#GunControl : Five things liberals hate, aka “facts”

**Posted by Phineas

From Reason.TV, Libertarian Nick Gillespie presents five facts the Biden Task Force and Congress need to remember, as they consider what to do about guns and gun violence:

And if you can’t listen to the video, here’s a partial transcript:

1. Violent crime – including violent crime using guns – has dropped massively over the past 20 years.

The violent crime rate – which includes murder, rape, and beatings – is half of what it was in the early 1990s. And the violent crime rate involving the use of weapons has also declined at a similar pace.

2. Mass shootings have not increased in recent years.

Despite terrifying events like Sandy Hook or last summer’s theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, mass shootings are not becoming more frequent. β€œThere is no pattern, there is no increase,” says criminologist James Allen Fox of Northeastern University, who studies the issue. Other data shows that mass killings peaked in 1929.

3. Schools are getting safer.

Across the board, schools are less dangerous than they used be. Over the past 20 years, the rate of theft per 1,000 students dropped from 101 to 18. For violent crime, the victimization rate per 1,000 students dropped from 53 to 14.

4. There Are More Guns in Circulation Than Ever Before.

Over the past 20 years, virtually every state in the country has liberalized gunownership rules and many states have expanded concealed carry laws that allow more people to carry weapons in more places. There around 300 million guns in the United States and at least one gun in about 45 percent of all households. Yet the rate of gun-related crime continues to drop.

5. β€œAssault Weapons Bans” Are Generally Ineffective.

While many people are calling for reinstating the federal ban on assault weapons – an arbitrary category of guns that has no clear definition – research shows it would have no effect on crime and violence. β€œShould it be renewed,” concludes a definitive study, β€œthe ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”

Setting aside the somewhat gratuitous shots (1) at the Patriot Act and the Iraq war at the end, Gillespie has an excellent point: laws made solely out of emotion are likely to be bad laws, and we should wait, stop, and think before doing anything drastic, particularly something that curtails constitutional liberties.

Trouble is, I think the Left has another goal in mind.

Footnote:
(1) Even Libertarian knees can jerk now and then…

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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