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December 01, 2005
A Gun Control Primer
Don Kates, a criminologist and Constitutional lawyer, has written an excellent article reviewing the lack of correlation between gun control laws and reduction in violent crime.
As we at Mazurland already know, the ineffectiveness of firearm restrictions can be demonstrated within the US:
"In a study published last December, the National Academy of
Sciences, having reviewed 43 government publications, 253 journal
articles, 99 books, and its own research, could not identify even one
example of gun control that reduced murder or violent crime.
Drastically increasing homicide led Washington, D.C., to ban handguns in
the 1970s. So useless was this that D.C. soon had (and continues to have)
some of the nation’s highest murder rates."
As well as internationally:
"Anti-gun advocates used to compare the United States to England,
Canada and Australia, nations specially selected because they once
combined low violence rates with severe gun controls. But gun controls
and initially low violence rates did not prevent their violent crime
rates from steadily outpacing ours in recent decades. Although these
nations banned and confiscated hundreds of thousands of guns in the
1990s, today their violence rates are among the highest in the
world—more than twice ours.
If more guns mean more violence,
nations with high gun-ownership rates should have high murder rates.
But two international studies comparing gun ownership with murder rates
in 36 and 21 nations (respectively) found “no significant correlations.”
Anti-gun
advocates never mention these facts. Nor do they mention all the
European nations with high gun ownership rates but very low murder.
Norway, with the highest gun ownership rate in Western Europe, has the
lowest murder rate—far below England's. The only European nation that
bans all guns, Luxembourg, has the highest murder rate (except for
Russia): 30 percent higher than the U.S. and ten times that of
gun-dense Norway. Holland, with Western Europe's lowest rate of gun
ownership, has a 50 percent higher murder rate than Norway. Greece has
much higher gun ownership than the Czech Republic but much less murder.
Finland has 14 times more gun ownership than neighboring Estonia but
much lower murder rates."
It's a short piece, which can be easily commited to memory.
Apparently, more and more Americans are learning the truth about gun rights. The number of guns and gun owners in this country are at an all-time high, while violent crime is at a 30 year low.
(Hat Tip Of Arms And The Law)
December 1, 2005 by Chris | Permalink
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Comments
Quite often, liberals sound the sensible, pragmatic note when it comes to trying to cope with illegal behaviors. We can't stop drug smuggling, so we should just make it legal. That would get rid of all the other crime incidental to smuggling and gang wars. We can't stop illegal immigration, so we should just open the borders. We'd then get rid of immigrant smuggling rackets. We can't stop teen sex, so we should just make teen abortions legal and something they can get without parental notification. Little is said about how sanctioning a reckless or dangerous behavior only encourages more of same, and hence the need for more license.
However, it's interesting to contrast this attitude toward behavior that is illegal with their attitude toward a behavior that is not only legal but constitutionally protected. And the pragmatism disappears as well. The attitude and its end result was made most clear by our erstwhile correspondent Chad. Guns are evil because they produce evil results. We can get rid of gun violence by completely banning guns. The question of how you would do this totally illegal and impractical thing is never addressed. And in the mean time, after you get most law abiding people to turn in their guns, the thugs take over.
Posted by: Marty | Dec 1, 2005 4:43:36 PM
And the effects of exercising this legal and constitutional right are not negative. In this country they are overwhelmingly positive, ie guns thwart crime much more frequently than create it.
Posted by: chris | Dec 1, 2005 6:57:58 PM
I don't know about this, I can believe there is no correlation in-between owning of the guns and crime rate, 'cause after all criminals are people as all the others so they know that they can be caught and shoot, though I fear that kids could be more endangered finding these guns in their homes.
But for me, one who grow up in the neighborhood where even key or lock was unknown object where nobody locked their doors in the night and where people where friendly and vigilant to alarm each other if strange personalities where moving around it sound absurd that we should arm our self.
Having reason to be armed looks like is resulted grounded or ungrounded paranoia.
Living in the country where guns are not permitted does not make me feel less free though the general crime rate is just few steps behind US crime. So I think that US liberals are silly if they appeal to the sentiment by twisting the facts, stupid strategy is worser than no strategy at all.
Posted by: Boris | Dec 2, 2005 7:24:44 AM
Boris,
The links you provide are interesting. But as with all statistics, they need to be analyzed. If you go to you link and click on the Per Capita tab, the US suddenly looks a bit more safe and places like Finland, New Zealand and Denmark look dangerous. If you drill down further and click on the US link you will find that the US is 24th on murder per capita. And that is 24th of 65 countries. Countries like China, Afghanistan, Pakistan and most of Africa are not even reporting. I would dare to speculate that the US would not be in the top 50% if we had true statistics for ALL countries. Also, in the US, if a person stubs their toe, they report it as an assault by a careless table leg because there are so many cry babies here. So I think crime here is magnified by over reporting. Also, some countries may define things like rape differently too. I could go on, but I need to get ready for work.
