This piece on the impact of guns on crime is not at all hysterical:

Jack Buttman can sell a 9 mm Glock pistol in less time than it takes to order breakfast in a diner. It’s even faster, he says, if the buyer is familiar with the one-page form for the federal background check and doesn’t stop to read the questions.

Buttman, owner of Butt’s Gun Sales in Billings, Mont., says he can send a buyer out the door in 12 to 20 minutes.

At any gun shop in the Capital Region, the same sale can take as long as six months. New York is one of 12 states that require some form of permit to buy a handgun, and even permit holders wait a week to 10 days to add another gun.

Earlier this year, New York state’s strict gun control laws earned a solid B+ from The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The same report by the nation’s best-known gun control advocacy group, billed as a tool to educate Americans “about how their state’s leaders are doing on laws and policies that promote a reduction in gun violence,” gave Montana an F.

So, NY requires excessive fees and licensing and they only earn a B+? What gets an A? Confiscation? Continuing:

But does it mean citizens of the Big Sky State are more at risk of gun violence?

According to a University at Albany publication of 2001 FBI statistics, the most recent available, the percentage of violent crimes committed with guns in New York state was virtually the same as in Montana — 17.7 percent in New York and 17.4 percent in Montana.

The same is true for other states: Colorado and Connecticut, for example, have gun laws as different as New York’s from Montana’s, but they have about the same percentage of violent crime committed with guns.

I find that statistic a bit odd. What about non-gun related violent crime and homicide? It’s not unreasonable to conclude that a state with more lax gun restrictions makes intended victims less appealing since they have a means to defend themselves.

Posted in uncategorized on October 18th, 2004 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |