The reason(s) I am asking about are: So many anti-gun people site so many studies, reasons, excuses etc to support their position that banning our right to posses firearms will lower crime but, I have never seen anything official that can prove that position. Does any provable reason(s) exist?
Does any provable reason(s) exist?
- Thread starter Dmanbass
- Start date
model70fan
New member
The UK and Australia, that is how well disarming the population prevents crime
There is nothing official showing any reduction of crime in the absence of firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens, the criminals will always be armed.
There is nothing official showing any reduction of crime in the absence of firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens, the criminals will always be armed.No. All they can do is site bogus studies and repeat bogus claims that have never come true. As a matter of fact, there was some study done by a liberal group which came to the conclusion at the end of their study that they could find no evidence that any gun control has led to reduced amounts of violent crime. Of course, they threw in the caveat that just because they couldn't find any evidence, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Their suggestion was that more research needs to be done.
Evidence on both sides of the argument is dubious and still needs more research. Claiming that banning guns will reduce crime is about as unsupportable as claiming that increasing guns will reduce crime. In both arguments guns are merely one variable among many far too complex to be controlled by a single alteration in laws.
Why do people still hold their valued positions? Because it's easier to keep pushing the statistics they agree with and wave off the ones they don't than it is to look at an issue objectively.
Why do people still hold their valued positions? Because it's easier to keep pushing the statistics they agree with and wave off the ones they don't than it is to look at an issue objectively.
toybox99615
New member
at the same time
there has been no real way to measure the affects of armed citizens. You can not take the very few examples of an armed citizen protecting himself and extrapolate that into the entire crime rate. Generally the arguments regarding crime reduction where citizens are armed are opinions. The crime rate is alarming across the country and many of the crimes do not have any guns involved. So you can not imply that an armed citizen would be safer than an unarmed citizen in those instances.
There is a great deal of bantering information on the anti-gun movement. There is also undocumented opinion on the self defence side. Crime data leaves out a great deal of information that is needed to make reasonable conclusion. For example: (based on a recient news story in the last three months) on a given day three young children were shot to death in some location. That information leads some to profess that without the availability of guns these kids would not have been killed. The shooting death data does not reflect the rest of the story where another child and the mother were bludgeoned to death. No-one can know for sure if the murderer would have bludgeoned to death the three were shot if a gun was not available. Nor do you know why the two were bludgeoned and not also shot.
Armed citizens most likely can defend themselves becasue they are armed. That is my opinion. I'll carry based on that opinion. My carrying is not going to enter in the equation if the crime is not one where there is no confrontation with the BG.
there has been no real way to measure the affects of armed citizens. You can not take the very few examples of an armed citizen protecting himself and extrapolate that into the entire crime rate. Generally the arguments regarding crime reduction where citizens are armed are opinions. The crime rate is alarming across the country and many of the crimes do not have any guns involved. So you can not imply that an armed citizen would be safer than an unarmed citizen in those instances.
There is a great deal of bantering information on the anti-gun movement. There is also undocumented opinion on the self defence side. Crime data leaves out a great deal of information that is needed to make reasonable conclusion. For example: (based on a recient news story in the last three months) on a given day three young children were shot to death in some location. That information leads some to profess that without the availability of guns these kids would not have been killed. The shooting death data does not reflect the rest of the story where another child and the mother were bludgeoned to death. No-one can know for sure if the murderer would have bludgeoned to death the three were shot if a gun was not available. Nor do you know why the two were bludgeoned and not also shot.
Armed citizens most likely can defend themselves becasue they are armed. That is my opinion. I'll carry based on that opinion. My carrying is not going to enter in the equation if the crime is not one where there is no confrontation with the BG.
Garand Illusion
New member
Ohhhhh ... I have spent the last few years being somewhat of a nut about reading and trying to analyze all the studies out there. As has been said, there are virtually no studies or polls that aren't done without some kind of bias (and polls are as easily biased as studies, if not more so).
I think an unbiased person who has looked at the effect gun laws in other countries have had and analyzed the all the studies could make the case that a total gun ban (nothing else would have much impact, since a person's ability to kill isn't based on the type or size of weapon) would have some effect on the suicide rate (not that the same number of people wouldn't try to suicide -- just that more will fail without a gun) and possibly the domestic violence murder rate (because domestic violence is the one place where an otherwise normal person might grab a gun and commit a murder). Those are all just educated guesses, but I believe strongly they would hold true.
But if you look at the whole issue ... this is AMERICA, not Europe. And we're not in danger of becoming the "wild west" again; in terms of self defense we've never stopped being the "wild west." If you look for them you can find several cases per day of people using firearms to defend their lives and families in this country. So for the murder rate overall, I don't think it's a stretch to argue that it could actually go up, not down.
