SCOTT: Gun crimes don’t happen because of ‘weak’ laws

Like clockwork, it has happened. Anytime there is a shooting, there is a call for stricter gun control laws. But in the aftermath of the recent shootings in New Jersey and New York, the calls for more stringent laws ring hollow. New York and New Jersey have laws that are among the strictest in the nation. This highlights an important point in the battle against all violence, including gun violence: We should be more concerned about the cultivation of character than the crafting of laws.

Most people would refrain from shooting someone whether there was a law in place or not. It is the rare person who would say, "The only thing keeping me from opening fire on innocent people is the law." No, most of us don't murder because we know murder is wrong — not because the law tells us it is, but because our moral compass does.

By combining data from the Census Bureau and the FBI, we see that in states with the death penalty for murder, the murder rate in 2010 was 25 percent higher than in non-death-penalty states. According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, California, where in April a man in Oakland shot 10 innocent people in a college classroom, ranks among the states with the strictest gun laws. Likewise, New York and New Jersey have some of the strictest gun laws in the nation but have a higher murder rate than Ohio and Virginia, where gun laws are among the weakest. The states with the lowest murder rates are Vermont and New Hampshire. Those two states rank among the ones with the weakest gun laws.

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