http://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20000823/t000079167.html
Wednesday, August 23, 2000

Gun Licensing Leads to Increased Crime, Lost Lives

By JOHN R. LOTT JR.

Who could possibly oppose licensing handgun owners?
Requiring training for potential gun owners both in a
classroom and at a firing range before they are allowed to
buy a gun seems obvious. Licensing, especially when
eventually coupled with registration, will supposedly also
help identify criminals and prevent them from getting guns.

Yet, as usual with guns, the debate over licensing mentions
just the possible benefits while ignoring the real costs to
people’s safety. If the California Senate passes licensing
this week, it will not only cost Californians hundreds of
millions of dollars annually, but, more important, it will
increase violent crime.

In theory, if a gun is left at the scene of the crime,
licensing and registration will allow a gun to be traced
back to its owner. But, amazingly, despite police spending
tens of thousands of man hours administering these laws in
Hawaii (the one state with both rules), as well as in big
urban areas with similar laws, such as Chicago and
Washington, D.C., there is not even a single case where the
laws have been instrumental in identifying someone who has
committed a crime.

The reason is simple. First, criminals very rarely leave
their guns at the scene of the crime. Would-be criminals
also virtually never get licenses or register their
weapons.

So what of the oft-stated claim that licensing will somehow
allow even more comprehensive background checks and thus
keep criminals from getting guns in
the first place?

Unfortunately for gun control advocates, there is not a
single academic study concluding that background checks
reduce violent crime.

The Journal of the American Medical Assn. this month
published an article showing that the Brady law produced no
reduction in homicides or suicides.

Other, more comprehensive research actually found that the
waiting period in the Brady law slightly increased rape
rates.

The Clinton administration keeps issuing press releases
boasting that violent crime rates have fallen since 1994,
when the Brady law was adopted. Yet violent crime started
falling in 1991. The Brady law did not apply to 18 states,
but after 1994 their violent crime fell as quickly as other
states.

While still asserting that the law “must have some effect,”
U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno was reduced this month to saying,
“It might just take longer to measure [it].”

The reason why the Brady law does not affect criminals is
simple. It is the law-abiding citizens, not the criminals,
who obey the laws. For example, the waiting-period provision
in the law prevented law-abiding women who were stalked or
threatened from quickly obtaining a gun for self-defense.

There are still other problems with the law that the state
Legislature is considering. When added to the current state
waiting period, the processing time for a license will delay
access to a gun by a month. While even short waiting periods
increase rape rates, waiting periods longer than 10 days
make it difficult for law-abiding citizens to obtain guns to
protect themselves and increase all categories of violent
crime.

The hundreds of dollars it will take to pay for the license
and the up-to-eight-hour training course, as well as the
many arcane reasons for losing a license, will reduce gun
ownership by law-abiding people.

Since no other state has such restrictive rules for simply
owning a gun, it is difficult to know how much gun ownership
will decline, but similar rules for obtaining concealed
handgun permits reduce the number of permits issued by 60%.
The reduction in permits increased violent crime.

It is already illegal for criminals to go around carrying
guns. Making it difficult for law-abiding citizens to even
own guns in their own homes is not going to make them safer
from the criminals.

Part of the proposed “training” appears better classified
as indoctrination, making gun owners memorize grossly
exaggerated fears of the risks of owning a gun.

It will also be the poor who bear the brunt of these costs
and who will be priced out of gun ownership. They are also
most vulnerable to crime and benefit the most from being
able to protect themselves.

With all the new gun laws already scheduled to go into
effect after the November elections, why don’t legislators
simply require that California homeowners to put out a sign
stating: “This home is a gun-free zone”?

Legislators could lead by example and start with their own
homes.
- – -
John R. Lott Jr. Is a Senior Research Scholar at the Yale
University Law School. the Second Edition of His Book “More
Guns, Less Crime” (University of Chicago Press) Was Released
in July

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