Do gun control laws work or do they divert attention and scarce resources from the roots of our crime problems?

Chicago banned the sales of handguns in April of 1982.  In spite of the ban Chicago has since become one of the nation's leaders in numbers of murders.  At times it has lead the nation and even exceeded New York City which has four times the population.

Washington DC's homicide rate tripled in 15 years after their 1977 ban on new gun sales.  Why doesn't Virginia, the alleged source of all those illegal guns in Washington, D.C., not have a comparable murder rate? Washington D.C.'s black teenage male homicide rate is 227 per 100,000.  Homicide has declined for every segment of American society except for those inner city teenagers and young adults involved in the illicit drug trade.  The U.S. group for whom gun ownership has the highest prevalence, rural middle-aged white men, has less then 7 homicides per 100,000.

Crime and homicide rates are also highest in other jurisdictions where restrictive gun licensing, registration and prohibition schemes exist, such as New York City and California.  These are localities where victims are unarmed and defenseless against the brazen predators who ignore these schemes.

Gun control advocates argue a "need" for national controls, yet similar national controls or bans haven't stemmed the flow of heroin, cocaine, and sales of marijuana across our national borders.

Anti-gun laws are often rammed through in the wake of some tragedy in an atmosphere of hysteria by irresponsible politicians more interested in grandstanding than in serious legislation.

These laws are often poorly written by well-intentioned, but bigoted anti-gun crusaders who are profoundly ignorant of firearms as technological objects, of gun owners as people, and of how and why guns are owned and used.  Their laws attack inanimate objects (guns) instead of the relatively small minority of extreme aberrants who murder or commit violent crimes.  Criminologist Don B. Kates, Jr., in his book The Great American Debate, coauthored by Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck, documented that "the average age of adult murders is 27 years and his six adult years has an official record of four major felony arrests."

One wonders how many additional felonies he committed without being apprehended.

Gun prohibitionist would have you believe that most murders occur between ordinary citizens, their relatives or acquaintances because they own a gun.  This belief is ridiculous when you consider that millions of guns are owned by ordinary citizens.  According to their flawed logic millions of Americans would die each year because of ordinary citizens owning firearms.  It just doesn't happen.

However, hardened criminals who are the real problem, also have relatives and acquaintances who they do murder or commit violent crimes against.  Their violence is often directed against acquaintances who consist of fellow criminals, drug dealers, their customers and their competitors and between members of the same and rival gangs.  Over 20,000 gun laws have failed to target and discourage these violent socialpathic predators who already ignore laws against murder and drug trafficking.  Gun control advocates have yet to explain how passing another law to this already vast number of laws will disarm these predators.

Laws and penalties already exist for the murder and violence that  these social misfits commit.

Enforce them! 


Jim Butler's Commentaries

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