Posted on 01/03/2005 10:13:59 PM PST by freepatriot32
FEWER GUNS = MORE CRIME by Rod D. Martin, 11 July 2000
Four years into the British and Australian gun bans, the verdict on gun control is in: disaster.
Those who argue for the right of self-defense have always said that banning guns would disarm the law-abiding while encouraging the criminals. Yet even by the standards of most pro-gun arguments, the actual results of total gun control have been startling, leaving anti-gunners and government officials at a loss to explain the debacle.
Take Australia. Just over one year ago, the Australian government spent more than $500 million to confiscate 640,381 privately-owned firearms, even using deadly force. This followed a partial ban of over 60 percent of the country¹s private weapons in 1996. The promise: a dramatic reduction in crime, in exchange for the right of common citizens to defend themselves.
The results: utter mayhem, showing yet again that, as in most things, government cannot take care of you as well as you can.
In the first year of the ban, Australian homicides increased 3.2 percent, and in the state of Victoria, gun homicides shot up 300 percent. Assaults increased 8.6 percent. Armed robberies rose a whopping 44 percent, after having dropped for 25 straight years before the ban. Since then, homicides have jumped 29 percent, kidnappings have risen 38 percent, assaults have increased 17 percent, and armed robberies have skyrocketed an additional 73 percent.
In Australia today, police can go house to house, enter your home without a warrant, search for guns, copy your hard drive, seize your records, and take you to jail. What they cannot do is protect you.
It¹s worse in Britain, where virtually all guns were banned in 1996 following the Dunblane massacre. Americans tend to believe Britain a peaceful place with little crime. Post-confiscation, quite the opposite proves true: the crime rate in England and Wales is now 60 percent higher than in the United States. Indeed, it is higher than in every one of the 50 states.
As in Australia, British police are incapable of stopping this growing anarchy. Despite having more policemen per capita than the U.S., despite installing more electronic surveillance equipment than any other Western country, robbery and sex crimes have shot ahead of U.S. numbers, property crime is now twice as high, and assaults and muggings are now between twice and three times as high as in America.
Perhaps the most telling statistic is the "hot burglary" rate; i.e., those burglaries which are committed while the homeowner is present. In the United States, these burglaries account for just over 10 percent of the total: criminals fear getting shot. In post-gun-ban Britain, however, "hot burglaries" account for more than half of the total, meaning that vastly more Britons face an armed intruder each year, with absolutely no way to defend themselves either from the burglary itself or from whatever other assaults, rapes or murders the criminal may choose to commit.
The contrast between this horror story and the American experience is vast. The U.S. crime rate has fallen precipitously throughout the 1990s, largely driven downward by those states which have enacted concealed-carry laws. And in fact, gun ownership has been shown in survey after survey to be one of the single most important factors in preventing violent crime.
Of particular note, Janet Reno¹s Department of Justice commissioned a survey in 1994 by the openly anti-gun Police Foundation. That exhaustive study, "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms," was completed in 1997, and its conclusion was clear: "Guns are used far more often to defend against crime than to perpetrate crime."
In the year studied, 1.5 million Americans used guns to defend their homes, families or property. In the words of the study, literally "millions of attempted assaults, thefts and break-ins were foiled by armed citizens during the 12-month period." And as the study itself admits, its conclusions are "directly comparable" to other similar studies: the Police Foundation's work was the fifteenth national survey to reach this same conclusion in the past twenty-two years, every one of them having found results in the same range.
The common sense of gun ownership is inescapable: a family, or a single mother, alone at home, facing an armed intruder in the middle of the night, does not have time to call 911. By the time the police arrive, no matter how competent they are, no matter how quickly they respond, she and her children will be dead. It's that simple. She can defend herself and her children, or she can face her merciless predator, alone.
The fact is simple: guns save lives. Lots of lives. Every day. Criminals would far rather prey on the weak than on someone who can fight back. Private gun ownership means people can help protect their families and keep the peace; it also makes certain that crime does not pay.
And if you dont believe it, just visit our British and Australian cousins.
