Armed Citizens Mean a Safer Cityby
John R. Lott, Jr.
It is one of the benefits of being a politician. While handguns are banned for citizens in Washington, D.C., congressmen are allowed to have a gun for self-protection on the Capitol grounds. Well-known liberal politicians such as Senators Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy have armed bodyguards. The wives of politicians, such as Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's wife, Linda, also have bodyguards. Undoubtedly, these politicians and their families have extremely good reasons for this protection, but many other Americans, especially those living with the high crime rates in D.C., also feel the same way. Thank goodness the U.S. House of Representatives finally voted to overturn D.C.'s handgun ban. While these politicians have protection both in their homes and as they travel around in public, since September 24, 1976, other D.C. residents have lived under the nation's most restrictive gun laws. Police enforce a citywide handgun ban, and local statutes require residents to keep long guns disassembled, unloaded, and locked up. Yet, with a murder rate of 46 per 100,000 people in 2002, the District easily holds the title of the U.S. murder capital among cities with over 500,000 people. This was not even close to being the case prior to the ban. Crime rose significantly after the gun ban went into effect. In the five years before Washington's ban in 1976, the murder rate fell from 37 to 27 per 100,000. In the five years after it went into effect, the murder rate rose back up to 35. During this same time, robberies fell from 1,514 to 1,003 per 100,000 and then rose by over 63 percent, up to 1,635. The five-year trends are not some aberration. In fact, while murder rates have varied over time, during the almost 30 years since the ban, the murder rate has only once fallen below what it was in 1976. These pre-law drops and subsequent increases were much larger than any changes in neighboring Maryland and Virginia. For example, the District's murder rate fell during the same five-year period from 3.5 to 3 times more than in the neighboring states and rose back up after the ban to 3.8 times more. The bill being voted on will "restore the right of self defense in the home." When the ban passed, criminals had less to worry about from armed citizens and burglaries soared by 56 percent in the five years. Disassembled, unloaded, and locked long guns are essentially useless for self-defense. With police response times in the District averaging 8 minutes and 25 seconds, one doesn't always have the luxury of waiting for police to respond. Surely the ban cannot be blamed for all the District's crime problems. The police department has had severe problems over hiring standards and there have been management and morale issues. But even cities with far better police agencies have seen crime soar in the wake of handgun bans. Chicago, whose ban on new handguns started in 1982, has police computer systems that are the envy of the nation, a bevy of shiny new police facilities and a productive working relationship with community groups. Indeed, the city has achieved impressive reductions in property crime in recent years. But the gun ban didn't work at all when it came to reducing violence.
October 1, 2004 John Lott [send him mail], a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of The Bias Against Guns (Regnery 2003). Copyright © 2004 John Lott |
Proponents
of the bans claim that the laws failed because guns leaked into
the District and Chicago from neighboring areas, but there was not
even the smallest reduction in crime. We all want to take guns from
criminals. The problem is that gun bans appear to have disarmed
only law-abiding citizens while leaving criminals free to prey on
the populace.