Speaking of the debate on gun control...
A study conducted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research provides evidence that background checks help reduce the murder rate:
The 2007 repeal of a Missouri law that required background checks and licenses for all handgun owners appears to be associated with a significant increase in murders there, a new study finds.
The law’s repeal was correlated with a 23 percent spike in firearm homicide rates, or an additional 55 to 63 murders annually from 2008 to 2012, according to the study conducted by researchers with the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research and to be published in the Journal of Urban Health.
“This study provides compelling confirmation that weaknesses in firearm laws lead to deaths from gun violence,” Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research and the study’s lead author, said in a news release. “There is strong evidence to support the idea that the repeal of Missouri’s handgun purchaser licensing law contributed to dozens of additional murders in Missouri each year since the law was changed.”
The spike in murders only held for those committed with a gun and was consistent throughout the state. Neither Missouri’s border states nor the nation as a whole saw similar increases.
Eliminating the background check essentially makes it legal for criminals to buy guns. And when you make it legal for criminals to buy guns, criminals shoot more people.
Simple math, really.
2 comments:
How about getting back to us when the study is actually released - rather that trumpeting a press release.
Oh, and I hope those 'corrections' they use are mathematically sound, as the actual murder rate in MO for those years don't bear out anything other that statistical noise and normal fluctuations.
Yes, that was my thought. Missouri firearms murder rate was up, down, and all around in the couple of decades before this law. I would love to see a statisticians analysis of their methods that somehow teased this relatively large increase out of a few year's records, or if they cherry picked their years. Like GD, I'll wait for the actual report, not the press release that's aimed at generating buzz in a largely ignorant media.
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