Slashdot Mirror
An Unbiased Analysis of Gun Crime vs. Gun Control?
"Just so everyone knows where I stand, and why I am asking this, I offer the following. I enjoy guns and regularly compete in shooting matches and hunt occasionally. I am a member of the NRA, not for political reasons, but due to the fact that most competitions are closed to non-members (which I do think is screwed up). Having said this I am undecided on what a logical path for the future is. I do believe that an unarmed nation is a bad idea, but as Michael Moore pointed out in 'Bowling for Columbine' Canada has a much higher per capita gun ownership rate compared to the US and has nowhere near the amount of violent crime that the US has. All of the statistics that I have seen about countries that have altogether outlawed guns have been manipulated by those extreme groups. As such I find it hard to believe anything that either side presents.
Thanks, I look forward to reading all of your comments and the references that you provide."
Beware of statistics on children killed by guns. Usually they don't differentiate between the 10-year old who accidentally shoots his sister with daddy's pistol and the 17-year old gang banger who gets shot by the owner of a liquor store while attempting an armed robbery.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Define "use". Pull it out and threaten, or actually shoot? I suspect that gun toting thugs in the UK are less jumpy and trigger happy as they don't have to worry about being shot at. From what I hear, most of the gun crime there is related to drug wars and not criminals vs. law abiding people.
I totally disagree. Normatively people don't take a look at the facts, evaluate them objectively, and then draw a variety of different conclusions. They decide what they want their conclusion to be in the beginning and then find facts to support that conclusion.
Look at the NRA. Do you think everyone in the NRA went to the library, carefully and thoughtfully evaluated the statistics, then reluctantly decided to support gun ownership because the facts supported it? No! They decided to support gun ownership because they love guns. Facts, if any, were found afterward to reinforce the position they already had regardless of them.
On the off chance that you are not totally stupid, and the "third amendment" is merely an honest mistake for the "second amendment":
How bout some facts to back up your thoughts?
Removing guns from lawful, responsible people does nothing to keep them out of the hands of actual criminals. By definition, being criminals, they will not surrender the firearms in their posession. So they they have them, and no one else does.
Not a good concept for self protection. And the police being what they are, they cannot be everywhere at once.
A firearm in the hands (or closet) of a lawful, responsible person is no threat to you, if you do not break into his home or otherwise attack him.
Would you, as a presumably anti-gun person, be willing to put a sign in your front yard "This house is gun free!" ?
If not, you are reaping the benefits of allowing guns in the hands of lawful citizens. The crimnals do not know which household may or may not have a gun inside, and so may be less inclined to break in. You may not own one, but no one knows that but you.
No, the Bill of Rights enumerated *personal* rights that the gov't could not infringe. Why would just one out of the ten be a state right?
Also, the concept of the militia is to form a military group out of your citizens. Therefore, you need a citizenry that owns and shoots guns regularly, so when you *do* need to form a militia, they are ready to fight. In fact, in a militia, the men were assumed to bring their own weapons.
Also, it does not refer to the National Guard since that was formed by an act of Congress 140 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified.
--- witty signature
One important point that Michael Moore missed, is that while Canadians to have a higher gun ownership per capita then the US, they are almost exclusively long guns - rifles and shotguns used almost exclusively for hunting and protection from animals.
It's extremely dificult to legally get a handgun in Canada. It's been like that the last 30 years, at least. Controls on handguns and assault weapons in Canada has a long history.
Where I agree with Moore, is that Americans carry guns out of fear of people, where Canadians mostly use guns as tools against animals.
The idea that people must carry guns to protect themselves from other people is largely unique to the US, and I think goes to the high rate of gun violence here.
_Am
"Guns were an essential part of the American Revolution. We as Americans gained our freedom by fighting for it. Without guns, we'd be a heavily taxed bastard colony of England still."
... ummm, shall I go on ?) much lower on the people-killed-by-guns scale.
Right, look at Canada and Australia. We're still bastard colonies of Great Britain, aren't we ? Not everybody has to go through a bloody battle to become independent.
Clinging to such a dated and nowadays absurd idea that guns are still essential because they were essential in some long-irrelevant war, and, furthermore, that they are a RIGHT, not a PRIVILEGE, further promotes unneccessary and uncontrolled use of guns.
I have a friend who applied for a firearms license here in Ontario. He had to go through a rigorous psychological examination at least, not to mention the background check. However, apart from the procedures, the attitude that owning a firearm is a privilege (like driving) rather than a right, probably contributes significantly to keeping Canada (not to mention Australia, Germany, France, South Africa, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland,
Is there any legislation in the States that would prohibit people from using guns if they prove negligent in their care or irresponsible in their use (before even killing or wounding another) ?
You can lose your Driver's License if you are caught driving drunk, before you hit anyone or do any damage. You cannot lose your firearms license for keeping guns and ammo in the same closet or accidentally shooting a window pane to smithereens because, well, there is no such thing as a firearms license !
I'm on the fence with regards to gun control, but I shun statistical analysis like the plague. Especially the analysis from Guncite, which is loaded with partial interpretations, spin, and all the rest of it. Don't consider it anything approaching an objective source.
