updated a 1960 study by the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Library and found that "there is no statistically significant difference between states that have firearms licensing laws and those that do not."[8] Moreover, his research indicated that higher firearms ownership (as measured by hunting licenses) is associated with _lower_ rates of violent crime, suggesting a possible deterrent effect.[9] In another study Krug found that the more guns available, the smaller the percentage of violent crimes which involved firearms, and he questioned whether any form of firearm regulation would have a significant effect upon crime rates. Krug challenged the gun law advocates to present "proof in the way of scientific evidence" that their proposals would have the desired effect, noting such "should be judged both in terms of the financial cost...and in terms of subsequent loss of personal freedom and individual civil rights."[10] -------------- Murray.."Gun Control Laws Have No Significant Effect on the Rates of Violence..." -------------- Far from presenting such proof, the first thorough and mathematically complex test of the effectiveness of gun control laws merely confirmed the findings of earlier efforts by Krug. In October 1975, Douglas R. Murray of the University of Wisconsin had published "Handguns, Gun Control and Firearms Violence."[11] Using standard statistical methods, and comparing the various state firearms laws to crime rates, while considering socio-econmonic conditions, Murray found that "gun control laws have no significant effect on rates of violence beyond what can be attributed to background social conditions." Secondly, he found that such laws do not effectively limit access to guns by the violence-prone; and, finally, accessibility to handguns "seems to have no effect on rates of violent crime and firearms accidents, another reason why gun laws are ineffective." Since neither the author or the publication can be dismissed as "tools of the gun lobby," the findings should be carefully studied by anyone concerned with firearms legislation. Murray surveyed the sparse amount of research that had been done, which showed a close relationship between crime and socio-economic factors. He obtained census and other data for the 50 states on such variables as population, population density, percent black, percent unemployed, percent under the poverty line, percent migrant, amount of education, and other information, including suicide, homicide, robbery and assault data. State gun laws were broken into seven categories: Purchase Permit, Waiting Period, Report to Police, Retail License, Minimum Age, Permit to Carry Openly, and Permit to Carry Concealed. With these data, Murray developed a "multiple regression statistical framework." a standard method of mathematical analysis, "in attempt to find those social factors which seem to explain the most variance in the rates of reported violence associated with firearms." By this method, Murray found that he could estimate violent crime rates with 66% to 81% accuracy according to the mathematical variable for social factors alone. Had Murray also entered the data for the certainty and severity of punishment in each of the states, as explored in other studies,[12] his estimates of violence rates may have achieved an even higher level of accuracy. With the incidence of violence largely determinable solely with his mathematical factors for social conditions, Murray asked, "what additional effect on the incidence of firearm associated violence is there that may be attributed to the severity of restrictions imposed by different state legislation on the purchase of handguns?" To test this, he entered each of the seven types of gun controls into his program to determine if there were a relationship with the states' rates of suicide, homicide, robbery and assault, other than the already "predictable" according to social factors. "Out of the resulting 28 equations, not one law had a significant effect on a single measure of violence." He then entered into the regression equation all seven factors simultaneously, to determine if there were a cumulative effect, but again was unable to find a statistical significance. "On the basis of these data," Murray wrote, "the conclusion is, inevitably, that gun control laws have no individual or collective effect in reducing rates of violent crime." -------------- Data Indicate That "The Relationship Between Gun Laws and Crime Rates Is Nonexistent" -------------- As part of his second study, Murray attempted to determine if gun control laws limited access to handguns, using Harris and Gallup polls on firearms ownership. Using the same method used to predict violent acts, Murray found: "Gun control laws do not have any apparent effect on a large enough portion of the population *or on those critical portions of the population who are associated with violent acts* to effectively limit access to handguns by those who want them" (emphasizes added). "At this stage of the analysis, the data have indicated that gun laws have no effect on either handgun ownership rates or on crime rates, suggesting that this type of legislation is totally irrelevant to its