HOMICIDE: THE SMOKING GUN
In 1995, more than 21,500 people were murdered in America. That’s about 8 out of every 100,000 people. Homicide is the second leading cause of death among all young people ages 15 to 24. What’s more, 77 percent of the people killed in 1995 were men.
Yet the reality is that violent crime is on the decline. During the past five years or so, violent crimes such as assault and battery have dropped about 12.4 percent. The murder rate itself has dropped 13 percent. So why do we still feel so unsafe?
Ask most cops how to cut down on homicide and they’ll give you two words: “gun control.” Eight out of every 10 murders are committed with a gun, most often a handgun.
Contrary to the message sent by the John Waynes and Dirty Harrys out there, packing your own heat is not the solution to gun violence, says Hubert Williams, president of the Police Foundation in Washington, D.C. “The great majority of people who get guns are not trained to use them, and that doesn’t just mean how to fire them,” says Williams, who was a police director in Newark, New Jersey, for 11 years. “Your chance of getting shot by someone who has a gun on you is much higher if you have a gun, too. Plus, too often the perpetrator doesn’t have a weapon until he gets his hands on yours.”
And that’s not even considering how risky it is just to have a gun in your house. A firearm in your home is 40 times more likely to hurt or kill you or a family member than it is to stop a crime, says the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), in Washington, D.C.
There are better ways to protect yourself against gun violence, says Williams. Here’s what he recommends.
Take up the arts. “If I had to name one effective form of self-defense for almost everybody, it would be the martial arts,” Williams says. Not just because they teach you how to throw a kick or a punch, but because you learn a mental discipline that teaches you how to handle potentially violent conflicts without getting hurt. You also learn to develop the presence of mind to sense dangerous situations before you get into them, he says.
Take a Stand. To keep guns from the hands of folks who shouldn’t have them, continue to support laws like the Brady Bill that require background checks for purchasing a firearm. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that since the Brady Bill took effect in 1994, 173,000 illegal handgun sales – meaning sales to someone with a criminal record – have been blocked.
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