Guns Because

[Jason]

In other words, you're full of shit and you lose again.

Why do you persist with bullshit?

OK.. so that's argument settled right? Anyone want to go for Thai? No? No that's cool. See yall tomorrow?

[Seth]

Seth

Why do you persist with bullshit?

I don't. Why do you?

You just said yourself that you do not know if the number of gun owners has increased or dropped. Yet, in spite of your self admitted ignorance, you are jumping to unsupported conclusions.

I'm applying Ockham's Razor to the question of where 8 million guns last year went. I find it implausible that every single one of them was bought by a current owner. I've been to too many gun shows and watched too many clueless newbies buying guns like they were going out of style (which they might be) to give your notion any credibility.

There is a world wide drop in violent crime. That drop is happening in the USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, Britain, Europe and more. All those nations (except the USA) with falling crime rates have close to zero civilian hand gun ownership. It is clear that hand gun ownership, increasing or falling, has nothing to do with the global drop in violent crime.

Horseshit. Irrelevant red herrings. Doesn't matter what the "world wide" crime rate is doing, it ONLY matters that the crime rate in the US, including specifically the handgun murder rate, is DECLINING while the number of guns in our society is rapidly increasing.

Those two simple facts prove that more guns = less crime. It's simply indisputable.

It is equally clear that the high level of hand gun ownership in the USA is the main reason (along with the sick gun culture) why America is the murder capital of the western world.

That is as it may be, but the fact still remains that as more and more handguns flow in to the hands of the law-abiding, and they are allowed to actually carry them in public for self-protection, murders CONTINUE to DECLINE. They are NOT going UP with the addition of handguns, which categorically disproves your thesis. Are you really that stupid that you can't make this simple rational mathematical conclusion?

More hand guns means more murders.

Nope, not in the US.

[Hermit]

I guess a lie repeated sufficiently often becomes regarded as the truth. Isn't that what the propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, said? At any rate, the blips you quoted from the Bureau of Justice do not even remotely claim anything in support of what you are asserting. Until you provide data that do that, I stand by my opinion that your ideology is plainly immune to any influence by facts.

What part of the following is unclear?

Firearm-related homicides declined 39%, from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011.
Nonfatal firearm crimes declined 69%, from 1.5 million victimizations in 1993 to 467,300 victimizations in 2011.
Firearm violence accounted for about 70% of all homicides and less than 10% of all nonfatal violent crime from 1993 to 2011.
From 1993 to 2011, about 70% to 80% of firearm homicides and 90% of nonfatal firearm victimizations were committed with a handgun.
Males, blacks, and persons ages 18 to 24 had the highest rates of firearm homicide from 1993 to 2010.
About 61% of nonfatal firearm violence was reported to the police in 2007-11.

You can read and you do understand the meaning of the word "declined" don't you?

More guns, less crime.

Yes, firearm-related homicides declined 39%, from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011 and nonfatal firearm crimes declined 69%, from 1.5 million victimisations in 1993 to 467,300 victimisations in 2011, but that is over a period of 18 years, rather than the 40 year period you have mentioned. Fact is - and you steadfastly ignore it - that over that 40 year period, the incidence of violent crime per 100,000 of population has not decreased by 49%. It has decreased by less than 2.5%. Furthermore, nowhere in the articles you quoted has an increased private ownership of firearms even been mentioned as a possible reason for this vastly smaller decline in violent crime. That is why I regard your outpourings as the result of you living in a fact-free zone.

Is that 18 year span to be found within a 40 year span? I didn't say it dropped uniformly each year. Crime is down. That's a fact.

Yes, that 18 year span is to be found within a 40 year span. What is the relevance of that observation to your assertion that tens of millions more handguns in the US in the last 40 years lead to a 49% decrease in violent crime during that period? There is no factual support for it, Seth. Despite the tens of millions more handguns in the US in the last 40 years, violent crime has not dropped by 49% in that time span. In fact, it has not even decreased by 2.5%, and the rate of rapes has actually increased.

Come back when you have credible evidence that demolish those facts.

Over the past few hours Seth has posted three times in this thread, but failed to reply to the above challenge. Coincidence? I doubt it.

