“Commonsense” Gun Control Laws
Supporters of restrictive gun control and “assault weapon”
bans insist they only want “commonsense” gun control laws. But many of these proposals have been tried
and found wanting.
1. 1. Mandatory background checks for every gun
transfer.
But 13 states have adopted
such laws since 1960 when FBI murder statistics became sufficiently reliable to
test the effects of these laws on murder rates: California,
Hawaii,
Illinois,
Massachusetts,
New
Jersey,
and Rhode Island.
A few more states have for a few years required
such a check for private party transfers of
handguns
(with a few exceptions such as intrafamily transfers): Maryland,
Iowa,
Michigan,
Nebraska,
New
York,
North Carolina,
and
Pennsylvania.
Hawaii, North Carolina, and Michigan, passed
these laws so recently that we do not have enough data to measure results
yet.
state
|
first full year
|
murder rate avg. (T-5)
|
murder rate avg. (T+5)
|
change
|
significant
|
type
|
Cal.
|
1991
|
11.02
|
12.3
|
10.4%
|
FALSE
|
all
|
Ill.
|
1968
|
6
|
8.94
|
32.9%
|
FALSE
|
all
|
Iowa
|
1978
|
2.24
|
2.38
|
5.9%
|
FALSE
|
pistols
|
Maryland
|
1997
|
11.96
|
9.06
|
-32.0%
|
TRUE
|
pistols
|
Mass.
|
1969
|
2.62
|
3.78
|
30.7%
|
FALSE
|
all
|
Nebr.
|
1992
|
3.12
|
3.4
|
8.2%
|
FALSE
|
pistols
|
Penn.
|
1998
|
6.12
|
5.1
|
-20.0%
|
TRUE
|
pistols
|
R.I.
|
1991
|
4.16
|
3.72
|
-11.8%
|
FALSE
|
long guns
|
Yes, of eight states, three had declines in murder rates, but
only two were statistically significant.
Five had increases. If these laws
are really effective, why are the results all over the map? You would expect at least some consistent
direction, unless they really make no difference. Why?
The federal government has studied how criminally misused guns end up in
criminal hands.
As you can see, a strong majority
of these guns were obtained by committing felonies: strawman purchases,
burglaries, unlicensed gun making,
So why will creating another felony make any
difference?
2. 2. “Requiring a license to own a gun, like a driver’s
license. No one objects to that.” With a driver’s license issued by any state,
I can drive a car in any other state, and the car does not matter. I can drive a car capable of exceeding the
speed limit by a hundred miles per hour (a dangerous criminal offense) or a car
with a high capacity gas tank (imagine the hazard of a car with a 80 gallon gas
tank in a car crash spilling an explosive fluid around the accident). I can also fly to any state, buy a car there,
and drive it home. Imagine doing that
with a gun license!
3. 3. “Require gun owners to carry insurance to pay
for damages caused by their guns.”
Home
owners insurance usually covers non-criminal liability and even negligent acts now.
If criminals buy firearms insurance, it won’t
cover their criminal actions.
44. “But we require drivers to have car insurance
now.” And are there uninsured drivers
out there? That’s why police officers
ask to see your proof of insurance when they pull you over, and most drivers
carry uninsured motorist coverage.
5. 5. “Gun owners should be liable for misuse of
stolen guns.” Why? Are other victims of crimes liable for
subsequent criminal use of their property?
If someone steals your chainsaw and re-enacts “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,”
should the burglary victim be held liable?
6. 6. “Weapons of war are too dangerous because of
mass murders.”
No country uses semiautomatic rifles as weapons of war. USA Today gathered data on mass murders 2006-2010.
Only about 3/4 involved guns
(the rest were “stabbing,”, “blunt force,” “Smoke inhalation/burns.” But even
in gun mass murders: 72.9% handguns, 18.5% rifles (8.6% semiautomatic
rifles); 8.6% shotguns. And these were the guns carried, not necessarily
used by the killer. )
It
would make far more sense to ban handguns than semiautomatic rifles, and more
sense to ban knives “blunt objects,” and flammable liquids, if the goal is to
reduce mass murders.
7. 7. “You say the Second Amendment protects your ‘right’
to own these guns because they might be needed against a tyrannical
government. Do you really think you can
defeat the might of the U.S. government?”
You call them “weapons of war” and say that they would therefore not be
useful for that? Which is it?
8. 8. “Assault weapons are easily converted to full auto.” But federal law has this covered.
The term 'machinegun' means any weapon
which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can
be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without
manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also
include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and
intended solely and exclusively, or combination
of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a
machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be
assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.
The courts have ruled that readily
convertible means “about an 8-hour working day in a properly equipped machine
shop.”
9. 9. “Think of the children killed each year by guns
in accidents.”
How many?
In the years 1999-2016, there were 1,163
accidental firearms deaths of children 0-14 or 68 per year.
Each is a tragedy, but 7,181 were killed in
vehicle accidents: 422 per year.
Drowning in bathtubs: 1,461, or 85 per year.
Your focus is wrong.
110.
“Why are you leaving out older children?” The Centers for Disease Control has age
categories to 14, and 15-19. That
includes adults and some gang members.
Those are not children in the
usual sense of the word.
111.
“Why not ban ‘assault weapons’ and high capacity
magazines?
Who needs them?”
Why ban them?
They are seldom criminally misused.
When Congress passed the 1994 ban on new manufacture, the Clinton
Administration directed the National Institute of Justice to examine the
effects of the new law.
They found a
6.7% reduction in murder rates in the 15 states where the federal ban could
have made a difference.
But Roth and
Koper also admitted that this reduction was not statistically significant.
Because assault weapons had been used in a
tiny percentage of murders before the ban, “it is highly improbable that the
assault weapons ban produced an effect this large….”
What about the effects of rapid fire and
large capacity magazines?
“The ban did
not produce declines in the average number of victims per incident of gun
murder or gun murder victims with multiple wounds.”
What about “protecting police officers,” the excuse
offered repeatedly for the ban?
There
was a decline in assault weapons used to murder police officers, but Roth and
Koper also admitted that “such incidents are sufficiently rare” that it
impossible to determine whether the law reduced total gun murders of police
officers.