stated purpose...," Murray wrote. "Thus far, the relationship between gun laws and crime rates is nonexistent. The next and obvious question now concerns the relation between access to handguns and acts of violence involving handguns." Using the data from his first two analyses, social factors influencing crime and access to handguns according to the surveys, Murray found: "on the basis of these data, it seems quite unlikely that the relative availability of handguns plays a significant part in explaining why some states have higher rates of violence associated with firearms than others." He noted that this finding was supported by Dr. Marvin Wolfgang's study of homicide in Philadelphia, a standard text in criminology. Although Wolfgang supports "the strictest of gun legislation," in his study he found: "Several students of homicide have tried to show that the high number of, or easy access to, firearms in this country is causally related to our relatively high homicide rate. Such a conclusion cannot be drawn from the Philadelphia data...few homicides due to shooting could be avoided merely if a firearm were not immediately present...the offender would choose some other weapon to achieve the same destructive goal."[13] In his conclusion, Murray notes that his "findings are a direct contradiction of the widely held opinion concerning the relationship of firearms, gun control laws, and crime rates... The basic question is, then, are we willing to make sociological and economic investments of such a tremendous nature in a social experiment for which there is no empirical support?" -------------- DeZee ... "Gun Laws Do Not Appear to Affect Gun Crimes" -------------- Professor Matthew DeZee, of Florida State University, was critical of Murray's study, since he favored restrictive gun laws. So he corrected for what he considered Murray's errors in another multiple regression study. DeZee's own research confirmed Murray's findings. "The results indicate that not a single gun control law, and not all gun control laws added together, had a significant impact...in determining gun violence. It appears then, that present legislation created to reduce the high level of violence in society falls far short of its goals...Gun laws do not appear to affect gun crimes."[14] In May 1975, the U.S. Department of Justice began funding numerous studies to show that gun laws were needed to curb violent crime. A Justice Department official, Edward Jones III, wrote that the purpose of the research was to "identify and support new legislative initiatives."[15] One of the outside researchers hired wrote that, "it is less the NRA's power than the failure of gun control supporters to make this case persuasive that explains the lack of gun control legislation. If true, we are important."[16] And Professor James D. Wright of the University of Massachusetts, who headed the most massive of the research projects, later admitted that he undertook the study as a "gun control" advocate, but found no evidence to support the idea that restrictive gun laws were the way to address the problem of violent crime.[17] Two research efforts were designed to "prove" that restrictive gun control laws worked in Massachusetts and in Washington D.C. A Massachusetts study, titled "The Impact of the Mandatory Gun Law in Massachusetts," by Rossman, et al., found problems rather than benefits from the Bartley-Fox law passed in 1975 which called for a mandatory prison sentence for the unlicensed carrying of a firearm.[18] It found that the law could rarely be applied to criminals who used guns to rob; criminals who previously were punished were now more likely to insist on a trial, appeal, delay, or circumvent any incarceration for illegal carrying of firearms; police were reluctant to frisk the average citizen for fear of finding a gun-law violator. Ironically, the total number imprisoned was essentially unchanged compared to previous years, but more persons without criminal records were being arrested and charged with the gun law violations. In short, the law was clogging the courts and showing no positive benefits. -------------- National Institute of Justice ... Massachusetts' Bartley-Fox Gun Law Was Not an Effective Crime Control Device -------------- A portion of the study that received the most publicity claimed that crime was curtailed.[19] In fact, robbery and aggravated assault were not reduced. And violent crime increased so dramatically that Boston rose from fifth to second most violent among cities over 500,000, rising 80% faster statewide than nationwide. The murder rate mirrored regional trends, falling slower than in the nation as a whole,[20] although it had started falling in the months before the law was passed.