Do Less Guns Really Mean Less Crime?

reply to post by crazyewok

Most of the gun control legislation that has been put forward and passed has to do with rifles.

You may be familiar with the "assault" weapons ban which plays upon uninformed people and their fear of machine guns (fully automatic) which, of course, they are not. That was in fact the admitted intention of the wording of that bill.

There are more murders per year in the US committed with hammers than with rifles. What possible utility could such a bill have other than to set a precedent for later expansion? Should hammers be banned as well?

reply to post by greencmp


What?

Erm what point did I say guns should be banned in the USA?

Here we go Americans picking on the Brit and sticking words into my mouth.

My stance is what will work in the UK wont nessarly work in the USA and vis versa!

My rant was just at silly Americans comeing out with crap about the UK which they no nothing about.

At no point did I put a opinion for or againt USA gun control.

OK Fox News/Gun people...

Areas with higher gun ownership rates have more firearms-related deaths, study finds

Right from the conservative mouthpiece.

MystikMushroom
OK Fox News/Gun people...

Areas with higher gun ownership rates have more firearms-related deaths, study finds

Right from the conservative mouthpiece.

Next they'll come out and tell us that areas with more religious people have a higher percentage of church goers!

Or that the sky is blue, or poop stinks..

Thankfully we have these wonderful media outlets to tell us how to think, and when not to!

reply to post by greencmp

There are more murders per year in the US committed with hammers than with rifles, What possible utility could such a bill have other than to set a precedent for later expansion? Should hammers be banned as well?

Those statistics were from all known blunt objects in general of which hammers are part of the category..not that more people were killed by hammers.

source

Strange that news websites are picking something up that was written in 2006, and the more I read of it the more unreliable it seems. Does 'murder rate' include unintentional homicides? Plus if they'd have used UNODC statistics (pretty reliable I think) they might have shown Luxembourg homicide rates never exceeding 2.0. Also I think it's been mentioned but Russia's crime rates were because of it's massive corruption and billionaire organised crime movements. Since 2004 it's homicide rates have declined from 18 to 9.7.

I'm just bringing those up in the name of 'deconstructing disinformation', of which I think there is a lot of in that paper, rather than wading into the gun-control debate. There is some good research out there making similar arguments albeit a bit more balanced, like Moody, 2009.

Firearms and homicide, Moody, 2009

greencmp
reply to post by crazyewok

 

There are more murders per year in the US committed with hammers than with rifles.

They can have my hammer when they pry it from my cold dead fingers!
And stay out of my toolbox!

Guess if we follow the anti-gun logic all construction workers will need to pass a background check and wait 3 days before they get a new hammer.

reply to post by TinkerHaus


Maybe you shouldn't be asking why someone is taking your guns away. You should be asking "why do I need them in the first place" and "who's fault is it that I need them".

In my country, if something bad happens, we call the police. I guess we are a bit more sure of our society's ability to protect us than many Americans are. It's quite sad actually.

.....
The more guns in civilian hands the lower the rate of violent crimes. ....

I noticed they say 'the rate of.....violent... crime..". This statement could be more deceiving than it appears. This could imply that if you give a killer a gun, he would be far less likely to resort to more violent means of killing. For example, beating his victim to death with a crowbar, as opposed to merely shooting them. So one can argue that increasing the numbers of guns in civilians hands, will reduce the need to resort to civilian barbarism. Meanwhile, civilian killings continue unaffected.
Its a killer mind that pulls the trigger. That same mind will wield a hammer, an ice pick or a knife to do the killing.

Not many American fans of Brits here, it seems.

Personally, I don't mind what you do with gun control laws – I'm pretty sure that even a slight change in the law will be taken as an assault to your constitution and not passed. Fair enough.

I like data and research, and this study has flaws in both, which is why I commented – and by the comments from the source page, others think as I do. If a dataset is flawed you cannot use it as an argument.

Ultimately, it looks like a Catch 22 situation and maybe the only solution is to arm and educate everyone.

reply to post by Chazam


First let me say congratulations on living in a country with a police force that is able to respond in seconds. They are able to get to a home being broken into in seconds right? That's why you are calling them.

Police serve two functions in society: to deter crime and to investigate crime. Lots of dead can happen between those two. Police seldom (if ever) actually STOP a crime from happening.

Which country did you say has the ability to send police to a home in time to stop a crime?

What else does your government do for you that you cannot do for yourself?

reply to post by Bassago


Erm again i never said that.

reply to post by TerraLiga


I like to think of it as good natured rivalry between you Brits and us Yanks. It was the same with every British unit I served with. Tons of smack talk, but nothing too serious I would hope.

It's the "damn your stupid piece of paper, we know better" crowd that riles us up and it doesn't matter what country they come from.

We could say "don't give us advice England, you lost a war to FRANCE", but we won't stoop that low

It's a bitter subject and it has very little middle ground. The important thing is to know that this is a discussion topic and it may get heated but it's not real.

At least that's my take on the matter. You keep your Queen, we'll keep our guns. No harm, no foul.

