Assistant DA discusses gun control at Crime-Stoppers meeting (with correction)

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article has been corrected to point out that the opinions regarding gun control in the latter paragraphs were listings of arguments offered by opponents and supporters of gun control. They were not expressed as the opinions of Dougherty County Assistant District Attorney Cortney Elam.

ALBANY — Albany Crime Stoppers held its monthly meeting Tuesday at the downtown Law Enforcement Center to discuss the state of local crimes and various other topics, including gun control.

Albany Crime Stoppers is a nonprofit organization that runs a tip hotline (229-436-TIPS) through which citizens can report area crimes and receive a cash reward if the tip leads to an arrest.

Each month Crime Stoppers hosts a different speaker, and Tuesday’s guest speaker was Dougherty County Assistant District Attorney Cortney Elam.

As an assistant district attorney, Elam’s responsibilities include investigating, preparing and prosecuting misdemeanor cases as well as coordinating and monitoring the availability of necessary witnesses and evidence to ensure that each case will be ready to proceed to trial. She represents the state of Georgia at plea negotiations, trial conferences and at routine calendar appearances to negotiate fair and equitable disposition of cases. She also researches and examines relevant laws and codes.

Elam’s topic of discussion at the Crime Stoppers meeting, augmented by a power point presentation, was gun control.

“I am going to talk to you a little bit about gun violence and give you statistics about what is going on nationally as well as here in Dougherty County,” she said.

According to Elam, 51 percent of all the world’s guns are in the United States and less than 10 percent of all guns stolen are ever recovered.

“In 2015,” she said, “from January first to December 23rd, 12,942 people in the U.S. were killed by some type of gun violence: either homicide, unintentional, murder or suicide. But of the gun deaths in the United States, mass shootings account for less than 2 percent of the deaths.”

Since 2009, according to Elam, the number of gun deaths have been on the rise. Most of these deaths, she noted, resulted from the use of handguns. The number of deaths from long guns, rifles or shotguns, have actually decreased.

“Now, let’s see what’s going on in Albany,” said Elam. “Between Jan. 1, 2009 and May 6, 2016, these numbers come from my office, the numbers of cases we have seen and prosecuted: aggravated assaults with weapons, 1557 cases; armed robberies, 195 cases; and malice murder or felony murder, 56 cases.”

Gun control has been a divisive topic in American discourse lately. Elam discussed the pros and cons of gun control put forth by supporters and opponents of it.

“So, about gun control. It’s a hot topic nowadays. The pros of gun control are less guns mean a safer world, ” said Elam. “Gun control laws are correlated to lower rates of violence. Guns are not needed to defend against government. The key to protecting our society is information, and guns are not needed, even for self defense.”

Elam also briefly discussed the cons of gun control.

“Your cons for gun control are guns protect in a violent world; people are violent, not guns; guns protect against tyranny, and criminals care nothing about rules for guns.”