Gun Control Fails In Massachusetts
The state of Massachusetts has had since 1998 some of the toughest gun laws in the country, semi automatic “assault rifles” are banned, licensing is strict and guns must be securely stored.
The result of this legally owned gun control, soaring crime rates, in 2011 there were 122 murders involving guns, up from 65 in 1998, in the period 1998 – 2011 aggravated assault with guns rose 26.7 percent, armed robberies rose 20.7 percent.
Now the Liberals are starting to realize an unpalatable fact, gun control does not work, it most definitely does not work when a Liberal controlled state enacts gun control laws that are tougher than those of neighboring states.
The Boston Globe reports:
To gun-rights groups like the National Rifle Association, these statistics are evidence that gun control does not work. But to gun-control advocates, the numbers show that no state — no matter how tough the laws — is protected from firearms violence when guns are brought in from other states.
“The quality of your gun-licensing laws is only as good as those surrounding you,” said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminologist.
An outright admission that gun control does not work, the reasons or excuses put forward are largely irrelevant and a distraction from the truth.
Many guns found in Massachusetts travel only a short distance: 133 crime guns were traced to New Hampshire in 2011, and 79 to Maine, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Those states alone accounted for nearly one-third of the 669 crime guns traced to states outside of Massachusetts.
Maine and New Hampshire have less strict guns laws than Massachusetts, although guns bought from federally licensed gun shops require a background check, which means those people that are determined to have an illegal firearm either go out of state to get one, or rely on criminals to sell out-of-state guns to them in Massachusetts.
But calls to crack down on out-of-state guns, sometimes bought by straw purchasers who resell them illegally to criminals in Massachusetts, have become more urgent as gun crimes and injuries have increased.
If the law makers in Massachusetts had been less interested in restricting people’s Second Amendment rights, and more interested in dealing with the problem of criminals and illegal firearms then some lives could have been saved, instead they pursued the Liberal Holy Grail of disarming law abiding citizens.
It is doubtful if the Barack Obamas and Piers Morgans of this world will learn from the Massachusetts experience, most likely it will be business as usual for the gun control advocates, their Liberal enclaves awash with out-of-state guns, their disarmed citizens at the mercy of well armed criminals.
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