After these
shootings, people rush to gun control as the answer. Yes, these shootings are
terrible, but little do they know that banning these guns would reduce public
safety, and erase the benefit of guns. I will make a summary of the debate on
gun control.
1. Comparing
countries
I read an
article from a source that will remain nameless (actually, I just forgot), and it’s whole case for gun control were
statistical comparisons of the UK and the USA. Their arguments are highly
hypocritical, however. They say pro-gunners compare us to Switzerland and
Israel; both have high gun ownership and low crime rates. However, they argue
the different judicial systems make the valid incomparable. But this is a
cherry picked argument: The foreign countries have different judicial systems
too!
As one
interesting article states, “Foreign countries are two to six times more
effective in solving crimes and punishing criminals than the U.S. In London, about 20% of reported
robberies end in conviction; in New York City, less than 5% result in
conviction, and in those cases imprisonment is frequently not imposed.
Nonetheless, England annually has twice as many homicides with firearms as it
did before adopting its tough laws. Despite tight licensing procedures, the
handgun-related robbery rate in Britain rose about 200% during the past dozen
years, five times as fast as in the U.S.”[1]
I generally hate
comparing countries, however sometimes these comparisons work in my favor.
David Kopel has done work in Asian countries with low crime rates and gun
control, and he continually concludes gun control is not the cause of their low
crime. These basic comparisons tell little, as they don’t tell us why, say, the
UK’s murder rate is low. It could be totally unrelated to guns. I urge readers
to look at this graph. The UK has had strict gun controls. Since their passage,
their assault rate has risen much faster then the American assault rate.
2. Gun
control has decreased crime in foreign countries
False. There is
not one gun ban that has decreased crime. Here are a list of facts [2]:
--Australia:
Armed robberies rose 51%, unarmed robberies rose 37%, Assaults rose by 24%,
kidnappings rose 43%, murder fell 3% BUT manslaughter rose 16%.
--Soviet Union:
Yes, the massive police state also had its gun control problems. Murder rate
was 20-40% higher in the Soviet Union than in the US.
--UK: Gun crimes
have risen 40% since their gun bans.
3. Gun free
zones work
Gun free zones:
schools, post offices… movie theatres in the case of Aurora.
Utah has
abolished gun free zones: no
school mass shootings, no teachers shooting children… everything the VPC said would happen hasn’t. In
David Kopels op-ed, he quoets Thomas Jefferson, and I am glad this quote still
applies:
“"Laws that
forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined
nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the
assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to
prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence
than an armed man.”[3]
Now, wikipedia
(which has liberal tendencies) said this: “Prior to 1989, there were only a
handful of incidents in which two or more non-perpetrators were killed by
firearms at a school…”[4]
And it cites a
few examples. But before 1989, it was rare. Now, you’re wondering two things:
one, why haven’t I gotten to the point yet, and two what does this date mean.
Any guesses? Nope, pissed that I’m not to the point probably. Well, here is the
point. In 1990, the gun free school zone act was passed. When you look at the
list, shootings are rare in schools until gun free zones were adopted… Maybe a
coincidence, but I doubt it when I throw in these facts:
John Lott notes,
“If we finally want to deal seriously with multiple-victim public shootings, it
is about time that we acknowledge a common feature of these attacks: With just
a single exception, the
attack in Tucson last year, every public shooting in the U.S. in which more
than three people have been killed since at least 1950 has occurred in a place
where citizens are not allowed to carry their own firearms. The Cinemark movie theater in Aurora,
like others run by the chain around the country, displayed warning signs that
it was prohibited to carry guns into the theater.”[5]
It seems to me
this is not a coincidence. Every mass shooting at a gun free zone, except one,
but this means gun free zones help. Honestly, it makes sense. If you want to
kill people, you don’t go to a gun show. A nice remark from the Capitalism
Institute said on my facebook news feed, “Remember that shooting at a gun show?
I don’t either.”
A study by David
Kopel gives us the data we all know, or should know by now: gun free zones have
increased the amount of school shootings [6].
4. Homicide
is three times higher in homes with guns then without them
JustFacts.com
notes three problems with this [7]:
One, this
statistic blurs cause and effect. As they quote the NRC study, “fail to address
the primary inferential problems that arise because ownership is not a random
decision. ... Homicide victims may possess firearms precisely because they are
likely to be victimized.” In other words, homicide may cause gun ownership; gun
ownership does not cause homicide.
Second, the data
is relied upon by interviews. If a more accurate polling method is used, and
causes minor changes in he gun ownership rate, the results of the study
disappear.
Third, they had
to do a lot of statistical manipulation (analysis) instead of letting their
data speak. They ignore the fact drugs or abuse in the home seemed like a more
likely factor for homicide than gun ownership.
GunCite gives a
harsh critique. They note, Gary Kleck saying “The observed gun-homicide
association is so weak that it could easily be due entirely to a higher rate of
concealing gun ownership among controls than among cases.” Indeed, if only 2.7%
of the gun owners said they hadn’t the results would disappear. The results may
be due to the certain sample they used, meaning the results are so sensitive
this renders the study statistically insignificant. And if you want more on
this topic, follow my footnote [8].
