Based on the percent of firearms licenses, about 1 to 5 percent of adult residents had a firearms license in Massachusetts counties. But Iwama found no consistent effect of the new legislation on reducing four types of violent crime (murder or nonnegligent manslaughter, aggravated assault, robbery, rape). Her study did find that a one-percent increase in denied firearm licenses and denied firearm licenses following statutory disqualifications increased robberies 7.3 and 8.9 percent, respectively.

While the percentage of denied firearms licenses and firearms license applications had little to no effect on violent crimes, Iwama suggests state lawmakers revisit their legislation to ensure that it is being implemented as intended and address challenges identified. In particular, are these findings the result of a longer-than-expected lag in enforcement following passage of the legislation? Are they due to individuals obtaining firearms in nearby states with looser gun laws? Or is it possible that the 2014 law is being enforced differentially by county?

Natasha Abel
October 22, 2021
Study: Massachusetts Gun-Control Legislation Has Had No Effect on Violent Crime
[Or is it possible that what I and others have been saying, for almost 20 years, gun control has not and will not make the general public safer?

Study after study agrees with me but researcher Janice Iwama confirms the findings of dozens of other researchers using data from all over the country (for example: a 2018 study on background checks and my thoughts on background checks in 2013) and concludes it must be an implementation problem specific to Massachusetts. She doesn’t understand (or believe) that it was never the intention of the law to increase public safety.—Joe]

The ATF maintained in its response to the 2021 investigation that the “sole purpose” of its database and ongoing efforts to digitize out-of-business records “is to trace firearms used in crimes.”

More than half-a-million traces were performed in 2021, according to the ATF, and just under half a million in 2020. The ATF, however, says it does not have the ability to determine if the database actually helps solve crimes. The ATF’s National Tracing Center “has no ability to determine the successful prosecution of hundreds of thousands of crime gun traces it completes annually, nor does it have any way to link a trace for a specific prosecution for a particular year,” the agency informed Congress.

Adam Kredo
January 31, 2022
Biden Admin Has Records on Nearly One Billion Gun Sales
[There are number of things of interest in this:

1. One billion gun sales!
2. The ATF says they can’t even tell us if there has ever been a single crime solved via the tracing of a gun.
3. Yet they continue to do a half million gun traces per year – to what purpose?

If the nearly sole purpose was to return stolen property to its rightful owner and they were successful most of the time I would wouldn’t complain too loudly.

If they were instrumental in solving hundreds of thousands of violent and/or property crimes every year I wouldn’t complain too loudly.

Neither of those two scenarios are true.. All evidence indicates the ATF are the criminals.

Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

We would urge that you consider rescinding the proposed regulation that would require FFLs to preserve firearm records older than 20 years. Indeed, the evidence provided by ATF thus far demonstrates that such records likely have little utility in prosecuting crime, yet raise serious concerns about whether ATF is creating a prohibited national gun registry.

Congress of the United States
Signed by 36 members of Congress
Letter from Congress to the ATF
[See also:

• Lawmakers Investigate Biden Admin Over Database Containing One Billion Gun Sale Records (freebeacon.com)
• Biden Admin Has Records on Nearly One Billion Gun Sales (freebeacon.com)
• Biden Admin Lays Foundation For Massive Gun-Grab Exercise, 1 Billion Records Of Gun Sales (tampafp.com)

We live in interesting times. Prepare accordingly.—Joe]

With violent crime increasing over the last two years, Americans want a solution. But President Joe Biden constantly frames violent crime as only a gun problem. Again, it was the sole focus of Biden’s speech in New York City on Thursday. Even when he mentions police or prosecutors, it was in terms of enforcing gun control laws.

But this “guns first” approach ignores a basic fact – over 92% of violent crimes in America do not involve firearms. And while Biden blames guns for the increase in violent crime, the latest data show that gun crimes fell dramatically.

John R. Lott
February 4, 2022
Biden’s ‘guns first’ approach to violent crime ignores basic facts
[I’m reminded of the television news several decades ago. When they would report on crime an symbol of a handgun would appear in the corner of the screen during the crime report. It didn’t matter if was burglary, a stabbing, or shoplifting and no gun was involved. They were attempting to make guns synonymous with crime.

