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CD Notes

INTRODUCTION

Regarding the comparison of New York homicide rates, the rate for 1943 was cited by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan in a speech, and quoted in "A Plea for Intolerance for Acts of Crime" by Sam Roberts, The New York Times, April 26, 1993. The 1995 rate was cited in "Major Crimes Fell in '95, Early Data By F.B.I. Indicate" by Fox Butterfield, The New York Times, May 6, 1996.

WHY IS CRIME-FIGHTING SO INEFFECTIVE?

Data on the numbers of police officers are given in "Crime in the United States (1998)," published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, page 291 (available online at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/Cius_98/98crime/98cius30.PDF).

A list of court cases establishing that the police have no duty to protect you can be found at http://www.copcrimes.com/courtcases.htm or http://members.aol.com/copcrimes/brophy.html.

The increase in crime during the 1960s and 1970s can be tracked in Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, tables H-952, 953, and 958, page 413; and from various issues of the Statistical Abstract of the United States, in the "Crime & Crime Rates, By Type" tables. The data come from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

IS ANYTHING WORKING TO REDUCE CRIME?

The Lott-Mustard study examining concealed-carry laws during 1977-1992 was published as "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," in The Journal of Legal Studies #26 (1997). Another study, "Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws: Contrasting Private and Public Law Enforcement" by John R. Lott, Jr. and William M. Landes was published as a John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 73, The Law School The University of Chicago, 1999 (available online at http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=161637).

The Cato Institute study was published as "Fighting Back: Crime, Self-Defense, and the Right to Carry a Handgun" by Jeffrey R. Snyder, Cato Policy Analysis No. 284, October 22, 1997. A summary of John Lott's similar findings is given in Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America (1991) by Gary Kleck, page 54.

The minimal side effects of concealed-carry laws are covered in "No Smoking Guns: Answering Objections to Right-to-Carry Laws" by Morgan Reynolds and H. Sterling Burnett, National Center for Policy Analysis, November 17, 1997 (available online at http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba246.html).

The Pearl, Mississippi, school shooting is detailed in "The Real Lesson Of the School Shootings" by John R. Lott, The Wall Street Journal, March 27, 1998.

The 1991 mass shooting in Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, is reported in "The Concealed Weapons Debate," CBS Television News, July 17,1999 (available online at http://www.cbs.com/flat/story_167408.html).

John Lott's study showing the decline in mass shootings in states with concealed-carry laws is "Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws: Contrasting Private and Public Law Enforcement" by John R. Lott, Jr. and William M. Landes. It was published as John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 73, The University of Chicago Law School, 1999, and is available online at http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=161637.

Barbara Goushaw's statement is in "Handguns Are a Girl's Best Friend" by Barbara Goushaw, Liberty magazine, January 1999, page 34.

The data covering attacks on women are discussed in Guns, Murders, and the Constitution: A Realistic Assessment of Gun Control by Don B. Kates, Jr. (1990), citing U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics, page 29.

DO GUN LAWS DETER CRIMINALS OR PREVENT ACCIDENTS?

Information on how criminals acquire their guns is given in "Survey of Incarcerated Felons," a Department of Justice publication, page 36.

The data on various types of accidents are from The New York Times Almanac, 2002, page 382. A similar pattern is true for children. The National Safety Council reported the following numbers of accidental deaths of children 14 and under for 1995: motor vehicles, 3,059; drowning, 1,060; fires & burns, 833; suffocation, 459; ingesting food or foreign objects, 213; firearms, 181 (Accident Facts: 1998 Edition, pages 10, 11, 18).

The U.S. government study that found that children who get guns and training from their parents are less likely to become delinquents is "Urban Delinquency & Substance Abuse," prepared by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice. The study tracked 4,000 boys and girls aged 6 to 15 in Denver, Pittsburgh, and Rochester, New York (available online at http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles/urdel.pdf).

The information on mistaken shootings of innocent people, by citizens and by police officers, is contained in More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws (2000) by Dr. John Lott, page 2.

ARE GUNS NECESSARY FOR SELF-DEFENSE?

