More Guns Less Crime by John Jr (ebook reader macos .txt) 📗

Much of the debate today is framed so as to blame the greater accessibility of guns in America for the recent school violence. Gun-control groups claim that today "guns are less regulated than toasters or teddy bears." 131 The solutions range from banning gun possession for those under twenty-one to imprisoning adults whose guns are misused by minors under eighteen.

Yet, to the contrary, gun availability has never before been as restricted as it is now. As late as 1967, it was possible for a thirteen-year-old virtually anywhere in the United States to walk into a hardware store and buy a rifle. Relatively few states even had age restrictions for buying handguns from a store. Buying a rifle through the mail was easy. Private transfers of guns to juveniles were also unrestricted.

It was common for schools to have shooting clubs. Even in New York City, virtually every public high school had a shooting club up until 1969. It was common for high school students to take their guns with them to school on the subways in the morning and turn them over to their homeroom teacher or the gym coach so the heavy guns would simply be out of the way. After school, students would pick up their guns when it was time for practice. The federal government would even give students rifles and pay for their ammunition. Students regularly competed in citywide shooting contests, with the winners being awarded university scholarships.

Contrast those days with regulations today. College or elementary students are now expelled from school for even accidentally bringing a water pistol. Schools prohibit images of guns, knives, or other weapons on shirts, on hats, or in pictures. Elementary school students have been suspended for carrying around a mere picture of a gun. High schools have refused to publish yearbook pictures of students sitting on howitzers, even when the picture shows graduating students who are joining the military. School superintendents have lost their jobs for even raising the question of whether someone at a school should have a gun for protection. 132

Since the 1960s, the growth of federal gun control has been dramatic.

Before the Brady law in 1994, background checks and waiting periods were not required in most states. It was not a federal crime for those under eighteen to possess a handgun until 1994. The 1990s saw dramatically higher fees for registered dealers as well as many added paperwork requirements. Federal gun laws in 1930 amounted to only 3,571 words. They expanded to 19,907 words in 1960 and then more than quadrupled to 88,413 words today. 133

The growth in state laws has kept pace. By 1997, California's gun-control statutes contained an incredible 158,643 words, nearly the length of the King James Version of the New Testament. And in 1999, at least four new gun laws have already been signed into law by the governor. Even a "gun-friendly" state government such as Texas has gun-control provisions containing over 41,000 words. None of this even begins to include the burgeoning local regulations on everything from licensing to mandatory gun locks.

But whose access has really been restricted by these laws? There is no academic study showing that waiting periods and background checks have reduced criminal access or resulted in less crime or youth violence. Indeed, for the Brady law, I have found that rape rates have increased. While the object is obviously to disarm criminals, the laws are primarily obeyed by good people. If the research in this book convinces me of anything, it is that disarming potential victims relative to criminals makes crime more attractive and more likely.

To restrict firearm access further and promote "safe zones" for our children, a 1995 federal law now bans guns within 1,000 feet of a school. Unfortunately, again, it is the law-abiding citizens who obey the law— not the criminals who are intent on harming our children. With the recent school attacks, even the most die-hard proponents of this law will be hard pressed to claim that this law has worked out the way that it was intended.

In Virginia, where rural areas have a long tradition of high school students going hunting in the morning, before school, the governor tried but failed to get the state legislature in 1999 to enact an exemption to the federal law allowing high school students to store their guns in their cars in the school parking lot. Indeed, one reason few students have been prosecuted for possessing a gun on school grounds is that many violations involve these very types of cases. Prosecutors find it crazy to send good kids to jail simply because they had a rifle locked in the trunk of their car while the car was parked in the school parking lot. The recent attempts in Congress to "put teeth" into the current laws through mandating prosecutions will take away this prosecutorial discretion and produce unintended results.

The horror with which people react to guns is inversely related to how accessible they are. It would appear that, at the very least, gun-control advocates face something of a dilemma. If guns are the problem, why was it that when guns were really accessible, even inside schools by students, we didn't have the problems that plague us now including the mass school shootings?

Rules that are passed to solve a problem can make the problem worse, which in turn generates calls for yet more regulations. The biggest problem with gun-control laws is that those who are intent on harming others, and especially those who plan to commit suicide, are the least likely to obey them. The issue is often disparagingly phrased as whether hunters are willing to be "inconvenienced," but this misses the real question: Will well-intended laws disarm potential victims and thus make it easier for criminals?

The experiences of other countries with gun control should also raise real concerns. For example, Australia banned a wide range of