Is the goal reasonable gun control laws, or is the goal saving lives? [View all]

[Alva Goldbook]

What if I told you there was a place in America that in 1990 was known as the murder capital of the world? What if I told you that while endless murders and violence happened here, it was 100% illegal for anyone other than an on-duty police officer to have a gun? What if I told you that since then, it is now legal to own a gun in this place? What if I told you that today, homicides have declined by 80.591 %

Well this is a real place, and this really did happen, and it happened in none other than our nation's capitol, Washington, D.C.

In 1990, Washington, D.C. was a national embarrassment, and one of the worst crime-ridden cities in America. There were nearly 500 murders in the city in 1990, out of a population of only 600,000 people. Today, there are less than 100.

Murders aren't the only thing that declined. Since 1995, there has been a startling 50% decline in violent crime in Washington, D.C., and a 49% decline in property crimes.

How did all this happen? Well, one thing that didn't fix this was gun control. It was illegal for anyone other than an on-duty police officer to have a gun in Washington, D.C., and that had been the case since 1976. This changed when the Supreme Court ruled on the Heller decision in 2008. And these declines in homicides, violent crime, and theft didn't happen after 2008, but has been declining continually since 1990. This means that the few residents who can now legally own a gun in Washington, D.C. in no way caused this decline either.

What happened is that there was a massive effort to renovate and rebuild the city. Whole ghettos were replaced with thriving business districts. Social decay was replaced with a re-emergence of the city. Whole parts of the city were completely reconstructed. It was urban renewal that produced an 80% decrease in homicides, most of which were committed by people using guns.

In this debate over gun control, we risk losing our perspective. It does not matter if you believe that gun control will solve this problem, or if you think more guns is the solution. Both sides are wrong. What will solve this problem is using the same approach that Washington, D.C. used. Urban renewal.

How many cities in America look like they're in a war zone? Camden, Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit. These places look like war zones because they are. They are examples of what societal collapse looks like.

The United States is quite unique in the developed world, in that we have so many of the problems we do. Whether it be gun violence, or low literacy rates, poor math scores, high teenage pregnancy rates, high obesity rates, high levels of distrust among neighbors, or the largest rate of incarceration in the entire world.

All these problems are linked by the same cause. This is what poverty and income inequality does to a society. And the United States has the kind of income inequality of Zimbabwe.

If our goal is really to save lives, then we need to consider taking a different approach. I think the example of Washington, D.C. shows us a way towards that goal.