Data on the use of guns by private citizens to stop crimes is covered in "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun" by Gary Kleck & Marc Gertz, The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law (Fall 1995), vol. 1, pages 173, 185 (available online at http://heinonline.org/HeinOnline/CollectionIndex.pl?journal=jclc, but only for subscribers; trial subscriptions are available).

The Doug Stanton story is related in The Best Defense by Robert A. Waters, and discussed in "Packing a Gun" by Charley Reese, The Orlando Sentinel, Oct 29 1998.

WHICH GUN LAWS ARE BENEFICIAL?

Information on the English experience with gun confiscation is contained in "Guns and Violent Crime," a presentation by Joyce Lee Malcolm at the Independent Institute, September 21, 1999 (available online at http://www.independent.org/tii/forums/990921ipfTrans.html).

The Second Amendment reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The failures of the Brady Bill are demonstrated in "Gun Control: Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence prevention Act," published by the General Accounting Office (GAO), January 1996, pages 39-40 and 64-65 (not available online, but can be ordered from the GAO). Further details are included in "The Brady Scam" by J.D. Tuccille (available online at http://www.CivilLiberty.about.com/library/weekly/aa062998.htm?terms=Brady).

The use of fake IDs and front-man purchasers to avoid background checks was detailed in two articles by Pierre Thomas in The Washington Post: "In the Line of Fire: The Straw Purchase Scam," August 18, 1991, and "Virginia Driver's License is Loophole for Guns: Fake Addresses Used in No-Wait Sales," January 20, 1992.

Additional information on evading background checks can be found in "Straw Guns Linked to Crime" by Maxine Bernstein, The Portland Oregonian, January 16, 2000 (available online at http://OregonLive.com/news/00/01/st011601.html); and "Crime Gun Trace Reports (1999), published by the Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (available online at http://ATF.treas.gov/firearms/ycgii/1999html/ycgii/index.htm).

Bonnie Elmasri's story is related in the Congressional Record, May 8, 1991, pages H2859, H2862.

The experience during the 1992 Los Angeles riots is reported in "Survival for the armed" by Jonathan T. Lovitt, USA Today, May 4, 1992.

Chuck Harris' story is related in "When Gun Safety Locks Kill" by Erich Pratt, Gun Owners of America, August 2001 (available online at http://www.gunowners.org/op0132.htm).

The Korean store owners' experience during the 1992 Los Angeles riots is covered in "Koreans make armed stand to protect shops from looters," Roanoke Times & World News, May 3, 1992.

An explanation of what assault weapons are is given in "An Open Letter to American Politicians" by Officer William R. McGrath, The Police Marksman, (May/June 1989), page 19.

The rare use of assault weapons is explained in "Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991," (March 1993), published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, page 18 (available online at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/sospi91.htm).

The Chicago experience with assault weapons is detailed in 1993 Murder Analysis by Matt L. Rodriguez, Superintendent of Police for the City of Chicago, pages 12, 13.

HOW HAVE GUN LAWS WORKED IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES?

The problems caused by gun control in England are covered in:

  • "Most crime Worse in England Than US, Study Says," Reuters, October 11, 1998.

  • "Crime and Justice in the United States and in England and Wales, 1981-96," published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, October 1998 (available online at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cjusew96.htm).

  • "British Fear Rise of 'Gun Culture'" by Ellen Hale, USA Today, August 7, 2001.

The increase in foreign burglaries when people are at home, contrasted with the American experience, is covered in:

  • "Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America" (1991) by Dr. Gary Kleck, page 140.

  • "The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons," Research Report (July 1985), U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, page 27.

  • A number of other references on this point are included in "Lawyers, Guns, & Burglars" by David Kopel (available online at http://DaveKopel.org/2A/LawRev/LawyersGunsBurglars.htm).

The Australian experience is detailed at the Australia Bureau of Statistics website (http://www.abs.gov.au), and is summarized by John Lott in More Guns, Less Crime.

The Jeff Miron study of foreign countries with gun-control laws can be found at "Violence, Guns, and Drugs: A Cross-country Analysis," a paper prepared for the American Enterprise Institute conference on Guns, Crime, and Safety, July 30, 2001, by Jeffrey A. Miron, Professor of Economics, Boston University (available online at http://econ.bu.edu/miron/images/gd_isp.pdf).