The Numbers Speak For Themselves (gun control and murder rates of assorted countries)

Guns & Ammo ^ | NA | John Hay Rabb

[neverdem]

I looked all over for the date and can't find it. From the digits at the end of the URL, it doesn't look old.

http://www.gunsandammomag.com/second_amendment/rk0405

[He Rides A White Horse]

The incessant drumbeat from the mainstream media

I'm surprised that our murder rate isn't higher considering the incessant "life is cheap" drumbeat from the mainstream media.

[45Auto]

This is the key: "An armed populace is threatening to a repressive government." Gun control is not about crime or protecting the innocent - it is about establishing tyranny. That's what the 2nd is all about and always has been about - not duck hunting, not "sporting use", not target shooting or competition. It is all about keeping the ambitious politician at bay, or at least scared. An armed society is a free society.

[cdubya]

This is a poorly researched article. The Mexicans hunt deer and I know several with pump and bolt action rifles of other than military calibers. That would mean no 7mm Mauser, .30-06, 7.62 Nato, or 5.56 mm. These are not hidden in the closet. The point about Americans travelling to Mexico is well advised.

[45Auto]

An armed citizenry is a strong deterrent to criminals both in and out of government.

[Brit_Guy]

America is safer than Brazil, Cuba, Lithuania and Mexico?

Yikes. The author will be trying to tell me that smoking causes cancer next.

[NRA2BFree]

Mexico's murder rate is an eye-popping 17.5. Mexican authorities are fond of blaming the high murder rate on firearms smuggled across the border from the United States. Nonsense. The U.S. has many more personal guns than Mexico, yet our murder rate is far lower than Mexico's. It is Mexico's absurd gun laws that prevent law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves against illegally armed criminals.

These are some of the people who are crossing over to the US to escape prosecution in Mexico. Now they are in the US, and some of them are already in our prisons because they've committed crimes in the US. Someone should mail this report to Bush and his cohorts who want to make them legal.

[mc5cents]

An armed society is a free society.

Amen

I would add that an armed society is a polite society. The act of a man tipping his hat was to show that he was not going for his gun.

[gimmebackmyconstitution]

The argument is a good one, but the numbers are stale as an old box of saltines, IMHO. Can you provide more up to date data?

[stylin19a]

I can't tell by reading this article. Is this the murder by guns murder rate ? or the overall all murder rate ?

[Clemenza]

Jamaica has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, but has a crime rate that makes Detroit look like Singapore.

It aint guns, its culture folks.

[PAR35]

The Mexicans hunt deer and I know several with pump and bolt action rifles of other than military calibers. That would mean no 7mm Mauser, .30-06, 7.62 Nato, or 5.56 mm. These are not hidden in the closet.

I suspect the author has never travelled outside the tourist areas of Mexico. I've seen a civilian on the back of a horse openly carrying a hunting rifle not far from the southern border of Mexico.

Guns may not be carried in public, either openly or concealed.

[neverdem]

The author will be trying to tell me that smoking causes cancer next.

It does, but there's no credible evidence about second hand smoke causing it.

[Brian Allen]

<< He Rides A White Horse
An armed citizenry is a strong deterrent to criminals both in and out of government. >>

Yair.

But America doesn't have a criminal class.

Except Congress.

[neverdem]

Can you provide more up to date data?

I'm looking. I trying google without much luck. I'm going to check the US Dept. of Justice.

[neverdem]

Is this the murder by guns murder rate ? or the overall all murder rate ?

I think it's the overall rate. I remember Larry Pratt telling Chris Matthews years ago that in Mexico more people are killed with knives than guns.

[stylin19a]

Thanx....if so, then the gun murder rate would be even lower.

[neverdem]

Total homicides were 7.4 per 100,000. In 1996 the percent of homicides committed with firearms was just shy of 68 percent. Here's the Uniform Crime Report's URL to section II, which has the pertinent numbers.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/Cius_97/96CRIME/96crime2.pdf

[Duke Nukum]

I saw this horrible show on A&E recently about the connection between mass and serial killers and cruelty to animals. One of the kids who shot up his school in the '90's along with killing his mother before hand, first went out and killed his pet dog and wrote about it in his journey.

It was so sickening, what he did to a being that most likely loved and trusted him unquestioningly, that I can't bring myself to repeat it here but suffice it to say, no gun of any sort was involved.

This sicko creep would have found a way to inflict pain and damage on others if all weapons were banned. And that goes for knives, chop sticks, golf clubs, whatever.

[neverdem]

The argument is a good one, but the numbers are stale as an old box of saltines, IMHO. Can you provide more up to date data?

This is the first article that I ever saw such a comparison of homicides by that many countries. I spent most of the evening after I read your comment on google trying to find the latest version of the United Nations report "The 1996 Demographic Yearbook", but I couldn't even find the 1996 version. I'm going to a library to see if I can borrow a copy or look at a reference copy of one.