Apocalypse Not!

From The Heritage Foundation:

Apocalypse Not!


It’s been over two years since the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia’s gun control laws as a violation of the Second Amendment, and liberal commentators predicted a wave of gun violence would engulf the city. Those predictions were issued despite the fact that D.C.’s gun control laws had already been shown to lead to higher murder rates. As John Lott explained it:



The ban went into effect in early 1977, but since it started there is only one year (1985) when D.C.'s murder rate fell below what it was in 1976. But the murder rate also rose dramatically relative to other cities. In the 29 years we have data after the ban, D.C.'s murder rate ranked first or second among the largest 50 cities for 15 years. In another four years, it ranked fourth.



And the data since 2008 are also confounding liberal predictions. Lott has now pulled together a table comparing crime rates for the first seven months of each year since 2007. Since 2008, homicides have dropped 35.5 percent, total violent crime by 9.5 percent, and assaults with guns by 24.1 percent. It seems that when criminals fear others might have guns, too, they think twice.



Posted on 10/20/10 12:55 PM by Alex Adrianson
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