For instance, one particular graph on the site contrasts the increasing number of guns in the public's hands with gun-homocide rates. Because the homocide rates don't rise with the number of guns in society, the conclusion is that gun "supply" has nothing to do with homocide rates*.
I've thought of drawing a similar example in which I would graph kids' intake of milk on one axis and their rate of growth on the other. My conclusion? As you increase the amount of milk the kids drink to amounts like 10 gallons a day, you don't see a corresponding increase in the kids' rate of growth. Therefore, I've demonstrated that calcium intake has no effect on growth rates in kids. I'll call it the "Calcium Supply Myth".
Of course that's a nonsensical conclusion-- I've just shown that if you're already providing enough calcium, adding excess doesn't necessarily have give you eight-foot tall kids. But if kids weren't getting enough calcium, would their growth rates slow down? Ditto for guns. Once there are enough guns in society to thorougly satisfy criminals' demands for weaponry, it doesn't matter so much how many more you add. Certainly it demonstrates that adding more guns to our already phenomenal supply doesn't seem to "turn people into murderers." But that's about all I can draw from that graph.
What would happen if you actually reduced the number of guns in public hands to the point where criminals were going without? I don't know, and clearly neither does GunCite. Personally, I'm increasingly of the opinion that our liberal attitude towards gun ownership, combined with lack of regulation and training, does indeed result in deaths. That doesn't necessarily mean I want guns outlawed, however; there are good constitutional and moral arguments for gun ownership. But the "we can have it all" argument that our armed society comes without a price is just wishful thinking.
* Incidentally, there are other problems with this graph: it doesn't say how the guns are distributed-- if one person buys a hundred guns, it's a little different from a hundred people each buying one gun. It also doesn't say how many guns are dropping out of supply, etc, and I'm not clear if it includes military/police purchases.
good america writes:
"Look at the NRA. Do you think everyone in the NRA went to the library, carefully and thoughtfully evaluated the statistics, then reluctantly decided to support gun ownership because the facts supported it? No!"
Thank god you spoke up. I couldn't find the place where they keep the statistics on how many violent crimes are averted because of a gun. Where do they keep this in your library? Also, where does the factbook on whether or not we'd still be a democracy without them fit into the Dewey system?
"They decided to support gun ownership because they love guns. Facts, if any, were found afterward to reinforce the position they already had regardless of them."
I think dismissive arguments like this are part of the problem. The NRA thinks that liberals are idiots and would like nothing more than give criminals yet another leg up (but they really do, honestly think that the world is better off with less guns). The liberals think that the NRA is a bunch of violent people who would like nothing better than to shoot another human being (when they really do, honestly believe that the lynchpin of freedom is an armed populace).
Take whatever side you'd like but quit demeaning the other end of the spectrum. Those who commit the crime of disagreeing with you are neither de facto idiots nor liars and everyone suffers when you paint them as one.
My
Limekiller
I grew up knowing nothing about guns, because they simply "don't exist" in PR. Gun control is tremendously strict, and mere mortals aren't allowed to own them.
So why do all the houses have bars on the windows? Why is the murder rate higher than Detroit's? Why have friends of mine been mugged -- some killed in the process? Why did the PR legislature pass a law explicitly allowing you to run red lights after midnight to try to protect yourself against carjackings?
It wasn't until I came to the US that I understood, and even then it took me a while. Criminals will get guns, regardless of the law. If they can get guns in PR (100x35 miles of border to patrol), and nowadays in the UK, how can we pretend that the criminals will ever be disarmed in the US?
I now live in the most heavily armed county in New Mexico, Los Alamos. Guess what? The biggest crime spree in the last year was just stopped -- some kids were stealing CDs from cars, which most people leave unlocked. This made front-page news in our paper.
There are precious few home invasions here -- criminals are cowards, and strongly prefer doing their crimes where people don't shoot at them. I've never heard of a mugging here. They sometimes happen in Santa Fe or Albuquerque, but not infrequently the criminal ends up dead.
No, it's not the Wild West. It's remarkable how civilized we are when we know that everyone is armed. Heinlein said it well: "An armed society is a polite society". And it's not fear that keeps us polite -- it's responsibility.
I hope never to use my weapons against another person... but if anyone ever presents a threat against me or my loved ones, I will not hesitate. And I will never give up my freedom to defend myself.
speedplane writes:
...heh. It's illegal. =)
"I'm not sure I fully understand. If there are no guns then how will there be crimes with guns."
Gun crimes will happen when guns are outlawed the same way prostitution will happen when outlawed.
Gun crimes will happen when guns are outlawed the same way drug use will happen when outlawed.
Gun crimes will happen when guns are outlawed the same way racketeering will happen when outlawed.
I offer my sincere, sincere apologies if your post is intended as humor and I just utterly missed it. But if you're serious, by your logic, crime would never occur because
My
Limekiller
See, in the real world, we have something called criteria that decisions are based upon. Someone demonstrating that he is about to (intentionally) kill or rob you is a criterion in the decision that he must be stopped, with deadly force if necessary. "I think" is not. *Sigh* I didn't think that I would have to explain this. What is it that you're trying to demonstrate, again?