Published on January 3, 2005 By drmiler In Politics
This is a repost from WorlNet Daily.

Gun control doesn't reduce crime, violence, say studies
National Academy of Sciences, Justice Dept. reports find no benefits to restricting ownership of firearms

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Posted: December 30, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – While it is an article of faith among gun-control proponents that government restrictions on firearms reduces violence and crime, two new U.S. studies could find no evidence to support such a conclusion.

The National Academy of Sciences issued a 328-page report based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, a survey of 80 different gun-control laws and some of its own independent study. In short, the panel could find no link between restrictions on gun ownership and lower rates of crime, firearms violence or even accidents with guns.


The panel was established during the Clinton administration and all but one of its members were known to favor gun control.

"Policy questions related to gun ownership and proposals for gun control touch on some of the most contentious issues in American politics: Should regulations restrict who may possess firearms? Should there be restrictions on the number or types of guns that can be purchased? Should safety locks be required? These and many related policy questions cannot be answered definitively because of large gaps in the existing science base," said Charles F. Wellford, professor in the department of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Maryland and chairman of the committee that wrote the report.

However, the National Research Council decided even more thorough research on the topic is needed.

Many studies linking guns to suicide and criminal violence produce conflicting conclusions, have statistical flaws and often do not show whether gun ownership results in certain outcomes, the report said.

A serious limit in such analyses is the lack of good data on who owns firearms and on individual encounters with violence, according to the study.

The report noted that many schools have programs intended to prevent gun violence. However, it added, some studies suggest that children's curiosity and teenagers' attraction to risk make them resistant to the programs or that the projects actually increase the appeal of guns.

Few of these programs, the report concludes, have been adequately evaluated.

The report calls for the development of a National Violent Death Reporting System and a National Incident-Based Reporting System to begin collecting data.

The study by the Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Science, was sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Joyce Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

"While more research is always helpful, the notion that we have learned nothing flies in the face of common sense," said John Lott, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a critic of gun-control laws. "The NAS panel should have concluded as the existing research has: Gun control doesn't help."

Meanwhile, a study released by the Justice Department suggesting background checks at gun shows would do little to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals.

The study noted the number of criminals who obtained guns from retail outlets was dwarfed by the number of those who picked up their arms through means other than legal purchases. The report was the result of interviews with more than 18,000 state and federal inmates conducted nationwide. It found that nearly 80 percent of those interviewed got their guns from friends or family members, or on the street through illegal purchases.

Less than 9 percent were bought at retail outlets and only seven-tenths of 1 percent came from gun shows.

The Justice Department's interviews also showed so-called "assault weapons" are not a major cause of gun violence. Only about 8 percent of the inmates used one of the models covered in the now-expired assault weapons ban, signed into law by the Clinton administration in 1994.



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Comments
on Jan 03, 2005
I am 20 years old and there was a time that made me thankful to be alive at times. I live in the city of Chicago and I love the place to death, almost figuratively. Two years ago I was driving back from a Chicago Bears game and I made a wrong turn that resulted in an unpleasant experience. I was driving in the south side of the city which is not a safe place to be and the two loud banging sounds that struck my right rear door proved the point. Those loud bangs were gunshots from an unknown person, but that experience has opened my eyes on gun control. It sucks. The big problem with guns in Chicago is the number of guns that are purchased or received illegally. This problem is untouchable by the number of gun laws that exist today. The biggest owner of illegal guns happens to be street gangs. When you toss in the idea of banning guns, this problem still exists. Just because it is illegal to even own a gun will never change the fact or will remove the possession of those guns that are already illegal prior to the law. There are much better ways to eliminate this problem than just simply making gun laws that waste money through their enforcement.
on Jan 03, 2005
Here's some added material showing they don't work.


Gun control claims just don't add up

Lee Enokian's column



This story ran on nwitimes.com on Saturday, December 18, 2004 11:53 PM CST



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Chicago has some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation. It also has some of the highest crime rates.

Chicago has some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation. It also has some of the highest crime rates.

Second Amendment-crushing gun control ordinances have done nothing but give criminals carte blanche to rape, rob and murder unsuspecting, law-abiding Chicago citizens.

The Windy City's inability to control crime has prompted Chicago-based groups like United Power for Action and Justice to attack the rights of gun owners in the south suburbs. They recently staged a protest outside Chuck's Gun Shop in Riverdale and spouted the usual misleading rhetoric about firearm violence.

A recent study indicated that handguns purchased at the Riverdale gun shop were involved with many crimes committed in Chicago, Gary and elsewhere.

Chicago residents want to know why and conveniently point their finger at the south suburban scapegoat.

Their accusations just don't stand up to logical analysis.

Since Chuck's is such a hazard to the region, then Riverdale must be plagued by murder and mayhem, Right?

Wrong.

According to the 2003 Crime in Illinois report available on the Illinois State Police website, (www.isp.state.il.us) Riverdale has a lower equalized crime rate than Chicago. If Chuck's Gun Shop is the root of all evil, then why isn't crime out of control in the small south suburban town?

Chicago's 598 murders involve 0.02071 percent of the city's 2,886,102 residents. Riverdale's two murders involve 0.0134 percent of the city's population of 14,923. When boiled down to simple percentages, they allow us to fairly compare murders committed in the two municipalities, despite their disparity in size.

Chicago's 598 murders account for 66.74 percent of the 896 murders in Illinois. The city's population of 2,886,102 is only 22.88 percent of the state's 12,609,591 residents.

Based on residency, Chicago should have only 205 murders. It has almost three times as many murders as would be expected.

This abysmal record is an improvement over the 651 murders recorded for 2002. Chicago won the dubious honor of being known as the murder capital of the United States that year.

