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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Handgun control (again)
Message-ID: <509@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Jun-85 22:59:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.509
Posted: Thu Jun 27 22:59:23 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Jun-85 03:28:25 EDT
References: <503@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 19

In article <503@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> shallit@gargoyle.UUCP (Jeff ) writes:

>>Don't forget that Kates has said that violent crime INCREASES
>>in areas with strick gun control and he cites the statistics to
>>back himself up.

>Wrong again, Don.  Look at Washington, D. C., where both the murder
>rate and crime rate went down by 25% after a strict gun control law
>was enacted there.  Look at Massachusetts, where the homicide rate
>decreased by 20% after a gun control law enacted there.  Look at
>Morton Grove, where there have been NO murders and NO suicides since
>the passage of its famous handgun ban (in the previous six years,
>there were four suicides and three homicides).

The D.C. numbers are not nearly that conclusive.   In fact, the rate began
to drop BEFORE the law went into effect, and began to rise again, reaching a
new peak in 1982.  Th rate of accidental death hasn't appreciably changed.

Charley Wingate  umcp-cs!mangoe