Article 76953 of talk.politics.guns: Path: teetot.acusd.edu!network.ucsd.edu!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!cyber2.cyberstore.ca!vanbc.wimsey.com!mmddvan!not-for-mail From: [b--o--h] at [mdd.comm.mot.com] (Greg Booth) Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns Subject: Criminology on Gun Control Date: 3 Jan 1994 09:30:33 -0800 Organization: Motorola - Wireless Data Group Lines: 110 Distribution: world Message-ID: <2g9knp$[l h f] at [phoenix.mdd.comm.mot.com]> Reply-To: [b--o--h] at [mdd.comm.mot.com] NNTP-Posting-Host: phoenix.mdd.comm.mot.com 9. Criminology From [firearms politics Request] at [GODIVA.NECTAR.CS.CMU.EDU] Wed Jan 20 15:06:45 1993 To: att![firearms politics] at [cs.cmu.edu] Subject: Restrictions hamper law-abiding folks, not crooks Content-Length: 4980 X-Lines: 91 Status: RO This op-ed piece by David B. Kopel was in the Columbus Dispatch in early January 1993 . -- "Restrictions hamper law-abiding folks, not crooks" As deaths from rampant gun violence mount and city dwellers from Boston to Los Angeles learn to distinguish the pop of a pistol from the blast of a shotgun, Americans rightly insist on action to combat the national crime epidemic. But the solution put forward by gun-control advocates -- a national waiting period and a ban on assault weapons -- will fail. Opponents of gun control, formerly limited to basing their arguments on the Second Amendment's right to bear arms, now can cite a large body of recent social-science research that dispels the myth that gun control cuts down on crime. Much of this research has been produced by scholars who once believed that gun control was an obvious solution to crime. The Carter administration, for example, provided a major research grant to sociology professor James D. Wright and his colleagues Peter Rossi and Kathleen Daly in the hope of building a case for comprehensive federal gun restrictions. When the researchers produced their report to the National Institute of Justice in 1982, they delivered a document quite different from the one they expected to write. Carefully reviewing all existing research, the three scholars found no persuasive evidence that America's 20,000 gun-control laws had reduced criminal violence. The most thorough study of the efficacy of gun control has been performed by Florida State University's Gary Kleck, who analyzed data for all 170 U.S. cities with a population of more than 100,000, testing for the impact of 19 different types of gun control on suicides, accidents and five different types of crime. Kleck, a liberal Democrat and a member of the American Civil Liberties Union, found the only control that reduced crime was a strict penalty for carrying an illegal gun, which seemed to lower the robber rate. Waiting periods, licensing systems and registration had no impact. In another National Institute of Justice study, this one involving the habits of American felons, Wright and Rossi interviewed felony prisoners in 10 states. They found that gun- control had no effect on the ability of criminals to obtain guns. Only 12 percent of criminals, and only 7 percent of the criminals specializing in handgun crime, had acquired their weapon at a store. Of those, about one quarter had not bought the guns but stolen them, and many of the rest had probably procured their guns through a surrogate buyer or on the black market. Waiting periods, because they now are the most-discussed method of deterring gun crime, deserve special attention. Although the waiting-period initiative is often called the "Brady bill," it would not have prevented John Hinckley from shooting then-President Ronald Reagan and his press secretary, James Brady. When Hinckley bought two handguns in October 1980, he had no felony record and no public record of mental illness. The routine background checks proposed by the Brady bill would have turned up nothing on him. And since Hinckley bought the guns more than five months in advance, a one-week wait would have made no difference. Waiting periods can cost lives, too, preventing people from protecting themselves against criminal attack while they wait. In September 1990, a mail carrier named Catherine Latta of Charlotte, N.C., went to the police to obtain permission to buy a handgun. Her ex-boyfriend had previously robbed her, assaulted her several times and raped her. The clerk at the sheriff's office informed her that processing a gun permit would take two to four weeks. "I told her I'd be dead by then," Latta later recalled. That afternoon, she bought an illegal $20 semiautomatic pistol on the street. Five hours later, her ex-boyfriend attacked her outside her house. She shot him dead. The county prosecutor decided not to prosecute Latta for either the self-defense homicide or the illegal gun. A Wisconsin woman, Bonnie Elmasri, wasn't so lucky. On March 5, 1991, she called a firearms instructor, worried because her husband -- who was subject to a restraining order to stay away from her -- had been threatening her and her children. When she asked the instructor about getting a handgun, the instructor explained that Wisconsin has a 48-hour waiting period. Elmasri and her two children were murdered by her husband 24 hours later. Gun-control advocates claim their only concern is bringing violent crime to a halt. If so, the evidence should lead them to conclude that gun control is not the answer -- and can in many cases make matters worse. -- David B. Kopel is director of the Second Amendment Project at the Independence Institute, a Colorado-based think-tank. This essay is adapted from Policy Review, the journal of the Heritage Foundation. -- Larry Cipriani, att!cblpf!lvc or [l v c] at [cblpf.att.com] "I just love the smell of gunpowder!" -- Bugs Bunny -- Greg Booth BSc />_________________________________ BCAA-PCDHF-BCWF-NFA-NRA-IPSC [########[]_________________________________> /\/\OTOROLA Wireless Data Group, \> I don't speak for Motorola / \Subscriber Products Division, [b--o--h] at [mdd.comm.mot.com]