In America, no matter who's numbers you look at, guns are used for personal defense many, many times more often than people are murdered with them. Unlike many other countries, we have both a history of violence and a history of people defending themselves and their property. I'm not proud of the former, but I certainly am of the latter.
Taking away guns from Americans will have a different effect than on other countries, where self defense is not such a part of the culture. Because they didn't lose as much as we would. (and even so, the effect was marginal at best and didn't affect long term crime trends, or even murder trends, to go down).
When you hear people lamenting our huge "gun murder" rate and comparing it with countries like the UK, with the claim that only our easy access to guns makes this happen, ask them why our NON-GUN murder rate per capita is twice as high as in other countries? I mean, if guns are the problem, then why aren't ALL murders in this country committed with guns, and why isn't our non-gun murder rate LESS than other countries? Given the facts, no one who looks at the statistics at all can claim that our murder rate would drop to that of other countries if we take away guns, because the numbers just aren't there.
It's because the gun culture isn't the problem in this country, the violence culture is.
And taking away guns isn't going to fix that.
My .02. I am not actually a professional stastician, though I do play one on the internet.
I think an unbiased person who has looked at the effect gun laws in other countries have had and analyzed the all the studies could make the case that a total gun ban (nothing else would have much impact, since a person's ability to kill isn't based on the type or size of weapon) would have some effect on the suicide rate (not that the same number of people wouldn't try to suicide -- just that more will fail without a gun) and possibly the domestic violence murder rate (because domestic violence is the one place where an otherwise normal person might grab a gun and commit a murder). Those are all just educated guesses, but I believe strongly they would hold true.
But if you look at the whole issue ... this is AMERICA, not Europe. And we're not in danger of becoming the "wild west" again; in terms of self defense we've never stopped being the "wild west." If you look for them you can find several cases per day of people using firearms to defend their lives and families in this country. So for the murder rate overall, I don't think it's a stretch to argue that it could actually go up, not down.
In America, no matter who's numbers you look at, guns are used for personal defense many, many times more often than people are murdered with them. Unlike many other countries, we have both a history of violence and a history of people defending themselves and their property. I'm not proud of the former, but I certainly am of the latter.
Taking away guns from Americans will have a different effect than on other countries, where self defense is not such a part of the culture. Because they didn't lose as much as we would. (and even so, the effect was marginal at best and didn't affect long term crime trends, or even murder trends, to go down).
When you hear people lamenting our huge "gun murder" rate and comparing it with countries like the UK, with the claim that only our easy access to guns makes this happen, ask them why our NON-GUN murder rate per capita is twice as high as in other countries? I mean, if guns are the problem, then why aren't ALL murders in this country committed with guns, and why isn't our non-gun murder rate LESS than other countries? Given the facts, no one who looks at the statistics at all can claim that our murder rate would drop to that of other countries if we take away guns, because the numbers just aren't there.
It's because the gun culture isn't the problem in this country, the violence culture is.
And taking away guns isn't going to fix that.
My .02. I am not actually a professional stastician, though I do play one on the internet.
At the risk of restating parts of the two excellent posts above, there are so many variables that enter into the murder/suicide/violent crime equation, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to isolate the firearm contribution.
If you want to reduce homicide, armed robbery, etc., fix the poverty problem. Pretty simple, no?
If you want to reduce homicide, armed robbery, etc., fix the poverty problem. Pretty simple, no?
That was a Government agency (and a "liberal group" as well): the Center for Disease Control and Injury Prevention's (CDC's) First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Violence: Firearms Laws prepared by some well established "professionals" who just happened to be anti-gun. This was some time after the CDC attempted to control firearms by treating gun injuries epidemiologically, as a disease. CDC got its wrist slapped and was ordered to cease and desist.
Keep in mind that this was at a time when deaths due to medical errors were higher than accidental firearms deaths. The CDC medical folks were looking in the wrong direction, IMO.
River Rat, eliminating poverty might help. Check out the CDC's Do It Yourself Report Generator and the Bureau of Justice Statistics site and see what some of the problems really look like.
thrgunsmith
New member
Probably there are good reputable studies representing our side.
But first, it is called "cite" not "site"
Cite is a verb which means to order to appear in court and to quote as an example, authority or proof. Site is a noun which means the actual location or a place or scene of something. As a verb, site means to place or locate on a location or position. Sight is a noun which refers to the sense of seeing.
I think guncite has the resources you're looking for.
http://www.guncite.com/
But first, it is called "cite" not "site"
Cite is a verb which means to order to appear in court and to quote as an example, authority or proof. Site is a noun which means the actual location or a place or scene of something. As a verb, site means to place or locate on a location or position. Sight is a noun which refers to the sense of seeing.
I think guncite has the resources you're looking for.
http://www.guncite.com/
Always picking on the aussies
anyway here is some interesting reading.
http://www.ssaa.org.au/newssaa/political archive/recentssaareseached/recentssaaresearch.htm