Thumper, you need to re-designate the problem. It's not the "gun crime problem": it's simply the "crime problem". Guns are incidental to the crime, as Tamara pointed out so well. (Tamara - rape with rutabaga??? The mind boggles!
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Criminals are going to do their best to commit crimes, armed with whatever "weapon" they can get their hands on. If a gun isn't available, they'll use a knife: if a knife isn't available, they'll use a club, such as a baseball bat: if a club isn't available, they'll use half a brick: if even that isn't available, they'll use their bare hands (and often rely on force of numbers to make up for their disarmed status). I'm a prison chaplain, and just this week had a multiple-inmate fight break out right in front of me, using locks tied to belts as makeshift clubs (and inflicting some fairly serious injuries, I might add!). These felons are already incarcerated for long terms, some of them for life, but incarceration hasn't changed their violent nature, and those of us who work with them (and who can't be armed in the prison, for obvious reasons) are in even greater danger from them than the average citizen on the street.
This points out a couple of home truths, that you might wish to convey to your reporter contact:
1. Guns are often the only defence available against criminals. The average citizen has scruples, and is relatively non-violent: against a man with a knife, or a baseball bat, or half a brick, he needs to be able to stop the attack, and that means having superior force available. Guns are often the answer to crime, far more so than the problem with crime!
2. Criminal violence is endemic to their nature, rather than to their weapon. "Gun crime" is a wrong description of the problem. If we re-label the problem as "criminal violence", it gives a much clearer picture.
3. I can assure you, from many years of talking with criminals on a daily basis, that they fear the armed citizen more than anything else! They are fully aware of the legal and regulatory restrictions under which police function, and they can plot and calculate how long it will take cops to respond to a 911 call. Often, they calculate (accurately) that they can do their work and be gone long before the cops arrive - and many of them have no scruples about ensuring that there are no witnesses left alive to identify them later, or give evidence against them! But they all tell me that they're mortally afraid of the "victim" who turns out to be armed, so that their assumed "*****cat" turns out to be a tiger! They know that most citizens (especially those defending their loved ones) will have no compunction about stopping them colder than dead meat, if they have to... and the smarter criminals will generally try to learn whether or not their intended victim(s) is/are armed, and will choose an easier (and safer - for them!) target if this turns out to be true. My evidence on this point is purely anecdotal, of course, but it's been confirmed by scholarly studies as well.
4. I assume your reporter friend, in asking for an "alternative means of solving the gun crime problem", is really asking for another way to control the guns that are out there. This is another opportunity to point out that the guns aren't the problem - criminals are!
Good luck with your ongoing debate.
