When Gun Control Costs Lives

“When Gun Control Costs Lives

Licensing legislation diverts attention from getting criminals off the street.

By John R. Lott Jr., a senior research scholar at Yale Law School and the author of More Guns, Less Crime

California's government, which has ably demonstrated its skills at regulating energy, is searching for new vistas to regulate. This past Thursday the California Assembly passed by one vote a bill to license handgun owners. A slightly different bill has already passed the Senate, and the two bills must be reconciled in conference. Yet before the final decisions are made and Governor Davis makes his decision, examining the experience in places like Canada and Hawaii might be helpful. As with electricity regulation, the best intentions are not always enough. When fighting crime, mistaken laws can cost lives. 

Canadians are a law-abiding lot, but, as of January 1st of this year, millions have become criminals. Bill C-68, Canada's gun-licensing law that passed in 1995, gave half a decade's warning for people to obtain gun licenses. The Canadian program's obvious failure to license most gun owners despite its no-expense-spared approach should give Californians advocating licensing some pause.
 
Officially the Canadian Department of Justice now claims that its recent surveys show only 2.5 million Canadian gun owners — a 31-percent drop from what the government claimed just a couple years ago. But press accounts reveal internal Justice Department documents putting the number at 5 to 7 million gun owners, and academic and private surveys indicate numbers just as large.

What is most surprising is that any Canadians admit to pollsters that they own a gun without a license. With only 2 million Canadians licensed or in the process of being licensed, roughly 10 to 16 percent of Canadians are now felons. 

Getting the government to release the costs of licensing is like cracking the black-ops budgets in the U.S. defense department. The numbers have even been refused to many members of parliament. Inside sources have told MPs that, excluding any costs borne by the Royal Canadian Mounties as well as local police, $265 million (Canadian dollars) was spent by the federal Canadian Firearms Centre this past year. To put it another way, just this limited accounting corresponds to 5 percent of all police expenditures in Canada. 

Yet, the real costs of these unfunded mandates are borne by the provinces and local governments. No attempt has been made to record how many hours local police officers have spent processing paper work, but complaints are common. For example, the attorney general of Alberta complains that the law is an administrative mess, it is very costly, and it is using money that would be better suited to really fighting crime. 

The California State Sheriff's Association, which has come out strongly against the legislation, has raised similar concerns and warned that the California legislation will spread already undermanned police agencies even thinner. 

The ultimate question, though, is what impact these rules might have on violent crime. While Canada's system is too new to discern any impact, the experience in our own country is not encouraging. 

In theory, if a gun is left at the scene of the crime, licensing and registration will allow a gun to be traced back to its owner. Police have spent tens of thousands of man-hours administering these laws in Hawaii (the one state with both rules). But, amazingly, there has not even been a single case where police claim licensing and registration have been instrumental in identifying the criminal. 

Why? Criminals very rarely leave their guns at the scene of the crime. This really only happens when the criminals have been seriously wounded or killed. Would-be criminals also virtually never get licenses or register their weapons. 

So will at least licensing allow for even more comprehensive background checks and thus keep criminals from getting guns in the first place? Unfortunately, there is not a single academic study that finds that background checks reduce violent-crime rates. 

The California legislation is also filled with pages detailing everything from when grandparents are allowed to temporarily loan a gun to their grandchildren, to the politically correct gun myths that licensees must regurgitate on the licensing exam, to requiring that mandatory testing be done in only English or Spanish. For a state with election ballots printed in over 80 languages, this last requirement appears racist. But with the new fees and hundreds of dollars required for training classes, in addition to recent California laws outlawing inexpensive guns, the Democratic legislators who support this bill appear anti-poor. After all, it is the poor who are most likely to be victims of crime and to benefit the most from being able to protect themselves. 

Those who so automatically see licensing as the solution to crime face an obvious question. As police spend thousands of man-hours enforcing the licensing, what else might they do with their time? Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks stated his concerns simply: "It is my belief that this legislation significantly misses the mark because it diverts our attention from what really should be our common goal: holding the true criminals accountable for the crimes they commit and getting them off the street."”

