Op-Ed: Can poor people be trusted with guns?

by John Lott

Can poor people be trusted with guns? Overwhelmingly, Republicans thinks so. But while Democrats fight against taxes on the poor and oppose voter photo IDs because they impose too much of burden, they seem to be doing everything possible – from fees, expensive training requirements, and photo IDs -- to make it next to impossible for the poor to own guns.

Indeed, legislation in at least 17 states around the country is aimed specifically at making it more costly to own a gun. Democrats are voting in mass against exempting the poor from fees when it comes to guns. New Yorkers aren't alone facing everything from registration fees to buying liability insurance.

That's too bad, because many law-abiding citizens, particularly minorities in crime-ridden neighborhoods really do need a gun for self-defense. There is little doubt that the people who are most likely to be victims of violent crime – again, overwhelmingly poor blacks in urban areas -- are also the ones who benefit the most from owning guns. Research, including my own, has demonstrated this.

While police are the single most important factor in reducing crime, the police themselves recognize that they almost always arrive at the crime scene after the crime has been committed. But criminals are deterred by the possibility that victims have guns. And if indeed a criminal does strike, threatening to shoot is the safest course of action, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey.

But Democrats seem to think that waiting for police to arrive from a 911 call is good enough for the poor.

Click here to read the entire op-ed at FoxNews.com.