John McGinnis Quotes
Gun control does not decrease gun ownership by criminals but instead reduces their incentives to refrain from violence because it decreases the supply of armed law-abiding citizens who might resist them.
McGinnis, John O. "A Gun in the Hand." National Review, vol. 50, no. 13, 20 July 1998, pp. 50-51.
Like many other ideologues, the Senator was a better politician than he was a historian. He had a tendency to not be very accurate in his facts. In this particular gaff, which was castigated by critics, he was wrong about both facts he gave. First, not only was it not the case that there were few gun crimes “back then”. See {640086} and {640085} . Second his implication that everyone carried guns, and the guns were responsible for the “low” gun crime rate, was also false. Gun crime was so prevalent that most towns and cities in the West had gun control ordinances prohibiting carrying guns in the city limits. The famous Gunfight at the OK Corral which the Senator cited was in Tombstone, AZ in 1881. At that time, it was illegal to carry a gun in Tombstone. See {640063} for the gun control ordinance. As a matter of fact, the OK Corral gunfight was fought because Sheriff Wyatt Earp was disarming some cowboys who brought their guns to town. Glen Kessler, The Washington Post fact checker gave this quotation “3 Pinocchios”.
John Oldham McGinnis is a professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and author of over 90 academic and popular articles and essays. His popular writings have been published in The Wall Street Journal, National Review, and Policy Review.
