Gun control: the results are in?

You won't discover the effect until you impose strict gun regulation, so you can't say that. What we can say though, is that the USA's overall murder rate through any means, is five times that of the UK, and with guns, 25 times higher. Now, do you really think you are going to ascend back to those levels of murder, replacing 66%, ie, over 10,000 murders per year, out of over 14,000 with knives and bats, if you remove guns? I really doubt that somehow, and the UK perspective says not too.

That's a big if, and proven not to be the case.

Looking at the graph I linked, there was a similar drop starting in 1935, a small peak started in 1945, a drop to 1960, and then an increase starting in 1960 that looks almost exponential. So 'IF' the murder rate keeps dropping, what's to say it won't increase again? History shows it varies wildy. you can trust to dumb luck that it will go down,a dn sty down, but that really isn't very realistic.

Climbing slowly, and steadily, and we are passing laws to slow it. What are you doing in the USA?

Oh go on, show me the evidence! And please, don't say 'well NY banned guns, and look at their figures' as there is no border control, guns can still be easily aquired.

 

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Both England and Austalia, both of which that have lower murder rates than the USA?

What was your point?

 

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Why is this so hard for you to get? I'm not saying that the murder rate in England is lower than the murder rate in the U.S. I'm simply saying that banning handguns doesn't lower the murder rate, and I'm using England and Australia as examples because those are both countries in which tough gun laws have failed to lower murder rates. After England banned handguns, the murder rate went up. After Australia imposed gun control laws, the murder rate stayed the same. Therefor, it seems reasonable to conclude that gun control laws are not an effective means of decreasing the murder rate. It's what you call 'experimental evidence'. What is so hard to understand about this?

 

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Nasor, it's not experimental evidence at all, shall I tell you why?

Firstly, the number of gun deaths in the UK annually is around 80, there have been small annual increases in this, one or two each year to give us this peak we see now.

Very few of these deaths were caused by legally held handguns pre 1997 ban. There were only 250,000 handguns in private ownership in the UK, out of a population of neary 60,000,000.

So, how much effect could a handgun ban have? It could perhaps perhaps stop the one or two instances per year where legally held guns are used in murders. That gets lost in the noise of the deaths caused by illegal firearms. Luckily, as legislation is strict, and ammunition can't be bought without a license, gun use is still pretty rare, despite what the press say.

But how much effect could hanges on gun law have in the USA? Well, as guns account for 66% of all homicides, and are widespread, (nearly one for each of you isn't it?), that could make a big dent in your massive annual death toll.

If you impose strict licensing, you might get to the levels we had in the UK pre-ban. You need to take several steps to whittle down your body count.

So, yes, a change to firearms legislation would work wonders for your crime rates, it's plain too see.

 

if you put a blanket ban on all weapons and ammo unless licenced how much would be left? and i mean the sort of licences we have in australia or the UK has not the gun licences the US has now where every man and his dog has one

Why do you think that if you make it harder to comit a murder that SOME murders might not never be comited?

its not like here where you have the problem of illegal imports. The gun companies are IN the US so they can be regulated too.

 

I have a friend, an online friend, who owns his own small arsenal, bolt action rifles, handguns, and he hints that he has some things that aren’t quite legal. He swears up and down that he has this stuff for home defense. In case home invasion by burglars or (he never says so, but I believe he thinks it) the government. I asked him if he caries all of his weapons around with him whenever he leaves the house. Of course he does not, he owns too many. I asked him if he realizes what a great target that makes him for a burglar, but in his typical semi-moronic gun culture conditioned response, he just answers that he can defend his belongings with his weapons.

Caches of guns are prime targets for thieves, and most of the illegal weapons that folks in the gun culture are always pointing out will still be on the street if guns are outlawed, come from robberies of persons who believe they are defending their home with their gun. What they are really doing is giving in to an irrational and false sense of security, and letting criminals walk away with their firepower.

This same friend also likes to bring up stories he can find in the news of people “defending themselves” with weapons. Often these are stories of shop owners who kill some punk or other who was holding them up. I once commented on one of these stories, in which the shop owner was threatened, forced to hand over the money in his store, but then whipped out a hidden gun from somewhere, shooting at the buglers and getting shot in the process. The fact is that a gun battle is not an effective way to defend yourself, and as I tried to point out to this friend of mine, letting the man leave with the money would not have put his safety at risk.