Thanks for you input, Boris. It's always a pleasure to read your comments.
Posted by: Paul | Dec 2, 2005 7:55:02 AM
Boris,
First, the article doesn't mention the sporting purposes of firearms, which is probably the reason most of these guns are owned. From hunting and collecting, to action shooting, to trap shooting and sporting clays, they can actually be fun. Not awful killing machines with a life of their own.
Secondly, accidents with firearms among children are actually quite rare in this country, and decreasing. Many of the statistics looking at "children" and guns actually include injuries sustained to people up to the age of 20. Most of these fatalities are crime-related, such as arguments among inner city drug gangs. If you factor out these crime-related causes, guns are actually safer than very specific, common household objects. For example, 20 gallon water buckets kill more young children in the US than guns. Should these be outlawed?
Finally, you may call it paranoia, but I call it peace of mind. Sort of like fire insurance; you hope never to use it, but if you need it, you're very glad you have it. Guns are actually BETTER than insurance, because having more of them, on a community level, actually decreases the thing you are trying to avoid (crime). On a national level, an armed populace is much less likely to be victimized by internal or external tyranny. There are even some that argue gun ownership should be our Next International Right, sinced an armed citizenry is much less susceptible to tyranny and genocide. The US is about the LEAST likely country I can think of that would ever fall victim to external or internal tyrannical forces. Yes, even less likely than the Netherlands. And it ain't just because we're such nice people ;) That's why our founding Fathers wrote this right into our Constitution, and why most of our States have similar Amendments in their Constitutions.
Posted by: Chris | Dec 2, 2005 8:59:56 AM
I hope that my comment did not look as an attack, that was not my intention, I understand and respect your point very well it's only if you grow up in certain culture than some things are so normal that I could not imagine that there would be space for discussion about guns in this country.
I agree with Paul statistics can be very misleading, and I agree with Chris too about victimization point, but you guys you live in stabile settled and democratic society.
In Europe it's different, threatened or unsatisfied minorities in Europe are often very well armed and that is exactly what can be used to pronounce them as terrorist and legalize the attack on them.
Most extreme and graphic example in modern time is faith of EX Yugoslavian Albanians in the province of Kosovo. Guns did not help them world did. Europe can be such evil place.
Posted by: Boris | Dec 2, 2005 10:35:04 AM
Boris,
We realize your comment wasn't an attack. You're a nice guy and always have valuable input here.
The purpose of the comments section is for an exchange of ideas, and your visits are always welcome. Even if you disagree, that's totally fine.
Hopefully I didn't sound too defensive. I was just posting my counterpoints. This is the way Americans often communicate; you should see some of our political or sports television shows... We all state our opinions, and can still share a beer, or a jenever, afterwards.
Posted by: Chris | Dec 2, 2005 11:06:04 AM
A couple of comments relating to your last few, Boris.
I don't think any of us thought you were 'attacking'. Chris is a very outspoken defender of 2nd Amendment rights. It's a touchstone in the culture wars in this country.
Our country was founded as a rural frontier country constantly under assault by Indians, outlaws, and the enemies of our colonizers. The frontier, which was originally just a few miles from the east coast, moved progressively westward, but less than 200 years ago, the Appalachian Mountains were considered the boundary of the frontier. I live in those mountains, and am only a few hours from Philadlephia by car. Most people lived in isolation and owned guns for hunting and protection. Militias were very important for local protection well into the 19th Century. The 2nd Amendment to our Constitution was written to reflect these necessities and to reflect the fear that one way a foreign government, or our own, could tyranize us was to remove the right to bear arms.
Interestingly, relative to your comment, we have a a huge immigrant population in this country as well as a large ethnically and racially divided underclass. Some of these groups are involved in drugs, gang wars, and other criminal activity. However, for the most part, very little in the way of this is internecine between racial or ethnic groups, or is only incidentally so. What I mean is, an Asian gang might attack a black gang, but it's often foremost a turf war, and only secondarily racial. In addition, despite social privation of certain ethnic and racial groups, there have been very few race riots in this country since the 60s. With all the guns in this country, blacks, whites, latinos, etc., are not engaging in huge race wars. This is not to say that racism is not an issue, or that it's safe for someone in one group to go into another group's neighborhood. And delivery men, etc., often go into poor neighborhoods armed. But armed robbery in these neighborhoods most frequently victimize people within that neighborhood. The gun thing has not led to a powderkeg situation. If anything, it has kept that from happening.
Posted by: Marty | Dec 2, 2005 11:43:36 AM
No problem at all, one thing is sure I'm glad to have pleasure to follow your thoughts it's better than following MSM because the passion, convincement and interaction, I'm from these few who think that learning process never stops so I'm gladly listening to these who can tell me things I might not know. ;-)
Posted by: Boris | Dec 2, 2005 4:28:29 PM