[21] In reviewing this study, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) concluded that there was no evidence showing the Bartley-Fox "gun control" law was an effective crime control device. Clearly, Bartley-Fox was one more proof of gun law failures. The anti-gun U.S. Conference of Mayors funded a study to tout Washington D.C.'s virtual handgun ban, which took effect February 1977. However, the city's crime rate, which had been declining prior to the law's enactment, stabilized for two years, then skyrocketed upward after 1979. After the Congressional Research Service lambasted the error filled U.S.C.M. study,[22] Justice Department researcher Edward Jones attempted to prove the efficacy of the law. Jones selected 1974 as his pre-law year for comparative purposes and thus credited the the 1977 law with dramatic decreases in crime between 1974 and 1976! For example, he noted a 36% drop in the number of handgun homicides between 1974 and 1978 (the control city he picked, Baltimore, had 46% fewer handgun homicides),[23] but neglected to point out that the police data showed three fewer handgun homicides in 1976 than in 1978.[24] Even skewing his findings, Jones could only conclude that while the data did not show the law's failure, it could _not_ prove the law's success. Finally, in November 1981, the Justice Department released the Executive Summary and Literature Review of the massive study on "Weapons, Crime, and Violence in America".[25] -------------- Wright-Rossi ... Found No Conclusive Evidence That Gun Laws Reduce the Amount of Violent Crime -------------- The research, conducted primarily by Professors James Wright and Peter Rossi of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst under a $287,000 grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) and the NIJ, reviewed literature and studies to determine what definitive evidence exists on issues relating to weapons, violence and crime. It examined the amount and quality of criminal justice data available on weapons through a national survey of 609 law enforcement agencies and an analysis of court records of a sample of 5,000 felony cases processed by the Los Angles Superior Court. In short, the research proved exhaustive. And its findings were unequivocal. The researchers concluded that "there is little evidence to show that gun ownership among the population as a whole is, per se, an important cause of criminal violence," and there is no conclusive evidence that restrictive gun laws -- federal, state, or local -- either impair the access of criminals to firearms or reduce the amount of violent crime.[26] Professors Wright and Rossi found that many of the common assumptions about firearms and crime issues are unsupported. They found that 50% of American families acknowledged gun ownership and that three-fourths of these privately owned guns are used for sport and recreation; the remainder for self-defense. They found "no persuasive evidence" to support the allegation that "most homicides would not occure were firearms generally less available." And they concluded that "any action taken to deny firearms to would-be criminals will necessarily deny them to a vastly larger group of persons who will never contemplate, much less commit, a violent criminal act." -- a cost which must be "weighed against the anticipated benefits before a rational policy decision can be made."[27] The cost to which these two researchers alluded is two-fold: the cost to safety and the cost to civil liberties. For example, Professors Wright and Rossi found that privately owned handguns seem to be about as effective a deterrent to crime as the legal system. Between 2 and 6% of the adult population have actually fired a gun in self-defense.[28] In analyzing the alleged relationship between availability of handguns and so called "family" homicide, Wright and Rossi pointed to the study done in Kansas City which shows that 85-90% of family homicides occurred in households to which the police had already been summoned, in many cases repeatedly, to breakup violent quarrels. Thus, when family homicides do occur they are not unexpected outbreaks caused by the availability of handguns, but rather the culmination of a long history of violence. And the researchers concluded that in a violence prone household, one must assume a "substitution factor" -- a knife, rifle or shotgun -- items as or more deadly than handguns. -------------- Gun Laws Will Not Take Guns Out of the Hands of Those Inclined To Misuse Them -------------- There is no reason to suppose that any gun law would take guns out of the hands of those inclined to misuse them. Consequently, there is no evidence that gun laws will reduce the amount of violent crime. If gun laws had any effect on crime, resulting in either an increase or decrease, the effect would be too small and long term to be measured, Wright-Rossi concluded. Since long guns are deadlier than most handguns, and high caliber, high quality handguns are deadlier than the so-called "Saturday Night Special", Wright-Rossi found restrictions on some or all handguns _if successful_, could actually increase the homicide rate. According to Professor Wright, "some people think at worst it (a gun control law) can't do any harm. But I believe it could do harm...for example, I might like to know what people would likely use to commit violent crime (if they were intent on committing the crime and had no guns)...could it possibly be worse?"[29] The Wright-Rossi study rejected both regional and foreign country comparisons since such simplistic analogies ignore myriad other factors which might account for differences in crime rates. Furthermore, such comparsons are selective; choosing different countries could result in different conclusions.