”But he had to defend his property!” came the inevitable reply. This is why I think gun culture is a disease in our society. The thought that you should be authorized to use deadly force in situations where your own life is not at risk is bizarre. The fact that this sort of twisted idea lead this shop owner to get himself shot when he could have gotten out of a routine burglary unharmed, if only he hadn’t pulled a gun, illustrates the sort of foolishness present in our American gun culture.

 

An interesting point. Do you have any data on the percentage of murders that involved guns both before and after the ban?

 

i cant understand amercian culture at all

even on your movies it shows people who are really harmless killed by security guards ect

watch ocean's 11. It shows a guy runing out of the casino with an armfull of money and because they cant catch him they shoot him. Now my understanding of the penelty for robbery is jail not the death penelty so when they would have caught him they wouldnt have killed him. Why did the security guards who were in no danger (he was runing away) shoot him?

 

Uh...because it was a retarded movie? You're only allowed to shoot someone if your life is in danger. If security guards gunned down a person like that in real life, they would go to jail for murder.

 

Then you really need to improve your image oversea's because thats what most of the world thinks the US is really like

 

Believe it or not, Asguard, they can actually depict things which are not entirely accurate, or even flat out false in a movie

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I have a feeling that most of your fellow countrymen have a pretty good grip on that fact. To improve America’s image over seas we should probably take care of the real stuff before we bother belly aching about the fake stuff.

 

Well, removing guns WOULD solve the problem.

Stopping the sale of guns would not.

 

carry a duffle bag, i could "sneak" several tantos and a bastard sword into school. not to mention pipebombs or a couple of katanas underneath my trenchcoat.

they haven't failed, they are controlling guns.

no.

killed.

shoot him yes. blast out his kneecaps, that stops the perp. kill him, no. that's illegal.

no.

okay, here's how it is; there is nothing you can ban that would stop people from killing each other. we had an incidence in these parts not too long ago, wherein, a lawyer killed his partner with a metal candlestick. but the people advocating gun control do have some merit, in that, the gun provides guaranteed stopping power with a minimum of training and risk. i would be much more likely to kill someone with a gun than, say, a shovel or kitchen knife. but the problem, in my opinion, is society. in a society where killing is acceptable [under any circumstance] a conflict between two people always has the possibility of ending one or both of the participants' lives.

 

Shooting 'out his kneecaps' is just as illegal.

The point is that guns allow a fairly easy way of killing someone. That's a problem. I don't doubt that murders would decrease if all guns disappeared today... but that won't happen.

No, it won't drop to zero. Nobody expects it too.

 

If the rest of the world is dumb enough to believe that a movie like Ocean's Eleven accurately depicts anything then the rest of the world is probably hopeless. Did you see 'Armageddon'? If so, you'll be relieved to hear that the Earth was never really in danger from a giant asteroid.

Edit: One thing that has to be kept in mind when considering the 'violence level' in the U.S. is that most murders involve criminals killing other criminals, especially in relation to drugs or gang activity. It's easy for the average U.S. citizen to drastically reduce their odds of being murdered by making a few simply lifestyle choices, such as not selling crack.

 

Damn.... now how am I going to pay for McDonalds?

 

Nasor: A simple question, are people more likely to kill with a gun (mentally), then with another weapon, or no weapon at all? Are people mentally inclined to kill when they have “power” or not?

 

Of course. The next question is "are people more likely to kill when they know they are the only person with a gun". The answer is a double 'of course'.

Unless you have some magic way of getting rid of all the guns, only the bad guys would have them.

 

Of course.

If so then, what justification is there for having handguns? If we know mentally the human mentality changes when they have a weapon or advantage to use that weapon for its sole purpose to kill, then why allow it? (To Nasor)

 

It doesn't change everyone's mentality. Most people have enough sense to realize they shouldn't use it unles absolutely needed.

The issue is that criminals already have guns. Not allowing their sale would not fix that problem. Your solution may have worked 300 years ago, but not today.