In response to President Clinton's call yesterday for tougher enforcement of
the Brady law, Larry Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America issued
the following statement:
"The Brady law has been a failure, not for lack of enforcement, but
because gun control laws don't work.
"Jens Ludwig demolished the notion that Brady has had any impact on
violent crime when his study was published in August by the Journal of the
American Medical Association.
"England has a nearly total gun ban and has found that its violent
crime rate is now higher than that of the United States. Their police estimate
that some 3,000,000 illegal guns are in the country. The Manchester media have
relabeled their city 'Gunchester.'
"The Brady law is only useful for building a registration list of the
law-abiding who buy guns. Such lists have no use in fighting crime, only
identifying who owns guns when politicians decide to ban guns. Criminals get
their guns no matter what the law.
"The Brady law should be repealed and prohibitions on concealed carry
should be next on the list of bad laws to get rid of. Also needing repeal are
gun-free zone laws which only make it safer for criminals. All of England is
an officially gun-free zone, and we can now see that that approach only leads
to misery, not to safety."
