First, it needs to be determined if gun control has any effect on crime whatsoever. One way of controlling the access to guns is waiting periods. The anti-gun crowd believe that waiting periods act as a buffer between an emotionally unstable person and the immediate access of a gun. This cooling off period can be used to deter an emotionally unstable person from committing a crime of passion by allowing time to pass and letting them think about the situation and come back to their senses. However, logic dictates that a person who is in a blind rage will use whatever is available to them at the immediate moment to commit a crime. They would not calmly go into a gun store, purchase a gun and then go back and finish the job. A study that was performed by Jens Ludwig, PhD of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute at Georgetown University and Philip J. …show more content…
They believe this is where the federal government should step in. Regardless of where the laws come from, whether it be federal, state or local, crime tends to pop up when gun laws take hold of an area. This explains why the major cities who have strict gun laws tend to have higher crime rates than their surrounding areas where their city laws do not have jurisdiction. In 1982, Chicago political leaders imposed gun control aimed at handguns as the answer to help stem the tide of crime. The city of Chicago saw their violent crime increase due to the fact that it was illegal for its citizens to defend themselves. Washington D.C., which has been dubbed our "murder capital", saw its unacceptable rate of murder (188 murders in 1976) rise almost 100% from the year they passed the handgun ban in 1976 to 1988 (369 murders). It continued to rise into the 1990’s where the number of murders in 1993 reached