Do Stringent Gun Control Laws Reduce Crime?
There is much empirical evidence both pro and con on gun control laws. Good intentions dont automatically translate into good laws. When you balance the importance of the second Amendment with thoughtful analysis of methods to prevent unnecessary deaths due to handguns, many laws are counter productive. On the negative side: New Jersey adopted what sponsors described as the most stringent gun law in the nation in 1966; two years later, the murder rate was up 46 percent and the reported robbery rate nearly doubled. In 1968, when Hawaiis murder rate was a low 2.4 per 100,000, it imposed a series of increasingly harsh measures and by 1977 its murder rate tripled to 7.2. In 1976, Washington, D.C., enacted one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. Since then, the citys murder rate has risen 134 percent while the national murder rate has dropped 2 percent.
