Banning guns might reduce firearm suicides and cases of self-defense, but it won’t reduce firearm murders. Indeed, a ban on guns, even a handgun ban like the ones we’ve seen in Washington and Chicago, inevitably makes things much worse. After every gun ban, murder rates have gone up.
One would think that just once, out of simple randomness, murder rates would have gone down or remained the same after a ban. But whenever crime data are available from both before and after a ban, we can see that murder rates have gone up (often by huge amounts).
Gun control advocates will tell you that Washington and Chicago weren’t fair tests. They will point out that criminals could still get guns in Virginia or Maryland, or in Illinois or Indiana. While that might explain why murder rates didn’t fall as promised, it doesn’t explain why murder and violent crime rates went up.
Even island nations have fared no better. After the UK banned handguns in January 1997, its homicide rate rose by 50% over the following eight years. The rate returned to earlier levels only after a 14% increase in the number of police.
Even more dramatic post-ban surges occurred in Jamaica and Ireland, with six or sevenfold increases in homicide rates.
Democrats can’t accept their responsibility for increased violent crime in 2020 and 2021. They want to blame guns, and there’s no better way to do so than to keep claiming that guns are the number one killer of “children.”
— John R. Lott Jr. in Guns Are Not the Leading Cause of Children’s Deaths
