[Carry_Okie]

Well, don't believe what you read in the Wall Street Journal mate.

Well, if what you say is true, that's the first black eye I've seen for Dr. John Lott, whose standards for scholarship and data have a national reputation here, especially among pro-gun conservatives.

[naturalman1975]

Yes, well, Lott's reputation here is not very good because he has got this wrong. I'm not sure what sources he relies on - if I had to guess, he heard about the proposed laws that were put up in 1996/97 (some of which were truly draconian) and has assumed that those were the laws that were passed. In fact, the laws that were finally passed were fairly limited - the major step taken in 1996/97 was in fact a voluntary buyback where the government paid to remove unwanted weapons from the community (these being the weapons most likely to wind up in the hands of criminals - because people tend to take better care of firearms they actually use - it's the superseded shotgun stored in the garage that tended to get stolen without anyone noticing). Other changes involved stronger rules on how weapons had to be stored.

The laws are far from perfect - but they are nowhere near as bad as they seem to get painted in the US.