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Download our report card for Oregon on laws shielding families from gun violence.
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Rise in Crime Rate Tied to Easy Access to Guns

“Easy access to guns and a willingness, even an eagerness, to settle disputes with them” emerge as the predominant theme of a reported rise in murder, robbery, and gun assaults since January 2005, according to an article by Kate Zernike published on March 9, 2007, in the New York Times.

The information accompanies the announcement that during 2005 and 2006, in cities across the U.S., the number of murders, robberies, and gun assaults rose, even though overall crime has been declining nationwide. Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Hartford, Memphis, and Orlando were among cities where homicides increased 20 percent or more.

The statistics are contained in a new report by a national law enforcement association, the Police Executive  Research Forum. The forum surveyed 56 cities and sheriff’s departments. Of the cities surveyed, 71 percent saw an increase in homicides and 67 percent, an increase in aggravated assaults with guns. The report is available at www.policeforum.org.

While some of the violence is random, in many cases it is between gangs or among people—often young men—who know one another. What might have been a fistfight 20 years ago now might lead to a shoot-out.           

Economic and social factors are among the causes of the problem: “We seem to be dealing with an awful lot of people who have zero conflict-resolution skills,” said Chief Chris Magnus, the police chief in Richmond, California, as quoted in the New York Times.

 

Ceasefire Oregon works to reduce gun violence by advocating reasonable, effective gun safety laws. We educate the public and legislators about gun violence, lobby on behalf of bills that will help make our communities safer, and work to prevent the passage of irresponsible bills proposed by the gun lobby.


Police Chiefs Recommend
Actions to Reduce Gun Violence

In September 2007, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) issued a report titled Taking a Stand: Reducing Gun Violence in Our Communities. The report is a product of an IACP summit held in April 2007, in which over 180 law enforcement executives and others participated. The recommendations focus on three main areas (quotations are from the report):

“Keeping Communities Safe by improving public understanding about the risks of gun violence, working with community leaders, and reducing easy access to firearms, especially for at-risk individuals.

“Preventing and Solving Gun Crime by stopping the flow of illegal guns, sharing information among jurisdictions, and training officers to respond to gun crimes, including tracing all guns.

“Keeping Police Officers Safe by reducing the firepower available to criminals, providing protective technologies, and improving training and support for officers in handling guns and situations involving guns and their aftermath.”

“Specific recommendations include:

• Requiring judges and law enforcement to remove guns from situations of domestic violence...
• Requiring that all gun sales take place through Federal Firearms License (FFL) holders with mandatory background checks
• Enacting an effective ban on military-style assault weapons, armor-piercing handgun ammunition, .50 caliber sniper rifles and other weapons that enable criminals to outgun law enforcement...
• Repealing the Tiahrt Amendment, which hinders investigation of illegal gun trafficking...
• Mandating safe storage of firearms by private citizens and providing safe facilities where gun owners can store their weapons
• Mandating reporting of lost and stolen firearms”

One of the most important insights to come out of the summit, the report states, “was the realization that law enforcement and the IACP cannot fight this battle alone. Law enforcement leaders need public support; they need partners in every community; and they need elected officials, in Congress and in state legislatures, to stop catering to special interests and instead act in the public interest to reduce the terrible, and escalating, risk of gun violence in America.”

To download a copy of the report, please visit the IACP website, at www.iacp.org and click on "Publications."