[Updated 6/20/97 to reflect new local URLs. -- Jeff C. Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 00:17:40 -0800 From: Jeff Chan To: IBYARINY@aol.com Subject: Re: Thesis questions [The person asking questions says he is a Junior in High School doing a thesis on gun control.] [...] What are my qualifications? Just an informed citizen. Be sure to check out my references below the comments for further information. >1. Considering that most violent crimes and homicides are committed with >handguns, doesn't it make sense that stricter handgun control measures would >reduce crime and murder rates? No. That simplistic assumption is not validated in the scientific research done by the U.S. Department of Justice. See: http://rkba.org/research/wright/armed-criminal.summary >2. Aren't the majority of guns held by criminals anyway? No, the vast majority of guns are owned by ordinary working citizens. Statistically every other home has a gun. Unless half the households in the U.S. contain criminals, this suggestion is obviously false. See: http://www.nra.org/pub/ila/95_firearms_fact_card >3. What would happen to law abiding citizens if an all-out ban on handguns >was introduced? Some would turn them in and become defenseless in the face of crime. Others would assert their fundamental right to self defense and passively disobey. >4. What about the fact that European countries and Canada, which carry very >tough anti-handgun controls, have a homicide rate startlingly lower than the >U.S.? Several countries have vastly lower crime rates in general. America has higher knife or beating murder rates than many countries' total homicide rates. Comparisons of rates across countries that do not take into account significant cultural differences are scientifically invalid. See: David Kopel, "The Samurai, The Mountie and The Cowboy" for an extensive and award winning comparison of gun crime across cultures. This may be available in your library. If not you should request it. The publisher is Aldine de Gruyter in Hawthorne NY. >5. Would imposing a long waiting period for handgun purchasers prevent >someone from buying a gun, and using it, in a moment of anger? Research sponsored by the Federal Department of Justice, performed by the National Institute of Justice has repeatedly shown that the overwhelming majority (>90%) of armed felons get their guns illegally. They do not get them in stores so waiting periods can have no effect on them. See the Wright summary above. >6. How much effort would it take to institute handgun registration, >controls, and/or bans? Probably not much to implement registration. Many states already have de facto registration. Registration has never been proven to have any negative effect on the crime rate in a given state. Bans are simple to enact but impossible to enforce save for raids on people's homes. See the history of Fidel Castro's Cuba, Hitler's Nazi Germany, Stalin's USSR, Mao's China, etc. if you need examples. >7. Haven't local laws restricting handguns proved successful in certain >areas in the country? The opposite appears to be true. Places with severe handgun restrictions or gun prohibition such as New York City and Washington D.C. have the highest handgun homicide rates. Conversely some states that have recently liberalized firearms carry permits have demonstrated reduced murder rates. Florida's murder rate dropped nearly 40% after making carry permits available to any adult who passes a background check and demonstrates competence by passing firearms training and testing similar to the police. More than 100,000 Floridians now have carry permits and fewer than a dozen have had their permits revoked for abusing them. See: http://rkba.org/research/kopel/shall-issue.html [...] -- Jeff Chan mailto:webmaster@rkba.org http://rkba.org/ +------------------------------------------------------------------+ | We should measure progress not by how many laws | | can be passed but by how little governing people need. | +------------------------------------------------------------------+ At archive, see: highlights.html and Info Guide: firearms.faq.html