[Seth]

Over the past few hours Seth has posted three times in this thread, but failed to reply to the above challenge. Coincidence? I doubt it.

You're pettifogging. I'll just retract the "40" and "49%" and replace it with the quote from the BJS above. Now fuck off.

[Collector1337]

So Seth, when are these fucktards going to realize, that at least for me personally, I could really give a shit about the murder rate?

Crime has been going down for so long, I don't feel, even remotely, unsafe.

There is no magic number where everyone will suddenly be satisfied with the murder rate. It will ALWAYS be too high.

When are they going to figure out I'm never going to trade my freedom for some murder rate people will still consider a problem?

And let's not leave out certain facts that should illustrate what kind of problem "gun murders" is. "—Fifty-five percent of gun homicide victims in 2010 were black, far beyond their 13 percent share of the population."

Unfortunately, "gun murders" is largely what you might call a "black problem." And it's not really even a "black problem" but more accurately an "inner city black problem."

I live in the fucking suburbs. When are the anti-gun nuts going to realize I don't give a shit about gang bangers shooting each other? They can kill each other all they want for all I care. Just less gang bangers in the world that way. I consider that a good thing.

And that's ignoring that I have a right to keep and bear arms anyway. So, gun murder rate is totally irrelevant.

[Blind groper]

Interesting how Seth claims that what happens in the rest of the world does not matter. We knew he was a redneck. He is clearly also a chauvinist.

Seth

The rest of the world does, in spite of your narrow chauvinist viewpoint, matter. In this case it shows that the drop in crime rate is not related to gun ownership. When crimes rates in the USA, Australia, Canada, Britain, Europe etc all drop together, then it is clear to anyone with half a brain that the drop has a common cause. The obvious common cause is an ageing population. As people get older, they become less violent and less prone to committing crimes. In all those nations together, the percentage of the population over 50 years is growing. Hence the level of crime, and especially violent crime is falling.

Your belief that more guns reduces crime is weird. I know that the charlaton, John Lott says so. But there is no need to act like brainless imprinted ducklings and follow blindly the first idiot you see.

[Hermit]

Over the past few hours Seth has posted three times in this thread, but failed to reply to the above challenge. Coincidence? I doubt it.

You're pettifogging. I'll just retract the "40" and "49%" and replace it with the quote from the BJS above. Now fuck off.

Oh, a faux retraction. As for me fucking off, that's not going to happen. I find the topic interesting, and my motivation to participate in the discussion is to provide a bit of perspective that the prejudices of both the pro-gun and the gun-control advocates lack.

We have a fairly clear-cut, real-world social laboratory case regarding the effects of gun-control in Australia, and the statistics available are - to say the least - so ambivalent that they support neither side. Homicides, armed and unarmed robberies have been decreasing at the same rate in the years before as well as after the 1996 National Agreement on Firearms that resulted in the banning of any automatic or semi-automatic rifles. Assaults, rapes and suicides have been increasing at unchanged rates before as well as after that agreement.

If the prognostications of the pro-gun lobby were right, we would have seen a statistically significant upturn of the rate of increase in all categories of crime. That is plainly not the case. If the prognostications of the pro-control lobby were right, on the other hand, were right, we'd expect to see a statistically significant downturn of the rate of increase, or even an actual decrease in those rates. Gun-control advocates point to the fact that in Australia the use of firearms to commit suicide has indeed dropped dramatically, but they ignore the fact that simultaneously the use of other means to end one's life has increased even more dramatically. They also turn a blind eye to the fact that Switzerland, where military conscription for each conscript lasts until he is 35 years old, and he takes his military-grade assault weapon home during that time, the homicide rate is lower than that pertaining to Australia, where military style weapons are banned outright. They also ignore the fact that while since the gun control act in Australia we have not had a single massacre, neither have there been any in New Zealand in the same time span, though that country experience them before then as well. The only difference between the two countries is that it remains legal for New Zealanders to privately own assault rifles.