“Mr. Lott could improve his credibility by beginning his article with facts instead of an obviously sarcastic comment that has no relevance.”

“Hi, bacpac. You may not care for professor Lott's sardonic wit, but his credentials are unquestioned. I'm originally from The People's Republic of Kalifornia, but I'd be uneasy about going back there to live in light of the current political climate.”

“I find that carrying a rattle snake in my camera pouch is a handy protective device.Any time, I'm threatened, I just quick draw my snake and I'm left along.Does anyone know if I am required to register it(him?her?)?”

“Well thats like the glass jar full of ground hornets a friend hikes with. Talk about clearing out a group of noisey campers.”

“Uncle Ted said, at the outdoorrama this year, that any law-abiding citizen NOT carrying is irresponsible.”

“I've posted on this subject before and so I'll keep it brief.

I am a 53 year-old rural high school teacher in southwestern Quebec, just over the border from northeastern New York. Like Franklin County NY to our South, this is deer hunting paradise. Also ruffed grouse, ducks, Canada geese, snow geese, varying hare (snowshoes) and cottontail rabbit - not to mention trout.

I had become a sporadic hunter, but decided that I was missing out on some of God's bounty, as well as some pretty fine times with my buddies who are avid hunters.

At the beginning of 1999, I had to get my daughter in the hospital - she was almost 18 and her mother had signed a lease for her and her 22 year-old boyfriend when she turned 16. Then in July my son was nearly killed in a horrific car accident while riding his bike.

My son had always been very difficult and he had been abandoned by his mother who rented out the house and moved without telling him. He bounced back and forth from my place to wherever. We later discovered that he is manic depressive when he was hospitalised for his first psychotic episode in May of the following year. Apparently in 1999 he was already incapable of riding a bike in traffic.

I got him from the hospital too and spent the next eight weeks feeding an abusive, then violent 20 year-old a liquid diet and getting up several times in the night to change his position and give him pain meds or his pee bottle. When he could walk on crutches he 'phoned some friends and left.

I was supposed to start back at school on the following Tuesday, but I collapsed. BTW everything's fine now.

I filled out my possession only licence form in October, 2000. Three of the questions were 'Have you been divorced in the last five years? Have you suffered from depression in the last five years?' and 'Have you been arrested in the last five years?' I answered yes to the depression one and gave medical references for my burn-out in the details section.

I have been put into the investigation bin and am still waiting for my POL.

Now get this. I must register my guns before 1 January or I am a criminal; in fact I am technically a criminal now because I own guns and don't have a POL. If I don't register my guns I can never do so. The best I can do his surrender them for destruction during an amnesty period.

If I register the guns there is no guarantee that I will get the POL and they will eventually be confiscated (without reimbursement), including my top-of-line, Beretta, side-by-side, pigeon grade 20 gauge ejector double (my tweed jacket and tie grouse gun to go along with the bamboo fly rods).

By the way, current estimates run to Cdn 7 million $ so far. Mistakes run 50% and must be redone. Nunavut (the new territory of almost all Innuit subsistance hunters) had almost all of its applications lost and there is only one person in the call centre that speaks Innuktitut. The Hudson Bay will/can not sell ammo to them without their POL's.

House invasions are up 300% in Canada.”

“Why am I not surprised. The number of burgularies in Great Brittian is about the same as the US but the "hot" burgularies, where they come in when people are home is about 4 times more in BG because they know no one is armed.
Tommy Gun I love you man. NRA Life Mbr Ditttos
M”

“gremlin-
So what are the chances they will deny your POL?

p.s. do you shoot trout?

Ü hehehe KIDDING”

“Keep this crap off the board, troll. It doesn't have jack to do with backpacking.”

“I don't think there is any chance that I'll be denied. I already have a permit (no longer good) for a handgun. The problem is error and time - plus the fact that I no longer trust the government's motives. I used to laugh at anti-gun legislation editorials in the American gun mags, thinking they were some of the typical paranoia one sometimes see down there. Now I'm not so sure.

