Showing papers on "Gun control published in 1990"

Guns and suicide: possible effects of some specific legislation.

Abstract: The authors describe suicide rates in Toronto and Ontario and methods used for suicide in Toronto for 5 years before and after enactment of Canadian gun control legislation in 1978. They also present data from San Diego, Calif., where state laws attempt to limit access to guns by certain psychiatric patients. Both sets of data indicate that gun control legislation may have led to decreased use of guns by suicidal men, but the difference was apparently offset by an increase in suicide by leaping. In the case of men using guns for suicide, these data support a hypothesis of substitution of suicide method.

The Political Efficacy of Lobbying and Money: Gun Control in the U. S. House, 1986

Abstract: This paper sheds empirical light on the effectiveness of both sides of the gun lobby in affecting votes in the House on the McClure-Volkmer bill. It examines the impact of elite and grass roots lobbying, in addition to the influence of campaign contributions. The results show that, at least on this issue, the NRA's and Handgun Control's prevote campaign contributions affected member's subsequent votes, even when other variables, including ideology, member's prior position, and constituency characteristics, are held constant. Handgun Control's monetary contributions had a statistically marginal impact, but their lobbying effort, along with that of the police, was clearly successful, while NRA's was not. The paper suggests some reasons why contributions appear to have had an impact on congressional voting even for a salient issue.

Trust the people: The case against gun control

Abstract: Few public policy debates have been as dominated by emotion and misinformation as the one on gun control. Perhaps this debate is so highly charged because it involves such fundamental issues. The calls for more gun restrictions or for bans on some or all guns are calls for significant change in our social and constitutional systems. Gun control is based on the faulty notion that ordinary American citizens are too clumsy and ill-tempered to be trusted with weapons. Only through the blatant abrogation of explicit constitutional rights is gun control even possible. It must be enforced with such violations of individual rights as intrusive search and seizure. It most severely victimizes those who most need weapons for self-defense, such as blacks and women. The gun control debate poses the basic question: Who is more trustworthy, the government or the people? Adapted by the author from an essay published in Cato Institute Policy Analysis, 1988 (number 109).

Capital punishment, gun control, and personal violence (suicide and homicide)

Abstract: Laws restricting the sale of guns and for the execution of murderers are both passed by state legislatures to reduce the homicide rate in America. Do they work? Lester (1984) created a Guttman scale of handgun law strictness using data provided by Bakal (1968) and reported that the states with stricter gun control laws had lower suicide rates, but did not differ in their homicide rates. For the present study, a Guttman scale for the breadth of death penalty statutes was created using data provided by Bedau (1967). (The scale used in the following order the death penalty for murder, kidnapping, rape, carnal knowledge, armed robbery, and burglary.) Only one state broke the pattern for a perfect Guttman scale, i.e., one on which all subjects who say yes to item n also say yes to item n + 1, but not vice versa. The strictness of the handgun laws and the breadth of the death penalty laws were correlated with the suicide and homicide rates for the 48 continental states in 1965. Mean scores (and standard deviations) were for suicide rate 11.3 (2.9), for homicide rate 5.1 (3 . I), for death penalty breadth 2.4 (1.9), and for gun control strictness 3.6 (1.8). I t was observed that the strictness of the handgun laws was modestly related to the suicide rate (Pearson r = 0.28, p = .03) but not with the homicide rate (r = 0.05). In contrast, the extent of the death penalty statute was correlated positively with the homicide rate ( r = 0.79, p<.001), but not with the suicide rate (r = 0.05). Thus, the strictness of gun control laws appears to be related to lower suicide rates while the breadth of the death penalty statute is related to higher homicide rates.

Gun Control in a Developing Nation: The Gun Court Act of Jamaica

Abstract: Generally, the study of Third World crime can be approached from two acutely different theoretical perspectives. “Modernization” theory attempts to attribute crime in Third World societies to the rapid pace of industrialization and attempts to apply a variety of criminological theories that focus on the individual and the immediate social context of the actor. “Political economy/dependency” theory attempts to address the processes of imperialism and underdevelopment and the whole range of law violations and legal controls present in post-colonial societies. This paper explains the Jamaican firearm crime problem, and the societal response to it, during the 1970's and early 1980's by applying the political economy/dependency theoretical framework. The legislative policy designed to curb increases in firearm crimes in Jamaica during the study period was the Gun Court Act. This mandatory piece of criminal legislation is examined in order to develop the connection between crime in underdeveloped natio...