[30] -------------- Wright_Rossi ... Efforts to Ban Small, Low Caliber Handguns Could Increase Homicide Rates -------------- The study found that three-fourths of the privately owned guns in America are used for sport and recreation - the remainder for self-defense. Between 1968 and 1978, an estimated 10 million long guns and 5 million handguns were purchased for sport shooting, thus invalidating the common claim that handguns have "no legitimate sport or recreational use." Even guns commonly called "Saturday Night Specials" -- small, light, inexpensive, small caliber, frequently foreign made -- have sporting purposes as "trail guns."[31] And they concluded that efforts to ban small, low caliber handguns (driving criminals to long guns) could increase the homicide rates in the United States.[32] Professors Wright and Rossi found little effectiveness in the agency charged with enforcing the Federal gun laws, stating that "The reported use of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms weapon tracing system (by local police departments) ... is very low. Over half the departments report that firearms are very seldom checked, or never checked with the BATF, whether involved in crime situation or found, lost or recovered. Of the departments that reported some use of the BATF, only a third found their experience useful."[33] The scholars also concluded that "early socialization into the gun culture predisposes individuals to enlist in the armed forces later in life, which suggests that the gun culture is positively functional for the success of the volunteer army."[34] Wright-Rossi followed up that study with a government funded survey designed to determine the experiences of felons with firearms, their perceptions of gun laws, and their experiences with confronting potentially armed victims. This survey consisted of interviews with 1,874 convicted felons who were incarcerated in prisons in ten states. The goal was to determine what gun laws might deter or disarm criminals, how they would respond to different situations, whether they were deterred by existing laws or the threat of an armed populous, and their choice of firearms and how they obtained them. The failure of "gun control" was manifested in several of the responses of these criminals. A full 75% of all felons had never registered their guns with police; and 85% had never applied for a permit to purchase or to carry a handgun. A staggering 82% of all the prisoners believed that "gun laws only affect law-abiding citizens." A significant majority (85%) believed that upon their release, they would be able to get a handgun within "a day" of their release from prison. Where would they obtain their weapons? Not from sources that can be regulated through legitimate channels. Sources for the criminal acquisition of handguns ranged downward from the street, their friends, the black market, to fences and their drug dealers. Evidence from the Wright-Rossi survey also refutes two common assumptions, assumptions which are contradictory on their face, but are embraced whole-heartedly by "gun control" advocates. Criminals do not prefer small, low-caliber, "Snubbies" or "Saturday Night Specials" contrary to anti-gun assertions. Criminals prefer the same firearms that law-abiding firearms owners and police officers like: .38 specials and .357 magnums. Both are revolvers, not semi-automatics. Furthermore a ban on small handguns or all handguns would mean a shift from less lethal to more lethal weaponry. Three-fourths of Gun Predators and over half the sporadic handgun abusers said that, in the absence of handguns, they would switch to sawed off shoulder weapons to commit their crimes (versus going unarmed, or switching to less lethal weapons, such as knives and clubs). Among the predator groups, 70% had sawed off a long gun before, indicating the consistency between what these convicted felons said they would do and what they in fact had done at earlier times in their lives. Wright-Rossi concluded that policies aimed at partial or total handgun prohibition could have serious, counterproductive consequences. About two-fifths of the sample reported that they had decided not to commit a crime because they feared the victim was carrying a firearm, 37% said they had run into an armed victim a least once, and 34% had been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim." Over two- thirds (69%) had at least one acquaintance who had had that experience, with one-tenth of the sample knowing "many" criminals who had been thwarted by an armed victim.[35] -------------- Kleck ... Very Few Homicides Are Committed by People Who Have No Prior History of Violence. -------------- Other studies on firearms and restrictive gun laws have found consistently that guns are not the problem, and that gun laws do not reduce the amount of violence in our society. For example, Professors Joseph Magaddino and Marshal Medoff of California State University at Long Beach have completed one study on the impact of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and a preliminary study on the effect of "waiting periods." The first finds that the law has done nothing to reduce the amount of homicide or violent crime, while finding that the law has, if anything, caused an increase in the number of privately owned handguns. They found, then, that gun laws may increase the number of firearms but have no impact on reducing homicide rates.