308win
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Columbus doesn’t plan to track weapons ban
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Mark Ferenchik and Jodi Andes
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
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Banning guns has produced loud arguments, but very little hard data to back them up.
Columbus has no plan to track whether the assault-weapons ban that is to take effect on Aug. 11 is successful. Nationally, both opponents and supporters of weapons bans say almost no such information is available.
"We have 80 people dying a day from guns, be it suicides, homicides, etc.," said David Hemenway, the director of Harvard University’s Youth Violence Prevention Center.
"I’m surprised there isn’t more research. In terms of assaultweapons bans, there haven’t been many good studies because there’s not good data. So we really don’t know what happened."
Hemenway said he has studied guns and public health for 15 years. Existing data support both sides, he said.
On the one hand, the nation’s 1930s ban on machine guns nearly wiped out once-popular weapons such as the Tommy gun. Prohibitions on plastic guns that could be hidden from metal detectors also worked, Hemenway said.
But a study several years ago of the assault-weapons ban in Washington, D.C., showed mixed results. The study found that, for a few years, the ban seemed to help curb gun violence. But criminals learned how to circumvent the law, he said.
"It’s very hard to have a ban in one area where you go next door and get guns," Hemenway said.
In Ohio, Cleveland does not keep records on how its ban, in effect since 1991, is working, Cleveland Police Lt. Thomas Stacho said.
Dayton doesn’t track how well its ban is working, either. But one veteran officer has a strong opinion.
"It hasn’t done anything, not a thing," said Dayton Police Sgt. Dennis Chaney, who works with federal agents on that city’s Safe Streets Task Force. "Bad guys are always going to have guns, just as drug abusers are always going to have drugs."
Even Josh Cox, the assistant city attorney who helped draw up the Columbus ordinance, agrees with that.
"As a deterrent, it’s probably not going to have much of an effect on criminals," he said.
One provision requires people who already own weapons banned under the law to register them with the city or risk having them taken away.
But, Cox said, "That’s going to be law-abiding people."
Last year, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence issued a study showing that, since the Federal Assault Weapons Ban took effect in 1994, the criminal use of weapons it banned by name declined 66 percent.
But The New York Times last year cited a Justice Department study that said a small drop in crimes committed with semiautomatic-assault weapons had been offset by a rising number of crimes committed with other guns using larger magazines.
The National Rifle Association cites the Justice Department study as proof that assaultweapons bans don’t work, spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.
Even an anti-gun group agreed.
"The federal ban was completely ineffective, it was so riddled with loopholes," said Kristen Rand, legislative director for the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., a national nonprofit group that wants to reduce gun violence.
She said she thinks California’s ban — which was a model for the ban in Columbus’ — has been effective.
But California doesn’t monitor its law, either.
The state doesn’t have the resources, said Randy Rossi, firearms division director for the California Department of Justice. However, in the past 18 months, a quarter of the more than 1,000 weapons his agents seized were classified as assault weapons, he said.
"It’s clear that criminals seek these," Rossi said.
Ohio activists would also like more information.
"I’m disappointed the state doesn’t track more," said Lori O’Neill, vice president of the Brady Campaign of Northeast Ohio, which supports limits on gun ownership. "If we are going to pass laws, shouldn’t there be an interest to see if they are effective?"
Any new gun law should come with a stipulation that its effects must be tracked and with money to conduct the research, she said.
O’Neill said she thinks the studies would find that bans do help. The only data she has seen are the national statistics on the federal ban.
There is a move to collect more data, but it’s slow in coming, Harvard’s Hemenway said. His center drafted a pilot program for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to better understand how weapons are used.
The project links four existing databases in 17 states. With it, researchers could track what types of weapons are used most often in crimes, Hemenway said. The study has been gathering data from death certificates, police reports, coroners’ reports and crime-laboratory databases since 2001.
[email protected]
[email protected]
_________________________________________________________________
The only person in the Columbus city government who seems to understand the effect of the Columbus AWB is the Asst City Attorney who helped draft the ordinance.