PhoenixOD
reply to post by MikeNice81

 

Ahh i see i was worng..its the SECOND leading cause of death in the US after car crashes..that makes it all right then i guess, its hardly even worth considering.

firearm injury in the United States has averaged 32,300 deaths annually between 1980 and 2007
It is the second leading cause of injury death after motor vehicle crashes.

source

Of course the non fatal injury by gun stats are way higher still.

edit on 23-9-2013 by PhoenixOD because: (no reason given)

Of those 32,300 deaths about 60% are suicide. Studies of the suicide rate in Australia pre and post gun bans of the late 90s shows that there is no evidence that gun regulation accelerated the decline in suicides. In other words, 16,000+ of those people would die anyway. Too label it injury death is a clever semantic play. When the wound is intentionally self inflicted the CDC actually shifts it in to a different category.

As far as reason for accidental deaths, the only true way to compare it to automobile deaths, in 2010 guns accounted for 606 unintentional fatal injuries. Accidental motor vehicle related deaths accounted for 35,332. If you check out the CDC's list of top ten total reasons for death in 2010 guns aren't even in the top ten. When it comes to non-fatal accidents treated in the emergency room guns aren't in the top ten.

Only when you label firearm homicide as a general unintentional injury death can you get it near the top.Then you have to add in intentional and unintentional taking of another persons life. Then it is still number five at less than 1/3 of motor vehicle deaths. The actual number of unintentional gun deaths in 2010 was 606. The CDC actually includes intentional murders in their numbers for unintentional injury deaths. 8,775 of those "unintentional injury deaths" were actually murder according to the FBI. You have to add together murder, self defense, police intervention, accidental deaths, and then you get close to the cdc number.


All Deaths by Age
Nonfatal Injury
Injury Deaths

Be careful how you look at stats. Sometimes the way they are broken down can mislead. In rural areas the big threat of gun "violence" is suicide. Increased employment, education, and mental health opportunities would go along way to change that.

The problem in urban areas is homicide and assault. It is a criminal matter. Improved education, after school programs, mental health assistance, would go further than gun restrictions. Kids ranging in age from 14 -17 can not legally buy a gun. At 18 you can buy a long gun, but most gun attacks are done with handguns. The point is, illegal guns are the problem and not the legal gun owners.


ETA:
Your source had some good information. However, by including suicide it negates much of what he is saying. Even he admits that there is a substitution effect when firearm suicides declined. Which means that the 19,000+ people that committed suicide with a firearm in 2010 probably would have performed the act even if guns weren't available.

200Plus
reply to post by Chazam

 

First let me say congratulations on living in a country with a police force that is able to respond in seconds. They are able to get to a home being broken into in seconds right? That's why you are calling them.

Police serve two functions in society: to deter crime and to investigate crime. Lots of dead can happen between those two. Police seldom (if ever) actually STOP a crime from happening.

Which country did you say has the ability to send police to a home in time to stop a crime?

What else does your government do for you that you cannot do for yourself?

Yes, this is true. Technically speaking, it is illegal for police to 'prevent' crime.

They may only apprehend criminals after they commit crimes.

Why is the argument always more guns or less guns? Fact is they're here already here the real issue is the "victim zones" or "gun free" zones. It's not about putting more guns into people's hands, it's about leaving the guns in the hands of law abiding citizens willing to shoulder that responsibility.

Shadowcast
Why is the argument always more guns or less guns? Fact is they're here already here the real issue is the "victim zones" or "gun free" zones. It's not about putting more guns into people's hands, it's about leaving the guns in the hands of law abiding citizens willing to shoulder that responsibility.

edit on 23-9-2013 by Shadowcast because: (no reason given)

This is very true, I think I am spending time on the subject to dispel misinformation (of which there seems to be an unending torrent). I also think that there are people out there who haven't decided to exercise their 2nd amendment rights and could use a little encouragement.

Also, this really got our attention:

Hi guys,

I'm not a fan of guns either..... but I guess I will put in a thought out rationale.

I believe I am forced to agree with Shadowcast's prior post.

I believe that the existence of guns, in and of itself, is a threat to people's health and lives. Certainly, the cave people of the past didn't have to worry about dying of gun violence - but, when people get angry enough in those days, it was stones and hard wooden branches... and neither did those implements give favouritism to those who were in the right..... In fact, it is those who constantly fight, who learn better methods of fighting - and tend to win in a fight - but often risk losing their senses too (Mike Tyson's and his female friends come to mind as a matter of what the MSM states - can't verify the stories though).

The nuclear weapons in the American Govt's hands hasn't made that govt any "safer" or more "sane". Why is N. Korea arming itself - and are they justified?

If you live in a region where there isn't guns - or a ban somehow "worked", you could technically live safely without a gun. However, to say that this works is somewhat living in a bubble. I don't think it is possible to have a "gun free" society in this day and age... and especially where money is transacted the most, and people can be highly polarized, it can be quite dangerous.

The majority of people live by the statistics for their "type" of people. That is: people are intelligent beings and have the capacity of understanding the level of threat they feel in a region in spite of "official" statistics, and tend to try to follow the best practices without unnecessarily putting themselves in harms/fear's way.

