Politics, paranoia fuel war of words over guns

October 18, 2004
Albany (NY) Times Union

It was July 1998. Newspapers were full of stories about a seeming rash of shootings in schools. About 40 representatives of law enforcement, public health and other fields were summoned to Washington, D.C., to talk about ways to deal with gun violence in America.

Alan Lizotte, a University at Albany criminologist, recalls with certain satisfaction the way former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno took notes as he and his colleagues spoke.

"It was all very impressive," Lizotte said, adding that he was quickly frustrated by the discussion.

The premise of the session was not quite right, he said. Like many attempts to address the problem, it was organized after an unusual but high-profile tragedy and was the product of conventional thinking: Someone broke a law, so tougher laws are needed.

"Every time we start to do something sensible about gun control, somebody shoots John Lennon and then we legislate to that," he said.

So Lizotte and some of his colleagues offered this advice to Reno: "School shootings are not the issue. The issue is kids selling drugs on street corners in big cities."

School shootings are rare. Disarming drug dealers would save more lives than banning certain types of guns or making it harder for otherwise law-abiding people to own one, they said.

The panel identified promising strategies to reduce gun violence that appeared to be working in Buffalo, New York City and other places. The programs encourage citizens to get involved in community improvement while police step up efforts to seize illegal weapons from known criminals.

Following that strategy, Lizotte said, New York City cut homicides from 2,245 in 1990 to 598 in 2003.

"No new laws were passed," he said. "New York is the shining example that something can happen while enforcing existing laws."

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