The problem is the registration. One journalist wanted a POL just to borrow a shotgun from her father to hunt with him on opening day of duck season. It was denied because you must own a gun to get a POL, but you need a POL to borrow a gun. It's this constant catch 22 that is so worrisome. What if I register the guns and some beaurocrat decides to crack down on guns registered to people who don't have POL's. I could lose them and receive my POL in the mail shortly thereafter. I don't think I could ever get them back.


I'll probably 'sell' the deer rifle, the 12 ga. pump and the 20 ga. to a friend then re-apply for a Possession and Acquisition Licence (PAL)once I get my POL. I'll keep a junker and register it to my name to remain eligible for the POL. Then I'd have the basics that I need to hunt around here.

I will still need my POL to buy ammo next year and who knows when it will come? Also, the government would have turned several legal guns into illegal ones just because this once law abiding citizen can't trust them. I am going caribou hunting and after 1 January something's going underground.

Anyhoo, my fine friends to the South, remember that well over half the (non criminal) hunters in Canada are going through what I am. Try to get your magazines and newspapers to report on our situation.

BTW, American hunters will need to buy a Cdn50$ permit every time they come to hunt in Canada. The Governor of Alaska is quite upset because Alaskan bush pilots fly regularly into Canada and are required by Alaskan law to carry a weapon for survival.

We don't shoot trout, but when we were kids we'd stand on a bridge and shoot straight down at spawning suckers with a .22. One of us would stand downstream in waders until he was too cold and changed with someone else. Like shooting rats at the dump, you just can't do that any more.”

“Thank you for your wise and thoughtful comment, Roseymonster, which will surely enrich the discussion. Can someone more skilled than I find a Roseymonster contribution that was not about backpacking? Someone needs to be taken down a notch.”

“I can't believe I spelled bureaucrat like that. BTW my name is Doug Murdoch.”

“Rosey this board would become about as useless as backpacker mag forcing us to get our fix from a few daily sporadic gear and trip questions.”

“Tommy Gun I love you man. NRA Life Mbr Ditttos”

“You know? Rosey's post started me thinking. The name calling is, I think, indicative of a certain element of the anti-gun community (not everyone, of course).

I remember a late night talk show (back when I could stay up that late) where Mary Tyler Moore bragged about belonging to an organisation that mailed sarcastic sympathy cards to families that had had a hunting death. To my knowledge no-one sent such a thing to her when her son died of a drug overdose. I think this pretty much describes the moral difference between our two communities.

People like Rosey need to belittle others to make themselves feel better. They love to describe hunters as beer bellied cretins with a three day beard (or as a troll); and ultimately take things away as the ultimate power trip.

It reminds me of the suburbanites in Whitby, Ontario that want the Canada geese which are ruining their lawns poisoned; they would never consider allowing hunters to dispurse them of course.

Anyway, just a morning thought.”

“Oh yes, this is also why I don't trust the politicians that pander to these people.”

“I see what Rosey is saying in one respect, Gremlin. As far as I can tell, Tommy has no interest in backpacking. The only posts I remember seeing from him are gun-related: the Only ones.

I know I post a lot of tangential crap, but I DO like to backpack... I've been at it since the 70's, off and on, and I do know something about it and post accordingly when there's something I can contribute.


These threads come up again and again... and the same people agree or disagree. No one's viewpoint changes; no one seems to be 'listening' --- all it seems to do is start another round of dissention. Lots of folks are just totally burnt-out on the subject.

I'm neither PRO nor CON; I'm just TIRED, LOL


(BTW, that crack about MTM's son overdosing was beneath you)”

“boy, that's about as weak an arguement as i've ever seen. rosey calls a troll a troll and suddenly he is labelled a spokesman for the liberal peta anti gun hollywood crowd? how does that work?”

“Seriously. Talk about leaping to conclusions, Gremlin. This is a BURNT topic here, so why not let it rest and channel your energy into a more productive topic, like say, backpacking!”

“I recognise my error(s) and apologise to you all.”

