Will You Be Safer If Guns Are Banned?

….” is the proliferation of guns the cause of violence or a response to violence? As Daniel D. Polsby of Northwestern University demonstrated in his article “The False Promise of Gun Control,” which appeared in the March 1994 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, there is no evidence that firearms cause violence:

If firearms increased violence and crime, then rates of spousal homicide would have skyrocketed, because the stock of privately owned handguns has increased rapidly since the mid-1960s. But . . . rates of spousal homicide in the years 1976 to 1985 fell.

If firearms increased violence and crime, the crime rate should have increased throughout the 1980s, while the national stock of privately owned handguns increased by more than a million units in every year of the decade. It did not.

If firearms increased violence and crime, Florida’s murder rate should not have been falling since the introduction, seven years ago, of a law that makes it easier for ordinary citizens to get permits to carry concealed handguns. Yet the murder rate has remained the same or fallen every year since the law was enacted. . . .

Paradoxically, although firearms do not increase crime and violence, gun-control laws do! Throughout the U.S., when strict gun-control laws are passed, crime and violence get worse.

Since 1976, it’s been illegal in Washington, D.C., to own any handguns or to keep any type of gun in your home fully assembled. Nevertheless, Washington, D.C., has among the highest murder rates in the nation. New York City has had a virtual ban on firearms since 1967, yet it also ranks among the most dangerous places in the country to live. In both New York and Washington, violent criminals can easily obtain machine guns and other deadly weapons on the streets within minutes.

Why does increased violence go hand-in-hand with gun-control laws? The reason is that a disarmed people make easy targets.

If an armed criminal attacks you on the street or in your home, you cannot afford to wait 30 minutes, 20 minutes or even 10 minutes for police to arrive ? assuming you even get the chance to call police and they respond. Ten minutes is more than enough time for a thug to rob you, rape you, shoot you, or cripple you for life. If the government takes away your guns, you are at the criminal’s mercy.

Self-defense does work. According to Morgan Reynolds of Texas A&M University, armed citizens deter one million crimes each year. “In 98 percent of the cases, simply brandishing the weapon or firing a warning shot is sufficient deterrence.”

In Florida, forcible rapes sharply declined in Orlando and other cities after police trained women to use guns.

During the Los Angeles riots, armed Korean merchants successfully defended their stores from looters after police retreated. Many undefended stores were burned to the ground.

In Los Angeles, many neighborhoods were protected from rampaging mobs only by residents blockading their streets and brandishing guns. If guns had been illegal, their homes would have been looted and burned, and many would have been raped or killed.

Why the rise in crime and violence?

If armed self-defense works, and if gun ownership is increasing, why does violent crime continue to escalate?

Of course there are many reasons, including the breakdown of families, violence generated by drug prohibition, and the lack of jobs for young adults, particularly in the inner city. But as economist Paul Craig Roberts points out, a major reason is that outside of our homes, we are already a disarmed society.

In most of the U.S., it is a crime to carry a gun on the street, so most people do not. And criminals know it. Not surprisingly, 87 percent of all violent crimes occur outside the home.

Another major reason why crime is increasing is that crime pays, and in our tax-ridden, regulation-crushed economy, many people cannot economically survive through low-end jobs. As Professor Polsby points out, “The income that offenders can earn in the world of crime, as compared with the world of work, all too often makes crimes appear to be the better choice.”

In Washington, D.C., it costs $7,000 in city fees to open a pushcart. In California, up to 80 federal and state licenses are required to open a small business. In New York, a medallion to operate a taxicab costs $150,000. Over 700 occupations in the U.S. require a government license. Throughout the country, church soup kitchens for the homeless are being closed by departments of health. No wonder so many people turn to crime and violence to survive.

Banning guns solves none of these problems. And “tough crime laws” also will not help. The risk of being caught if you are a criminal is extremely low: nationwide, only 1.2 percent of all burglaries result in a conviction.

But we can protect ourselves and deter crime by owning guns and knowing how to use them. Professors James Wright and Peter Rossi’s landmark study for the Department of Justice found that 85 percent of felons serving time in prison agreed that “smart criminals” will try to find out if their potential victim is armed before attacking him. Fifty-three percent did not commit a crime, for fear that the victim was armed. And 60 percent felt that most criminals feared armed citizens more than police. (Wright and Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms , 1986.)”…..
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