I need some hard data to show the AWB did not work.

[Balrog]

I recently posted the following thread regarding the decision by the American College of Surgeons to support a new AWB:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?p=8669236#post8669236

I am a member of the American College of Surgeons, and have written them and called them in protest. Apparently many other surgeons have as well. Today I was contacted by the President of the ACS who listened to my complaint personally, and said he would pass my opinion on to the board. While I appreciate him contacting me, I do not feel the directors are going to rescind their decision.

I intend to write a letter to the editor of the journals of the ACS explaining why the previous AWB did not work, and why therefore it is ridiculous to think it will work now. We are innundated with the idea of only practicing "evidence based medicine", ie, things that are proven to work. Now we have the American College of Surgeons taking a position that to me would seem to fly in the face of this, and recommend something that is known not to work.

Can anyone point me to any references (FBI crime data?) that show the previous AWB had no impact on violent crime? I want to be able to provide hard evidence that supports my position.

Also, I believe there was a physician who wrote a pretty analytical book on the gun control and its lack of impact on crime a few years ago. But I do not know his name, nor the book. Does anyone know what I am talking about?

 

[Red Sky]

Honestly, if you think they care about their reputation regarding evidence based medicine, why not make the argument that this isn't even a matter for medicine, and on top of that, political discussions have so much "evidence" on both sides as to not be a matter for science.

Other than that, I would look for the FBI's crime data regarding murder weapons.

 

[Sambo82]

Balrog, I believe the book you are looking is "More Guns, Less Crime" by John Lott. From what I hear it's loaded with statistical data. Should be perfect for what you need.

 

[abajaj11]

Check this out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

Look under "expiration and effect on Crfime". A CDC study showed no evidence as did a National research council study.
These 2 studies are available at:

1. First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Violence: Firearms Laws, CDC, 3 Oct 2003.
2. Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review, Charles F. Wellford, John V. Pepper, and Carol V. Petrie, Editors, National Research Council, National Academy of Science, NAP 2004, 2005, ISBN 978-0-309-09124-4.



and you can use more links at the end of the wikipedia article

 

[ID-shooting]

One word, Columbine.

Good luck though. Our hospital is run by a bunch of over-bearing hyper liberal doctors who only let you have an opinion if it agrees with thiers.

Liberal 101 must have been a med-school prerequisite if the bunch I work for are representative of the lot.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

John Stossel on 20/20 did a whole segment on the 1994 AWB not accomplishing goals. IIRC, he dedicated time to the Clinton signed where it was stated that lives would be saved and then Stossel offered counterpoints where there was not reduction in deaths that resulted. You might find the who segment on Youtube.

I don't know that this is the whole segment...
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1bOKOd

 

[chas58]

Hope this helps

"Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence."

Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-gun counterparts across the pond, the answer is "no." And not just no, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but an emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases.
The findings of two criminologists - Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser - in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling:
Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).
For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland's murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns. As the study's authors write in the report:
If the mantra "more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death" were true, broad cross-national comparisons should show that nations with higher gun ownership per capita consistently have more death. Nations with higher gun ownership rates, however, do not have higher murder or suicide rates than those with lower gun ownership. Indeed many high gun ownership nations have much lower murder rates. (p. 661)
Finally, and as if to prove the bumper sticker correct - that "gun don't kill people, people do" - the study also shows that Russia's murder rate is four times higher than the U.S. and more than 20 times higher than Norway. This, in a country that practically eradicated private gun ownership over the course of decades of totalitarian rule and police state methods of suppression. Needless to say, very few Russian murders involve guns.
The important thing to keep in mind is not the rate of deaths by gun - a statistic that anti-gun advocates are quick to recite - but the overall murder rate, regardless of means. The criminologists explain:
[P]er capita murder overall is only half as frequent in the United States as in several other nations where gun murder is rarer, but murder by strangling, stabbing, or beating is much more frequent. (p. 663 - emphases in original)
It is important to note here that Profs. Kates and Mauser are not pro-gun zealots. In fact, they go out of their way to stress that their study neither proves that gun control causes higher murder rates nor that increased gun ownership necessarily leads to lower murder rates. (Though, in my view, Prof. John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime does indeed prove the latter.) But what is clear, and what they do say, is that gun control is ineffectual at preventing murder, and apparently counterproductive.

http://theacru.org/acru/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

Cops and Gun Control: The REAL Story
One of the driving forces behind LEAA’s founding was to dispel the false impression that America’s police favor more gun control.
We know, and research backs us up, an overwhelming majority of America’s rank-and-file cops support private ownership of firearms.
That’s because they know, better than most, that disarming honest citizens does nothing to reduce crime, but will deprive citizens of the means of defending themselves from violent predators.

http://www.leaa.org/Cops Versus Gun Control/copsversusguncon.html

 

[hso]

We collect this information in the Resources page stickied at the top of Activism - http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=571510

The FBI UCR has been quoted several times here as has the UK Home Office equivalent. Both show that so called "gun control" legislation is ineffective.