“What errors? No apologies needed.”

“cash will do :)”

“Just be glad Dick van Dyke hasn't seen it.”

“i heard lou grant was pissed tho”

“C'mon lets be fair. This thread is no more "off topic" than a lot of anything else that gets posted on this site. Or does the NCAA finals or "the bachelor" have a tie in I missed?

Banning guns or over regulating gun ownership will work as well as prohibition worked. The right to bear arms is a freedom enjoyed in this country. Can you blame people for getting emotional when you are talking about taking freedoms away?

BTW, Gremlin is right about the mess in Canada. I paid a $50 fee to register my guns when I entered Canada last fall. When stopped by the Game Warden and Police, I was asked to produce a hunting license. I asked if they needed to see my gun registration doc and they laughed. They said that is a revenue producing law and they couldn't care less. I wonder if this crowd would feel good about registering knifes over 1.5 inches or gas burning stoves? They are just as dangerous as guns and in some cases much more effective weapons and besides I'm sure our country could use the revenue somewhere.

Excessive gun control makes about as much sense as calling for the sensoring of "off topic" posts.”

“You said it Caterpillar...it's another cash grab by the government...do they really think criminals are going to register their black market guns?”

“Suddenly all the little libs start talking about "let's get along" "let's talk about bpacking", this, of course, after their anti-gun rhetoric has been slammed almost 4:1 in every inflammatory post as of recently. For the past year I've seen anti-gun threads go from all anti-gunners to the present state of affairs, thank goodness. I assure you when they were on thier soapboxes appeals to reason and logic were not the rule; indeed, personal attacks, and childish insults were on the menu every time. Rosey,GeorgeDubyaEvildoer, and others will take every cheap shot they can until somebody makes a really good point, then they become a troll. How many times have you fuzzy/stinkies attacked someone for their screen name, or spelling in place of a real argument? As for you Tilt, I have less respect for you because you never take a solid stand, you just sit there and bend with the prevailing winds; trying not to offend your liberal lackies, while spreading your tired,ambiguous, message of...what the hell is your message anyway?


Funny, is it not?

If your mad, try thinking of the big smile on my face right now...”

“Your welcome for that Astronomy info I posted for you -- prick.

Why don't you guys go to the NRA site to masturbate?”

“Sorry guys. I didn't mean to paint everyone with the same brush like that.


Folks like our friend here are their own worst enemies. They spew malevolent crap all over the place and then are surprised when people in the middle are driven to the other side. I wouldn't want someone like that on My Side of any issue.

Way to go, Einstein.

These temper tantrums of yours simply reinforce the argument that SOME PEOPLE cannot be trusted with firearms.”

“All right, everybody, let's play nice. As my good buddy, Ollie North has said, "We can disagree without being disagreeable" (I confess to be as guilty as the rest where GDE is concerned, sorry about that).
Tilt, old hoss, you're way out of line. I don't give a rat's a$$ whether some of you like guns or not, just keep your d!ck beaters off mine! And yeah, I'm proud to be an NRA life member.”

“sometimes i feel like a fodderless cannon”

“Nothing I can add to that. I am and will remain the NRA.”

“the NRA ,as with churchs,and other taxless gift orgs, cost lots to tax payers like myself.It(NRA)is another big bully tax sucking org. which soon becomes guided by those co's and radicals whos' purpose is less than noble.If you gun lovers,church goers,dime marchers want to play big influence--Do it with your own money and leave mine along.”

“'Your welcome for that Astronomy info I posted for you -- prick.

Why don't you guys go to the NRA site to masturbate?'

LOL!”

“Uncliff, more facts please. Facts are very helpful in understanding incoherent hate posts. It is hard for me to determine if you are just a cheap a$$ or you have some sort of principals and positions that you support.”

“The thing that I hear over and over from people is that they are burnt out on stupid trolls (i.e, Tommy Gun).. If you want to start a hate thread, or spread hateful messages, go do it on another board!

(not you gremlin, I think your post was sincere)

Ok, off the soap box.”

