"I'm sure the city was not purged of guns and people entering the city were not screened for guns that they may 'import' from other cities and states".

Man, with the way people scream about screening at airports, I am sure that would go over real big, especially because it would just reek of racial profiling. Pragmatism seems to win out over idealism most of the time. Just my opinion, of course.

Well, now you're discussing the efficacy of gun control, which is a different topic from the Supreme Court’s decision about the constitutionality of D.C.’s efforts.
That would depend on whose research is accurate - the short answer is probably no.

Americans own half the guns in the world so it should come as no surprise that the US has the highest rate of gun deaths. People own guns for many valid and legal purposes - hunting, target practice, other shooting sports, self defense. Even so, there is no debate, even among gun ownership advocates, that your own gun is much more likely to injure or kill you or a family member or friend than an intruder. Additionally, just better than 50% of all gun deaths are suicides, the rest being accidental or homicides. And in the vast majority of gun deaths which aren’t suicide, the victim and the shooter are family members, friends or acquaintances.

Because I work with juveniles in the criminal justice system, the majority of the current info I have pertains to them. According to the CDC (the only organization which keeps stats on firearm deaths and injuries) in 2004 in the US an average of 15 young people died each day from a firearm. The overwhelming majority of those deaths were to those between the ages of 15 and 19. Homicide was the second leading cause of death in that age bracket, with 81% of those deaths resulting from firearms. The CDC reports the firearm death rate for children under 15 is almost 12 times higher in the US than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. “American children are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times more likely to die in a firearm accident than children in these other countries.” More than 75% of guns involved in self-inflicted or unintentional firearm injuries to children come from the home of victim, a relative, or a friend.

In terms of comparison with other industrialized countries, the gun death rate in the US far exceeds any place else. Per 100,000 the US’s rate is 13.47, with the closest rate being that of Finland at 6.65 per 100,000. The CDC now predicts the number of deaths and injuries related to firearms will surpass those resulting from car accidents nationwide. The projected costs are incredible! Most car crash victims are privately insured, but most gunshot victims are on public assistance or uninsured. The cost of firearm fatalities per person is the highest of any injury-related death, with a 1999 study estimating the costs of gunshot injuries nationwide at $2.1 billion (taxpayers paid about $1.1 billion of that.) They figure lost productivity, lost quality of life, pain and suffering increases the estimates to from $20 to $100 billion annually.

So there’s no doubt gun related injuries in the US are a problem. What is doubtful is whether limiting access to guns would do anything to address that problem, at least in terms of the deaths/injuries resulting from criminal activity. In fairness, there is no debate that places with less access to firearms have lower firearm-related suicides and accidental shootings.

That argument is disingenuous. Did the murder rate increase? Yes. Did the increase result from the gun ban? That’s an entirely different question which probably cannot be answered. DC officials argue research which says street crime would have been worse without the law. As D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer said, "One of the difficult things is, you can't measure what didn't happen. You can't measure how many guns didn't come into the District because we have this law. You can't measure all the crimes that we know were prevented from happening." That doesn’t negate the firearm crime increase in DC, but those crimes were up almost everywhere. In terms of crime, I doubt the ban had much impact either way, but that’s just my opinion. However, there is no debate that the ban resulted in a sharp decrease in suicides and domestic killings.

I am not an advocate of the position that gun restriction directly leads to less crime. At the same time I take issue with those who want to argue that gun ownership directly leads to less crime. The facts don’t support either argument.
Based on my personal experience, I think the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. In the time I’ve been involved in the criminal justice system here are a few cases involving firearms in which I have been personally involved:

An estranged husband shot his wife as she brought their child to family court for custody proceedings. He missed, turned the gun on himself and is now a quadriplegic. Taxpayers are footing the bill for his medical care while he does his 25 year to life sentence. A woman involved in a domestic argument shots her husband as he threated her from across the room with a kitchen knife. An elderly man and his neighbor had an ongoing dispute about tree trimming. The elderly man, tired of the disrespect from his young neighbor, retreated to his house, got his shotgun, returned and shot his neighbor out of the tree. The 82-year-old man was convicted and will die in prison. (As a prosecutor, this was one of the saddest cases I ever handled - what an incredible waste.) I have handled countless cases involving kids who took their parents’ guns to school because they didn’t know how to deal with bullying by other kids. In another incredibly difficult case a homeowner awoke to the sound of what he believed to be an intruder in his home. He shot his own daughter who was sneaking back in after going out to meet her boyfriend.

