BANG!
Posted on 06/28/2005 7:19:35 PM PDT by neverdem
The death of the law hasn't brought a rise in crime -- just the opposite.
This wasn't supposed to happen. When the federal assault weapons ban ended on Sept. 13, 2004, gun crimes and police killings were predicted to surge. Instead, they have declined.
For a decade, the ban was a cornerstone of the gun control movement. Sarah Brady, one of the nation's leading gun control advocates, warned that "our streets are going to be filled with AK-47s and Uzis." Life without the ban would mean rampant murder and bloodshed.
Well, more than nine months have passed and the first crime numbers are in. Last week, the FBI announced that the number of murders nationwide fell by 3.6% last year, the first drop since 1999. The trend was consistent; murders kept on declining after the assault weapons ban ended.
Even more interesting, the seven states that have their own assault weapons bans saw a smaller drop in murders than the 43 states without such laws, suggesting that doing away with the ban actually reduced crime. (States with bans averaged a 2.4% decline in murders; in three states with bans, the number of murders rose. States without bans saw murders fall by more than 4%.)
And the drop was not just limited to murder. Overall, violent crime also declined last year, according to the FBI, and the complete statistics carry another surprise for gun control advocates. Guns are used in murder and robbery more frequently then in rapes and aggravated assaults, but after the assault weapons ban ended, the number of murders and robberies fell more than the number of rapes and aggravated assaults.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
John Lott RULES!
Amazing that was published in the LaTimes.
The anti gunner answer to this is that there were too many knockoffs not covered by the AWB, so we'll never know how effective a real AWB could have been. All the while speaking out of the other side of their mouth saying there would be blood in the streets when the ineffective AB was lifted. Facts don't matter to these people.
I know i think im tearing up.
ping!
This may be why the MSM is carrying so many stories about shootings lately.
Still, brainy liberals will insist that facts don't matter and that giving gun control another try is the only intelligent thing to do.
This may have been the second time the LA Times printed an article by Lott, but I'm not sure. I don't believe he's ever been mentioned in the NY Times.
BLOAT!
So this is the LATimes after their change in guest editorials. John Lott has come through strong.
And the 2004 FBI Unified crime report can be found here: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/2004/04prelim.pdf (Be warned, it's a large pdf file)
"Amazing that was published in the LaTimes."
Yes, I'm having a hard time with that too...
Proving that an armed society, is a polite society....
Now, if they would simply restore the right to duel, when insulted or enraged ---- it would be even more polite and civil....
Especially in Congress..
Semper Fi
Thanks for the link.
The writer is trying to imply that because the AWB expired, that the crime rate went down. I'm not so sure about that- correlation doesn't exactly imply causation, and the crime rate may have been going down beforehand anyway. He also didn't mention which states were the ones with or without assault weapons bans still in place, but I'd assume that the states that still DO have bans are blue state/urban type areas that have bigger crime problems than red states do, hence the smaller decrease in crime than the areas that no longer have an AWB. Therefore, whether the AWB expiration really caused a decrease in crime cannot be confirmed by this data.
That being said, this editorial does confirm one thing: that the fear mongering of those who didn't want the AWB to expire was nothing more than fear mongering, and that they were flat out wrong. I'd conclude based off of all of this that the AWB was just flat out useless, and that decreases in crime rate are being caused by other factors.
Do you have any idea why the admin mod changed this from an editorial to a blog. I asked the admin mod, but there was no reply. Check the URL:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1431912/posts
The drop in crime over the years has been for two reasons, one: We put into place three strikes laws. Two: More states enacted the right to carry(even during the Clintons reign) and self defence laws took a more positive turn in some states. States with right to carry have lower crime rates over all then states with strict gun laws.
It doesn't matter. If removing whatever ban there was results in less crime, it probably only says that removing a more effective (grabber's definition) ban would have resulted in an even larger drop in crime.
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