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The Myths and Truths about Gun Ownership

The Brady Act's five-day waiting period and the "assault weapons" law have reduced crime.

Anti-gun groups and the Clinton-Gore Administration tried to credit those two laws and, thus themselves, with the decrease. However, violent crime began declining nationally during 1991, while the Brady Act didn't take effect until Feb. 28, 1994 and the "assault weapons" law not until Sept. 13, 1994.

Crime in America has declined for several other reasons. New York City, which accounted for one in 10 violent crimes in the U.S. a decade ago, cut violent crimes significantly with a widely-acclaimed crackdown on a broad range of crimes and implementation of new police strategies.1 The incarceration rate has doubled nationally.2 Additionally, during the 1990s the U.S. population aged and became less prone to violence--most notably the membership of drug gangs.3

The "assault weapon" law has been irrelevant to the decrease in crime. Not only did that law take effect well after the decrease began, "assault weapons" were and are used in only a very small percentage of violent crime.4 "Assault weapons" are still widely available on the commercial market because of increased production before the federal law ceased their manufacture. Furthermore, the law permits the manufacture of firearms that are identical to "assault weapons" except for one or more attachments.5

The Brady Act's waiting period was never imposed on many high-crime states and cities, but instead was imposed on mostly low-crime states. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia were always exempt from the waiting period6 because they already had more restrictive gun laws when the Brady Act took effect.7 Those areas accounted for the majority of murders and other violent crimes in the U.S. Furthermore, during the five years the waiting period was in effect, more than a dozen other states became "Brady-exempt" as well by adopting NRA-backed instant check laws or modifying pre-existing purchase regulations.

Even in states where waiting periods have been in effect, criminals have not been prevented from obtaining handguns. Only 7% of armed career criminals and 7% of "handgun predators" obtained firearms from licensed gun shops8 in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively, and four of every five prison inmates get their guns from friends, family members and black market sources. 9 Eighty-five percent of police chiefs say the Brady Act's waiting period did not stop criminals from obtaining handguns.10 According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), handgun purchase denial statistics often cited by gun prohibitionists, "do not indicate whether rejected purchasers later obtained a firearm through other means."11

Summarizing the waiting period's failure, New York University Professors James M. Jacobs and Kimberley A. Potter wrote: "It is hard to see the Brady law, heralded by many politicians, the media, and Handgun Control, Inc. as an important step toward keeping handguns out of the hands of dangerous and irresponsible persons, as anything more than a sop to the widespread fear of crime."12

Waiting periods and other laws delaying handgun purchases have never reduced crime. Historically, most states with such laws have had higher violent crime rates than other states and have been more likely to have violent crime and murder rates higher than national rates. Despite a 15-day waiting period (reduced to 10 days in 1996) and a ban on "assault weapons," California's violent crime and murder rates averaged 45% and 30% higher than the rest of the country during the 1990s. When Congress approved the Brady bill, eight of the 12 states that had violent crime rates higher than the national rate, and nine of the 16 states that had murder rates higher than the national rate, were states that delayed handgun purchases.

In Brady's first two years, the overall murder rate in states subject to its waiting period declined only 9%, compared to 17% in other states. Even anti-gun researcher David McDowell has written, "waiting periods have no influence on either gun homicides or gun suicides."13 Handgun Control's Sarah Brady admitted that a waiting period "is not a panacea. It's not going to stop crimes of passion or drug-related crimes."14

The Brady Act waiting period also led to fewer arrests of prohibited purchasers, compared to NRA-backed instant check systems. For example, between November 1989 and August 1998, Virginia's instant check system led to the arrests of 3,380 individuals, including 475 wanted persons.15 The General Accounting Office (GAO) found that during the Brady Act's first 17 months, only seven individuals were convicted of illegal attempts to buy handguns.16 The Dept. of Justice, citing statistics from the Executive Office of United States Attorneys, stated that during Fiscal Years 1994-1997 only 599 individuals were convicted of providing false information on either federal forms 4473 (used to document retail firearms purchases) or Brady handgun purchase application forms.17

