Do Less Guns Really Mean Less Crime?

Yep and it is a fact.

Check out my country of Canada and that is all the proof you need.

Sure we have crime but it is not rampant and we sure as hell are not controlled by criminals such as US of A..why else would you need guns to protect yourselves...you all make it sound like at every corner there is someone out to get you..

Hi guys,

If the govt looks like it's going down..... time to take up practice shooting and some guns.... Keep the 2nd amendment around in the US - Cause the rebels in Syria need it - but so do I at some point in time. (at least IMHO)

The government's faults are going to be plain as daylight then. But certainly if the regular Mexican had armed him/herself, I don't think that equates to a government arming itself with more effective weapons against other countries - although maybe it would!????? Especially if the commoner carried a bazooka at all times.

Some more fuel for the fire.

reply to post by Beavers


Oh such nonsense! :: Laughs :: Now guns may no longer be killing anyone, but knives sure are! And guess what? They're now calling for bans on long kitchen knives!

Who wants to bet the next ban will be hockey sticks and other sports equipment because they'll be used to bash skulls in?

Point being: Those who want to kill people will do so with whatever they have handy. Doesn't matter if it's a gun, knife or a chair. And you can count on numerous idiots that will try to ban those things instead of looking at why people are being murdered, not with what.

reply to post by TinkerHaus



Why do we even need weapons like gun to settle some of childish issues (religions, territories, etc)?

Now that we have video games and sports, it's time for everyone (both 'good' armies and 'god' soldiers) to fight the war inside Video Games instead of Real Battlefield or fight the war in non-lethal sports.

reply to post by TinkerHaus


England has less guns yet more crimes than America.

reply to post by TinkerHaus


Just a note...In Kennesaw, Georgia the town being slightly rural of North Marietta & Atlanta, Georgia was getting an increase in crime ands more specifically home invasions.. so they past an ordinance that every household must have a gun and several members of each household must attend a marksman class to learn how to use them... The crime rate decreased to almost zero...this occurred in the 1970's when Newt Gingrich lived in the area and attest to that fact...
Citizen armed is the best weapon against potential crimes.. criminals are cowards by nature and seek soft targets.
They case and rob the Banks that have No Guards, The places where there will be females if possible, conveniences stores where there is normally one person, small retail stores where there is normally only one person and they usually come in pairs or more.
Kennesaw Georgia is living proof of that fact still today even when Atlanta and Marietta Georgia's crime rates have claimed.

TinkerHaus
reply to post by TerraLiga

 

No, incorrect.

You cannot compare rates of gun crime between countries that have guns, and countries that do not.

That would be like comparing the rate of vehicle accidents between the US and some Amazon tribe.

Instead, if we want to remove guns from society to REDUCE rates of crime, we must determine if crime rates actually decrease when we remove guns. The statistics show the opposite.

Reducing firearms will not reduce crime, but it could potentially reduce the risk of fatal or very severe outcomes to innocents, especially from the mentally ill, possibly at the cost of increased non-fatal crime.

General availability of firearms will deter crime from rational offenders, but make the consequences of non-rational offenders, such as the mentally ill or the far more commonly emotionally enraged far more severe than they otherwise would be.


In practice, firearms are not actually "removed" in any experimentally effective way in the experiments, which are only really possible across national borders. You would need incorrputible border inspection, and end to firearms manufacturing and importation for decades to come close to achieving this, and this is only possible in retrospective nation to nation comparisons which are fraught with many other confounding inputs.

My personal opinion is no if that were the case there would be less crime already but it sems the less we atm our selves the more crime has picked up just think back 10 years ago we never had people go crazy and take others lives at malls or military bases or anywhere else for that matter taking gun and putting them up we are asking for disaster criminals arnt going to go by the rules hence the word criminal but if we take action mabe if a life has to be lost is should only be the one who is trying to take hundreds more just my thought on it

reply to post by MikeNice81

Of those 32,300 deaths about 60% are suicide.

Can you quote the part that says that?

reply to post by Beavers


Here is something else to add to the discussion about the control issues you need to know, majority of the deaths by firearms are done with ILLEGAL FIREARMS. Here is a link that I had posted about the topic before:


Link to Discussion

Grim

I really would not want to be a police officer in concealed firearm states, too scary, for me at least. I think it would lead to a bit more manhandling by the police, you think they're rough or overbearing now, how about when they are trained to assume you have a firearm on you?
Another thing I think; having a firearm more often than not makes a person more responsible, but I also don't think that a lot of people would ever actually use it when it was necessary to, I guess you can call it the hero scenario. And of course there will be the exceptions, for better or worse, we give everyone cars and we have many car accidents, but then we have others who are in need of a car, and someone else saves them from being late to work or what have you.
In other countries gun control works, and it also doesn't work in other countries. We are a different country with a unique culture, so it's anyone's guess as to what could happen for us should we allow guns in the way a lot of people want. I think the United States should TRY a concealed firearm friendly law, and see if it works. With all these shootings and what not, what we've got now isn't working, right?
Sorry if I'm rambling!
The way I see it, we just need to be responsible, then having our own personal protection would be totally fine. But can we ALL handle that?

reply to post by PhoenixOD


Yeah I can look up the CDC form on my previous post its all right there.

Grim

Beavers
reply to post by TinkerHaus

 

Have a google of how many kids were killed by guns in the UK and Australia in the last 10 years, then compare that to the US. Sad eh?

Wrong set of statistics I'm afraid -- just another invalid comparison. The simple comparison which is more proper is before and after gun control. So, "google" the UK murder rate before and after gun control. You will find the murder rate in the UK soared after gun control became the norm. The most likely reason -- a gun is a deterrent because it levels the playing field between the prey and the predator.

