Does D.C. still have the highest murder rate in the country now that the gun ban is over?

[Tim01]

I know for a while it had the strictest gun laws in the country AND the highest murder rate in the country.

Of course, D.C. isn't an island. I guess if we could just make all of the states islands............no, wait a minute,

[rpannier]

1. Are you sure it had the highest

I have friends who live near Gary Indiana and throughout most of the 90's and into the new century it was the Murder Capitol of America

[Tim01]

2. Yes. It was murder capitol for a while.

[imdjh]

12. East Palo Alto CA held the title in 1992.

[BlooInBloo]

3. I thought Detroit, New Orleans, and DC basically traded off that honor each year or something.

[provis99]

8. I thought it was Miami or St. Louis?

Man, there are sure a lot of shitty cities in this country.

[Infinite Hope]

4. Which direction is the relationship? Maybe they have the strictest gun laws because they had the...

highest murder rate. Did the egg or the chicken come first?

[benEzra]

5. The gun ban came first, as I recall. The murder rate was midpack until then.

Of course, such bans are pretty much on the honor system, so anyone not squeaky-clean-law-abiding didn't feel obligated to obey it.

[Tim01]

9. I actually don't think they are related.

From what I have seen, dangerous places are the same regardless of the gun laws either way.

[Kaleva]

11. The economy and social strife has a greater impact

on the homicide rate then do gun laws or the lack of them.

[krispos42]

15. Here's a graph

[benEzra]

6. Is the gun ban *de facto* over yet?

I was under the impression that city footdragging has led to great difficulty actually jumping through all the red tape, and that there was the possibility of additional lawsuits related to that.

[Tim01]

7. You are correct as I understand it.

Govt is making things as hard as possible. Lawsuits are pending as a result.

[X_Digger]

10. I think DC's response..

..was to adopt the CA ban list / 'approved safe' handgun list

eta: see heller II(b) http://www.hellerfoundation.org/Heller_1.html

[raimius]

13. DC

The city did several other things to place as many restrictions as they could. I am not sure how many of them have been repealed/struck down.
For a while, they were trying to define any semi-auto firearm with a detachable magazine as a "machine gun." (Idiots...)

[benEzra]

16. Does D.C. have any FFL's yet? Except the one part-time volunteer guy

and Josh Sugarmann of the gun-ban lobby?

[notesdev]

14. More impact

on the murder rate came from DC pushing all the poor people it could out to Prince George's County in MD, gentrifying neighborhoods during the real estate bubble. So today's rates are not really apples to apples, with the demographics change.

[one-eyed fat man]

18. demographics are interesting

Here are crime stats for Washington, DC, during the height of their gun ban.

http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Washington&state=DC

But, the reason their gun ban was not effective in lowering crime was that people went across the river to Virginia where, they claimed, "......... any 12 year-old can buy assault weapons, no questions asked."

http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Alexandria&state=VA

Maybe the problem is that DC just is home to a larger population of criminals who were ensured largely defenseless victims by their bodyguard protected city leaders?

[Jackson1999]

17. DC gun laws

I am pretty knowledgeable on this topic. Happy to answer any questions.

Basically, DC instituted a new set of restricted rules following Heller.

First, they said that you could only register revolvers. (Heller registered his)
Then, they said, okay, you can register semis
Then, they went nuts and passed a new set of regs. It adopts the Cali. standard for AWBs and then some. ONE feature qualifies a gun as an AWB.

Oh, and Dick Heller's Colt Buntline revolver is no longer registrable(good luck with that in court). You must also take a 5 hour handgun training course, including one hour of range time, even if you want to own a shotgun. (the reason for the range time is to make people travel outside of DC, as there are not ranges there.

As for FFLs, there is only one in DC. He charges about $125 a transfer.

The Council screwed up, and they are jeopardizing the closest chance DC has to getting voting representation in Congress in decades. It is sad.

[Recursion]

19. It never did; that's a total racist myth

It had the highest murder rate among cities over 500,000 people for a few years. The highest murder rates are always in small rural towns in flyover country.

[friendly_iconoclast]

20. Ok, give us some examples then

I believe the rate is calculated at "per 100,000 inhabitants"

[Recursion]

21. Yes, it is calculated at "per 100,000 inhabitants"

And DC had (and I think still has) a higher rate per 100,000 inhabitants than most similarly-sized cities.

DC topped out in 1993 at 454 murders per 100,000 (http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/dccrime.htm). Maben, Mississippi, population 650 at the time, had 4 murders that same year for a rate of 615 per 100,000.

[Tim01]

22. Thank you for bringing racism into this thread, it needed it.

And thanks for the clarification on the numbers.

"highest murder rate among cities over 500,000 people"

[Recursion]

23. Unfortunately, it's hard to dissect gun control and racism in the US

Even today among otherwise progressive politicians the racist codewords run thick: "hunters" (ie, exurban whites) are fine, "what works in Montana might not work in LA" (ie, the white people can have guns but brown and black people can't be trusted with them). This last despite the fact that it's the brown and black people who objectively have historical reasons to fear the government.

[Howzit]

24. Do you expect everyone who would have owned a gun before the law was changed

to have bought one by now?

Not sure things happen that quickly anywhere.