:banghead:
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Mark Ferenchik and Jodi Andes
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Advertisement Advertisement
Banning guns has produced loud arguments, but very little hard data to back them up.
Columbus has no plan to track whether the assault-weapons ban that is to take effect on Aug. 11 is successful. Nationally, both opponents and supporters of weapons bans say almost no such information is available.
"We have 80 people dying a day from guns, be it suicides, homicides, etc.," said David Hemenway, the director of Harvard University’s Youth Violence Prevention Center.
"I’m surprised there isn’t more research. In terms of assaultweapons bans, there haven’t been many good studies because there’s not good data. So we really don’t know what happened."
Hemenway said he has studied guns and public health for 15 years. Existing data support both sides, he said.
On the one hand, the nation’s 1930s ban on machine guns nearly wiped out once-popular weapons such as the Tommy gun. Prohibitions on plastic guns that could be hidden from metal detectors also worked, Hemenway said.
But a study several years ago of the assault-weapons ban in Washington, D.C., showed mixed results. The study found that, for a few years, the ban seemed to help curb gun violence. But criminals learned how to circumvent the law, he said.
"It’s very hard to have a ban in one area where you go next door and get guns," Hemenway said.
In Ohio, Cleveland does not keep records on how its ban, in effect since 1991, is working, Cleveland Police Lt. Thomas Stacho said.
Dayton doesn’t track how well its ban is working, either. But one veteran officer has a strong opinion.
"It hasn’t done anything, not a thing," said Dayton Police Sgt. Dennis Chaney, who works with federal agents on that city’s Safe Streets Task Force. "Bad guys are always going to have guns, just as drug abusers are always going to have drugs."
Even Josh Cox, the assistant city attorney who helped draw up the Columbus ordinance, agrees with that.
"As a deterrent, it’s probably not going to have much of an effect on criminals," he said.
One provision requires people who already own weapons banned under the law to register them with the city or risk having them taken away.
But, Cox said, "That’s going to be law-abiding people."
Last year, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence issued a study showing that, since the Federal Assault Weapons Ban took effect in 1994, the criminal use of weapons it banned by name declined 66 percent.
But The New York Times last year cited a Justice Department study that said a small drop in crimes committed with semiautomatic-assault weapons had been offset by a rising number of crimes committed with other guns using larger magazines.
The National Rifle Association cites the Justice Department study as proof that assaultweapons bans don’t work, spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.
Even an anti-gun group agreed.
"The federal ban was completely ineffective, it was so riddled with loopholes," said Kristen Rand, legislative director for the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., a national nonprofit group that wants to reduce gun violence.
She said she thinks California’s ban — which was a model for the ban in Columbus’ — has been effective.
But California doesn’t monitor its law, either.
The state doesn’t have the resources, said Randy Rossi, firearms division director for the California Department of Justice. However, in the past 18 months, a quarter of the more than 1,000 weapons his agents seized were classified as assault weapons, he said.
"It’s clear that criminals seek these," Rossi said.
Ohio activists would also like more information.
"I’m disappointed the state doesn’t track more," said Lori O’Neill, vice president of the Brady Campaign of Northeast Ohio, which supports limits on gun ownership. "If we are going to pass laws, shouldn’t there be an interest to see if they are effective?"
Any new gun law should come with a stipulation that its effects must be tracked and with money to conduct the research, she said.
O’Neill said she thinks the studies would find that bans do help. The only data she has seen are the national statistics on the federal ban.
There is a move to collect more data, but it’s slow in coming, Harvard’s Hemenway said. His center drafted a pilot program for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to better understand how weapons are used.
The project links four existing databases in 17 states. With it, researchers could track what types of weapons are used most often in crimes, Hemenway said. The study has been gathering data from death certificates, police reports, coroners’ reports and crime-laboratory databases since 2001.
[email protected]
[email protected]
_________________________________________________________________
The only person in the Columbus city government who seems to understand the effect of the Columbus AWB is the Asst City Attorney who helped draft the ordinance.
:banghead:
