Jeff Stahler for July 09, 2014

The reason much gun crime is in places with harsher gun control laws is because people passed those laws because of high gun-related crime. Places with less gun violence didn’t feel that need. Sadly, this did not cause violent gun crime to migrate out.

ouch!

Gangs and no jobs or good schools are at the heart of the problem. Gangs should be treated like terrorists because that is what they are. They don’t particularly care about gun laws especially since Indiana is so close and it is easy to make a lot of money gun running. Well off suburbanites fuel the drug trade with their money and help keep the whole cycle going.

We have 20,000+ gun laws on the books in this country. Start enforcing the laws and allow no plea bargains.

In the early 1990s, Virginia was identified as a state with such lax straw-purchase laws that it was the go-to place to get guns to sell in New York and Washington, DC (which at the time had the highest murder rate in the nation). New York called us out, and challenged us to find a way to reduce the one-way traffic of guns. Virginia responded with a law limiting hand-gun purchases to one per month.

There was grousing by NRA, because it put a restriction on gun ownership, and of course there should be no restrictions at all. However, it didn’t go very far because it was hard to argue that people need more than 12 handguns per year to defend their property.

Violent crime fell in New York. New York thanked Virginia for doing what we did.

Virginia repealed that law 3 years ago. I asked my “representative” to explain how we were sure that removing the restriction would not start another mass flow of diverted guns to places with stricter gun-control laws. My question received a reply, but it did not respond to the question asked.

No matter how many gun laws are passed, and no matter how effective they might be, if laws are different in different places, gun-runners will exploit the weakest.

Please provide a reference for a location in the US that has guns but no gun crime. I’m ready to move there.

I wish all life was treated as precious.

or go to Miami where the odds of your getting shot are higher. Then if you want, go to Tampa, catch a movie, and a couple 9 mm slugs in the chest. Granted, Chicago sucks, but Houston, Compton, and a couple dozen places around the country are far more dangerous. The other issue rarely addressed in the debate is GANGS, and them getting guns, in large numbers. Social conditions, poverty, and anger-uncontrolled, are the cause, guns are just the tools. Compare it to that other killer, driving, and how many folks who kill with cars have either lost their licenses, or don’t have them. Licensed drivers, like licensed gun owners, and licensed guns, are far, far, less likely to be used in crimes.