The "most recent attempt at federal gun legislation was the Gun Control Act of 1968" (Goldwater 183) and has done little if anything to lower the number of crimes committed using firearms. In fact, "the number of shooting homicides per year has climbed steadily since it's enactment, while armed robberies have increased 60 percent." (183). Now, this is a staggering piece of information. But it's just one piece of evidence that shows that gun control laws are only marginally effective, if at all, in curtailing crimes involving firearms.Now, I am not saying that there should be absolutely no restrictions on who has a fire arm, because that is not true. "Most everyone will agree that felons, addicts, morons, juveniles, alcoholics, the mentally incompetent and others in whose hands even an ice pick or baseball bat becomes a deadly weapon, should be denied guns."(Selib 202). But banning all hand guns is not the way to go about lowering the rate of crimes involving hand guns. As an example:. . . in the decade from 1960 to 1970, gun crimes in England increased some 750 percent - this in a country where there aren't supposed to be any pistols in private hands. What is demonstrated forcefully in England is that in a place where guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns. (202)As I have pointed out, gun control legislation has only a marginal effect. I think that more headway in lowering handgun related crimes could be made through education. This exact point is made by Barry Goldwater:Gun education, in fact, can actually reduce lawlessness in a community, as was demonstrated in an experiment conducted in Highland Park Michigan. City police launched a program to instruct merchants in the use of handguns. The idea was to help them protect themselves and their businesses from robbers, and it was given wide publicity. The store-robbery rate dropped from an average of 1.5 a day to none in four months. (186)There is one other way of dropping the crime rate involving firearms, this is through stricter laws in respect to crimes that involve a firearm.
