The Business of Guns

that not all hypothetical deaths from guns would be carried out with another weapon anyway in the event of a ban. The nearby states of Maryland and Virginia, where lack of a similar ban made handguns far more available, demonstrated no significant change. However, other researchers have noted the statistical analyses of the D.C. handgun ban are less profound than gun control advocates had hoped for. The nearby city of Baltimore, for example, also saw gun fatalities drop during the same time period, despite the lack of any similar handgun ban. What’s more, an analysis that extended the duration of the study by a simple two further years totally eliminated the drop in both homicides and suicides. If assault weapons bans and handgun bans have had mixed results, have any particular gun bans proven strong enough to demonstrate viability? One study from Stanford University, published in the highly respected academic journal Science , looked at the 1996 Gun Control Act’s provisions—most specifically the restrictions on gun availability for persons convicted of domestic violence. The scientists concluded that this provision led to a 17 percent decrease in the murder of female partners, suggesting not only that gun bans for convicted criminals work, but also that a previous conviction for domestic violence is a strong indicator of future violence. The study also concluded that increased access to concealed-carry guns increased violent crime overall, and that harsher prison sentences for gun crimes decreased aggravated robberies by about 5 percent. Nevertheless, this study also mentioned the difficulty of measuring the effects of gun reform, especially in the context of a large population with many variables. “These are complicated issues,” said Stanford law professor John Donahue. “Nothing in statistics is 100 percent certain. Science advances our knowledge when sufficient evidence is amassed that points in a certain direction.”

Chapter 5: Stopping Illegal Sales

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