[36] That conclusion is supported by Professor Gary Kleck of Florida State University's School of Criminology. Professor Kleck studied the relationship between homicide and gun ownership. He found that increasing homicide rates were followed by increasing acquisition of firearms by individuals. But he found that increasing the number of firearms _did not_ increase the number of homicides. In other words, in response to an increasing crime rate, people by guns for protection but do not then misuse the firearms themselves.[37] Kleck also found that "very few homicides are committed by people with no prior history of violence." The popular image of the model citizen who one day goes berserk and kills a family member is largely a media-created myth maintained by news people enamored of the dramatic apparent contrast between extremely violent acts and supposedly peaceful backgrounds. For example, in news stories about the Texas Town killer, Charles Whitman, reporters invariably managed to mention the fact that Whitman had been a choir boy and an Eagle Scout. Left unmentioned, or relegated to the back pages , were the facts that he was raised in a violent home, had repeatedly beaten his wife, and been court-martialed in the Marines for fighting. The apparent `nonviolent' killer is the rare exception to a rather mundane general rule: people who are seriously violent in the present have almost invariably been violent in the past. While most violent acts escape the attention of authorities and are thus not made part of official written records, most killers arrested have committed enough violent acts in the past to have been previously arrested or convicted... Rather than being isolated outbursts, violent acts are almost always part of a continuing pattern of violent behavior, whether the violence is spouse or child abuse, or armed robbery executions by "hardened criminals'." These facts, combined with a thorough study of the impact of armed citizens on crime control, has led Kleck to oppose most laws aimed at the law-abiding, as beneficial primarily to the criminal.[38] Research on this protective use of guns shows that "there were 645,000 defensive uses of handguns against criminals each year, excluding police or military uses. ...Although shootings of criminals represents a small fraction of defensive uses of guns, Americans shoot criminals with a frequency that must be regarded as remarkable by any standard." His estimate is that civilians use firearms to kill between 2 1/2 and 7 times as many criminals as are killed by police.[39] Concerning the belief that using a gun for protection increases the risk to the intended victim, Kleck finds that "for both robbery and assault, victims who used guns for protection were less likely either to be attacked or injured than victims who responded in any other way." A follow up study found the same results for rape: using a gun for protection prevents the rape and prevents injury.[40] "Victim gun use in crime incidents is associated with lower rates of crime completion and of victim injury than any other defensive response, including doing nothing to resist. Serious predatory criminals say they perceive a risk from victim gun use which is roughly comparable to that of criminal justice actions, and this perception appears to influence their criminal behavior in socially desirable ways."[41] Professor Kleck thus concludes that across-the-board gun laws would interfere more with potential victims than criminals, reducing the crime control effects of non-criminal gun ownership. Restricting guns among the law-abiding may simply encourage criminals, particularly burglars, and limit the beneficial impact of the armed citizen on crime control in the U.S. -------------- Magaddino-Madoff ... Found Handgun Purchase "WAITING PERIODS" to be Totally Useless in Curbing Crime -------------- Professors Magaddino and Madoff's study of "waiting periods" found them totally useless in curbing crime. They found no relationship between a "waiting period" or "cooling off" period and any type of violent crime, except they noted there was a slightly higher homicide rate and a slightly higher robbery rate in places with such "crime control" experiments.[42] Although it might be said that restrictive gun laws are the cause of higher crime rates, a more accurate assumption is that high crime rates resulted in experiments with gun laws to curb the crime, but without effect. The result has been that gun laws have succeeded only in disarming the law-abiding, and making the criminal's work environment safer. Our concern should be to make the environment safer for honest citizens, and these gun laws have failed to do so. The evidence of the various studies is fairly clear, whether those studies are by persons with an anti-gun ax to grind or objective scholars. Guns are not demonstrably a problem. And gun laws have either no impact on crime or cause criminal violence to rise -- especially assault, robbery, and homicide. In response to violent crime, people buy guns. Those purchases do not adversely affect the problem of violent crime. Indeed, the persons most likely to own handguns solely for protection are among the persons most likely to be victimized by violent crime and least likely themselves to commit violent crimes: poor, black, female heads of households.