“Cat,the facts are simple.Even the NRA which seems to pretend to be a bit to the right of center,still continues lobbying with money (which is received with the tax exemption,which is as pure form of Socialism)and still allows the far right to dictate policies.This is a backpacking forum and should ,therefore,support the Sierra Club.The SC is no different than any other taxless based org.,because the general tax payer provides(approx.30%) of the funds.
this comment of mine is not intendedto be hatefull,just fact.all large organizations,because of their tax status,sooner or later become overtaken by the extremes of the society.The huge churchs of this country demonstrate how the, unwilling tax payers ,money is put to waste.Again put this same filter on big corps. and you'll find the same cr@p.”

“Seems to me there's a leap here from not paying taxes to getting tax payer funding. NRA gets no tax payer funding, a lack of tax expense does not equal income of tax funds. ACLU doesn't pay them either and I'm sure tired of hearing their BS”

“I apologized once. That's all you get.

I don't give a damn what you do with 'em. That's what I intimated before in a more polite fashion, but APPARENTLY some folks are so dim that they think everyone must be either "wif 'em or agin 'em", with no in-between. Sorry, but REALITY sometimes intrudes. Life isn't always limited to Column A or Column B.

I don't suck up to the NRA. I don't suck up to Sarah Brady and that crowd either. They are the extreme ends of the same continuum: two sides of the same coin.”

“Simply by writting your donation on your tax form,you have in affect,lowered your tax liability.this deficit,given a set amount of overall revenue,is balanced by over taxing non-contributors.
THAT IS A SUBSIDY!!!!”

“Uncliff, our positions seem to be pretty far apart on how the tax system should and does work. Seems a little too complex for a debate today, my time doesn't permit. But dude, I want to be the first to say, that I think your a big man (or woman?) for responding to my request post with a better explanation of your position and you did it without throwing a jab at me. IMHO, you may be whacked, but you have some class.”

“One thing I've noticed as a common theme among a lot of pro-NRA posts:

"Liberal = Anyone who disagrees with me."

Seems to be very little middle ground here.”

“Tilt's angry = I control Tilt. LOL

I'm in your mind, your my little puppet. LMAOL...

It's like pushing buttons around here, your too easy, no fun.

oh, thanks for the link, it was exactly what I was looking for...LOL

Ya'know if you actually took a stand on "something", instead of pandering to both sides like F#$king politician I could respect you. At least GeorgeDubya, and his army of followers dont compromise their principles to sound like everybody's friend. I dont like them, but I respect them just the same.

NRA Member, like you did not already know that...”

“Not much middle ground in modern life.It seems life lately has become based upon news and movie tactics<----------------------->
which can only polarize any condition for the sake of excitement."BREAKING NEWS ;nothings has happened today so the news hour will be all ads.YAAAHH!”

“I'm speaking of GeorgeDubyaEvildoer, and his/her army of followers;not George W.”

“I don't think Tilt said whether he was an NRA member or not

-Maybe I'm an NRA member maybe I'm not

define your life some other way and maybe we won't think you're such a freak”

“I won't force you to own a gun if you won't force me not to? WTF???”

“Yeah! (said with a souther drawl and a while scratching crotch) Ya'll NRA members best nawt come on up around here! Ah'll have ta fill yer belly fulla lead, ya damn leftie pinko's!!! Back here, we love family and, well, family! So git on outta here witcha (here the tone turns high, whiny, and sarcastic) damn silly petitions, anja damn silly lobbyists... (back to the normal drawl) I got me all the lobbyin' I need right chere! (pats squirrel-rifle standing on porch next to a sad-looking hound)

Ya'll can have muh membership dues when you pry 'em outta muh cold dead fangers! And 'nother thang, ya'll quit tryin ta act like ya speak fer everyone a muh kinfolk what gots a gun and some ammo! Ain't not a one of us a member. If'n they is, they's holdin out on us, anyhoo.

(note: All of the above is fictional. If this reminds you of you, it's not my fault.)”

“who cares?

I'm going backpacking”