Did the DC Gun Ban Do Anything?

The District of Columbia has one of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, basically allowing no citizens to own guns that could be used in self-defense. An article in the Washington Post looks at whether the gun ban has actually helped to reduce crime rates in the city.

Three decades ago, at the dawn of municipal self-government in the District of Columbia, the city's first elected mayor and council enacted one of the country's toughest gun-control measures, a ban on handgun ownership that opponents have long said violates the Second Amendment.

All these years later, with the constitutionality of the ban now probably headed for a US Supreme Court review, a much-debated practical question remains unsettled: Has a law aimed at reducing the number of handguns in the District made city streets safer?

Although studies through the decades have reached conflicting conclusions, this much is clear: The ban, passed with strong public support in 1976, has not accomplished everything the mayor and council of that era wanted it to.

Over the years, gun violence has continued to plague the city, reaching staggering levels at times.

In making by far their boldest public policy decision, Washington's first elected officials wanted other jurisdictions, especially neighboring states, to follow the lead of the nation's capital by enacting similar gun restrictions, cutting the flow of firearms into the city from surrounding areas.

"We were trying to send out a message," recalled Sterling Tucker, the council chairman at the time.

Nadine Winters, also a council member then, said, "My expectation was that this being Washington, it would kind of spread to other places, because these guns, there were so many of them coming from Virginia and Maryland."

It didn't happen. Guns kept coming. And bodies kept falling.

The rest of the article shows that after the gun ban was passed in 1976, it really had no statistical effect on homicide and gun violence rates of the city. In fact, DC largely followed national trends. So to argue that banning citizens from the right to bear arms helped reduce crime in the city is to argue without basis.

Luckily, the DC Court of Appeals struck down DC's restrictive gun law as unconstitutional. The District appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will uphold the DC Court of Appeals ruling.

I believe that the right to bear arms is a right that deserves to be upheld. It allows citizens to have a way of protecting themselves against violent criminals. That's not to say that I believe in a right to bear arms that is unconditional. There should be reasonable restrictions of the types of weapons people may own, i.e. no average citizen needs a grenade launcher or Stinger missile. But citizens should be allowed to own handguns, hunting rifles, etc. I don't think people should have to rely on the government for everything, they should have the right to be able to protect themselves.

Focusing on banning the right to bear arms as a reaction to rising crime rates simply misses the point. Not allowing citizens to own or be able to use any type of firearm will disarm law-abiding citizens, but it will not disarm criminals. That simply defeats the purpose. Guns don't kill people, people kill people.