Rod D. Martin, 11 July 2000.
libertarian ping
If a would-be rapist finds himself looking down the muzzle of a woman's pistol, he can almost certainly escape unharmed if he turns around and runs away. If he tries to take the woman's pistol, however, he faces a great risk. Even if he were 90% certain of success, that would still mean he had an almost-10% chance of getting killed. Criminals are often not very bright, but one doesn't have to be Einstein to realize it isn't bright to risk one's life when there's no reward even of one "succeeds".
This article is so right on. My brother has used his pistol on several occasions to thwart would-be criminals. He didn't actually have to use it, he just showed it while emphasizing his intent to use it if the perp came any closer. He still carries and has no intention of relinquishing his weapon--ever.
And anyone who points out what will happen if their stupid ideas are put into practice? Well, they're "morons" to brainy liberals. See?
And it doesn't even matter how many times moronic conservatives tell brainy liberals they've screwed up! No. That's got to be hate speech to brainy liberals. Or something...
Don't forget ammo and a half dozen magazines for the pistols.
This article is over 4 years old now, anyone have current stats?
The anti-gun nuts will have to answer to the charge that they might be responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans (mostly women) who were brainwashed into believing that guns are evil. The anti-gun libs routinely accuse conservatives of killing countless innocent Americans by fostering a "gun culture" (in their words). I accuse liberals of killing thousands of Americans (especially women) by leaving them defenseless against murderers. Remember Richard Speck killed eight nurses with a butcher knife... not a gun.
What a load of crap that article is.
No, it's safe to assume I think that article is a load of misleading crap.
Gun ownership has never been widespread in Australia or the UK, in fact it is seen as something of a marginal pursuit. To somehow suggest therefore that the rise in violent crime is attributable to gun control is misleading.
The gun control measures in the UK and Australia had the overwealming support of the majority of the public. So it's not as if most people felt disenfranchised.
In the case of the UK and Australia I actually think these measures are perfectly reasonable. In the US however I believe the opposite since the sheer volume of weaponery in circulation make gun ownership a sensible precaution.
I think you're missing his point. The point is that is wrong to compare the UK with the US. Gun ownership in the UK was never widespread - in fact it was extremely rare. If you were a housebreaker or a mugger, the last thing you needed to worry about was whether your victim was going to be armed. It would be like being struck by a meteorite. So how does it make any sense to say the gun ban encouraged crime? Criminals were never deterred by guns (because they were so rare) in the first place. Get it?
OK. I'll try again. There is no deterrent to a housebreaker if he knows that there is an infinitesimal chance that his victim will be armed. It would be like being deterred from leaving your house for fear of being struck by a meteorite. Gun ownership in Britain was not a deterrent, because there were only a few thousand gun-owners in a country of nearly 60 million people. Get it? Shall I say it again?
I assume you're talking about the US? I really couldn't tell you. The point that I'm trying to make is that I don't think that US pro-gun advocates help their case by drawing parallels with countries like the UK. The whole history of gun ownership in the two countries is utterly different.
The deterrent argument may well work in the US where gun ownership is widespread. But that argument never worked in the UK, where gun ownership was so limited as to be almost non-existent. Most people live in Britain without ever seeing a gun, even in the hands of cops.
In Britain, there is a widespread consensus that gun ownership is not something that we as a society should pursue. That possibly sounds strange to you, but the Brits - for historical reasons - don't care about the right to own guns. People tend to take the view that we are better off without the widespread availability of guns, that we're safer without them. (And that still applies even though criminals can get hold of illegal weapons; I know there's been an increase in gun-related crime but it's still very rare). You may disagree with the UK consensus, but still, it's there.
That's clearly a cultural difference from the US, where gun ownership is a highly emotive and powerful issue that divides the country. For historical reasons, the gun has become a powerful symbol of independence, self-reliance and individual security; the last guarantor of freedom for Americans.
That's part of your culture but it's not part of mine. Possibly because the Brits don't have the historical experience of being oppressed like Americans have. As you know, we were the ones who did the oppressing!
I don't mean to suggest that pro-gun arguments lack validity, I just think a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work when you try to apply the same arguments to different countries.
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