Menu Content/Inhalt

What is this?

Featured Item


OFCC Gift Membership with commemorative lapel pin!



2009 OFCC Calendar

Gun Control Lessons for Bloomberg PDF Print E-mail
Written by Daniel White   
Tuesday, 10 January 2006

Professor John Lott, Jr. has a message for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, more strict gun control isn't the answer.

After the recent murders of two NYC police officers, Mayor Bloomberg began a push for even more gun control; despite the fact that the murders occurred while New York is oppressed under some of the strictest gun control laws in the country. Mayor Bloomberg blames honest gun owners.
Mr. Bloomberg has long supported every gun regulation possible, even banning off-duty or retired police officers carrying guns near city hall. He is already pushing for tougher gun control in New York state, claiming that otherwise law-abiding New York gun-owners - who already pass all the local, state, and federal gun control regulations - are an important way his city's criminals obtain guns.

(Click 'READ MORE' to continue)

Bloomberg's desire for even stricter gun control flies in the face of that which has already been proven... that the only ones truly affected by gun control laws are the law abiding gun owners.

Criminals do not obtain their guns legally, do not abide by registration requirements, and don't obey "no guns allowed" signs. By definition, they don't obey laws. Adding more to the books won't change that fact.

It will, however, make their victims defenseless and easier prey.

Among Lott's arguments:
• The British government banned handguns in January 1997 but recently reported that gun crime in England and Wales nearly doubled in the seven years from 1996 to 2003. Since 1996, the rate of serious violent crime has soared by 88%, armed robberies by 101%, rapes by 105% and homicide by 24%.

• Australia's 1996 gun-control regulations banned many types of guns and the immediate aftermath was similar. While murder rates remained unchanged, armed robbery rates averaged 59% higher in the eight years after the law was passed (from 1997 to 2004) than in 1995.

• The Republic of Ireland banned and confiscated all handguns and all center-fire rifles in 1972, but murder rates rose five-fold by 1974 and in the 20 years after the ban has averaged 114% higher than the pre-ban rate (never falling below at least 31% higher).

• Jamaica banned all guns in 1974, but murder rates almost doubled from 11.5 per 100,000 in 1973 to 19.5 in 1977, and soared further to 41.7 in 1980.

Click here to read Lott's full article.