Reply #152: It's per-capita, not absolute

[krispos42]

the homicide rate graph is. The graphs about firearms used in robberies and assaults, though, are in straight numbers, not adjusted for population.

Interesting that the time-frame of the Brady-Bill seems to match a fairly big drop in homicides in the US, no?

It may be. The Brady Bill is actually a background check law that originally mandated a waiting period for buying handguns. Later it was turned into an instant background check for all firearm purchases from a dealer.

This is something that I support, and in fact I've actually proposed an idea where every person that gets a gov't issued ID like a driver's license automatically goes through a background check. If a person was cleared for buying a gun, it would be marked on a corner of the driver's license so that ALL firearm sales, both dealer and private, could be checked by simply looking at the license. If your right to buy a gun was taken away by due process, the police or a judge could simply grab a pair of scissors and snip that corner off.

But I digress.

During a similar period, the 1993 Federal Assault Weapons Ban went into effect, which was a total wash because it banned dealer sales of semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, or pistols with certain arbitrary combinations of arbitrary features that, basically, looked scary. Simply juggling the combinations of arbitrary features made such guns legal for sale. There was a ban on magazine capacities of more than 10 rounds as well, but there were so many old magazines floating around that were made before the cut-off date that is was also essentially useless.

As I noted before there were also good economic times, 3-strikes-and-you're-out laws, and extra 50,000 cops on the streets, and one thing that I forgot...


Expanded concealed-carry licensing.




:-)



I would also note that the increase in US homicides corrosponded with the passage of the 1968 Gun Control Act, itself passed after JFK and others were assassinated. :-)