Hand to Face Time: Gun Control has Helped D.C.!

Hoo boy. The budding journalists in academia are at it again.

A friend of mine asked me this afternoon if I had been keeping up with the gun rights issue in DC. Admittedly, I had not. So, I decided to look it up.

The first article I came across was from Georgetown's campus newspaper, The Hoya:

Gun Ban has Triggered Safety

The editorial board makes the comment that the gun ban worked in reducing crime:

"By 2005, the murder rate had dropped to 29 per 100,000, and the number of violent crimes had been reduced to 8,032."

Problem is, the gun ban was enacted in 1976. It took 29 years for it to show any marginally favorable results, during which, DC was crowned the murder capital of the nation (in 1991, according to the editors' own research).

Furthermore, the gun ban still doesn't seem to have eliminated crime involving firearms. In their own words, "in the past four years, at least two students have experienced the terror of being on the receiving end of a pistol’s bullet. Countless muggings and robberies have plagued the campus and surrounding community for several years, and the criminals who commit these crimes frequently carry firearms."

Happily, though, no criminals were injured by the law-abiding folk who respected the ban.

Read the comments on the article. Especially the police officer's take on the article:

Look at the crime rates just on the other side of the Potomac River from Georgetown. Almost zero! Yet Hoyas are robbed and shot constantly in DC. Why? Because the bad guys know you are not packing heat and that if they do get caught they will serve very little or no time due to the incompetent court system in DC.

On the Virginia side of the Potomac River any citizen can own a handguna nd even carry it with them, without any special permit being required. Are people walking around Arlington blowing each other away? No! The opposite is the case, Arlington's violent crime rate is very low, while DC is astronomical.

But what is even more telling is the perspective from the other side of the law--an ex-convict:

For 22 years I dealt drugs and preyed upon anyone weaker than me. With the exception of crimes against children & women I committed most every crime known to man. I did not care about the law or how much anyone suffered as long as I got my way. I have never owned a legal gun but you can rest assured I kept guns with me at all times. Not any of those guns were legally purchased. Why would I want a gun that could be traced back to me and connect me to a crime? Why would any criminal buy a legal gun ever? May as well as leave a business card at the crime scene. When I went to rob or assault anyone rest assured I looked for victims not opponents. I picked people and places that were unarmed and defenseless. If I wanted to work for a living I'd have gotten a job. I looked for and found easy prey. That is why 7/11s get robbed more than banks. Banks have a lot more money, they also have armed guards. While 7/11 does not allow employees to have guns. Some even ban customers from having guns. They call those Gun Free Zones, we call them easy pickings, Stop & Robs or Free Crimes zones. After all they made sure I was safe from being hurt.

I'll leave the rest for you guys to read.