Those with open minds might be interested in The Failed Experiment: Gun Control and Public Safety in Canada, Australia, England and Wales. It does well at refuting some of the propaganda spread by anti-citizen groups.
I've got to say I only read half of the executive summary, mostly because the languaged used was not impartial and gave the impression that the rest of the document may be biased. In particular I refer to the phrase ''draconian gun laws' when refering to some of the countries policies towards firearms. Surley the purpose of the document would to be inform us so that we may make our own opions based on fact, rather than taking the opions of the author.
Regardless of the author's stance and unbiaseness - the author presents facts. Unless you have a fact to dispute there's no reason to call the document uncredible. Restricting people from defending themselves with a perfectly good firearm is absolutely INSANE unless it can be factually proven to decrease violence and make people safer - it's clear that isn't the case!
I only explained why I didn't read the complete document, I think I indicated that I thought the author was biased in the phraseology that was used Arming the general public is insane unless it can be proven that everyone having guns makes people safer. To follow that rational would it be even safer if everyone was allowed hand grenades, safer still if everyone had missles, or perhaps safest of all if we all had nuclear weapons. Then we could all be so shit scared we'd never leave the house or offend anyone.
I think that document proves it. 1 big country (U.S.) is full of guns and a 20 year declining crime rate, while 3 other big countries ban them (Britain, Canada, Australia) have increasing rates
In the long run it does, especially in the case of a rogue government, the purpose of our right to bear arms.....
I am not against having guns but the study is not a scientific study and it just tries to use some data to draw the conclusions that writer wants. You can use statistics in many ways and you can come to crazy conclusions either by design or stupidity. For example, lets assume we have 2 cities and each have a population of 100. In the first city last year there was 1 violent crime and this year was 2. in the second city we had 50 violent crime and this year we had 40. By using statistic we can show that crime rate has gone up by 100% in the first city while it has declined 10% in second city and draw conclusion that second city is a safer one which is totally crazy. Violent crime are not the result of only one factor (such as gun control) but many different social factors such as economy, social policy, politics, policing,... The article tries to link ALL CRIMES to guns which is a total nonsense. For example if a father gets angry in his son hockey game and beat up and kill the fathers of 2 other children, what's that got to do with guns? You have to compare the rate of gun related crimes with each other and even if the author has such table in his article, he freely mixes the 2 concepts in order to make the conclusions that he wishes. Table 1: An international comparison of the use of guns in violent crime Violent Crime Homicide Robbery Suicide Accidents United States (2001) 26% 63% 42% 56% 1% Canada (2001) 3% 31% 14% 20% <1% Australia (2001) 1% [est.] 14% 6% 12% NA England/Wales (00/01) 1% [est.] 9% 4% 2% NA As you can see while firearms are used in 26% of all violent crimes in USA, firearms are used in only 3% in Canada and 1% in Australia and England. Homocide is 63%, 31%,14% and 9%. Robeery is 42%, 14%, 6% and 4%. I suppose it comes the question of what do you prefer if you are going to be robbed, some one who doesn't have a firearm or some one armed with fully automatic weapon?
No. The article says if Violent Crime isn't decreased by banning guns, what good did it do. It's saying that if you ban guns, those same people will just pick up a different weapon to use and no crime has been stopped, and now a regular citizen has no gun to defend himself with. Fully automatic weapons aren't legal . By the way, he also provided information that being robbed with a firearm results in WAY LESS injuries than being robbed with a knife
Article Speaking of guns, just read this article which states almost my exact opinion on the issue Shows why both the NRA and Anti Gun crowd are both nuts, IMO when it comes to the constitution...
In scientific discussions you can not make simple assumption and only look at one factor. You have to look at all factors involved and the effect they have. For example the same way that this guy is relating the rate of violent crime to the gun control, Some "Liberal" can draw a conclusion that the reason for increase in violent crime in other countries is because they are lowering the standard of their social programs while USA is improving it. Both assumption are wrong since real life is rarely so simple. The increase or decrease by itself is meaningless and you have to look at whole picture. Some times the whole increase or decrease can depend on reporting method that police authority use. If you look at rate of homicide in Canada and compare it to USA, you will notice the big difference with USA being much higher. The question will be why, is it only because of gun control or does it depend on other factors also. This is a simple way of looking at the question too. For example if some one gets killed, very likely if a weapon is used, do they record this as robbery or homicide? What is the number of persons that get injured in a robbery? For example if a couple are being robbed and if the man fights the robber, he can get injured while his wife can run away because of the time involved in the fight and stabbing while with a gun, the robber can easily shoot both. I AM NOT AGAINST GUN OWNERSHIP. I think the focus of discussion about gun control in USA is wrong. The discussion should not be about if people should have a right to have a gun or not because they should. It is in a Constitution. It is a tool that is necessary at times and it keeps dictatorships away. The discussion should be about what we can do to stop the use of guns by criminals but the gun manufacturer are not interested in such discussion because it limits their sale to ghettos in big cities. You must ask yourself, if we really need a gun with a grip that is resistant to finger prints? why don't we fire every new gun and have a database of all guns so if a gun is used in a crime it will be easy to know which gun the bullet came from and where it was sold? There are simple mechanism that only allows to fire the gun with right finger print, why don't we standardize such technology so it is standard on all guns so somebody can not claim that they buy 100 gun a year and all some how mysteriously will be stolen or children can not take their parents gun to school and shoot their classmates? The discussion should not be about banning the guns, it should be about if we as society should enforce rules on gun manufacturer that makes our society safer or should we let them to sell the guns to every criminal without any hinder so then can maximize their profit.