Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Law Enforcement Survey: Armed Citizens, Mandatory Sentencing Will Lower Crime- Gun Laws Will Not

By Susan Duclos

According to a gun policy and law enforcement survey, conducted by PoliceOne, a majority of law enforcement officials, from departments of different sizes and who hold a variety of ranks, believe gun laws proposed by the Obama administration would have no effect on violent crime.

Complete poll results will be embedded below the article.

Question: What effect do you think a federal ban on manufacture and sale of some semi-automaticfirearms, termed by some as "assault weapons," would have on reducing violent crime?

71 percent of the law enforcement members surveyed said "None" and 20.5 percent believe gun bans would have "Negative" effect. Only 1.6 percent believe it could have a "significant" effect and 6 percent a moderate effect.

Question: Do you think a federal ban on manufacture and sale of ammunition magazines that holdmore than 10 rounds would reduce violent crime?

By an overwhelming majority, 95.7 percent said No and just 2.7 percent said yes and 1.6 percent unsure.

Then the law enforcement officials were asked to rate the importance of legally-armed citizens to reduce crime rates overall, on a scale of one to five — one being low and five being high:



Other key findings:

•76.6 percent support arming teachers and/or school administrators, if they are vetted, trained and qualified annually.  4.7 percent believe they should only have to pass a one-time police-level proficiency check. Only 15.8 percent believe only sworn school resource officers should be armed.

• Only 1.5 percent think schools should be considered "gun free zones.

• 91.3 percent support concealed carry of firearms by civilians who have not been convicted of a felony and/or not been deemed psychologically/medically incapable?

• 70 percent do not support a national database tracking legal gun sales, 23 percent do.

• 71 percent have very favorable (48.8%) or favorable (22.2%) opinions of law enforcement leaders' public statements that they would not enforce any new restrictive gun laws, with 16.8 percent saying very unfavorable (7.2%) or unfavorable (9.6%).

One has to wonder how Washington DC lawmakers, who are not out there on the streets fighting crime, could completely ignore the expert advice of those that are on the streets and responsible for the safety of those of their citizens.

The complete survey embedded below: (H/T Ammoland)