So-called "one gun a month" laws are completely useless. In 1994, the National Institute of Justice conducted a study that estimated the number of both guns and gun owners in the US. According to the published data, there were approximately 129 million legal guns and 44 million legal gun owners in the United States at that time. The current numbers being used by the media, gun rights organizations and gun control advocates is usually 60 million gun owners and 200 million guns; both sets of number represent about 3 guns for every gun owner. Now, if all gun owners were represented by the average, then one gun a month laws wouldn't do anything because after 3 months, every gun owner would have their fill (3 guns) and that would be that. Even if 99% of gun owners only had one gun; which would 59,400,000 guns owners with 59,400,000 guns, leaving 600,00 gun owners possessing 140,600,000 firearms-about 234 guns each, it would take 20 years and well over $100,000 for this 1% minority to reach their limits buying one gun per month. Even if 90% of gun owners only owned one gun, the average for the remaining gun owners would be about 24 guns each. That amount could be filled up in 24 months if a one gun a month law was passed. The reality is, that most likely somewhere around 40% to 60% of gun owners only have 1 or 2 guns (mostly for home protection or hunting), the rest average somewhere under 10 with only the long-time serious collectors and people that can afford to spend the NFL league minimum salary on firearms having more. The point is, the no matter how you slice it, the overwhelming majority of gun owners likely don't even own 12 guns, so limiting them to one gun per month really won't change anything, except maybe to impose an undue penalty on a consumer. Under a one gun a month law, if a local retailer is having a 40% off sale, and I see two guns that I've been looking for, I can only get one at that time. Sure, on the surface it looks like the one gun a month law actually did something, but the second firearm that I would not legally be able to buy is one of only two guns I was going to purchase this year, so all it did was force me to miss out on a sale and spend more money later in the year (I'll still get both of the guns that I wanted to). It didn't really do anything to address the issue of the number of guns in private hands, nor does it even begin to address crimes committed with guns since legally owned firearms represent an absolute statistical insignificance in that area. Lastly, this law will do nothing to combat straw purchases as they're a relative rarity anyway. Black market arms sellers don't go to WalMart and buy a gun a day until they have a large shipment in order to sell to criminals and gangbangers, they get guns smuggled in from other countries using the same routes and similar methods as the narcotics smugglers use. And even if they did head to good 'ol Wally-World for their gun fix, when a single person purchases a large number of firearms in a short period of time, they're generally flagged by the background check system to be investigated as an illegal reseller (which does happen, and they pretty much always get caught). The rest of the guns on the street are mostly stolen from police officers, other criminals, obtained during the commission of robberies and/or burglaries or stolen from gun shops. In conclusion, one gun a month will do absolutely nothing to fight crime or get illegal guns off the streets, it will only serve as an unconstitutional annoyance to law-abiding gun owners. Let's call it what it is, gun grabbing ignorance perpetrated by politicians that can't solve the crime issues they're faced with (and in many cases, helped create) and figure that such laws will make it look like they're doing something and serve to provide a nifty sound byte or two during an election season.
Edited 10/25/2006 3:04 pm ET by NineseveN |
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