More Proof the Assault Weapons Ban Worked
MORE FROM THE URBAN INSTITUTE:
Everyone agrees that the firearm debate would benefit from better data. In the last few weeks, several new data points have been released. Like much social science, the data show important correlations, but not necessarily causal connections. Thus, generalizing from these data is difficult. Here is what I think you would say about each, if you were trying to be scrupulously objective (which I am).
Let me begin with the most controversial.
Last week, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released a study showing that firearm homicides are way down, as are the number of non-fatal shootings. The report has not gotten much attention, only a handful of articles that are more partisan bickering then news. I’m surprised, because you don’t have to look at the graphic below for very long before a critical relationship becomes obvious; that is, that the period when firearms violence declines the fastest matches almost exactly to the period when the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was in place.
In 1994, when the ban was enacted, there were 17,527 firearm homicides in the United States. In 2004, when the ban expired, there were 11,624. In 2011, after seven years with no assault weapon ban, there were 11,101 firearm homicides, virtually unchanged from 2004. If you adjust for population growth, the change from 2004 to 2011 is slightly bigger: from 2.5 per 100,000 to 2.3 per 100,000.
As always, beware of the logical fallacy: post hoc ergo propter hoc ("before this, because of this"), which is just a fancy way of saying correlation does not equal causation. However, if you back the series out a little bit more in terms of years, you get an even more startling correlation. While we would like to look at firearms-related homicides before 1993, data on whether a homicide was caused by a firearm only go back to 1993. Therefore, we have to rely on homicide alone. But, since the decline in all homicides (my calculation) and the decline in firearms homicides were both 39 percent, it seems a fair assumption that the rate of homicide change approximates the rate of firearm homicide change.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2013/05/more-proof-assault-weapons-ban-worked/5578/
I know, I know. Grapefruit
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