Vulnerability to Violent Crime
* At the current homicide rate, roughly one in every 240 Americans will be murdered.[23]
* A U.S. Justice Department study based on crime data from 1974-1985 found:
• 42% of Americans will be the victim of a completed violent crime (assault, robbery, rape) in the course of their lives
• 83% of Americans will be the victim of an attempted or completed violent crime
• 52% of Americans will be the victim of an attempted or completed violent crime more than once[24]
* A 1997 survey of more than 18,000 prison inmates found that among those serving time for a violent crime, "30% of State offenders and 35% of Federal offenders carried a firearm when committing the crime."[25]
└ Criminal Justice System
* Nationwide in 2008, law enforcement agencies reported that 55% of aggravated assaults, 27% of robberies, 40% of rapes, and 64% of murders that were reported to police resulted in an alleged offender being arrested and turned over for prosecution.[26] [27]
* Currently, for every 12 aggravated assaults, robberies, sexual assaults, rapes, and murders committed in the United States, approximately one person is sentenced to prison for committing such a crime.[28] [29] [30]
* A 2002 U.S. Justice Department study of 272,111 felons released from state prisons in 1994 found that within three years of their release:
• at least 67.5% had been arrested for committing a new offense
• at least 21.6% had been arrested for committing a new violent offense
• these former inmates had been charged with committing at least 2,871 new homicides, 2,444 new rapes, 3,151 other new sexual assaults, 2,362 new kidnappings, 21,245 new robberies, 54,604 new assaults, and 13,854 other new violent crimes[31]
* Of 1,662 murders committed in New York City during 2003-2005, more than 90% were committed by people with criminal records.[32]
└ Washington, DC
* In 1976, the Washington, D.C. City Council passed a law generally prohibiting residents from possessing handguns and requiring that all firearms in private homes be (1) kept unloaded and (2) rendered temporally inoperable via disassembly or installation of a trigger lock. The law became operative on Sept. 24, 1976.[33] [34]
* On June 26, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, struck down this law as unconstitutional.[35]
[36]
* During the years in which the D.C. handgun ban and trigger lock law was in effect, the Washington, D.C. murder rate averaged 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law, while the U.S. murder rate averaged 11% lower.[37]