In conclusion, I find that the hysterical screeching from both ends of the gun discussion spectrum are utterances of pure prejudice rather than based on considerations of available data. If forced to answer a question like "Are you in favour (or against) the ability to own firearms, yes or no?" I'd answer affirmatively in regard to "in favour" and negatively to "against", but I'd insist that reasonable controls are exercised in the process.

[Seth]

Over the past few hours Seth has posted three times in this thread, but failed to reply to the above challenge. Coincidence? I doubt it.

You're pettifogging. I'll just retract the "40" and "49%" and replace it with the quote from the BJS above. Now fuck off.

Oh, a faux retraction. As for me fucking off, that's not going to happen. I find the topic interesting, and my motivation to participate in the discussion is to provide a bit of perspective that the prejudices of both the pro-gun and the gun-control advocates lack.

Oh, come on, don't be such a wuss.

We have a fairly clear-cut, real-world social laboratory case regarding the effects of gun-control in Australia, and the statistics available are - to say the least - so ambivalent that they support neither side. Homicides, armed and unarmed robberies have been decreasing at the same rate in the years before as well as after the 1996 National Agreement on Firearms that resulted in the banning of any automatic or semi-automatic rifles. Assaults, rapes and suicides have been increasing at unchanged rates before as well as after that agreement.

Well, it's clear cut for Australia anyway...or is it? The evidence seems to indicate that the gun ban and massive seizure of private arms did fuck-all to solve violent crime or homicide.

New Australian Study Shows More Guns, Less Crime
Monday, 4 March 2013, 9:51 am
Press Release: WiSH

New Australian Study Shows More Guns, Less Crime

New research shows there are more guns but less gun crime in New South Wales, Australia. Although the number of legally owned firearms has increased substantially over the past decade, firearm crime has decreased.

The study, in press with an international peer-reviewed journal, found that the number of murders with a firearm, shoot with intent to murder offences, and armed robbery with a firearm have all declined steadily despite ongoing rises in legal firearms ownership.

The author of the study, Dr Samara McPhedran, said “Typically, Australian firearms legislation has been based on a ‘less guns, less crime’ view, which assumes that reducing the number of legally owned guns in society will lead to reductions in firearm misuse.”

“However, the results from this study suggest there is little, if any, relationship between the number of legally owned guns in Australia’s most populous jurisdiction, and levels of gun crime in that state.”

“In other words, more guns does not mean more crime.”

The study found no evidence that rising levels of legal firearm ownership are linked with increasing levels of firearm theft; the opposite was observed, with ongoing declines in theft occurring over a period of years.

The study concludes targeted law enforcement interventions that disrupt criminal activity, along with community-based crime prevention initiatives, may be the most appropriate and effective focus for violence reduction strategies.

AUSTRALIA: MORE VIOLENT CRIME DESPITE GUN BAN

April 13, 2009

It is a common fantasy that gun bans make society safer. In 2002 -- five years after enacting its gun ban -- the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime. In fact, the percent of murders committed with a firearm was the highest it had ever been in 2006 (16.3 percent), says the D.C. Examiner.

Even Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:

In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.

Moreover, Australia and the United States -- where no gun-ban exists -- both experienced similar decreases in murder rates:

Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America's rate dropped 31.7 percent.
During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.
Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.

While this doesn't prove that more guns would impact crime rates, it does prove that gun control is a flawed policy. Furthermore, this highlights the most important point: gun banners promote failed policy regardless of the consequences to the people who must live with them, says the Examiner.

Source: Howard Nemerov, "Australia experiencing more violent crime despite gun ban," Free Republic, April 9, 2009.

If the prognostications of the pro-gun lobby were right, we would have seen a statistically significant upturn of the rate of increase in all categories of crime. That is plainly not the case. If the prognostications of the pro-control lobby were right, on the other hand, were right, we'd expect to see a statistically significant downturn of the rate of increase, or even an actual decrease in those rates.

What you don't see is a significant increase in crime, or gun crime rates in either the US or NSW where more guns are available now than before.

And remember, we don't say "more guns, less crime" AND "fewer guns, more crime." We say only "more guns, less crime." And that's the case. In other words your claim that fewer guns would create an uptick in crime is a fallacy.

