Written By : John Hawkins

Over at the Washington Times, they have an absolutely devastating editorial up about the impact of gun control laws on crime in DC.

First off, take a look at what happened when the government chose to keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens:

Few who lived in Washington during the 1970s can forget the upswing in crime that started right after the ban was originally passed. In the five years before the 1977 ban, the murder rate fell from 37 to 27 murders per 100,000. In the five years after the gun ban went into effect, the murder rate rose back up to 35. One fact is particularly hard to ignore: D.C.’s murder rate fluctuated after 1976 but only once fell below what it was in 1976 before the ban. That aberration happened years later, in 1985.

This correlation between the D.C. gun ban and diminished safety was not a coincidence. Look at the Windy City. Immediately after Chicago banned handguns in 1982, the murder rate, which had been falling almost continually for a decade, started to rise. Chicago’s murder rate rose relative to other large cities as well. The phenomenon of higher murder rates after gun bans are passed is not just limited to the United States. Every single time a country has passed a gun ban, its murder rate soared.

Now, let’s see what happened after the, “Supreme Court struck down the District’s handgun ban in 2008.”

A telling story is illustrated by the murder numbers since the handgun ban and gun-lock bans were struck down. Between 2008 and 2009, the FBI’s preliminary numbers indicate that murders fell nationally by 10 percent and by about 8 percent in cities that have between 500,000 and 999,999 people. Washington’s population is about 590,000. During that same period of time, murders in the District fell by an astounding 25 percent, dropping from 186 to 140. The city only started allowing its citizens to own handguns for defense again in late 2008.

The results you just read aren’t the least bit shocking to anyone with an iota of common sense. All gun control laws do is take firearms out of the hands of people who obey the law. Criminals, who by definition don’t care about gun control laws, are aware of this and act accordingly. However, when law abiding Americans are allowed to exercise their constitutional right to own a firearm, it reduces crime because most criminals want helpless victims, not people who can put a hole between their eyes. This is evidence so clear that even a liberal should be able to see it.

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