John Lott's Website: New Op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer

9/26/2006

New Op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Among the 10 largest cities, Philadelphia now has the dubious distinction of surpassing perennial leader Chicago in terms of murder and violent crime, becoming number one in both categories. Murder and violent crime rates may be going down this year in the rest of Pennsylvania, but Philadelphia's numbers are still going up.

Philadelphians are understandably scared. But city officials seem only to want to blame others. Stepping into the breach, the state legislature will hold an unusual special session today to go through a long list of proposals. Democrats see the solution as primarily more gun control, such as a one-gun-a-month purchase limit, a state ban on so-called assault weapons, as well as allowing Philadelphia to pass its own gun-control laws. On the other side of the spectrum, House Speaker John Perzel (R., Phila.) wants more police, with the state picking up half the cost of any new hires. . . .

2 Comments:

saturdaynightspecial said...: And all they gotta do is end Prohibition.

The problem is Prohibition.
The symptoms are a black market and high crime.

What ever the government does, it never does it better than we could do ourselves; and whatever the government's intended outcome was, the actual outcome is usually the opposite of what the government originally intended; in this case more violence and crime.
In this matter the government won't eliminate the symptom illegal drug selling or the black market, but it will treat the symptom 'high crime rates' the wrong way, and probably make the problem worse by more disarming of law abiding citizens.
If they want to treat the symptoms of the problem (Prohibition), rather than just solve the problem, all they gotta do is allow citizens to be armed - that would lower crime rates.; 9/26/2006 3:51 PM
saturdaynightspecial said...: And:
"Students of government can hardly be surprised that a government program ends up creating the very opposite of what it purported to accomplish. Welfare increases poverty, the minimum wage boosts unemployment, prohibition promotes the banned behavior, and, just as we would expect once we understand the logic, the war on terror has created and encouraged the rise of more terrorism and the ideology that backs it." [Lew Rockwell, lewrockwell.com]

Does more gun control produce less gun crime ?

According to gun-control advocates the problem is more crime; their solution is more gun-control. And they're wrong on both. They can say the problem is an increase in crime, but this is merely a symptom of Prohibition. The problem is Prohibition, not more crime. Higher crime rates are caused by Prohibition, so if you want to lower crime rates then end Prohibition.

But the Philadelphia government isn't going to do that because governments never do the right thing, they always do the wrong thing. In this case they won't solve the problem, they'll treat a symptom of the problem, and they are going to do that wrong too by trying to restrict gun possession, which is exactly the wrong thing to do. If you want to solve or treat a symptom of the problem the solution for that would be to repeal gun control laws (exactly the opposite of what the government will do.)

http://www.fff.org/blog/index.asp; 9/28/2006 2:59 AM