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January 1, 2013 at 6:10 PM #757051January 1, 2013 at 7:56 PM #757052
CA renter
Participant[quote=zk][quote=CA renter]
More on how the U.K. crime rates measure up to states with the lowest crime rate in the U.S. — some with very lenient gun laws. As others have already noted, some states and cities with the most restrictive gun laws also have some of the highest crime rates.
IOW, gun bans do not prevent violent crimes or homicides. The culture of the people is what prevents or fosters high crime rates.
http://libertarianhome.co.uk/2012/12/uk-…%5B/quote%5DTo say that “some states and cities with the most restrictive gun laws also have some of the highest crime rates” means, IOW, that “gun bans do not prevent violent crimes or homicides.” is to ignore why those states have those gun laws in the first place, and it is also to ignore your main argument. (Besides which, “restrictive gun laws” and “gun bans” are not necessarily the same thing. And any gun ban, to be effective, would require a serious punishment for possessing a gun).
Say you have two towns. Town A is kind of rough and has a bunch of hoodlums living in it; town B is nicer. Graffiti is a big problem in Town A. Town A bans sales of spray paint and doubles the fine for spraying graffiti from $25 to $50. Lame measures, obviously. Similar to current gun-control laws. Those small measures aren’t going to do anything. So you look at these two towns and say, “Town A has tougher graffiti-control measures and still has a bigger graffiti problem.” Well, of course it does. It had a bigger problem to start with, and that’s why it enacted “tougher” measures. But those measures, while maybe technically more restrictive, don’t, in reality, have any effect at all.
So, in the case of these two towns, as you say, “The culture of the people is what prevents or fosters high crime rates.” But that’s only part of the story.
Let’s say you have a mandatory 5-year prison sentence for possessing spray paint in Town A. Do you think graffiti would be reduced? Of course it would. Crime rates are a result of a combination of culture and the rule of law. The reason that’s so hard to see in our country as far as gun-control laws is that there is nowhere in the U.S. that has meaningful gun-control laws.
The same people who are against meaningful gun control laws are generally also for tough punishment for crimes (I happen to be for gun control and for tough punishment for crimes). Why are conservatives so strongly for tough punishment for crimes? Is it because they think it will reduce crimes or for some other reason? If they believe that being tough on crime will reduce crime, why don’t they think it will be effective against guns?
[/quote]
You’ve just made the “pro-gun” argument, yourself. You can disarm 100% of the people in Town A (the town with gang culture, etc.), and there will still be homicides and other violent crimes; maybe the same number as before any gun ban. You can also arm 100% of the population in Town B (the nicer town), and if all of those people are law-abiding, respectful, considerate people, you can theoretically have ZERO homicides. It’s not the guns that cause homicides, but the people and culture of those people.
Let’s address your spray paint analogy, now. Assuming that it’s the *graffiti* you want to avoid, why do you think that enacting strict sentences for the possession of spray paint would be more effective than imposing those same strict sentences for vandalism? There are perfectly good and useful things that people can do with spray paint; why would you make owning the *paint* illegal instead of making vandalism illegal? IOW, why would you impose new restrictions on people who would never vandalize in the first place? Those who vandalize are already doing so even though there are existing laws against it. Making spray paint illegal would only create a larger criminal class because some currently law-abiding citizens would still need/want to use spray paint, and would end up getting it illegally. If you can’t control the smaller group of criminals who actually vandalize, what makes you think that our legal system could control an even larger number of criminals…many of whom would never harm anybody else or their property?
The same goes for guns. There are many perfectly rational reasons for people to own guns. Some hunt, some participate in shooting sports, some use them for self defense, etc. Why would you ban guns and create an even larger criminal class (by turning these law-abiding citizens into criminals via new gun bans) when you can’t even enforce the laws that exist for a much smaller criminal class (those who are committing the crimes)? Just like with the prohibition of alcohol, there are many people who would never commit gun crimes who would still insist on owning a gun for self-defense, etc. With new gun laws, you’ve just created a larger criminal class while not showing that it would lower violent crime rates in any way. If history is any guide, it would very likely cause MORE violent crime as this market goes underground.
The number of people who use guns to commit crimes is a very, very small percentage of gun owners. Think of these criminals as the numerator, and the total population of gun owners as the denominator. There are already laws that prevent felons from owning guns (numerator). There are already laws that make it illegal to commit violent crimes (numerator). If these existing laws are not able to prevent violent crimes, how do you figure that new laws affecting the law-abiding group (percentage of gun owners who never use guns to commit crimes — the majority of gun owners) would somehow reduce the number of crimes committed by the criminals? You’re increasing the ratio of criminal to non-criminal (as some law-abiding citizens are made “criminals” overnight via new gun laws), but not showing how that would reduce crime.
