Shot down - opposition to gun control; includes related article

National Review, March 6, 1995 by Don B. Kates, Jr.

In 1982 the Chicago suburb of Morton Grove received nationwide publicity for enacting the nation's first handgun ban. Surprisingly little attention was paid to two remarkable responses. One was a letter an inmate in a Florida prison wrote the editor of a local newspaper: "If guns are banned, then I as a criminal feel a lot safer. When a thief breaks into someone's house or property, the first thing to worry about is getting shot by the owner. But now, it seems we won't have to worry about that anymore." Branding it a "fantasy that just because guns are outlawed we, the crooks, can't get guns," the author asserted that "the only people who can't are the ones we victimize.... Drugs are against the law. Does that stop us? It's also against the law to rob and steal. But does a law stop us? One more thing: I thank you, the public, for giving me this fine opportunity to further my criminal career."

Similarly, the editor of the inmate newspaper at the Illinois Correctional Center in Menard "made it a point to get the views of those in the real know--convicts here for armed robbery, some of them extremely professional individuals with years of experience in their chosen field. The[y] ... were unanimous that you in Morton Grove are making things a bit easier for us ... [The] law is meaningless and useless in curbing crime. However, it is very effective in curbing the general populace. This coming from "hardened criminals," professionals, convicts . . . someone should listen!"

Perhaps the National Institute of Justice did listen. In 1983 it funded a survey of two thousand felons in state prisons across the U.S. In addition to overwhelmingly endorsing the views set out above, 39 per cent of the felons in the NIJ survey said they had aborted at least one crime because they believed the intended victim was armed; 8 per cent had done so "many" times; 34 per cent had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"; and 69 per cent knew at least one acquaintance who had had such an experience.

Thirty-four per cent of the felons said that in contemplating a crime they either "often" or "regularly" worried that they "might get shot at by the victim." Asked about criminals in general, 56 per cent of the inmates agreed that "a criminal is not going to mess around with a victim he knows is armed with a gun"; 57 per cent agreed that "most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police"; 58 per cent agreed that "a store owner who is known to keep a gun on the premises is not going to get robbed very often"; and 74 per cent agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are home is that they fear being shot during the crime."

Since 1976 the District of Columbia has had the country's most extreme gun law: no civilian may buy or carry a handg-un, nor may any gun be kept loaded or assembled in a home for self-defense. Nevertheless, Washington has one of the highest homicide rates in the country. In 1992 Washington Post reporters interviewed the 114 inmates in D.C.'s Lorton Prison who had been convicted of at least one gun crime. The consensus was clear: "Gun control is not the answer, the inmates agreed." And they anticipated no difficulty obtaining an illegal gun. Though many claimed to want to go straight, 25 per cent flatly said they would get a gun as soon as they emerged from prison.