Do gun laws have an effect on gun crime/violence? If yes, how?

[Teddy Pollins]

I'm always hearing people bring up Chicago and how it has more gun laws then most places and also has more crime. Now I know correlation does not imply causation. I normally have the argument that ice cream sells and home invasions go up at the same time in Chicago so therefor ice cream causes people to commit more crimes. In reality both just go up in the summer.
But that doesn't really address the question. Do gun laws effect crime and how does it effect crime?

 

[Donald Polish]

Federal banning have been widely successful in the past, I cannot think of a time that the federal government prohibited something and citizens still got a hold of it. Why haven't we done this already?
Do not tell me that crime does not care about laws, otherwise it wouldn't be crime.It really works.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Gun laws are just feel-good measures politicians use to show their constiuents, "Hey look, I'm helping!" In reality of course, they only effect law-abidding citizens, not criminals who take no notice of laws by definition.

 

[airplanemechanic]

Gun laws are just feel-good measures politicians use to show their constiuents, "Hey look, I'm helping!" In reality of course, they only effect law-abidding citizens, not criminals who take no notice of laws by definition.

Um, that's not true. A criminal can ignore one law. If you ever sped, you're a criminal. You ignored the law and broke it. Does it mean you break EVERY law? Of course not.

 

[eots]

Gun laws are just feel-good measures politicians use to show their constiuents, "Hey look, I'm helping!" In reality of course, they only effect law-abidding citizens, not criminals who take no notice of laws by definition.

Um, that's not true. A criminal can ignore one law. If you ever sped, you're a criminal. You ignored the law and broke it. Does it mean you break EVERY law? Of course not.

Speeding is a civil violation not a crime

 

[airplanemechanic]

Speeding is a civil violation not a crime

Wrong.

Enforcing a Speeding Violation - Lawyers.com

In most states, a speeding violation is a criminal offense, or, at the very least, a "quasi-criminal offense," that is, an act that can be punished by the courts as though it is a crime.

That depends on the state.