Headline: Effectiveness of D.C. gun ban still a mystery

Actually, there's not a lot of mystery here:

Yet the gun culture on the city's mean streets during the crack epidemic has not abated, police statistics show. Even as the homicide toll declined in D.C. after 1991, the percentage of killings committed with firearms remained far higher than it was when the ban was passed.

Guns were used in 63 percent of the city's 188 slayings in 1976. Last year, out of 169 homicides, 81 percent were shootings.

There are more gun crimes today than before they instituted the gun ban. "Complete failure" doesn't really begin to cover it.

In making by far their boldest public policy decision, Washington's first elected officials wanted other jurisdictions, especially neighboring states, to follow the lead of the nation's capital by enacting similar gun restrictions, cutting the flow of firearms into the city from surrounding areas.

"We were trying to send out a message," recalled Sterling Tucker, the council chairman at the time.

And they did just that. Unfortunately, the message was "we have an unarmed citizenry. Come and get us."

Via Fark.

UPDATE: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the DC gun ban case.

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Karol Sheinin blogs at Alarming News and contributes to The Cabal.