"Gun control" laws prevent crime.

So overwhelming is the evidence against this myth that it borders on the absurd for anti-gun groups to try to perpetuate it.

There are thousands of federal, state and local gun laws. The Gun Control Act of 1968 (Public Law 90-618, 18 U.S.C. Chapter 44) alone prohibits persons convicted of, or under indictment for, crimes punishable by more than a year in prison, fugitives, illegal drug users, illegal aliens, mental incompetents and certain other classes of people from purchasing or possessing firearms. It prohibits mail order sales of firearms, prohibits sales of firearms between non-dealer residents of other states, prohibits retail sales of handguns to persons under age 21 and rifles and shotguns to persons under age 18 and prohibits the importation of firearms "not generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes." It also established the current firearms dealer licensing system. Consider the following gun control failures.

(Unless otherwise noted, crime data are from the FBI, Uniform Crime Reports.)

Washington, D.C.'s ban on handgun sales took effect in 1977 and by the 1990s the city's murder rate had tripled. During the years following the ban, most murders--and all firearm murders--in the city were committed with handguns.1

Chicago imposed handgun registration in 1968, and murders with handguns continued to rise. Its registration system in place, Chicago imposed a D.C.-style handgun ban in 1982, and over the next decade the annual number of handgun-related murders doubled.2

California increased its waiting period on retail and private sales of handguns from five to 15 days in 1975 (reduced to 10 days in 1996), outlawed "assault weapons" in 1989 and subjected rifles and shotguns to the waiting period in 1990. Yet since 1975, the state's annual murder rate has averaged 32% higher than the rate for the rest of the country.

Maryland has imposed a waiting period and a gun purchase limit, banned several small handguns, restricted "assault weapons," and regulated private transfers of firearms even between family members and friends, yet for the last decade its murder rate has averaged 44% higher than the rate for the rest of the country, and its robbery rate has averaged highest among the states.

The overall murder rate in the jurisdictions that have the most severe restrictions on firearms purchase and ownership--California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C.--is 8% higher than the rate for the rest of the country.

New York has had a handgun licensing law since 1911, yet until the New York City Police Department began a massive crackdown on crime in the mid-1990s, New York City's violent crime rate was among the highest of U.S. cities.

The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 imposed unprecedented restrictions relating to firearms nationwide. Yet, compared to the five years before the law, the national murder rate averaged 50% higher during the five years after the law, 75% higher during the next five years, and 81% higher during the five years after that.

States where the Brady Act's waiting period was imposed had worse violent crime trends than other states. Other failures of the federal waiting period law are noted in the discussion of Fable V.

The record is clear: Gun control primarily impacts upon upstanding citizens, not criminals. Crime is reduced by holding criminals accountable for their actions.

Increasing incarceration rates -- Between 1980-1994, the 10 states with the greatest increases in prison population experienced an average decrease of 13% in violent crime, while the 10 states with the smallest increases in prison population experienced an average 55% increase in violent crime.3

Put violent criminals behind bars and keep them there -- In 1991, 162,000 criminals placed on probation instead of being imprisoned committed 44,000 violent crimes during their probation. In 1991, criminals released on parole committed 46,000 violent crimes while under supervision in the community for an average of 13 months.4 Nineteen percent of persons involved in the felonious killings of law enforcement officers during the last decade were on probation or parole at the time of the officers' killings.5

Enforce the law against criminals with guns -- The success of Richmond, Virginia's Project Exile, strongly supported by NRA, has grabbed the attention of the Administration, Members of Congress, big city mayors and criminologists. Project Exile is a federal, state and local effort led by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Richmond that sentences felons convicted of illegally possessing guns to a minimum of five years in prison. Following the implementation of Project Exile, the city's firearm murder rate was cut by nearly 40%.6 Recognizing the program's success, Congress in 1998 approved $2.3 million to implement Project Exile in Philadelphia, Pa., and Camden County, N.J. In 2002, the Bush Department of Justice took the Project Exile concept nationwide, targeting violent felons with guns under Project Safe Neighborhoods.

1. Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia.
2. Chicago Homicide Dataset.
3. Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Historical Statistics on Prisoners in State and Federal Institutions, Year end 1925-1986" and "Correctional Populations in the United States, 1987-1994."
4. Department of Justice, "Probationer and Parole Violators in State Prison, 1991."
5. FBI, Uniform Crime Reports, Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 2000.
6. U.S. Attorney's Office, Richmond, Va.

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