What the causal connection is between firearms in society and crime is a complex issue, and why, exactly, we see less crime where the US has more guns, is open to speculation. But we can say with absolute authority that MORE guns in society, in the hands of law abiding citizens DOES NOT result in more crime, which is what BG has been flogging all along.

You see, if the rate of crime is factually unlinked from the rate of increase or decrease in the LAGO (Law Abiding Gun Owner...I'm getting tired of typing it out) as the above cites seem to intimate, where an increase in the LAGO rate does not cause statistically significant INCREASES in the crime rate, as BG suggests, then there is no rational reason to ban guns to reduce the number of LAGOs. If the law has no actual effect on the aspect of society that it's intended to "fix" (the notion of more guns, more crime), then all such laws do is breed disrespect of the law and the government and, most significantly, impair the rights and safety of all individuals who might have otherwise used their lawful weapons to prevent or thwart a crime. It's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Gun-control advocates point to the fact that in Australia the use of firearms to commit suicide has indeed dropped dramatically, but they ignore the fact that simultaneously the use of other means to end one's life has increased even more dramatically.

Right. I discount suicide as a factor in gun policy because its not criminals victimizing others, it's people engaging in voluntary conduct, which I view as a fundamental human right. The right to end an intolerable life is, as far as I'm concerned, a paramount right that all governments should protect. Many don't, and the prime reason for this is the potential loss to the workforce and economy. Suicide wasn't outlawed in the US until the Industrial Revolution, when manufacturers became frustrated that the people they were essentially enslaving in horrific working conditions were committing suicide and thereby increasing the costs of labor. Other prohibitions on suicide have traditionally been religious in nature, which should be discounted by public policy.

They also turn a blind eye to the fact that Switzerland, where military conscription for each conscript lasts until he is 35 years old, and he takes his military-grade assault weapon home during that time, the homicide rate is lower than that pertaining to Australia, where military style weapons are banned outright.

Yup.

They also ignore the fact that while since the gun control act in Australia we have not had a single massacre, neither have there been any in New Zealand in the same time span, though that country experience them before then as well. The only difference between the two countries is that it remains legal for New Zealanders to privately own assault rifles.

This demonstrates the fact that mass killings are not causally related to the availability of semi-automatic rifles or large-capacity ammunition magazines. The largest mass killing in US history was committed with gasoline and a match.

In conclusion, I find that the hysterical screeching from both ends of the gun discussion spectrum are utterances of pure prejudice rather than based on considerations of available data. If forced to answer a question like "Are you in favour (or against) the ability to own firearms, yes or no?" I'd answer affirmatively in regard to "in favour" and negatively to "against", but I'd insist that reasonable controls are exercised in the process.

So, do you think that the 50,000 or so laws currently on the books that exercise rather strict controls over firearms to be adequate? What new laws would you propose to rectify some problem with current policies that you see?

Please refrain from advocating for laws that duplicate the function of laws already on the books, because if criminals won't obey the laws already on the books, they obviously won't obey any new laws.

Tell us of something new and novel that you believe would provide a statistically significant drop in firearms crime.

[Hermit]

We have a fairly clear-cut, real-world social laboratory case regarding the effects of gun-control in Australia, and the statistics available are - to say the least - so ambivalent that they support neither side. Homicides, armed and unarmed robberies have been decreasing at the same rate in the years before as well as after the 1996 National Agreement on Firearms that resulted in the banning of any automatic or semi-automatic rifles. Assaults, rapes and suicides have been increasing at unchanged rates before as well as after that agreement.

Well, it's clear cut for Australia anyway...or is it? The evidence seems to indicate that the gun ban and massive seizure of private arms did fuck-all to solve violent crime or homicide.

Isn't that precisely what I said? Oh wait, yes it is:

Homicides, armed and unarmed robberies have been decreasing at the same rate in the years before as well as after the 1996 National Agreement on Firearms that resulted in the banning of any automatic or semi-automatic rifles. Assaults, rapes and suicides have been increasing at unchanged rates before as well as after that agreement.

You need to take a remedial course in reading comprehension.

And remember, we don't say "more guns, less crime" AND "fewer guns, more crime."

