I find quite suspect Roger Olson's (Letters, 8/15) claim that the gun prohibition study conducted by George Soros' Open Society Institute is "accurate" and "well-researched." The researchers blithely assume that more laws prohibiting gun ownership will prevent gun violence. But just a few clicks on the Internet allowed me to shed doubt on this assumption.
According to the Institute's on-line press release, the study "reveals the first national report card and survey of gun laws in the fifty states." Four out of five states lack "basic gun control laws" and "fall below the minimum standards for public safety." The study concludes that more gun prohibition is needed to prevent gun violence.
The press release lists the ten "best" and "worst" states according to gun prohibition laws. But nowhere do they try to correlate their ratings with actual crime rates in these states. So using the FBI's on-line 1998 Uniform Crime Report, I did it myself.
The 1998 average violent crime rate in the United States was 567 (per 100,000). Six of the study's ten "best" states had crime rates ABOVE the average, while seven of the study's "worst" states had crime rates BELOW the national average. The top two states "toughest on gun control" are Massachusetts (76%) and Hawaii (71%). Yet 1998 violent crime rates in these states differ significantly: 621.3 and 246.9, respectively.
From the above data I can not honestly conclude that politicians can prevent crime by prohibiting law-abiding constituents from owning guns. I recommend John Lott's More Guns Less Crime for a comprehensive study of the relationship between gun laws and crime. State governments should not be "tough on gun control," but tough on criminals.
Brian Schwartz