January 1, 2013 at 9:17 PM #757055CDMA ENG
ParticipantI havent read through all eight pages of the classic gun debate here but I am wondering if anyone has bother to mention that one of the worse mass murder in this country happend by a manic with army training who did not bother to use a gun.
He used a Ryder truck and a lot of ammonia nitrate.
Point being is that people do not need assualt weapons to do horrible things.
There are plenty of engineers and other devious types on this board. Anyone of us could plot and acheive mass murder without much difficulty or use of a firearm.
I know this is a morbid idea and I apologize if anyone is offended but it is the truth.
My belief is it is not a issue of law… but of an issue of culture and attitude in the country.
Security is an illusion and it has very little to do with gun laws.
Be safe my friends.
CE
January 1, 2013 at 11:46 PM #757057zk
Participant[quote=CA renter]You’ve just made the “pro-gun” argument, yourself. You can disarm 100% of the people in Town A (the town with gang culture, etc.), and there will still be homicides and other violent crimes; maybe the same number as before any gun ban. You can also arm 100% of the population in Town B (the nicer town), and if all of those people are law-abiding, respectful, considerate people, you can theoretically have ZERO homicides. It’s not the guns that cause homicides, but the people and culture of those people. [/quote]
I’m not sure how you got from what I said to “You can disarm 100% of the people in Town A (the town with gang culture, etc.), and there will still be homicides and other violent crimes; maybe the same number as before any gun ban.” That is not what I said. I said you could ban sales of spray paint (or guns) and increase fines to a still-insignificant amount and Town A would still have a bigger problem than Town B. In other words, you could enact useless measures and not help the problem much. I didn’t say anything about disarming them. Disarming them would obviously bring gun crimes to zero. Banning sales and increasing fines by a piddling amount won’t disarm them. I also said that if you enact serious penalties for possessing spray paint (or guns) that spray paint (or gun) crimes would probably be reduced significantly.
In other words, it’s a combination of culture and gun-control measures. It doesn’t matter that Town B could have zero homicides. It’s not Town B that the measures are for. What matters is Town A. What matters is whether strict gun-control measures would significantly reduce (not eliminate, not reduce to Town B levels, just significantly reduce) gun crimes in Town A. Your argument seems to be that if a bad town is going to have more gun crimes than a good town regardless of gun-control laws, then gun-control laws don’t matter; only culture matters. That is just not true. If a bad town (or country) would have less gun crime with serious gun-control laws than that same country (in that same time period) would without those laws, then gun control does matter. Even if gun crime isn’t reduced to Switzerland levels.
[quote=CA renter]Let’s address your spray paint analogy, now. Assuming that it’s the *graffiti* you want to avoid, why do you think that enacting strict sentences for the possession of spray paint would be more effective than imposing those same strict sentences for vandalism? [/quote]
If possessing spray paint is a felony with a 5-10 year prison sentence, then in order to commit graffiti vandalism, you’ve got to not only make sure you don’t get caught actually in the act of painting something, you’ve got to make sure you don’t get caught with the paint. Think about it. You’ve got to get that paint somewhere. You hope it’s not from an undercover officer. You’ve got to drive it to your house. You’ve got to get it into your house. You’ve got to hide it pretty damn securely while it’s there. You’ve got to get it back out. You’ve got to drive it to the scene of the crime. You’ve got to carry it from your car to the scene of the crime. Any little slip up in any one of those areas, and you could be in prison for 5 years. Clearly that’s a bigger deterrent than just making sure you don’t get caught in the act. Also, it gives law enforcement that much more opportunity to prevent a spray paint (or gun) crime.
[quote=CA renter] There are perfectly good and useful things that people can do with spray paint; why would you make owning the *paint* illegal instead of making vandalism illegal? IOW, why would you impose new restrictions on people who would never vandalize in the first place? Those who vandalize are already doing so even though there are existing laws against it. Making spray paint illegal would only create a larger criminal class because some currently law-abiding citizens would still need/want to use spray paint, and would end up getting it illegally. If you can’t control the smaller group of criminals who actually vandalize, what makes you think that our legal system could control an even larger number of criminals…many of whom would never harm anybody else or their property?