WTF? You yourself have authored a number of posts warning us of the dramatic increase of assaults, rapes, robberies, home invasions et cetera, should there be fewer guns carried in private hands. Besides, how is it even possible to say "more guns, less crime" if the converse, "fewer guns, more crime." is not true?

Tell us of something new and novel that you believe would provide a statistically significant drop in firearms crime.

If your reading comprehension were up to it, you may have discerned from my previous post that the prohibition of gun ownership in private ownership is not it. It's also something I have mentioned during a gun control discussion in a previous thread on this forum one or two years ago. On that occasion I searched for factual backup regarding claim and counter-claim, and fundamentally changed my stance on gun control on the basis of what I found: An absence of guns does not change the underlying rates of increase or decrease of various categories of criminal events. So, I abandoned my support for gun control while maintaining that those who assert that more guns means less crime as well as those who assert that fewer guns means less crime are talking from a fact-free zone. Until, of course they provide the appropriate statistics, and by that I don't mean cherry-picked and/or misapplied figures that they think are convincing, but statistics that are bullet-proof, if you excuse the pun, to their respective cases.

[Blind groper]

To Hermit

The Australian situation is different to that in the USA in that there are next to zero hand guns in civilian possession in Australia. It is hand guns that are the big problem in the USA, where fully half of all murders are delivered via hand gun. All other firearms put together kill only one sixth of those killed by hand guns.

Remove the hand guns, as has been done in Oz and all other civilised nations, and the murder rate drops dramatically.

[Hermit]

The Australian situation is different to that in the USA in that there are next to zero hand guns in civilian possession in Australia. It is hand guns that are the big problem in the USA, where fully half of all murders are delivered via hand gun. All other firearms put together kill only one sixth of those killed by hand guns.

Remove the hand guns, as has been done in Oz and all other civilised nations, and the murder rate drops dramatically.

You may be right for all I know, but this thread is not titled "Hand Guns Because". Also, in order to backup your assertion you need to cite examples where an increase or decrease of hand gun ownership in any particular social location has had a commensurate increase or decrease in the rate of murder.

[JimC]

The Australian situation is different to that in the USA in that there are next to zero hand guns in civilian possession in Australia. It is hand guns that are the big problem in the USA, where fully half of all murders are delivered via hand gun. All other firearms put together kill only one sixth of those killed by hand guns.

Remove the hand guns, as has been done in Oz and all other civilised nations, and the murder rate drops dramatically.

You may be right for all I know, but this thread is not titled "Hand Guns Because". Also, in order to backup your assertion you need to cite examples where an increase or decrease of hand gun ownership in any particular social location has had a commensurate increase or decrease in the rate of murder.

In Oz, at least, there has never been a historical period where hand guns were widespread in the population. Possibly in the goldrush days to an extent, but with nothing like the cultural position they have assumed in the US.

So, such data would be hard to find, I suspect......

[Blind groper]

Hermit

Decrease in hand gun numbers versus murder rate?

I quoted this before for Japan. Hand gun murders are now pretty much zero year in and year out, which is a big drop from the days before strong anti hand guns measures were implemented. The reason is simple. It is now reported that only 77 hand guns are in civilian possession anywhere in Japan.

[Hermit]

Decrease in hand gun numbers versus murder rate?

I quoted this before for Japan. Hand gun murders are now pretty much zero year in and year out, which is a big drop from the days before strong anti hand guns measures were implemented. The reason is simple. It is now reported that only 77 hand guns are in civilian possession anywhere in Japan.

No hand guns, no handgun murders. Indubitably. What interested me two years ago, was if the availability of privately owned firearms affected the gradient of murder, suicide and crime rates generally, and I found no evidence whatsoever in support for the right to bear arms, nor in support for its prohibition, and you have not provided any either up to this point.

[Pappa]

Horseshit. Irrelevant red herrings. Doesn't matter what the "world wide" crime rate is doing, it ONLY matters that the crime rate in the US, including specifically the handgun murder rate, is DECLINING while the number of guns in our society is rapidly increasing.

Those two simple facts prove that more guns = less crime. It's simply indisputable.

Seth, that's extremely poor reasoning and an obvious logical fallacy.