Reality as usual is very different than a liberal wants to believe.

"In the late 1990s, England moved from stringent controls to a complete ban of all handguns and many types of long guns. Hundreds of thousands of guns were confiscated from those owners law‐abiding enough to turn them in to authorities. Without suggesting this caused violence, the ban’s ineffectiveness was such that by the year 2000 violent crime had so increased that England and Wales had Europe’s highest violent crime rate, far surpassing even the United States." See Esther Bouten et al., Criminal Victimization in Seventeen Industrialized Countries, in CRIME VICTIMIZATION IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE: RESULTS FROM THE INTERNATIONAL CRIME VICTIMS SURVEY, 1989–2000 at 13, 15–16 (Paul Nieuwbeerta ed., 2002). The surveys involved were conducted under the auspices of the governments
of each nation and the general supervision of the University of Leiden and the Dutch Ministry of Justice.


“data on firearms ownership by constabulary area in England, like data from the United States, show a negative correlation, that is, where firearms are most dense violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense violent crime rates are highest.” see Hans Toch & Alan J. Lizotte, Research and Policy: The Case for Gun Control, in PSYCHOLOGY & SOCIAL POLICY 223, 232 (Peter Suedfeld & Philip E. Tetlock eds., 1992);

Of course, I'm not playing fair here -- I'm using real data whilst you are just using your imagination.

Do more guns mean more crime?

Nope. If you look at Canada for example they have quite a bit of guns, yet the murder rate is far far lower than the U.S.A.

I've always said that the main reason for all the gun related crime, or just crime in general for that matter, is because of mental health. The U.S.A. is a very screwed up country socially. The best way to describe it, besides having to go in deep detail, is to say that we as a culture are far from being "one." Small tribes in more secluded areas of the world have basically no crime. Because they haven't deluded and corrupted their society so heavily like we have.

MystikMushroom
OK Fox News/Gun people...

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

Right from the conservative mouthpiece.

Again, an improper comparison followed by a conclusion so improper it doesn't even rise to the level of wrong. A better comparison is with and without gun control in the same area. It is easy to find areas in the US where gun controls have been increased and areas which have relaxed controls in the past few decades. The data is unequivocal -- tighter gun controls are often followed by increases in murder rates and violent crime. That's the basic point of the Harvard study.

What the improper comparison does not account for is an increase in ownership precisely because the crime rates are high. Most law-abiding citizens who purchase guns in high crime areas do so for protection. They realize the sad fact that the police no longer even pretend to provide protection in most jurisdictions. I can't say I blame them -- they usually want to go home at the end of their shift like everyone else.

reply to post by Lingweenie


I wonder if the population of California were to be scattered across an area the size of Canada, would the murder rate decline? I wonder if the population of Canada was placed within the limits of the state of California would their murder rate increase?

*I used California as an example because that state has three million more residents than your country.

200Plus
reply to post by Lingweenie

 

I wonder if the population of California were to be scattered across an area the size of Canada, would the murder rate decline? I wonder if the population of Canada was placed within the limits of the state of California would their murder rate increase?

*I used California as an example because that state has three million more residents than your country.

edit on 24-9-2013 by 200Plus because: (no reason given)

It might not be population density -- after all 95% of Canada probably lives within about 10 miles of the US border.

reply to post by BayesLike


You may be right. I just think people forget that there are 300+ million people in the states.

I would not entirely rule out population density though. The bigger cities are generally the higher crime areas. Less chance to unwind maybe, who knows.

Maybe we are just not that far evolved as we like to think. Maybe cities have just replaced "watering holes". Predators are attracted to the ready availability of prey and all that.....

PhoenixOD
reply to post by MikeNice81

 

Of those 32,300 deaths about 60% are suicide.

Can you quote the part that says that?

I am on my phone, so not at the moment. However, if you actually go read the CDC data from the WISQARS data base you will see the real break down. I'm a little brain fogged right now, but I would bet that at no point in the last 13 years has homicide been larger than suicide. In 2010 there were 19,000+ suicides compared to less than 9,000 intentional murders. (FBI numbers for murder) The CDC gets the 11,000 number by adding murder, self defense, police intervention, and unknown reasons. That is how the CDC counts homicide. The only way to get that massive average from your source is to add suicide plus homicide. The problem with that is, the suicides most likely would have died anyway.

I'll check 2007 CDC data when I get a chance.

reply to post by TinkerHaus


Good thread and emotive arguments from both sides

I am from the UK and can see both sides

to 99% of people who keep guns it is no different than the hammer i keep in my tool box, i.e a tool when you need it. i do not have an itch to get it out and wave my hammer around every five minutes, or wave it in peoples faces saying it is my right to have this hammer.

I could also defend myself with my hammer or go on a crime spree (no plans yet, but some drivers are tempting fate out there :p )

never sure what all the fuss is about, i used to have an air rifle i never really shot more than 'stuff' in the garden and never thought about shooting people.

what is going to cause the arguments and violence are the hard times people are currently struggling through, i.e no jobs no food no health care times are desperate and these people be it that they are slightly mental or have issues are going to pick up the most effective tool for what they have in mind 1. zap people they dont like 2. try and get some money to feed 3. be some mindless gang type with a cave man mentality

you will never ban guns in the states - it is a fact - you can only try and slowly change the culture to be 'hey I am walking around unarmed' and everyone think that is cool

a culture change is the only hope of putting guns to bed - however do you actually want to? if you can keep a hammer in a tool box then surely you can keep a gun

besides how will America save the world when the aliens invade like in all the films