Lawmakers push for new gun legislation after Navy Yard shooting

Story by:  Andrew Mechum

The shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington D.C. on Monday September 16 has once again prompted several lawmakers and television news pundits to call for new, tougher gun legislation.  This despite research by the FBI that shows a drop in the overall murder rate.  Research conducted by the CDC and Harvard University also shows a direct correlation between increased gun control laws and increased gun violence.

FBI Uniform Crime Report table 1

“There have been several mass shootings just about every year,” as far back as the 1920’s according to Dr. Scott Turner, a political science professor at the University of Montevallo.

Whether politicians in Washington have chosen to ignore the findings from the research conducted on gun violence or they are pushing a larger agenda to take away people’s guns as the NRA would have us believe, is yet to be determined.

Regardless of their goal, Turner cautions that any new legislation should take into consideration, “How effective is this strategy going to be or,” is this just going to be feel good legislation so Washington can say, “we did something?”