Reply #77: It's the economy

[krispos42]

The Clinton Gun Ban expired September 14th, 2004. Enacted in September 1994, the gun ban became more effective year after year as large-capacity magazines were not being sold, the background checks were increasing, and the cosmetic features that define 'assault weapons' were discontinued. On Monday, September 13, 2004, the AWB was at the peak of its effect on the US populace. California had passed even more stringent laws than the federal AWB. Yet violent crime had been on the rise for a couple of years prior to the end of the AWB.

It is because the economy took a downturn, and more and more people are being pushed lower down the economic ladder by Bush policies on labor and economy.

Incidently, the Louisiana reference is probably not valid because of the national disaster that is ongoing down there. With basic servies still woefully unfulfilled, massive unemployment, contractors of various stripes running amok, huge tracts of sparsely-populated urban areas under recovery, etc., it is an area in flux.

There are also may countries that have much higher homicide rates than the US. Countries like Russia and Mexico. Neither of which has liberal gun laws. They do, however, have crappy economies.

The only thing that increasing gun laws will do is shift corpses from the "death by gun" column to the "death by knife" and "death by blunt object" columns. It has happened with suicides. In areas where gun possession has been recently hampered by legislation, gun suicides have gone down, but not the overall suicide rate. Just more hangings, pills, and slit wrists.

We have 220 million guns in private hands in this country of ours, which is two-thirds of all civilian-owned guns on the planet and one-third of all guns in existence. We're really not doing that bad.