More Government, More Crime?

[Highwayman]

Gun Control: Only the Truth Will Set You Free

Written by Howard Nemerov
Friday, May 26, 2006

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence recently published a paper claiming that the federal government is not enforcing federal gun laws because of a conspiracy of collusion between the Bush administration and the “gun lobby.”[1]

Brady also claims that the NRA used its lobbying muscle to force the ATF to stop performing traces on guns involved in crime that are recovered by law enforcement.[2] The purpose of tracing is to enable law enforcement to “quickly determine the origin of crime guns.”[3] Brady also complains that Congress prohibits “ATF from obtaining sales records from gun dealers and centralizing them” and that the Brady Law has been compromised, requiring the government to destroy all “information on the approved purchaser” after the sale is approved.[4]

Brady disapproves of the fact that after a buyer has been determined to be a law-abiding citizen, the government does not keep track of their personal information. To do what Brady wants requires creating a gun registry.

North of the Border
After passing legislation to create such a registry in 1995, the Canadian government said it would cost taxpayers only $2 million. By February 2004, reports showed that the registry already cost $2 billion. In January 2003, a Member of Parliament called the registry an “unconscionable waste of taxpayers’ money” and called on the government to suspend the program until an audit could be done. His comments were supported by “provincial justice ministers in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.” Toronto’s police chief at the time said “the program would neither prevent crimes nor help solve them.” Defending the registry, Ottawa’s police chief, Vince Bevan, unable to highlight a single case where it benefited society, fell back on hypothesis:

“It is very difficult, of course, to prove that, as of this point, the new law has saved lives. But certainly we have seen ample evidence of the gaps in the old law that this legislation has addressed,” he said. “If this legislation saves even one life, it will have proven its worth.”[5]

Let’s take Chief Bevan’s criterion at face value: legislation is valuable if it saves “even one life.” Referring to criminal harassment in Canada, we find that most cases involve men stalking women:

Although anyone can be a victim of criminal harassment, Statistics Canada data show that about 8 out of 10 victims are women, and 9 out of 10 stalkers are men.[6]

Meanwhile, the Canadian government gives no assurance it can secure a woman’s safety:

It is hard to know if the person harassing you will become violent. You should ask the police to help you assess the risk. Less than 1% of criminal harassment cases involve injury to the victim. However, when criminal harassment is a continuation of a family violence situation the risk of violence is greater.

Back in the USA, an intended victim had made multiple complaints about a stalker, including one just 30 minutes before he forcefully invaded her home, which is when she shot him. Her father said “this wasn't the first time [the attacker] tried to hurt his daughter.” The police interviewed “a few people who knew of instances prior to this.” According to Canadian Chief Bevan, our legislation–in this case, the lack of restrictive laws that bar a law-abiding woman from defending herself–has “proven its worth.”[7]

Finally, since enactment of the Canadian gun registry in 1998 through 2004, violent crime rates dropped 3.4%, but murder rates climbed 11%.[8],[9] Contrast this with the U.S., land of unregistered guns: violent crime dropped 18%, and murder decreased 12.5%.[10]

More Government, More Crime?
The Clinton administration engineered the “assault weapons” ban, legislation designed to restrict law-abiding citizens from purchasing firearms. The Brady Campaign praises Clinton for increasing the number of ATF firearms traces.[11] What Brady does not mention is that gun traces do not have any correlation to enforcement of federal law.

Using Brady’s data, we find:

· ATF trace requests actually fell between 1994 and 1995, the year after enactment of the Clinton gun ban.

· Almost all increases in ATF traces came during the years 1996 and 1997. From 1998 through 2000, the total increase was less than 10%.

· ATF trace requests increased over 34% in the first three years of the Bush administration.[12]

Citing other research, we find that under the Clinton administration, the ATF did not exhibit a pattern of law enforcement, using referral of federal gun law violators for prosecution as the indicator:

· Between 1994 and 1997, ATF referrals for criminal prosecution dropped 30%.

· From 1997 to 2000, ATF referrals increased 81%, but almost all of that (52%) happened in 1999, the beginning of the 2000 presidential election cycle.

· During the Clinton administration, the annual increase in ATF referrals was 4.4%.

· From 2000 to 2003–the first three years of the Bush administration–ATF referrals for prosecution increased 67%. This averages out to over 22% growth each year, five times the Clinton rate.[13]

Law enforcement increased at twice the rate of ATF traces during the Bush administration. The reason for this increase in ATF referrals was because the new attorney general announced he was going to prosecute criminals who use guns to commit crime:

Another factor behind the startling growth in the ATF enforcement efforts may have been the active support of Attorney General John Ashcroft since the Bush Administration first came into office and since – on January 24, 2003 – the ATF was transferred from its long-term location in the Treasury Department to the Justice Department…

One expression of the attorney general’s interest came in a January speech to a national conference in Philadelphia on what the Justice Department calls “Project Safe Neighborhoods.” Mr. Ashcroft invoked President Bush’s May 2001 promise that “if you use a gun illegally, you will do time.” He further said that the Department’s current message to armed criminals was “unambiguous: no more slipping through the cracks.”[14]

Contrast this with Bill Clinton, who granted the 141 pardons on his last day of office, including many who used guns to facilitate their goals:

· 22 involved with importation and distribution of illegal drugs;

· one who conspired to export arms and ammunition to a foreign country;

· Two armed bank robbers.[15]

This is the type of man whom Brady holds up as its role model in promoting policies that will supposedly make society safer, but is really more proof that the Brady campaign supports those who enact policies which are soft on crime and tough on law-abiding citizens.[16]

Conclusion
If this brand of “social engineering” continues–enabling drug addicts to increase their levels of burglary and robbery while drug gangs increase their levels of turf war violence–people will become so terrified that they will agree to any new government “solution,” pay for any new service, and/or surrender more of their liberty in order to solve the problem. When the government allows criminals to provide the impetus for more government, this is extortion.

Endnotes http://www.chronwatch.com/content/co....asp?aid=21413