SAFETY AND GUNS

By Doug Fiedor

Handgun Control go home! You data is as silly as your leadership. Not that we haven’t said this a few times already . . . but it’s kind of nice to see many authoritative reports coming out to validate our opinion.

This week the validation comes from Morgan O. Reynolds and H. Sterling Burnett of the National Center for Policy Analysis with a report titled, “No Smoking Gun With Concealed Weapons Laws.” Investor’s Business Daily (a good read) published the report on January 8.

Reynolds and Burnett report that data from the 31 states now allowing people to carry concealed weapons show that murder and assault rates have declined. They quote a report by University of Chicago researchers John Lott and David Mustard showing that concealed handgun laws reduced murder by 8.5 percent and severe assault by 7 percent from 1977 to 1992. Then, they extrapolate a little, figuring that, “had ‘right-to-carry’ laws been in effect throughout the country, there would have been 1,600 fewer murders and 60,000 fewer assaults every year.”

And, they point to the self evident: “Vermont, which has long had the least restrictive [concealed carry] laws, also has among the lowest violent crime numbers in the country.” In 1980, when murders and robberies had soared to 10 and 251 per 100,000 people, respectively, Vermont’s murder rate was only 22 percent of the national average and its robbery rate was just 15 percent.

There are 10 million violent crimes committed in the U.S. every year. Potential victims use handguns about 1.9 million times in self-defense, estimates Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck. The unarmed, evidently, are the ones to get hurt.

Dade County, Florida, now has 21,000 carry- permit holders, yet there have been no reported incidents of a permit holder injuring an innocent person in the six years since records have been kept. Data from Virginia and Kentucky are similar.

Nation-wide, there are said to be about 30 mistaken shootings by civilians every year. Police officers, however, mistakenly pop a cap on three times that many annually — and there are one heck of a lot more legally armed civilians than police officers.

But, along with the good news comes a bit of liberal foolishness. The Associated Press reports that Philadelphia Mayor Edward G. Rendell put together a team of lawyers and researchers last summer to explore the idea of court action against gun makers. The lawsuit is intended to accuse the gun industry of creating a public nuisance through firearms used by criminals. If this silliness goes to court, it would be a first by a government against the firearms industry. Apparently, the city is considering demanding millions of dollars from gun manufacturers to pay the costs stemming from illegal gun use — including overtime for the cops.

The Mayor of Philadelphia evidently does not know much about police work. Cops walking the streets stop crime. Sticking the officers now behind desks on the streets, and getting the ones who are supposed to be on the streets out of the donut shops, makes a big difference everywhere it is tried.

Arming honest citizens is also an excellent deterrent. In fact, it sounds like that may be a necessity there. That is, unless the City of Philadelphia can guarantee instant response by the police to every crime in progress.”

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E-mail Doug at [email protected] or
read more of his articles on his web site at http://mmc.cns.net/headsup.html