Dec 24, 2009

How Can Gun Violence Be Reduced? | Introduction

Compared to other industrialized nations, the United States has a higher per capita rate of fatalities due to firearm violence. In 2000, firearms killed 8,493 Americans, out of a population of over 270 million. By comparison, Great Britain, which has a population of 59.5 million, has averaged fiftytwo firearms-related homicides per year since 1997. Australia—a nation of 19 million—reported sixty-five firearms-related homicides in 1999. Japan, with a population of 126 million, had twenty-two firearms-related murders in 1997. Even when these numbers are adjusted for differences in population sizes, it is obvious that the rates of gun violence in America dramatically exceed those in other developed nations.

Gun control supporters maintain that the United States has significantly higher rates of gun violence because its gun control measures are not as strong as those found in Australia, Great Britain, and Japan. The United States has implemented some gun control laws, most notably the Brady Bill, which was enacted in 1994. The bill, named after former White House press secretary James Brady, who was seriously wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, instituted a background check and waiting period (replaced in 1998 by a computerized verification system) before a gun can be purchased. Gun control supporters advocate even stricter measures. However, opponents of gun control maintain that the laws in the three nations cited by gun law advocates have not made those countries safer and have instead led to a new set of problems. An examination of the gun laws in different nations can provide a greater understanding of the issue of gun violence and what steps, if any, should be taken to ameliorate the problem.

Australia, Britain, and Japan
Australia strengthened its gun control laws following a massacre on April 28, 1996. Martin Bryant, a twenty-nine-year-old man with a history of mental problems, walked through the resort town of Port Arthur with a variety of assault weapons, shooting fifty-four people, thirty-five of whom died. The Australian government responded quickly. Within two weeks, it introduced legislation that included a registration system for all firearms, a twenty-eight day waiting period prior to purchase, and a ban on the possession, sale, and manufacture of automatic and semiautomatic weapons. A gun buyback program was also enacted in 1996. Under that program, owners of newly banned guns could surrender those weapons to a government collection center in exchange for a check. By the time the program ended in September 1997, more than 650,000 firearms were exchanged for rebate checks totaling more than $267 million.

Gun control proponents claim the buyback program has been a success. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 1997 there were 2,185 robberies—24.1 percent of all armed robberies—that involved firearms. In 1998, that number fell to 1,910 (17.6 percent). The number of murders committed with firearms also fell, from 99 in 1996 (the year of the Port Arthur massacre) to 54 in 1998. In a letter she wrote to the Washington Post, Sandi Logan, the counselor of public affairs for the Australian embassy, asserts: “Where firearms are present in violent crimes, the statistics show a drop between 1996 and 1997 from 25.3 percent to 24.2 percent for armed robbery; . . . [and] from 5.3 percent to 2.6 percent for manslaughter.”

However, gun rights advocates assert that the Australian policy has not decreased the crime rate. The gun advocacy group Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia (SSAA) contends that the buyback failed because millions of banned weapons remained on the streets. SSAA notes that the people who exchange their guns are most likely not those who would commit crimes. In a December 1997 report on the buyback program, the organization writes: “Is there any evidence that a real criminal who has an illegal firearm for criminal purposes actually surrendered the firearm during the ‘buyback’? The thought is naive and preposterous.” Indeed, Australian police estimate that only 15 to 20 percent of the nation’s illegal firearms were turned in during the buyback program. The SSAA further maintains that, while homicide by firearms has been declining, homicide as a whole in Australia has increased. The National Rifle Association (NRA), an American gun rights organization, has also stated its opposition to the Australian buyback programs. A March 2000 report on its website states that, while murder rates declined, assaults and armed robberies increased throughout Australia from 1997 to 1998.

Australia is not the only nation to respond to a tragedy with stricter gun laws. A massacre in Great Britain led to a change in gun control policy in that country. The nation was shocked when forty-three-year-old camera vendor and freelance photographer Thomas Hamilton walked into a school gymnasium in March 1996, in Dunblane, Scotland, shot sixteen kindergartners and a teacher dead, left another twelve children wounded, and then committed suicide. In response, the Parliament approved the Firearms Amendment Act. The law bans the possession of any handgun that can fire more than one shot at a time or is at least .22 caliber (caliber being the diameter of a bullet); approximately four-fifths of Britain’s 200,000 legally registered handguns became illegal as a result. Citizens who returned the newly banned guns received at least $220 per weapon.

An article from the August 12, 2000, Economist states that firearmrelated crimes fell in Britain from 5,209 in 1996 to 3,143 in 1999. Firearm homicides in England and Wales declined from an annual average of 62 from 1994 to 1996 to 52 per year since then. However, as with the Australian buyback program, the NRA has asserted that Britain’s gun control law fails to reduce crime. In a report on the effects of these laws, the NRA states: “Britain’s years of lowest gun crime came in an era when gun controls were virtually non-existent. Increasingly stringent gun controls have been followed by increasing gun crime.” The International Crime Victims Survey revealed that England and Wales ranked second overall in levels of crime among industrialized nations in 1999.

Japan has an especially low level of violent crime. In 1996, fifteen people were killed by handguns in Japan. Gun control in Japan has a long history; as far back as 1588, peasants were forbidden from owning firearms. At present, only soldiers and police may carry handguns legally. Hunting rifles can be purchased only after a waiting period and background check. Despite these restrictions, the number of serious crimes committed with handguns increased 30 percent in the 1990s, reaching 170 in 1999. In addition, the restrictions have not prevented Japanese from procuring firearms; the police seize more than 1,000 illegal handguns each year. The gun laws have also failed to keep firearms out of the hands of members of the Japanese underworld.

Building on the Brady Bill
Despite the misgivings many Americans have toward applying the gun control laws of other nations to the United States, gun control advocates maintain that building upon the success of the Brady Bill would help further reduce gun violence. According to the organization Handgun Control, robberies committed with a firearm fell by 33.7 percent between 1994 (the year the Brady Bill took effect) and 1998, from 257,483 to 170,611. The rate of gun-related homicides also declined sharply, from 15,463 to 10,977, a drop of 29 percent.

Opponents of further restrictions on gun ownership question the success of the Brady Bill. Thirty-two states were subject to the law, while eighteen states and the District of Columbia were exempt because they had already instituted waiting periods. According to the NRA, the exempt states were more successful at reducing crime. The organization reports that the murder rate declined by 9 percent in Brady states compared to a 16.4 percent decrease in exempt states.

One addition to gun control laws that has been used throughout the nation is buyback programs similar to those instituted in Australia and Great Britain. In 1999, President Bill Clinton proposed a $15 million program aimed at reducing the number of guns in and around housing projects. People bringing guns to local police stations received fifty dollars per weapon; the guns were then destroyed. Between 1999 and 2000, a reported twenty thousand guns were removed from the streets. President George W. Bush’s administration ended the initiative in July 2001.

Studies suggest that these programs have had mixed success at keeping the more dangerous weapons away from criminals. For example, an examination of a buyback program in Milwaukee concluded that homicides are most commonly committed with fairly new and large caliber weapons, while the guns returned in buybacks were largely older and of smaller caliber. However, a decline in gun violence in Pittsburgh has been linked to that city’s gun collection program. In 1994, the year the program was launched, there were 155 fatal firearm injuries; two years later, the number had declined to 100.

Gun violence is a concern for numerous Americans. As the above arguments suggest, finding ways to reduce that violence is one of the most polarized issues in this country. In At Issue: How Can Gun Violence Be Reduced?, the contributors consider the effectiveness of gun control and other methods in stemming firearms violence.