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)