this book is considered to be the most comprehensive study on the relation of gun control to crime. I would read it before you just automatically assume that more guns are the cause of crime.



This is from the NRA website, regarding gun control vs crime rate:

Washington, D.C.'s ban on handgun sales took effect in 1977 and by the 1990s the city's murder rate had tripled. During the years following the ban, most murders--and all firearm murders--in the city were committed with handguns.1

Chicago imposed handgun registration in 1968, and murders with handguns continued to rise. Its registration system in place, Chicago imposed a D.C.-style handgun ban in 1982, and over the next decade the annual number of handgun-related murders doubled.2

California increased its waiting period on retail and private sales of handguns from five to 15 days in 1975 (reduced to 10 days in 1996), outlawed "assault weapons" in 1989 and subjected rifles and shotguns to the waiting period in 1990. Yet since 1975, the state's annual murder rate has averaged 32% higher than the rate for the rest of the country.

Maryland has imposed a waiting period and a gun purchase limit, banned several small handguns, restricted "assault weapons," and regulated private transfers of firearms even between family members and friends, yet for the last decade its murder rate has averaged 44% higher than the rate for the rest of the country, and its robbery rate has averaged highest among the states.

The overall murder rate in the jurisdictions that have the most severe restrictions on firearms purchase and ownership--California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C.--is 8% higher than the rate for the rest of the country.

New York has had a handgun licensing law since 1911, yet until the New York City Police Department began a massive crackdown on crime in the mid-1990s, New York City's violent crime rate was among the highest of U.S. cities.

The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 imposed unprecedented restrictions relating to firearms nationwide. Yet, compared to the five years before the law, the national murder rate averaged 50% higher during the five years after the law, 75% higher during the next five years, and 81% higher during the five years after that.