The democrats defund the police, fail to prosecute criminals, and then tell us they are going to increase restrictions on firearms. This isn’t stupidity or ignorance. This is evil. As I have said before, this the communist way.

Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Proponents of these laws, and especially the gun control initiatives passed in recent years, sold the public a bill of goods, and now everybody knows it. Voters were told in 2014 that Initiative 594 would reduce gun-related violence, and today’s data proves they were misled. Four years later, the Seattle-based gun prohibition lobby promised Initiative 1639 would prevent gun-related homicides, and they lied again. In Olympia, anti-gun politicians are pushing more gun restrictions right now, with the same promises.

The billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobby and their allies in Olympia claim that so-called ‘gun violence’ is an epidemic. Frankly, the intellectual dishonesty of the gun control crowd is the real public health crisis.

Alan Gottlieb
CCRKBA Chairman
January 31, 2022
CCRKBA: KING COUNTY, WA GUN MURDERS, SHOOTINGS PROVE ANTI-GUNNERS LIED
[Hmmm… I’m not sure this is true. Can evil people be a “public health crisis”? It’s at least a little bit twisted in the mixing of metaphors, so to speak.

At the higher levels the anti-gun people know restrictions on access to firearms won’t make the general public safer. You can go back for at least 25 years and listen carefully to the speeches by President Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Diana Feinstein, and the media releases by Handgun Control Inc, The Brady Campaign, etc., etc. Typically they word things very carefully such that they usually don’t actually lie with statements about increased restrictions on firearm ownership and use being a net win for public safety. They knew then and they know now that the real reason for the increased restrictions has nothing to do with public safety. They will imply public safety is the reason but they almost never say it.

There have even been cases where they come right out and say they know it. In his book Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths That Paralyze American Gun Policy page 107. Dennis A. Henigan wrote:

I am not arguing here that higher rates of gun ownership cause higher rates of crime, violent crime, or homicide. Such causation is difficult to show because so many other factors bear on the incidence of crime. For instance, simple cross-national comparisons of gun availability and crime do not control for the degree to which various countries impose legal restrictions on firearms. It also is difficult to sort out whether high levels of gun ownership lead to high crime rates or whether high crime rates lead to high levels of gun ownership.

Henigan was a HCI and/or Brady Campaign lawyer for years. And he was even acting president for a while. He admits gun ownership rates appear to be uncorrelated with crime rates.

Most of these people are not ignorant or stupid. They are evil.—Joe]

the issue is [in] no other constitutional right do we condition on permitting different jurisdictions to pass different regulations…

Justice Sonia Sotomayor
November 3, 2021
What Will the U.S. Supreme Court Decide?
[With Justice Sotomayor pointing out the error of their ways it is no wonder New York is taking defensive action.—Joe]

Politicians and anti-gun activists will keep up their familiar refrains, which have long been staples of the left-wing establishment. But street-level attitudes are changing in favor of the natural right of self-defense. That may prove to be the ultimate legacy of two very violent years.

Cody J. Wisniewski
January 20, 2022
The Tide Is Turning On Gun Control
[There is evidence to support this. The polls don’t look good for Democrats:

Republicans currently hold a never-before-seen double-digit lead on a generic ballot according to the latest CNBC poll – meaning voters who would prefer any Republican to any Democrat.

In fact, the numbers are equal parts historic and devastating as the 2022 midterms approach.

“In the past 20 years, CNBC and NBC surveys have never registered a double-digit Republican advantage on congressional preference, with the largest lead ever being 4 points for the GOP,” CNBC reports.

The defund the police movement and the pandemic, which correlates with the huge increase in violent crime, was a big motivator in the massive gun sale numbers, ammo shortages, etc. All those new gun owners have to be looking back and forth between their ballot and their gun. Who is saying they will defund the police and take their guns? It doesn’t take much brain power to make the decision to vote for anyone except that evil SOB.—Joe]