The vast majority of persons who applied to buy handguns under the Brady Act's waiting period were law-abiding citizens. The GAO reported that during the Act's first year, 95.2% of handgun purchase applicants were approved without a hitch. Of the denials, nearly half were due to traffic tickets or administrative problems with application forms (including sending forms to the wrong law enforcement agency). Law-abiding citizens were often incorrectly denied as "criminals," because their names or other identifying information were similar to those of criminals and triggered "false hits" during records checks. GAO noted that denials reported by BATF in its one-year study of the Brady Act, "do not reflect the fact that some of the initially denied applications were subsequently approved following administrative or other appeal procedures."18

Due to NRA-backed amendments that were made to the Brady bill before its passage in 1993, the Brady Act's waiting period was replaced in November 1998 by the nationwide instant check system.19 However, in June 1998, President Clinton and the anti-gun lobby announced their desire for the waiting period to continue permanently along with the instant check. White House senior advisor Rahm Emanuel falsely claimed on June 14, 1998, that "The five-day waiting period was established for a cooling off period for crimes of passion."20

As the inclusion of its instant check amendment made clear, however, the Brady Act was imposed not for a "cooling off period," but for a records check obstacle to firearm purchases by felons, fugitives and other prohibited persons. Furthermore, during congressional hearings on the Brady bill on Sept. 30, 1993, Assistant Attorney General Eleanor Acheson testified for the Department of Justice that there were no statistics to support claims that handguns were often used in crimes soon after being purchased.21

Emanuel also brazenly claimed that, "Based on police research, 20% of the guns purchased that are used in murder are purchased within the week of the murder." But this was a falsehood typical of anti-gun advocates: BATF reports that, on average, guns recovered in murder investigations were purchased 6.6 years before involvement in those crimes.22

The Clinton-Gore Administration and anti-gun groups wanted a waiting period because it complicates the process of buying a gun and therefore may dissuade some potential gun buyers. A waiting period also can prevent a person who needs a gun for protection from acquiring one quickly. The anti-gun lobby opposes the use of firearms for protection, claiming "the only reason for guns in civilian hands is for sporting purposes"23 and self-defense is "not a federally guaranteed constitutional right."24

(Unless otherwise noted, crime data are from the FBI, Uniform Crime Reports.)

1. Clifford Krauss, "New York Sees Steepest Decline in Violent Crime Rate Since '72: Analysts Begin to Credit New Police Strategies," The New York Times, Dec. 31, 1995, p. 32.
2. Incarceration: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Correctional Populations in the United States; Crime: FBI.
3. Krauss, p. 1.
4. Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Guns Used in Crime," July 1995, NCJ-14820; Gary Kleck, Point Blank, Guns and Violence in America, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991, pp. 70-76; Kleck, Targeting Guns, p. 112.
5. 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(30).
6. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
7. 18 U.S.C. 922(s)(1)(D).
8. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, "Protecting America: The Effectiveness of the Federal Armed Career Criminal Statute," 1992, p. 28; James D. Wright and Peter H. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Study of Felons and Their Firearms, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1986, p. 187.
9. Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Firearms Use By Offenders," Nov. 2001.
10. National Association of Chiefs of Police, membership poll, May 1997.
11. "Presale Firearm Checks," NCJ-162787, Feb. 1997, p. 1.
12. "Keeping Guns Out Of The 'Wrong' Hands: The Brady Law And The Limits Of Regulation," The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 86, Fall 1995.
13. "Preventative Effects of Firearm Regulations on Injury Mortality," prepared for the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, 1993.
14. Diana McLellan, "Smiling Again," The Washingtonian, March 1991, p. 164.
15. Virginia State Police.
16. "Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act" GAO/GGD-96-22, pp. 8, 44-45.
17. Letter from Acting Assistant Attorney General John C. Keeney to Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Dec. 24, 1997.
18. "Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act" GAO/GGD-96-22, pp. 30, 32, 64-66.
19. Introduced in the House by Rep. George Gekas (R-Penn.), now 18 U.S.C. 922(t).
20. NBC's "Meet the Press."
21. Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Crime and Criminal Justice, Sept. 30, 1993.
22. BATF Office of Enforcement and Northeastern University, "The Identification of Patterns in Firearms Trafficking: Implications for Focused Enforcement Strategies," Table 3.
23. Handgun Control, Inc. chair Sarah Brady, "Keeping the Battle Alive," Tom Jackson, Tampa Tribune, Oct. 21 1993.
24. Handgun Control's Dennis Henigan, USA Today, Nov. 20, 1991.