The same goes for guns. There are many perfectly rational reasons for people to own guns. Some hunt, some participate in shooting sports, some use them for self defense, etc. Why would you ban guns and create an even larger criminal class (by turning these law-abiding citizens into criminals via new gun bans) when you can’t even enforce the laws that exist for a much smaller criminal class (those who are committing the crimes)? Just like with the prohibition of alcohol, there are many people who would never commit gun crimes who would still insist on owning a gun for self-defense, etc. With new gun laws, you’ve just created a larger criminal class while not showing that it would lower violent crime rates in any way. If history is any guide, it would very likely cause MORE violent crime as this market goes underground. [/quote]
The spray paint analogy is limited for the purposes of this part of the discussion, so we’ll use actual guns.
There are rational reasons for people to own guns. And I’m not suggesting banning guns. I’m suggesting banning handguns and assault rifles and making the purchase and possession of rifles and shotguns a difficult and rigorous and very selective process.
I think that hunting and sporting are good enough reasons to own guns in a perfect world. But we’re not in a perfect world, and we have to ask ourselves if hunting and sporting are worth the lives we lose to guns.
As for the argument that we shouldn’t try what I suggest because we don’t have enough law enforcement to handle what we already have, I say get more law enforcement. Not let people die because we’re too cheap to save their lives.
[quote=CA renter]The number of people who use guns to commit crimes is a very, very small percentage of gun owners. Think of these criminals as the numerator, and the total population of gun owners as the denominator. There are already laws that prevent felons from owning guns (numerator). There are already laws that make it illegal to commit violent crimes (numerator). If these existing laws are not able to prevent violent crimes, how do you figure that new laws affecting the law-abiding group (percentage of gun owners who never use guns to commit crimes — the majority of gun owners) would somehow reduce the number of crimes committed by the criminals? You’re increasing the ratio of criminal to non-criminal (as some law-abiding citizens are made “criminals” overnight via new gun laws), but not showing how that would reduce crime. [/quote]
No person is going to be made into a criminal overnight. Unless they decided not to turn in their gun in the time allotted, in which case they’d be turning themselves into criminals.
Sure, there are laws that make it illegal to commit violent crimes. But many violent crimes are committed in a passionate moment. With a gun. Usually a handgun. If you have a lot less guns, all of them in the hands of carefully selected people, and none of them handguns, that’s going to happen less often. Common sense tells you that. And, unfortunately, common sense is all we have to go on here. There’s no perfect way to tell what effect such gun laws would have. There are no two cultures exactly alike. Not even the same country in different time periods has the same culture.
I agree that culture is a huge part of the problem. The biggest part. And that we need to address that problem. But to think that we can solve the problem with that effort alone is, I think, unrealistic. I think if we address the culture problem aggressively while also addressing gun control aggressively, we have a shot at significantly reducing gun deaths in the U.S.
January 2, 2013 at 12:24 AM #757058ParticipantYou keep mentioning “gun crimes” and “gun deaths” as if the manner of committing a crime is what matters. I don’t care if someone commits a murder with a knife, a gun, a car, or some other weapon. The ONLY thing that matters is that a homicide occured.
If banning spray paint, guns, alcohol, drugs, etc. worked…then we wouldn’t have given so much power to the mafia and other gangs. It’s the creation of these black markets that allows many violent criminals to thrive. Banning guns won’t turn criminals into law-abiding citizens (though it would turn a good number of law-abiding, totally non-violent citizens into criminals) and there is NO EVIDENCE that these gun bans would eliminate or reduce homicides or violent attacks. Criminals are going to commit whatever crimes they want because **laws do not matter to them.**
What we need to do is stop glorifying and “normalizing” violence through violent, sadistic video games, movies, etc. We also need to get VERY tough on violent criminals, and allow citizens to fully protect themselves and their property from violent attackers without any fear of legal repercussions. We also need to get serious about mental health problems in our society. Psychopaths have pretty obvious characteristics, even from young childhood, and while I understand there are some civil liberty issues regarding this, they should be observed and possibly institutionalized in some way in order to protect society. Not an easy answer, but this is where a lot of our problems lie, IMHO.
January 2, 2013 at 2:21 AM #757059ParticipantJust a casual glance at a list of the most notorious serial killers shows that many (most?) of them didn’t use guns to commit their crimes.
Again, guns are simply one of many tools used to commit murder. Even if you could get the guns out of criminal hands (highly unlikely, as these will be the LAST people to turn in any guns), they would still manage to find other tools to violently attack and kill others.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/index.html
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Punishing law-abiding gun owners (many of whom will simply go underground with their weapons, becoming criminals themselves) will not do anything to prevent *criminals* from owning or using guns or any other tool to commit murder or other violent crimes.