Each of these examples demonstrate horrible results even where the gun ownership was completely lawful and in some cases where parents had done all they could to act responsibly with their firearms. Because I don’t think we need more government interference in private lives, I support an individual’s right to own firearms. I just wish so many people didn’t feel the need to do so.

% gun related murders (1990’s) % of homes with a gun
USA 65 (67.9 in 2006) 39
Switzerland 43 27
France 39 23
Canada 35 29
Australia 24 19
Germany 18 9
New Zealand 12 22
UK 7 5

Countries with a higher gun related murder percentage than the US: South Africa, Colombia, Estonia, Brazil, Mexico and Northern Ireland.

That data is provided by the International Journal of Epidemiology 1998, United Nation's International Study on Firearm Regulation and the FBI.

oops sorry the chart didn't post correctly.

Leah-Ann -- great debate as always. I envy you sometimes because you get to keep mentally alert through your profession -- I think my corporate job has an incentive to do just the opposite. I love people who can challenge each other and not have it devolve into a personal attack.

Been away this weekend, but was thrilled to come home to some good stuff.

I guess "arbitrary" makes sense in the context of what the standard applied is. You use the situation of the day (high crime rates and a government looking for a reasonable remedy). Using that standard, I concede your point. I was using the constitution as the standard, which does not give local governments the right to do as D.C. did.

I said "arbitrary," you said "over-reaching" for the same reasons -- yours (as always) is more technically accurate a description.

You challenged me to "cite me an example of any law or statute that is NOT decided by governmental authority." The wording of my definition was perhaps imprecise. The point was that government authorities that act solely on their own biases without taking account of the law (e.g.: when a judge makes a ruling without deference to the prevailing law on point)they are in fact acting arbitrarily. Likewise, when a legislature makes a law, for whatever brilliant reason, that is in direct conflict with the constitution (the law of the land) they are acting arbitrarily by definition.

God Bless you Leah-Ann, you are a worthy adversary indeed. I don't ever want to be on the wrong side a case you're trying -- whew!

LA, extremely well stated. i'm with otter.

Otter, I'd be more concerned going up against you than I am the vast majority of opposing counsel I face on a daily basis! You think out your comments and attempt to have some rational basis for them. That's not especially common, even in a courtroom.


(but over-breadth and arbitrary are not the same thing - not even in a non-technical sense. )

The trouble with Leah-Ann's posts is that they're long, involved, require concentration, and amply justify the time they take. I'll have to defer the latest couple till late tomorrow - just too tired at present!

But let me make a comment which actually goes against my own case. I think there's no place in the modern world for people to have private guns. In Britain that is generally the law, where shotguns are fairly hard to get a permit for, single-shot pistols very hard, and all automatics totally impossible. So far so good.

Yet as long ago as 1990 my nephew moved from a school in Cape Town to one in Oxford, England, and reported that there were pupils who (semi-) openly brought pistols to school. He had no idea how they got hold of them, but if you're a member of the sub-culture in any society I daresay it's easy to get anything regardless (or perhaps despite) legality.

Simply banning these things patently isn't the answer. But violent gun crime is now so prevalent we must surely be able to do something?

How about a really onerous sales tax on ammunition?? Our government has never been opposed to taxation as a means of social engineering. You want to go postal, it's gonna cost you big time. No wait . . maybe I didn't think this through . . .

Tax the ammo! Tax the ammo!
Am I Grandfathered in? If not, I may never get to AC.
Just kidding,but I am loaded!!!!!!!!!!!