From: [tom brunetti] at [satalink.com] (Tom Brunetti)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Just One Life, 2 of 3
Date: 21 Jul 93 13:49:36 GMT

This message was from DENNIS SANTIAGO to ALL
originally in conference ANEWS(Fido
and was forwarded to you by AGATA
                    ----------------------------------------
Op Ed Piece: Still No Solutions In Place to Save "Just One Life"
(Part 2 of 3)


Post-Stockton Analysis

The Stockton incident prompted action using the restriction of
access approach to threat reduction.  This resulted in the
registration of so-called "assault weapons"; using the media
style guide definition as opposed to the formal ordnance
terminology definition.  The crime prevention theory behind this
approach basically contends that, in the long run, a decrease in
the number of weapons in circulation will eventually result in a
reduction in crime incidents.  This form of public safety
management is particularly favored by non-gun owners, who by
definition bear a zero personal cost for such policies; and
particularly opposed by gun owners, who by definition bear a high
personal cost for such policies.  The real question though is
does it do any good.

In the case of random victim irrational attack, such policies are
basically useless.  These types of crimes are infrequent enough
that the amount of aggregate social costs in terms of legitimate
uses of firearms that must be impacted in order to even begin to
scratch at affecting the incidence rate would require a
fundamental shift in the definition of social equity and the
relationship between citizens and government itself.  This
approach is far from cost-effective by any measure of merit.

In the specific case of California's Roberti-Roos package, sadly,
it did not deal with the random attack threat of  at all.
Nothing in the process of registration assists the process of
locating potentially dangerous individuals.  In fact, the people
who registered weapons under this Act are probably the least
likely to ever go over the edge.  Therefore, the preventive
impact is nil.  Similarly, nothing in the legislation package
enhanced the probability of survival of persons in the line of
fire of an individual committing an irrational random murder-
suicide.  It's interdiction effect is therefore also nil.  No one
is safer from this type of crime because of this law; as recent
events have proved.

In it's best light, the Roberti-Roos legislation may have
temporarily slowed an arms race between the police and street
criminals.  Unfortunately, it's beginning to look like while the
police and law abiding citizens abided by the new rules, the
criminals didn't.  (Surprised?)  Since passage of the law, the
criminal element's tactical margin over society may actually have
been widened by policies promoting decreased access to firearms
rather than narrowed.  Parity is certainly not a word to describe
the capability relationship between law abiders and violent law
breakers in California at the moment.

Overall, California's "assault weapons" statute shouldn't be
thought of as a behavioral deterrent to crime.  Sensational
irrational crime is really the product of a small population of
disturbed and resourceful individuals.  It would be naive to
think that legal statutes are anything but irrelevant to these
people.  Street crime is really more of a function of risk versus
profit on a per incident basis and one of a lack of more
favorable alternatives on an aggregate basis.  It follows the
rules of rational economic transactions.  The disparity of
capability between criminal and victim actually enhances the
economic attractiveness of crime and eases the planning
difficulties of irrational violence.  We are seeing undesired
side-effects manifest themselves in the form of bolder more
violent offenders.

Interestingly, a similar proposal currently in the California
legislature concerning high capacity magazines seems, to this
analyst, to be headed for the same types of undesired long term
negative effects; although, to be fair, it's sponsors are seeking
more input to structure this proposal so as to have an
operational crime deterrent impact.  It remains to be seen
whether the final design helps to narrow the capability gap
between all law abiders and violent law breakers.


 * OLX 2.1 TD * TWS-LA - Working to Raise the Common Denominator


--- WM v2.08/93-0237
 * Origin: Telecommuter_WorkSystems_LA 310/676-0492 (1:102/230)