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The article "Hawaii's Xerox-Office
Shooting Throws into Relief State's Effective Gun Laws"
attributes the low murder rate in Hawaii to its restrictive gun
laws. That's an unjustified inference, for many states with few
gun regulations experience even less crime. In 1997, 18 states
had as low or lower murder rates than Hawaii. Out of these, most
had relatively lax gun laws, as evidenced by Handgun Control Inc.'s
own rating: the gun laws in 14 of the 18 states received "grades"
from "C" to "F."
States might well differ in many other respects, though, so the
more important evidence comes from the effects of changes in gun-control
laws on crime rates. Such studies show that restrictive laws have
either increased crime or have had no effect. Hawaii's murder
rate has traditionally been below the national average, and there
is no evidence that tightening its gun-control laws further
lowered its low crime rate. Data from across the U.S. indicates
that each one percentage point increase in a state's gun-ownership
rate has been associated with a 3% drop in violent crime. The
long state waiting periods discussed in the article unfortunately
prevent people from quickly obtaining a gun for self protection,
and such laws are associated with more crime, particularly
against women. |
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