[43] People will acquire handguns for protection in response to violent crime. Laws will, if anything, simply encourage faster gun purchases out of fear of more restrictive future legislation. That, too, is a conclusion of the Magaddino-Madoff study of the Gun Control Act of 1968.[44] In short, pushing for restrictive gun laws will, in and of itself, encourage more gun purchases. Such legislation will no reduce the amount of violent crime. Professors Wright and Rossi noted that "Any effort to curtail the private ownership or use of firearms will necessarily affect the lives of about half the families in the nation. Such a procedure, in short, would be highly intrusive, and in a democratic society, not one to be undertaken lightly."[45] Since most predatory violent crime is committed by repeat offenders, and their crimes are usually drug related, Professors Wright and Rossi says the drug problem is a better place to approach the problem of violent crime. "If our goal is to reduce the rate of violent crime, guns are probably not the place to attack the problem."[46] --------------- Yet Despite the Glaring Lack of Evidence, Gun Control Zealots Ask the Nation to Buy a "Pig in the Poke" --------------- Contrary to the findings of noted academicians, the press and many politicians from across the political spectrum are demanding the nation to buy a "pig in the poke." The advocates of repressive firearms laws have yet to provide any persuasive evidence that their proposals will reduce the levels of violence. Further, "gun control" advocates continuously sidestep questions concerning the tremendous social and economic costs of their grand experiment -- an experiment which, according to the evidence of past results provided by Murray, Krug, Wright, Rossi, Kleck, and others, is likely to be even less successful, and more harmful, than the "noble experiment" to prohibit alcoholic beverages. REFERENCES [1] David T. Hardy, "Firearms Ownership and Regulation," 20 Wm. & Mary Law Review 235 (1978) [2] Martin Geisel, Richard Roll, and R. Stanton Wettick Jr., "The Effectiveness of State and Local Regulation of Handguns: A Statistical analysis," 1969 Duke Law Journal 647 1969. [3] FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States, 1965 and 1985. [4] George D. Newton and Frank Zimmering, "Firearms and Violence in American Life: A Staff Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence" (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1970) [5] Franklin E. Zimmering, "Firearms and Federal Law: The Gun Control Act of 1968," "43 Journal of Legal Studies," 133, (1975) [6] FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States, 1968, 1976, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1987. Additional material supplied by the New York City and Washington D.C. police Departments. [7] Alan S. Krug, "The Relationship Between Firearms Licensing Laws and Crime Rates," "Congressional Record", July 25, 1967. "This conclusion has been supported by later findings that the difference between the Southern and non-Southern homicide rates in the United States can be explained wholly by poverty and a few similar variables, but not by firearms availability. Colin Loftin and Robert H. Hill, "Regional Subculture and Homicide: An Examination of the Gastil- Hackney Thesis," "39 American Sociological Review" 714 (1974); James F. O'Conner and Alan J. Lizotte, "The `Southern Subculture of Violence' Thesis and Patterns of Gun Ownership," "25 Social Problems" 420 (1978) [8] Alan S. Krug, "The Relationship Between Firearms Ownership and Crime Rates: A Statistical Analysis," "Congressional Record," January 30, 1968. [9] Alan S. Krug, "The Misuse of Firearms in Crime -- The Extent of the Problem," in "National Shooting Sports Foundation, Fact Pack II," Riverside Conn.: NSSF, (1968). The most thorough statistical analysis of gun ownership and crime rates in a limited area replicated these findings. Using a structural equation model to predict the rate of firearms ownership in various Illinois counties based on testing dozens of variables and crime trends, Professors Alan Lizotte and David Bordua found a _negative_ correlation between the crime rate and the rate of firearms ownership, particularly men's firearms ownership. The crime rates were highest where the fewest firearms were owned; The crime rates steadily dropping as firearms ownership increased in a county. Gun ownership and crime are inversely related. David J. Bordua and Alan J. Lizotte, "Patterns of Legal Firearms Ownership: A Cultural and Situational Analysis of Illinois Counties," "1 Law and Police Policy Quarterly" 147 (1979); Bordua, et al., "Patterns of Firearms Ownership Use and Regulation in Illinois: A Report to the Illinois Law Enforcement