🚀 go-pugleaf

>In article <NEWTNews.4814.782702587.woolfson@woolfson.unicom.net> Eric Woolfson <woolf@unicom.net> writes:
>  Prohibition didn't stop us from drinking - and alcohol is still
>> a bigger killer every year than guns if you believe the AMA stats.
>
>	Well, the prohition-era ban on machine guns reduced their use 
>   in crime to zero. In fact, the Bush ban on imported assault 
>   weapons has resulted in a 45% drop in THEIR use in crime, just
>   since 1989. But when the ban is being extended to domestic makes
>   as well, the cry goes up that it "just won't work".
>	Why not? 

[This is an example of the sort of disingenuous reasoning that seems
to crop up all the time in the gun debate. I really detest this sort
of application of statistics, but it seems to be very prevalent these
days.  As Groucho Marx put it, "Politics is the art of looking for
trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and then
applying the wrong remedies."]


First of all, the subtle implication of the paragraph above is that if
there is a 45% drop in the use of "imported assault weapons" in crime,
then this means that there is some slight drop in gun crime as well.
In other words, the person who might have gone and robbed a liquor
store with his/her "assault weapon" instead stays home and watches TV.
This is not necessarily the case -- that person may have wind up using
a handgun or an equivalent non-imported rifle instead.

With that aside, a drop in the use of certain weapons seems like it
might be a good thing. However the facts which you are leaving out are
the original levels of crime (i.e. with automatic weapons during
Prohibition, and with "assault weapons" before the 1989 ban).

Based on the data I've seen, imported "assault weapons" have never
accounted for more a fraction of a percent of all gun-related
crime. If you reduce it by 45%, big deal -- the Bush ban has not made
a statistically significant change in the overall level of gun crime.

Instead, the ban accomplishes two things. First, it makes some people
FEEL as though some progress has been made, which is in some ways
worse than if nothing had happened at all. Second, it adds a little
bit more to the government beaurocracy -- more forms to file, more
laws to maintain, etc., etc. Blech. I don't know about you, but I
object to my tax dollars being spent on creating zero-effect,
feel-good measures.

By the way, I would like to ask you for the source of your 45%
statistic above. Thanks.

Nat
--
Nathaniel McIntosh     |    Department of Computer Science
mcintosh@cs.rice.edu   |    Rice University, P.O. Box 1892
713-527-8101 x2740     |    Houston, Texas 77251   USA