Having responsibility using a gun was the idea, (if you watch movies of the historical townships of the US) behind hiring sharp shooting Sherriffs - and still somewhat is. People feel a great deal of trust for their governments as long as their economic stability remains... even in the midst of evidence to the opposite... and the government protection schemes attempts at controlling out of control events and the unpredictability of said events.

That being said, I believe that people are aware of "zones", where control systems don't work... or they'll learn fast the hard way.

What are the chances of you getting hit by a bullet - with a concealed weapon on you? Is it not the same as the chances of getting hit by a bullet without? Except in a situation where your weapon has been readily made visible, or it is understood by those who pack a weapon that the people around them aren't stupid enough to take things lying down.

Often people who talk about gun based defense - they talk about situations in which they have found a dangerous individual and they discovered this after he pulled his weapon out and did a lot of damage or has openly threatened to do so.

There are a lot of situations where we could see different results... had this/that been the case.

But, I would urge people to look for the evidence that people being allowed to hold weapons randomly has supported just causes... Perhaps they don't report this? But I personally think that it is such a rare situation that even though it warrants a report, it seldomly happens in reality - and I don't think it is because people have a shortage of weapons.

My former next door neighbour did hunting (live in Canada) - he has plenty of weapons - but I don't believe he has saved even one person's life in the 30 or so years he's owned it, and neither does he carry the weapon on his person, though he does have his weapons registered (the long gun registry - don't know what happened to that now). He's never told me of a situation where he could have once used the weapon to defend someone against another weapon.

I've lived 41 years in Canada, where people who want a weapon can get one easily - and I haven't come across a single situation where I could have protected someone from another fire arm, if I had been carrying one all along. On the other hand, I could have protected other people from violence if I had carried one, but if violent people thought it was necessary to protect themselves from other gun owners - because those owners might object and escalate his frustration, they would have very certainly carried one on the specific occasion they meant to use it, and certainly have ensured that they had higher advantage over those who they thought might be a threat.... Dog begets dog, and blood begets blood. People aren't stupid, and violent people aren't necessarily always stupid either.

And if you watch an armed man shoot another man... What do you assume? Was he doing justice or injustice? How close to the situation would you have to be in order to know? Do you run away or do you stick around to find out from a vantage point, if you can get to one on time, and if the individual who shot the other hasn't anticipated your objection.

As an example: If a hungry child walks in a grocery store and takes candy - and gets threatened and then shot for eating it... What would your reaction be?

Just taking a kick at the tires with my two cents... Still not a big fan of guns.... but I LOVE the cans of worms and this is one of them.

GuidedKill
reply to post by Beavers

 

I would say guns have done exactly what the second amendment was designed to do. I mean when was the last time you saw a massive govt sweep imprisoning people who don't agree with the them in the US? When was the last time you seen tanks and military turned on protesters or people against US policy? I'll give you some time to answer.....

Now lets look at other countries? Syria, China, Germany, Russia, Africa ETC. I mean I could really go on for days listing examples on how Gov force was used against defenseless people. Not unless you're saying history is just a lie??

edit on 23-9-2013 by GuidedKill because: (no reason given)

edit on 23-9-2013 by GuidedKill because: (no reason given)

I remember seeing a lot of armed vehicles and a lot of guns on show after the Boston Marathon Bombings, people being told to stay indoors (for their own benefit)

You mentioned Germany, nice of you to mention something from 68 years ago.
Oh and if you think having a few Handguns and Bolt action rifles would have stopped Hitler from doing what he did, you are crazy. That is not even factoring in Gun technology from then and now.
When you say Africa do you have a particular country you want to talk about? I expect guns although a big problem has MANY other dire problems.

and lastly to spin something back on you

When was the last time you seen tanks and military turned on protesters or people against UK, Australia, Netherlands, French, German policy? I'll give you some time to answer.....
I wonder if it was pre WW2, which I addressed above.

I'd like to take a shot (pun intended) at this thread. I saw two questions posed by the OP: Do less guns equal less crime? Why do 'they' want to disarm us?

When we deny ignorance, what are we achieving?

Let me start my reply by restating an old adage: An armed society, is a polite society. What is the word that leaps out at you as the operative? Probably more than 90% of you (the ones passionate about this topic) said, "Armed." But, what if you said, "Society?"

You see, it's the way society is that leads to violence/crime. People who see other people as 'things' or 'problems' cause conflict that is both unwarranted and unjustifiable. The logical conclusion therefore is that less guns will NEVER equate to less crime ... perhaps different crime, perhaps a different response to crime, perhaps a very different dynamic ... and maybe not a good one either.

Why do they want to disarm us? There aren't enough characters remaining to me in this post. I am sure it has everything to do with control.

When we deny ignorance, we are seeking enlightenment. When we close our eyes to enlightenment we are choosing to remain ignorant.

I presently reside in a society with no guns. It is a pathetic society dominated completely by wealth. If this country is invaded again by its neighbor to the north, it will be wiped out so completely that it will barely leave a stain on the pages of history. I would not choose to permanently reside here over the US, but at least I don't have to keep looking over my shoulder so as to avoid becoming a victim of the 'knockout' game.

Cheers!