From: The Center For The Study Of Crime

A few points regarding ways to educate the public about
availability of firearms today, and Sugarman’s claim that in
the last 30 years more firearms of a more evil design
(“high-power, high-capacity handguns”) have become more
available for use in crime. Especially note Point 3, which
describes Sugarman’s reason for pushing his latest
propaganda.

1. Prior to 1968, there were very few gun control laws
anywhere in the U.S. and most of them were fairly simple.
You could buy firearms at gas stations, hardware stores,
SEARS, Montgomery Ward, etc. You could mail order a Lahti
20mm semiauto anti-tank cannon for about $300 and buy the
ammo too. Just look at an old copy of Guns magazine or
American Rifleman for all kinds of bargains like 1873
trapdoor Springfields for $9.99 or Astra 9mm handguns for
$16 or Winchester 92′s in .44-40 for $22 or matching-numbers
Lugers for $35 or practically new Springfield 03A3′s for
$25. The father of one of my childhood friends had a lower
middle class job, but he was able to afford a collection of
100+ firearms. Even I, as a 12 year old urban kid owned my
own .22 rifle and most of my male high school class mates
owned their own firearms, and sometimes more than one.
Those who didn’t have their own were aware of who had
firearms, so they could have gotten one if they had intended
to commit a crime. Nobody had safes or other sophisticated
storage devices then. And firearms incidents in school were
unheard of.

2. The interesting thing about that era was its relatively
low crime rate. During the 1950′s, the U.S. murder rate was
as low as 4.3, which is not much higher than Western
Europe. However, after the 1968 GCA and numerous other gun
control laws in the states, crime increased dramatically and
didn’t start declining until 1991, by which time people had
gotten tired of the crime and built prisons, passed CCW
laws, instituted tougher sentences, reduced parole, etc.

3. “Assault weapons” (more properly called TRADITIONAL
SEMI-AUTOMATIC FIREARMS WHICH HAVE BEEN COMMERCIALLY
AVAILABLE SINCE 1896–you might want to use that phrase when
the other side says “AW’s”) and “high-capacity handguns” are
not new technology, but you’ll notice that Sugarman has
devised a clever, deceptive (what else would you expect from
him?) plan which will place the blame for the post-1968-GCA
crime increase on the firearms manufacturers and owners, and
deflect it away from counter-productive gun control policies
that kill innocent people. However, you can be sure that he
will not credit the new wave of firearms for the 1991 crime
turnaround. In other words, we get all the blame when
something bad happens and none of the credit when something
good happens.

4. 30 years ago, in 1969, there was no new wave of
“high-powered, high-capacity handguns” being marketed to
consumers. At that time, there were really only a few
high-capacity handguns on the market, and none of them was
particularly popular. The high-capacity trend really didn’t
take off until 1984 or so (which means that the trend only
paralleled the rising crime trend for 7 years, until 1991,
so the high-capacity trend has already spent more years, 8,
on the declining part of the crime trend than it spent
paralleling the increasing crime trend). The problem is
that the public doesn’t know that, because they do not
follow the design trends as many of us do. Therefore, they
are vulnerable to Sugarman’s lies unless we educate them.
The first viable high-capacity “wonder 9″ was invented in
1935 (Browning HP-35, known as the “High Power”), which
means that the crime wave should have started 64 years ago,
not 30 years ago. You can also point out that just 3 years
ago (not 30), Sugarman and his cohorts were telling the
public that the criminals’ weapon of choice was the
low-powered “Saturday night special”

5. Feel free to point out to the public that during the 7
years of the Clinton presidency, the most anti-self-defense,
anti-2nd-Amendment President in U.S. history and the one who
passed more gun control legislation than any other
President, we have experienced more mass murders by students
than the combined total for all the other 376 years of
American history. A proud record for the efficacy of gun
control.