The battle over gun control

Abstract: In April of this year, Congress passed the Firearms Owners Protection Act. This act, the first federal gun law to pass in eighteen years, actually reduces the restrictions of gun Control Act. The often fierce debate that accompanied the passage of this legislation, though, demonstrated once again the political struggle over gun control in this country. Most Americans think that controlling weapons is just plain sensible. Opinion polls show that most gun owners are actually of one mind with the general public in favoring it. For example, both gun owners and the public, by and large, favor such steps as the registration and licensing of guns and the banning of gun ownership to felons, juveniles, and the mentally impaired. Advocates of reasonable gun control approach guns pragmatically rather than ethically, viewing them as widely desired but nevertheless dangerous things which are sensible to control. Curtailing criminal misuse of guns is, of course, a prime concern of this pro-control thinking. But the cause of reasonable gun control has been hampered in recent years by the presence among gun control advocates of a vocal minority motivated not by pragmatic concerns -- that gun control will reduce crime, for example -- but by a moral vision that reviles guns and their owners. This antigun lobby sees the handgun simply as an abomination, and the desire to possess one for the protection of home and family, or for any other reason, as immoral, reactionary, and paranoid. It supports the banning not just controlling of handguns and, hence, has refused to support a loosening of even the most excessive handgun regulations. The reaction of gun owners to such opposition has been predictable. Feeling offended, and perhaps even threatened by antigun rhetoric, the gun lobby has opposed even the most moderate controls. To understand the difference this anti-gun position has made, as opposed to the reaction a merely "pro-control" view would elicit, it is useful to remember that gun owners have not always opposed gun control. Most of our present gun laws, in fact, come from the Uniform Revolver Act which the NRA drafted and promoted early in the 20th Century. As late as 1957, legislation to bar military surplus imports was sponsored in the Senate by NRA life member John F. Kennedy. In focusing on the baleful effect of antigun rhetoric, I am not denying that gun owners are often equally intemperate. But though their intemperance is notoriously counterproductive, it hurts the gun lobby far less than antigun vituperation hurts the cause of reasonable gun control. For the strident opposition to gun ownership that characterizes the antigun lobby foredooms the cooperation that is essential if better controls are to be enacted and obeyed. A situation has developed, then, in which no matter how reasonable in the abstract a gun control proposal might seem, gun owners think it will end up being administered from an antigun perspective.

Book Review: The Citizen's Guide to Gun Control:

Abstract: were seen as supportive of those victims the police were reluctant to deal with. Because police act as the gatekeepers to VSS through referrals, their perceptions both of which victims need referral and of the role of the schemes was crucial to their usage. The authors support more police education on the needs of victims and on the work ofthe schemes, as many officers surveyed were vague about these issues. Automatic and/or direct referrals are now being considered in Britain. The authors describe current initiatives in Britain and conclude that rights can be given to victims without undermining the rights of offenders. They argue that rights for victims should be established in at least four areas: to be involved in the criminal justice process, to acquite knowledge . of 'their' case within that process, to be given financial assistance, and to be given advice and support. They make the radical, and impractical, suggestion that victim impact statements be considered after sentence, the sentence being allowed to be adjusted down as a result of the statement, but not up. Though this suggestion seems worthwhile in theory, given the lengthy delays and backlog of cases in all criminal justice systems, it is very unlikely to be adopted since the effect would be to aggravate these delays. The book contains a summary at the end of each chapter, with Chapter 12 giving a summary of the book thus far. These summaries are invaluable for quick reference to the authors' arguments. However, the reviewer found some of the chapters, .notably those on the south-west research, rather turgid. The book is a useful, well organised overview of the services for victims in Britain. It makes its points clearly, particularly on the differences between state and voluntary services. Its final recommendations are mostly predictable and do not address the impact of victims' rights on the underlying theoretical basis of the criminal justice system. That system was not established with the philosophical basis that regards crimes as acts against individual victims, but as acts against the state. Thus it can be asked whether the recommended reforms are intended to give victims enforceable rights within the system or are merely responses to victims' needs with no concomitant guaranteed place for victims within the system? And do crimes cease to be acts against the state, or are they now some amalgam of acts against the state and acts against the victim? Jennifer A. David Associate Professor Bond University