Why gun bans don't work

If you need any evidence why gun bans do not work, take England for example - home of a handgun ban and site of two people being shot at a Kanye West concert. How do those criminals keep getting guns when they are banned by the government? You'd think the law only kept law-abiding citizens from having a gun or something.

Comments

[seeker]

Come on man, one event does not a trend make. What's the overall picture?

[Karol]

Overall picture is that law-abiding Brits are sitting ducks for non-law-abiding Brits.

[seeker]

Does that actually happen? I am all for letting citizens own handguns and hunting rifles. Heck, if someone bent on hurting my family came in through the front door, and I had a handgun (which I don't), I'd shoot first.

[Sam]

I just noticed that there is a typo in your banner. Worldview, not WorRldviews.

[RationalSean]

In the US, the right to keep and bear most types of personal firearms (with the exception of assault rifles) is constitutionally protected.

US Population: 275 million (2000 Census Data)
US Firearm Deaths: 10,801

In the EU, the incidence of gun ownership varies widely but on the whole, gun laws are stricter than in the US.

EU Population: 376 million
EU Firearm Deaths: 1,260

In Japan, rifles and handguns are prohibited; shotguns are very strictly regulated. Japan`s Olympic shooters have had to practice out of the country because of their country`s gun laws.

Japan Population: 127 million
Japan Firearm Deaths: 22

Please feel free to draw your own conclusions about the efficacy of gun bans.

** Note: Data is WHO and US Census (2000) excerpted from a presentation by Jean Lemaire, a professor of risk management at that noted hotbed of subversive Communist propaganda, the Wharton School of Business.

You can read the whole presentation at http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/ficap/forum/docs/sept04lemaire.pdf.

[Aaron]

As seeker brought up to start the discussion, it is not neccessarily an issue of one instance or a number of instances. It is a matter of trends and the trends in nations which pass gun bans are bad.

In 2000 the UN (bastion of conservatism) reported that England had a higher crime rate than 16 other industrialized nations, including the US.

A 1998 study by US DOJ and Cambridge University found that crime rates (including muggings and robberies) are worse in England compared to US. The murder gap between the two (US's being higher) has been narrowing.

By comparing the 1996 FBI crime report with the UN's 1996 Demographic Yearbook, we see that high gun ownership nations like Israel and the US have similar or lower gun deaths (by suicide or homicide) than states with low gun ownership (and strict gun laws) like Denmark and Japan. Israel had a rate of 7.9 deaths per 100,000. US had 19. Japan had 17.3 and Denmark had 27.2.

USA Today reported in 2002 that "Since Australia's 1996 laws banning most guns and making it a crime to use a gun defensively, armed robberies rose by 51%, unarmed robberies by 37%, assaults by 24% and kidnappings by 43%. While murders fell by 3%, manslaughter rose by 16%."

BBC News reported that handgun crime in the UK rose by 40% since the ban on handguns.

I'm not sure why this doesn't make sense to people. Criminals don't care about laws. They don't care that the government banned guns. It only prevents law-abiding citizens from owning them.

Not to mention the Constitution protecting it - not just for hunting, etc. It was written in there to protect US citizens from the government getting out of hand.

Take a look at Europe over the last 70 years. When you include governments killing unarmed citizens you get about 400,000 murders per year, 16 times the highest recorded rate in the US. That is the main reason we have the "right to bear arms" to protect us from a government getting out of hand.

[seeker]

Wow, a discussion w/ facts, very nice.

[Evil_Lonnie]

RationalSean,

What are the STABBING deaths in the EU? Just because people aren't being SHOT doesn't mean they aren't being mortally wounded in some other way.

Attend a Chelsea-Juventus soccer match sometime...

[Evil_Lonnie]

For those who are curious.. here is a comparison of violent (and other) crime rates across European countries and the US.

[RationalSean]

EvilLonnie,

Yes, that's true, that would be a good number to have but I don't have it.I'm just the lads don't let minor annoyances like gun laws get in the way of some good, fun recreational homicide.

I've read some strong arguments in favor of gun ownership (the nanny state etc). You have to argue from more than just homicide / firearm death rates though because if that's the only metric, the data generally doesn't support the position.