January 3, 2013 at 10:24 AM #757136ltsddd
Participant3 women killed by gunman in Swiss village
One interesting note from the article is that voters rejected a proposal to tighten guns laws in 2011.
January 3, 2013 at 12:54 PM #757147LuckyInOC
Participantzk, The 2nd Amendment does not cover hunting or sporting rifles. The 2nd Amendment refers to the protection of ones person, family, and property.
Lucky In OC
January 4, 2013 at 8:02 AM #757189Participant[quote=CA renter]You keep mentioning “gun crimes” and “gun deaths” as if the manner of committing a crime is what matters. I don’t care if someone commits a murder with a knife, a gun, a car, or some other weapon. The ONLY thing that matters is that a homicide occured. [/quote]
Yes, the only thing that matters is that a homicide occurred. As I said in an earlier post:
I don’t agree with the “other instruments of force” argument. Sure, a person could walk into a McDonalds and start stabbing people. But to think that it would happen nearly as often as it does with guns just doesn’t seem realistic to me. It takes real guts (I imagine) to walk up to somebody and stab them. They might grab your knife and stab you. And you can’t just stab them once, generally, if you want to kill them. It’s a lot easier and more effective to stand a few feet away and pull a trigger.
In other words, if you reduce gun crimes, you’re most likely going to reduce homicides.
[quote=CA renter]If banning spray paint, guns, alcohol, drugs, etc. worked…then we wouldn’t have given so much power to the mafia and other gangs. It’s the creation of these black markets that allows many violent criminals to thrive. Banning guns won’t turn criminals into law-abiding citizens (though it would turn a good number of law-abiding, totally non-violent citizens into criminals) and there is NO EVIDENCE that these gun bans would eliminate or reduce homicides or violent attacks. Criminals are going to commit whatever crimes they want because **laws do not matter to them.** [/quote]
Of course laws matter to them. Or, more precisely, the punishments that laws provide for matter to them. To think that criminals give no thought whatsoever to possible punishment is absurd. (Except in very rare cases of certain mental illnesses.) And if you can get a criminal thinking about those punishments when he’s not in the heat of battle, as with severe penalties for possession, then you’re more likely to stop his crime than you are if he’s only going to be punished if you catch him in the act. Because frequently gun crimes are crimes of passion, and in the heat of passion, laws are less likely to matter.
As for evidence that gun bans would eliminate or reduce homicides, this seems like pretty solid evidence:
“In 2008, the Australian Institute of Criminology reported a decrease of 9% in homicides and a one-third decrease in armed robbery since the 1990s, but an increase of over 40% in assaults and 20% in sexual assaults.”
Even as their culture got more violent, homicides and armed robbery decreased after a gun ban. As I’ve said, there is no way to perfectly assess the effects of stricter gun-control laws. What kind of evidence, exactly, are you looking for?[quote=CA renter]What we need to do is stop glorifying and “normalizing” violence through violent, sadistic video games, movies, etc. We also need to get VERY tough on violent criminals, and allow citizens to fully protect themselves and their property from violent attackers without any fear of legal repercussions.
[/quote]
I agree with this, to a point.[quote=CA renter]We also need to get serious about mental health problems in our society. Psychopaths have pretty obvious characteristics, even from young childhood, and while I understand there are some civil liberty issues regarding this, they should be observed and possibly institutionalized in some way in order to protect society. Not an easy answer, but this is where a lot of our problems lie, IMHO.
[/quote]
I agree that mental illness needs to be taken much more seriously in this country. But the vast majority of murderers are not mentally ill. This will not solve, nor put much of a dent, in our homicide problem.[quote=CA renter]Just a casual glance at a list of the most notorious serial killers shows that many (most?) of them didn’t use guns to commit their crimes. [/quote]
You frequently focus on serial killings and mass killings. As I keep saying, the biggest problem is the daily murders. The mass/serial killings are what bring the problem to the forefront of the consciousness of our short-attention-spanned populace.
[quote=CA renter]Again, guns are simply one of many tools used to commit murder. Even if you could get the guns out of criminal hands (highly unlikely, as these will be the LAST people to turn in any guns), they would still manage to find other tools to violently attack and kill others.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/seria… [/quote]Again, you’re focusing on a very small portion of homicides.
January 4, 2013 at 9:38 AM #757191Participant[quote=LuckyInOC]zk, The 2nd Amendment does not cover hunting or sporting rifles. The 2nd Amendment refers to the protection of ones person, family, and property.
