From: [j b s] at [ee.ee.duke.edu] (Joe B. Simpson)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Vogue Magazine Anti-Gun Article
Date: 8 Oct 93 15:02:59 GMT

In article <[5--9--7] at [oasys.dt.navy.mil]> [s--nn--t] at [oasys.dt.navy.mil] (Stuart Mennitt) writes:
>>>In Washington, D.C., a tougher gun
>>>law actually reduced homicides by gun by 25 percent and suicides
>>>by gun by 23 percent through the mid-eighties.
>>
>>I would like to see the data that show this.
>
>From what I remember hearing... DC homicides dropped 25% in that period
>because the population decreased by about that percentage.  Homicide
>RATES didn't change that much, and actually are higher now.

Yep.  Population of DC decreased 14% between their "before" and their "after"
periods.

   Looking at the gun violence RATES, incidents per 100,000 residents
(obviously the statistically honest method of measuring the gun violence), we
see that in the "post gun law enactment" period covered by the NEJM "study",
the truth is that in D.C. gun-related homicide declined 14% while declining 21%
in Maryland and Virginia.  Total homicide rates declined 5% in D.C. while
declining 13% in MD and VA. Gun-related suicide did drop in D.C. by 11% while
dropping only 5% in MD and VA, but people in D.C. found other methods of
committing suicide - the total suicide rate in D.C. remained constant while it
fell 10% in MD and VA.

   D.C.'s current annual homicide rate of 86 per 100,000 (the nation's highest)
makes it obvious that the handgun ban there hasn't helped make the District a
safe place.

   -joe
-- 
           You spend the night
       Like you were spending a dime
              - Lyle Lovett