Commission," Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, 1979. [10] Krug, ibid. [11] Douglas R. Murray, "Handgun Control Laws and Firearms Violence," "23 Social Problems 80", (1975) [12] See James Q. Wilson, "Thinking About Crime," New York: Vintage Books, 1977, pg. 195-204. [13] Marvin E. Wolfgang, "Patterns in Criminal Homicide," (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1958), pg. 81-83. [14] Matthew R. DeZee, "Gun Control Legislation: Impact and Ideology," "5 Law & Policy Quarterly," 367, (1983). [15] Memorandum from Edward D. Jones III to Harry A. Scarr, Administrator, Federal Justice Research Program, February 13, 1978. [16] Memorandum from Mark H. Moore, Harvard University, to Edward Jones, August 11, 1976. [17] Clara Germani, "Gun Control and Crime Rates," "Christian Science Monitor," July 14, 1982. [18] Davis Rossman, et al., "The Impact of the Mandatory Gun Law in Massachusetts" (Boston): Boston University School of Law, Center for Criminal Justice, 1979; also James A. Beha, "And Nobody Can Get You Out: The Impact of a Mandatory Prison Sentence for the Illegal Carrying of a Firearm on the Administration of Criminal Justice in Boston," "57 Boston University Law Review" 96 and 289 (1977). [19] Glenn L. Pierce and William J. Bowers, "The Bartley-Fox Gun Law's Short Term Impact on Crime in Boston," "455 Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science" 120 (1981), an abbreviated version of a portion of Rossman, et al., ibid [20] Paul H. Blackman, "Conceptual, Constitutional, Enforcement and Experiential Problems Involved in Mandatory Sentencing for the Unlicensed Carry/Possession of Handguns," Conventional paper, American Society of Criminology, 1981, reprinted in "Federal Regulation of Firearms, A Report Prepared for the Use of the Congressional Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, By the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1982); FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States, 1974 and 1985. [21] Kenneth Carison, "Mandatory Sentencing: The Experience of Two States," "Political Briefs," based on research and program development projects of the National Institute of Justice, May 1982. [22] U.S. Conference of Mayors, "Analysis of the Firearms Control Act of 1975," 1980, criticized in Memoranda of September 19 and November 12, 1980, by Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, reprinted in "Congressional Record," October 1, 1980, November 13, 1980. [23] Edward D. Jones III, "The District of Columbia's `Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975': The Toughest Handgun Control Law in the United States -- Or Is It," "455 Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science" 138 (1981) [24] District of Columbia, Metropolitan Police Department, Homicide Branch, Assignments Received and Investigated, 01/01/76-12/31/76 and 01/01/78-12/31/78. [25] James D. Wright and Peter H. Rossi, "Weapons, Crime, an Violence in America: Executive Summary (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1981); James D. Wright, et al., Weapons, Crime and Violence in America: A Literature Review and Research Agenda (Washington: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1981). [26] Wright, et al., ibid., pp. 25, 43, 540-541,; Wright and Rossi, ibid., pp. 13, 18-20. [27] Wright and Rossi, op. cit., p. 38. [28] Wright, et al., op. cit., p. 255. [29] Germani, loc. cit. [30] Wright, et al., pp. 216-20. [31] ibid., pp. 111-13. [32] Wright and Rossi, op. cit., pp. 37-38; Germani, loc. cit. See also, Gary Kleck, "Handgun-Only Control: A Policy Disaster in the Making," in Don B. Kates, Jr., ed., "Firearms and Violence: Issues of Public Policy" (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballenger Publishing Co., 1984). [33] Wright and Rossi, ibid., p. 23. [34] Wright, et al., op. cit., p. 210. [35] James D. Wright and Peter H. Rossi, "The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons, (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1985), and "Armed and Considered Dangerous" (N.Y.: Aldine de Grurler, 1986). [36] Joseph P. Magaddino and Marshall H. Medoff, "An Empirical Analysis of Federal and State Firearm Control Laws," in Kates, "Firearms and Violence. [37] Gary Kleck, "The Relationship Between Gun Ownership Levels and Rates of Violence in the U.S.," in Kates, Firearms and Violence". [38] Gary Kleck, "Policy Lessons From Recent Gun Control Research," "49 Law and Contemporary Problems" 35 (1986), and "Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force," "15 Social Problems," 1 (1988). [39] Kleck, "Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force." [40] Susan Sayles and Gary Kleck, "Rape and Resistance," convention paper, American Society of Criminology, 1988. [41] Kleck, "Crime control Through the Private Use of Armed Force." [42] Magaddino and Medoff, loc. cit. [43] David J. Bordua, "Adversary Polling and the Construction of Social Meaning," "5 Law & Policy Quarterly" 345 at 350-353 (1983); Bordua and Lizotte, loc. cit.; Bordua, et al., op. cit. [44] Magaddino and Medoff, loc. cit. [45] Wright, et al., op. cit., p. 71. [48] Germani, loc. cit. * Origin: --- Freemen Have Arms, Slaves Do Not --- (1:105/79) * end *