The FBI UCR table 1a showing falling rates for the past 5 years and summaries for the 5 and 10 year data are telling since they also cover the period of accelerating purchases by the public of the firearms prohibitionists want to ban. The Expanded Homicide Data Tables 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, and Table 20 giver details about the types of weapons used (rifles in a small minority) and in 20 the types for various states (note the ones with conservative restrictions on gun owners and those with liberal laws in states with few restrictions beyond the federal level). You'll see for states with nearly no or no restrictions that rifles are about the least used for murder. Also note that the FBI doesn't parse below "rifle" so they don't show the percentages of bolt/lever-pump/semi or the calibers, but some states do parse that data further and it typically shows all semis (none parse whether "assault weapons" are used that I know of) as being less than a third of the number rifles used. You can estimate that distribution in the FBI national data for semiauto rifles being used in less than 1% of murders.


The Clinton ere gun control research conduced by the CDC, National Research Council and the U.Penn for DoJ could not find a conclusive link between the AWB and other gun control laws and violent crime rates. None of them could claim a conclusive relationship between restrictions and violent crime rates and one went so far as to make the statement that the number of rifles used in homicides was too small to be statistically relevant before the AWB.

Also Canada's much vaunted firearms registry was just abandoned as being ineffective and expensive.

Studies supporting gun ownership for self defense put the numbers of violent crime stopped every year with firearms as somewhere between 800,000 and 2,500,000. That is orders of magnitude greater than total firearms murders and total firearms deaths due to murder, negligent homicide, suicide and justifiable shootings (31,672 for CDC's 2010 data in Table 12). That's almost 30 times as many times a firearm was used to protect lives as used to take lives. 19,000 of those deaths were suicides which have been shown repeatedly that suicides will find a means if one is restricted (also, none of these high profile shootings were mass suicides).

When asked about magazine capacity I point back at the falling murder rates and the miniscule rifle murder numbers vs. the dramatic increase in AR type rifle sales and the sales of 20-30 round magazines. How can rates of purchases for these rifles and magazines be going up if the rates of murders and rifle murders are going down if there's any relationship between them. There's no epidemiological evidence that these firearms or magazines impact violent crime or murder and if there is a relationship the increase in ownership is playing a role in decreasing crime (logically indefensible, but a dramatic claim that starts a separate argument that is intended to go to the conclusion that there is no positive or negative relationship).

 

[Savetherepublic]

Just look at the FBI website for statistics

Rifles contribute very little in homicide, I think there was only 5 deaths in all of New York in 2011!

 

[58limited]

I have the FBI crime data yearly summaries consolidated and posted online on excel spreadsheets. This data was taken directly from the FBI's website (which goes back to 1995) and from library copies of the FBI's annual crime reports "Crime in the U.S." without modification and goes back to 1973. Note the category called "Personal Weapons" in the first spreadsheet. Personal Weapons are defined by the FBI as hands, fists, feet, etc. With the exception of 1978 more people have been killed with "bare hands" than with rifles of any kind, and for the past decade, that number has been nearly twice the rifle homicide number. I think these figures provided by the FBI pretty much prove that overall we are living in the safest time in 40+ years, all of the claims of rampant crime are just hype used for media ratings and political agendas.

The first is a breakdown of homicides by weapon and goes back to 1978:

http://www.1958buickforum.net/webpage/Murder%20stats%201978-2011.xls

The second spreadsheet goes back to 1973 and shows all crime, property and violent, for which the FBI keeps records. This spreadsheet also shows the U.S. population for each year:

http://www.1958buickforum.net/webpage/Crime%20in%20the%20U.S%201973-2010.xls

The third was downloaded as-is from the FBI's website. It gives the homicide rate for each year going back to 1960. The homicide rate in 2011 is the lowest since 1963 even with our population increase:

http://www.1958buickforum.net/webpage/us_murder_rate.xls

Now, there are many reasons for the decline in crime rates over the past 20 years and not all have to do with guns. But, starting in 1987 with Florida, a wave of concealed handgun licensing laws swept the country and I think this contributed quite a bit to the decline in crime. Many "may-issue" concealed handgun permit states became "shall-issue," others passed laws allowing concealed carry for the first time. Now, only Illinois does not have a CCL law. However some "may-issue" states such as California basically do not issue a license except in extreme circumstances.

 

[soloban]

PM me your email. I did a quick and dirty analysis comparing the murder rate (deaths/million normalized over the years) and looked at what percentage of murders were committed without firearms. Going way back its pretty steady around 60-65%. Last couple years the murders committed with firearms has dropped off to just below 60%.

Should be pretty simple to repeat my analysis using the numbers from the FBI site.... one would assume that if gun control was effective you would see % of deaths from firearms drastically drop off. Murder Rate sharply ticked up in the late 60's and stayed up until the mid 90's and then drastically dropped off. The current murder rate is the lowest we've seen in DECADES.