Massachusetts gun-control legislation has had no effect on violent crime

It can't really be rigorous no matter how hard you try or how good the researcher's intentions are.

The elephant in the room here when studying gun laws is that they're pretty much exclusively used to gain bargaining leverage for plea deals and never actually make it to a courtroom because the state is scared of drawing federal ire on appeal so they don't really make it into statistics.

Regardless of where you stand on gun control it seems like a fool's errand to measure the efficacy of something that's intended to be enforced in an informal manner behind closed doors between prosecutors and lawyers ("plead guilty to the DUI and we'll forget about that pistol in your car") deferentially applicable in the first place (vs something like murder or speeding where being rich don't make you more capable of doing those things within the letter of the law) and can't be enforced at scale.

That said, if all you want is to establish correlation between "law passed" and "crime reduced" it's easy to validate/disporve that such correlation exists.

The United States imports nearly all of the cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and fentanyl that we consume, and the quantities we consume are vast. Even with the COVID related border restrictions, all of those drugs are at record-low street prices, and record-high purity. That generally means they are being imported with ease, and with a low percentage of lost product along the way.

This trend has been growing consistently since the passage of NAFTA in the 1990s, which had massive economic benefits, but also rendered the US/Mexico and US/Canada borders quite porous. Commercial trucks carry massive quantities of cargo into the US, every day. We've never bothered to devote enough border control resources to subject them nearly the same level of scrutiny as pre-NAFTA trucking. Nobody wants to pay for the infrastructure, manpower, or shipping delays.

I live in Southern California, and drive ~10-12 hours a week on highways. Anecdotally, about 10-20% of our truck traffic is plated/registered in a Mexican state, not a US state. Many of these trucks are visibly used for local deliveries... I believe there are some state & federal DOT rules to discourage this, but it doesn't seem like anyone is really enforcing them.

Anyway, my point is that our national land borders are hardly effective, and that the situation is by design according to our current national priorities.

Looking at the current SCOTUS docket they're probably regretting that right about now.

I don't think anyone 'blames' guns, they aren't moral agents. But they are extremely easy-to-use and effective ways of killing people.

Control is largely possible where there is a political will, case in point being Australia and their rather sudden shift and it’s rather obvious results. Deaths from all guns, legal and otherwise, are down, due to concerted efforts to remove guns from circulation.

I propose that groups like the NRA have fetishized an absurd interpretation of the second amendment.

Here is the second amendment in its entirety:

“ A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”

This in no way establishes a uncontrollable right for every citizen to own an arm. The phrase “well regulated militia” can be argued to death but there is no denying the well regulated part.

We live in a time where fancy legal experts and corrupt Supreme Court justices feel inclined to ignore the literal text of our constitution and insist upon erudite legal interpretations that make a mockery of language itself. That some dare to call themselves conservative is a slap in the face to our heritage.

What to say, legalese was always intended first and foremost as clear precise language, not as a gatekeeper hurdle or occupational shibboleth.

However, the Chicago Police Department put out a comprehensive study of guns recovered from crimes between 2013 and 2016 and released the details here :

https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/mayor/Press%2...

There are some interesting data points in there, like more than half of the 7k guns recovered each year originated out of state and the biggest sources in state are outside county/city that has stricter gun laws. I believe the top three of the stores listed are under indictment or being sued right now. That suggests illegal guns are being sourced from places where it is easier to buy them, which shouldn't be shocking.

Another interesting data point is that more than 90% of the guns they traced back to FFL dealers were the only gun they purchased, which suggests that straw purchasers are using new people to buy the guns each time. That goes against any kind of notion that a registry of purchasers would do any good.

And more important point is that the "time to crime" was under three years for around 60% of guns they recovered. That means any policy that affects the sourcing of guns will have a pretty short turn around as illegal guns don't seem to have a long street life.