The way I see it, suburban gun shops allow suburban residents to protect themselves from Chicago's riffraff. Groups like United Power for Action and Justice should stay on their side of the border and leave us alone.

Firearms are a great equalizer. They can allow a diminutive person, such as a female, to easily defend herself against the largest male attacker.

Killers don't need firearms to ply their trade. We can look to extreme examples to prove this fact.

Serial killers Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy didn't need guns.

Dahmer confessed to 17 murders but was suspected of committing 24 murders in the United States and Germany.

Gacy is known to have killed 33 young men and boys, but might have been responsible for others.

Bundy killed 19 women. Properly trained and armed, those women might have been alive today.

Chicago's pathetic finger-pointing should be directed elsewhere. By definition, those who own guns illegally are criminals. Therefore, gun control legislation only keeps law-abiding citizens from owning firearms.

Mayor Richard Daley should drop the political posturing and allow honest citizens to defend


From the NWI Times
on Jan 03, 2005
For gun control to have any effect you need to actually remove the guns already there and ensure that the law is nationwide. I don't think that is possible in the US to ever achieve this. Your right to bear arms comes with higher crime and deaths rates and you'll just have to live with it. Just look at crime figures in countries like the UK (where firearms are illegal) to see the true effect of gun control.

Paul.
on Jan 03, 2005
Solitar wrote: "For gun control to have any effect you need to actually remove the guns already there and ensure that the law is nationwide."

Then only the government would be in possession of guns, a development that would make Thomas Jefferson roll over in his grave. It makes me cringe just thinking about it.

Your right to bear arms comes with higher crime and deaths rates and you'll just have to live with it. Just look at crime figures in countries like the UK (where firearms are illegal) to see the true effect of gun control.


There maybe some degree of truth in this statement, but I understand that the respecitve causes of crime in America and the UK involve considerably more than the mere presence of guns or lack thereof. No?

For example: history shows that whenever America permits a big wave of immigration crime spikes. This is not to cast any aspersions on Immigrants. Immigration has undoubtedly been a net plus gain for the country.

on Jan 03, 2005

Reply #3 By: Solitair - 1/3/2005 9:03:52 AM
For gun control to have any effect you need to actually remove the guns already there and ensure that the law is nationwide. I don't think that is possible in the US to ever achieve this. Your right to bear arms comes with higher crime and deaths rates and you'll just have to live with it. Just look at crime figures in countries like the UK (where firearms are illegal) to see the true effect of gun control.

Paul.


Yeah, RIGHT! Here's your effect.


Dramatic Increase in Robberies and Other Crime

And yet, crime has steadily risen in Britain in the last several years. The U.S. Department of Justice says a person is nearly twice as likely to be robbed, assaulted or have a vehicle stolen in Britain as in the United States. Although the U.S. remains ahead of Britain in rates of murder and rape, the gap is rapidly narrowing.And while robberies rose 81 percent in England and Wales, they fell 28 percent in the United States. Likewise, assaults increased 53 percent in England and Wales but declined 27 percent in the United States. Burglaries doubled in England but fell by half in the United States. And while motor vehicle theft rose 51 percent in England, it remained the same in America.

To make matters worse for England – and this is also true for Canada – in those countries where citizens are disarmed in their own homes, day burglary is commonplace and dangerous because criminals know they will not be shot at if caught flagrante delicto. Not so in the U.S., where burglars not only prefer night burglaries but try to make sure homeowners are not in to avoid being shot at by the intended victim.

The rising tide of thievery and burglaries in England has dubbed Britain "a nation of thieves," wrote the London Sunday Times, which noted: "More than one in three British men has a criminal record by the age of 40. While America has cut its crime rate dramatically Britain remains the crime capital of the West. Where have we gone wrong?"(2) Perhaps England should look introspectively.

The most drastic ascendancy of crimes in Britain was found in those types of felonies where recent studies in the U.S. have shown that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens not only save lives but also protect private property, reduce injuries to good people, and crime is generally deterred.(3)

Writing in the May/June 2000 issue of the Medical Sentinel of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), Dr. Michael S. Brown writes that while the British laws have disarmed law-abiding citizens, "a black market has flourished, as usual with prohibitions, to supply criminal elements. Up to 3 million illegal guns are in circulation in Britain, leading to a rise in drive-by shootings and gangland-style executions."

Dr. Brown continues, "Young criminals (ages 15 to 25 with prior convictions), according to the Sunday Times, 'own or have access to guns ranging from Beretta submachine guns to Luger pistols, which can be bought from underworld dealers for as little as £200 ($320 U.S.).'"(4) In the U.S., ordinary citizens shoot three times as many criminals in self-defense as do the police.

Recent work by professor John R. Lott Jr. at the University of Chicago has shown that allowing people to carry concealed weapons deters violent crime - without any apparent increase in accidental death or suicide. While neither state waiting periods nor the federal Brady Law is associated with a reduction in crime rates, adopting concealed-carry gun laws cuts death rates from public, multiple shootings like those in Littleton, Colo., this year or Dunblane, Scotland in 1996.

Professor Lott found that when concealed-carry laws went into effect in a given county, murders fell by 8 percent, rapes by 5 percent and aggravated assaults by 7 percent. For each additional year concealed-carry gun laws have been in effect, the murder rate declines by 3 percent, robberies by more than 2 percent and rape by 1 percent.(5)


on Jan 03, 2005


For gun control to have any effect you need to actually remove the guns already there and ensure that the law is nationwide. I don't think that is possible in the US to ever achieve this.


How the hell are you going to do this? What guns are you talkiing about? If you are talking to the people that owe guns illegally already like street gangs this won't work. You expect people to walk up to those people and say, "We have to take your weapons"? HA! I guess you don't know what its like in the real world.