Lucky In OC[/quote]
The 2nd amendment covers all arms. And it doesn’t refer to protection of one’s person, family and property. It refers to the “security of a free state.”
January 4, 2013 at 9:59 AM #757192ucodegen
Participant[quote=zk]“In 2008, the Australian Institute of Criminology reported a decrease of 9% in homicides and a one-third decrease in armed robbery since the 1990s, but an increase of over 40% in assaults and 20% in sexual assaults.”[/quote]So we get a reduction of approx 30% in one category, 9% in another (which may statistically overlap with the first – if the armed robbery resulted in a homicide).. and a 40% increase in another category (assault) which has the sub-category sexual assault increasing by 20%? That does not look like good statistics to support gun control or a gun ban. Considering the reduction in armed robbery, I would suspect that it had nothing to do with gun control. It could be better police work, money obtained during a robbery not justifying the risk and finally… more prevalent use of credit cards meaning that establishments carry less cash. A person considering using a weapon for a crime, has already considered that killing is ‘justifiable’ to achieve their ends. Making guns completely illegal will not stop them.
Be careful of taking statistics out of the context of the environment in which they were generated.
January 4, 2013 at 10:02 AM #757193SK in CV
Participant[quote=zk]
The 2nd amendment covers all arms. And it doesn’t refer to protection of one’s person, family and property. It refers to the “security of a free state.”[/quote]No, it does not cover all arms. The supreme court has said so, repeatedly.
January 4, 2013 at 10:19 AM #757194Participant[quote=SK in CV][quote=zk]
The 2nd amendment covers all arms. And it doesn’t refer to protection of one’s person, family and property. It refers to the “security of a free state.”[/quote]No, it does not cover all arms. The supreme court has said so, repeatedly.[/quote]
Ok. Does it cover rifles and shotguns? More to the point, when Lucky in OC says the 2nd amendment doesn’t cover rifles and shotguns, what does he mean and what point is he trying to make?
January 4, 2013 at 10:28 AM #757195Participant[quote=zk][quote=SK in CV][quote=zk]
The 2nd amendment covers all arms. And it doesn’t refer to protection of one’s person, family and property. It refers to the “security of a free state.”[/quote]No, it does not cover all arms. The supreme court has said so, repeatedly.[/quote]
Ok. Does it cover rifles and shotguns? More to the point, when Lucky in OC says the 2nd amendment doesn’t cover rifles and shotguns, what does he mean and what point is he trying to make?[/quote]
You’ll have to ask him. “Arms” are weapons. The courts have upheld bans on automatic weapons and not dismissed bans on some semi-automatic weapons. I’m pretty sure no one has ever successfully argued that the arms referred to in the 2nd amendment covers nuclear weapons.
January 4, 2013 at 10:32 AM #757196Participant[quote=ucodegen]“In 2008, the Australian Institute of Criminology reported a decrease of 9% in homicides and a one-third decrease in armed robbery since the 1990s, but an increase of over 40% in assaults and 20% in sexual assaults.”So we get a reduction of approx 30% in one category, 9% in another (which may statistically overlap with the first – if the armed robbery resulted in a homicide).. and a 40% increase in another category (assault) which has the sub-category sexual assault increasing by 20%? That does not look like good statistics to support gun control or a gun ban. Considering the reduction in armed robbery, I would suspect that it had nothing to do with gun control. It could be better police work, money obtained during a robbery not justifying the risk and finally… more prevalent use of credit cards meaning that establishments carry less cash. Be careful of taking statistics out of the context of the environment in which they were generated.[/quote]
I think you’re the one taking statistics out of context. Assault and sexual assault are not generally gun crimes. An increase in those crimes shows a general increase in the violence of a culture. As a culture gets more violent, you’d expect a commensurate increase in gun crimes. But, in this case, you see a reduction in gun crimes (assuming most homicides are gun crimes and most armed robbery is committed with a gun and not a knife or other weapon). It seems common sense that gun control resulted in that decrease in gun crimes. Why would you suspect it had to do with better police work? Or money not justifying the risk (why would that have changed) or more use of credit cards?
[quote=ucodegen]
A person considering using a weapon for a crime, has already considered that killing is ‘justifiable’ to achieve their ends.
[/quote]
This is a massive, and I believe erroneous, assumption. Armed robbers are probably generally hoping that they don’t have to kill anyone. And most of them probably wouldn’t unless it was their only way to stay alive or out of jail. -
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