As one might expect, with Pres. Barack Obama
not wanting to waste a crisis to extend the reach of government control, great
attention has been placed in national policy-making circles about firearms
policy since an apparently deranged individual shot up a Connecticut school. Louisiana
legislators, taking advantage of the bill prefiling for the legislative
session that starts Apr. 8, have for the most part responded with helpful
legislation as a response specifically to the tragedy but also more generally to
the larger issue of just how much and what kinds of regulation about firearms
best serves the public interest.
Most bills constitute an improvement in the public policy environment
on this issue. HB 6 by
Rep. John
Schroder would present the opportunity for off-duty law enforcement
officers to use weaponry on school grounds. This increases the chances that sufficient
firepower would be available to counter a maliciously-armed individual, that
would discourage them from thinking they can ravage a presumed and voluntarily
disarmed environment, and that would begin the process of dispelling the
fiction that is the pretend
“gun-free” zones arbitrarily imposed in the state. Hopefully, other bills
will surface getting rid of any restrictions for licensed concealed carry
permit holders in the vast majority of public spaces.
HB 8
by Rep. Jeff
Thompson would keep criminals from targeting defenseless households by
prohibiting publishing whether an address was associated with a concealed carry
permit. This would prevent the possibility of criminals getting this
information from an irresponsible public source, and picking and choosing
households to break and enter on that basis. In addition, those specifically
wishing to steal guns (few habitual criminals obtain firearms legally) could
use the information for burglary attempts.
HB
21 by Rep. Henry
Burns would make it more difficult for mentally ill individuals to possess
firearms by increasing reporting requirements and agency coordination. While
only a small proportion of the mentally ill commit violent crimes, among
those who do they disproportionately are mentally ill.
The only clunker of the bunch introduced to date is HB 4 by Rep.
Barbara Norton,
which would increase the chances of deadly violence against homeowners by
rendering protective firearms more difficult to use. Norton’s bill stupidly
would require locking of handguns, on triggers or in containers, in households
and dampen the deterrent effect on criminals, who would figure their chances of
getting into a home without confrontation by deadly force would increase with
this restriction.
Except for this one, these prefiled bills, hopefully joined by others
that, follow what reputable
research on the larger issue of degree of government control over guns has
shown: at their most optimistic outcome, increased control does nothing to
prevent violent crime. Policy-makers need to keep that in mind as Louisiana
considers how to modify the legal code in this area, and to disregard advocacy
literature disguised as research that suffers through considerable
methodological problems (such as this, which confuses
correlation with association by failing to include appropriate control
variables).
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