5. Guns
aren’t used in defense; and even if they are they aren’t effective
A myth is that
guns aren’t used in defense. Further, another myth is that the number I will
soon use: 2.5 million defensive
gun usages (DGU’s) each year are only based on one study… So lets list
my countless examples [9]:
Gary Mauser
1990: 1,487,342 DGU’s a year
Gallup Polling
1991: 777,153 DGU’s each year
Gallup polling
1993: 1,621,377 DGU’s each year
LA times polling
1994: 3,609,682 DGU’s each year
Tarrance 1994:
764,036 DGU’s
That was overall
US polling. When looking at every state and then multiplying the result in a
way for the US statistic (NOTE: this is a proxy, and less accurate then above):
California used
as a proxy: 3,052,717 DGU’s
Illinois:
1,414,544 DGU’s a year
Ohio as a proxy:
771,043 DGU’s a year
Gar Klecks study
found 2.5 DGU’s every year
A smaller DOJ
report found 1.5 million DGU’s a year
As Kleck Notes in his study, “By this
time there seems little legitimate scholarly reason to doubt that defensive
gun use is very common in the U.S., and that it probably is substantially
more common than criminal gun use.
This should not come as a surprise, given that there are far more gun-owning
crime victims than there are gun-owning criminals and that victimization is
spread out over many different victims, while offending is more concentrated
among a relatively small number of offenders.”[10]
Is a gun
effective? Common? Yes, effective? Yes, again.
It is argued
people who fight with a gun are more likely to be injured, but here is the
problem with that statistic: “27% percent of victims were injured prior to
taking any self-protection measures,
but only 5% of gun-defenders were injured prior to taking their actions.”[11]
In other words,
once the gun is taken out (but before it is used) only 5% incur further injury,
often brandishing the gun stops the attack (sometimes as high as 95% according
to Lott’s 2003 survey, his 1997 one is questionable). In other words to the
quote above, the injuries occur before the gun is used, but after the gun is
used the situation improves. John Lott has said in an interview:
“Simply telling
them to behave passively turns out to be pretty bad advice . . . By far the safest
course of action for people to take, when they are confronting a criminal, is
to have a gun. This is
particularly true for the people in our society who are the most
vulnerable.”[12]
6. Guns don’t
deter criminals
This argument
always annoys me, guns deter crime, it’s hard to deny this. In the US, only 13%
of burglaries occur while occupants are in the home, in the UK and Netherlands
the number is 45%. In America, when asked why this is so, robbers have said
because robbing while someone is home is the way to get shot. Gary Kleck has
noted the number of robberies while people are in the home in the UK is because
they do not fear the repercussions of gun ownership. Kleck also notes if the US
would ban guns, there would be 400,000 additional burglaries in the USA.
“Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck determined that if the U.S.
were to have similar rates of "hot" burglaries as these other
nations, there would be more than 450,000 additional burglaries per year where
the victim was threatened or assaulted.”[13]
A 1999 study
using deterrence studies and Klecks DGU survey, he can determine a criminals
response to possible death. He found the death penalty deterred 7 lives each
time someone is killed, and that civilians kill many people each year in
defense. So, using these numbers, the study found 400,000-800,000 crimes would
be deterred each year by gun ownership merely existing. The study concludes, “the
murder rate would have been some 10 to 37 percent higher than it actually was
had civilians not had guns for self- defense. … The fourth section further developed the
risks to criminals from armed civilians. From that, it was estimated that at
least 500,000 fewer crimes occurred due to armed civilians. If Kleck's lower
estimates of justified homicides are accepted, the numbers are much larger at
more than 2,000,000 [fewer crimes]. This is a deterrent effect; the crimes
never occur.” Note for the second part the numbers differ depending on whether
Klecks data or other survey data is preferred. The study continues, “It was
reasonable to infer that over 740,000 fewer violent crimes occur each year, [Page 244] including 7,300 fewer
murders, because of handgun ownership and use by civilians. Again, this is a
deterrent effect. Long guns probably add to this effect. … In addition, another
1.5 to 2.5 million crimes are stopped by armed civilians.”[14]
In the 1991
journal of criminal law, volume 18, another study noted that increased gun
ownership would reduce crime, and that guns used in DGU’s are extremely common
[15].
18 studies find
conceal carry laws reduce crime, 10 find no effect, and only one finds an
increase in crime (counting only academically refereed studies).
CONCLUSION:
Simple: gun
control has been a total failure, and banning guns (or making gun free zones)
takes away our ability to defend ourselves and actually harms public safety.
Guns are very effective to use in defense and are used more commonly then we
think: 2.5 million times a year plus. Gun ownership prevents 400,000-800,000
violent crimes, and using Klecks data the number is near 2,000,000. Guns also
have deterred 450,000 robberies each year. In sum: gun control is a hoax, it is
all smoke and mirrors and will harm you and your family, and gun ownership has
a net positive.
6. David Kopel,
“ Pretend “Gun-Free” School Zones: A Deadly Legal Fiction”. Connecticut Law
Review, December 2009.
If guns are banned, it will have little to no affect on the rate of crimes. The banning of firearms is only for respectable people, not for criminals. Criminals always find their way to get their hands on firearms and target the innocent people.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Jacky