Gun Control

Washington DC proves that handgun bans are effective in preventing homicides and suicides The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2007 [What a handgun ban didn't do for D.C.: Is there a "smoking gun" that proves the efficacy of gun laws? Or are such claims based on illusion," April 9, Lexis] The D.C. law banning the purchase, sale, transfer or possession of handguns by civilians was enacted in 1976. In 1991, a group of researchers from the University of Maryland published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that examined the effect of the law on the frequency of homicides and suicides by looking at the period 1968 through 1987. The study concluded there was a "prompt decline" in homicides and suicides by firearms in D.C. not replicated in adjacent Maryland and Virginia jurisdictions without a handgun law. The data suggested that, after the law was enacted, an average of 47 deaths per year were prevented in D.C. Handgun bans are enforceable Leftwich, senior counsel of Legal Community Against Violence, 2006 [Juliet A., Pro-Gun Logic Is Wrong on the Facts, Sept 22, http://www.lcav.org...] Kates is also wrong when he claims that laws restricting access to firearms in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom are "unenforceable." On the contrary, it is because these laws have been so effectively enforced that gun-related death rates in those nations pale compared to those in the U.S. According to "The Global Gun Epidemic: From Saturday Night Specials to AK-47s" (2006), the 2001/2002 rates of firearm death per 100,000 for the countries in question are as follows: U.S.: 10.27; Canada: 2.6; Australia: 1.68; and England/Wales: .38. What this means is that I have evidence on gun control and you don't, shows it is enforceable and I already talked of the impact in my last post. All of your arguements fall, because I have proven gun control can work and be enforcable. I'm am not basing it on assumption either gun control leads to less guns in the hands of people, leads to less harm to people. States with the greatest number of guns in the home also have the highest rates of homicide, a new study finds. The study, in the February issue of Social Science and Medicine, looked at gun ownership in all 50 states and then compared the results with the number of people killed over a three-year period. The research, the authors said, 'suggests that household firearms are a direct and an indirect source of firearms used to kill Americans both in their homes and on the streets.' The researchers, led by Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health, drew on data gathered by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2001, the agency surveyed more than 200,000 people and asked them, among other questions, whether they had a gun in or near the home. In states in the highest quarter of gun ownership, the study found, the overall homicide rate was 60 percent higher than in states in the lowest quarter. The rate of homicides involving guns was more than twice as high. Although homicide rates may not rise – private handgun ownership increases suicide rates and accidental shootings which are not represented in homicide statistics The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2007 [What a handgun ban didn't do for D.C.: Is there a "smoking gun" that proves the efficacy of gun laws? Or are such claims based on illusion," April 9, Lexis] Miami Police Chief John Timoney, whose reign as top cop in Philadelphia brought a reduction in homicides to below 400 for the first time in a decade, said that if the decision overturning the handgun ban is affirmed, there is likely to be a rise in the number of suicides and accidental shootings. "And it won't necessarily be reflected in the homicide rate, because suicides and not-fatal shootings won't show up in those statistics," Timoney said. "You'll have an increase in those shootings . . . and opponents [of the ban] will say that the homicide rate didn't rise." Statistics Report 49, no. 8 (2001): 68. Myron Boor, "Methods of Suicide and Implications for Suicide Prevention," Journal of Clinical Psychology 37, (January 1981): 70-75. For all our fear and fascination with guns and homicide, the fact remains that most firearm deaths in America are not the result of homicide (10,828 for 1999), but suicide (16,599 for 1999). It is estimated that only 10 percent of suicides by firearms are committed with firearms purchased specifically for the act. Gun owners are more likely to commit suicide than non-gun owners Duggan, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, 2003 [Mark, "Guns and Suicide," in Evaluating Gun Policy etd by Jens Ludwig and Philip J Cook, p 65] Individuals who own a gun are more likely to commit suicide than are other individuals. The results presented in this chapter demonstrate that much of the relationship between state-level gun ownership and suicide rates seems driven by a positive correlation between suicidal tendencies and gun ownership. The finding that the male-female suicide ratio is significantly greater in places with more gun ownership suggests that instrumentality effects may also partially explain this relationship, though one cannot rule out the hypothesis that gender-specific suicidal tendencies vary with the availability of guns. Finally, it appears that reductions in gun ownership have not been the driving force behind the fall in the suicide rate. Firearm-related domestic violence has disproportionately bad effects upon children Arthur Kellermann, MD, MPH, et al., "Firearms and Family Violence," Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America 17 (August 1999): 699-716, citing Ernest N. Jouriles et al., "Knives, Guns, and Interparent Violence: Relations with Child Behavior Problems," Journal of Family Psychology 12, no. 2 (1998): 178-194. The effects of firearm-related domestic violence last long beyond the actual crime. In a study on child witnesses of marital violence, the authors noted that children who observed incidents of domestic violence involving the use or threat of a firearm exhibited higher levels of behavior problems than children who did not. Firearm ownership negatively and disproportionately affects women James E. Bailey, MD, MPH, et al., "Risk Factors for Violence Death of Women in the Home," Archives of Internal Medicine 157, no. 7 (1997): 777-782. A 1997 study that examined the risk factors for violent death for women in the home found that when there were one or more guns in the home, the risk of suicide among women increased nearly five times and the risk of homicide increased more than three times. The increased risk of homicide associated with firearms was attributable to homicides at the hands of a spouse, intimate acquaintance, or close relative. Empirical evidence supports the conclusion that fewer guns mean fewer deaths Leftwich, senior counsel of Legal Community Against Violence, 2006 [Juliet A., Pro-Gun Logic Is Wrong on the Facts, Sept 22, http://www.lcav.org...] Kates rejects the "quasi-religious belief that more guns (particularly handguns) mean more violence and death, and, concomitantly, fewer guns mean fewer deaths." Yet this is precisely what the empirical evidence shows, as discussed by David Hemenway, director of Harvard's Injury Control Research Center, in his book "Private Guns, Public Health" (2004). Numerous studies have found that having a gun in the home is associated with an increased risk of unintentional firearm injury, suicide and homicide. Thus gun control leads to less guns, equals less death, meaning even suicide rates equal out gun violence, We need to cut that death down. Also I also have proven that gun ownership leads to a negative effect on women and children. Gun control works, and please, understand me, don't just base, a vote for the neg is a vote for more gun deaths and that is not safe to me.