Gun Control Reducing Gun Violence
Don Surber reminds us about gun control’s effectiveness:
Question: Did the murder rate really triple under the Washington, DC, gun ban?
Answer: Yes. The murder rate was 26.8 homicides per 100,000 people in 1976, when the ban became law. That would be its lowest rate for the next 30 years. It peaked at 80.6 homicides per 100,000 people in 1991.
Question: What’s the highest the murder rate has been in gun happy West Virginia in that time?
Answer: 6.9 homicides per 100,000 people. us:
I eagerly await those of you that take stock in ‘facts’ to renounce any support of gun control as means to reduce gun violence. Maintaining that position simply means refusing to accept the ‘facts’.
This is particularly relevant as some of you have argued that at least one of my analogies in teaching sex education does not work because it’s fact that such programs does not increase rate of sexual activity among children. Live by the fact die by the fact.
June 28th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
As I’ve said repeatedly, I agree that no city-wide ban is going to work because it’s too trivially easy for criminals to continue getting guns and because the police probably won’t enforce it seriously. I think that only a truly enforced national ban would change things in a significant way, and it might take decades to do so. But as long as these types of comparisons are admitted as facts, then the low murder rates in countries like England and Japan will back me up.
June 30th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Population density in DC is much higher, which I think accounts for part of the discrepancy.
Anyhow, as much as I agree that gun ownership is protected by the constitution, you are using bad science Steve. Correlation /= causation
June 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Its per 100,000 people.