England is an island. If you can't keep guns off an island, where can you succeed? England has some of the strictest gun laws among western democracies. The latest law in 1997, basically barred all but .22 caliber rifles and shotguns from ownership by average citizens. In spite of this, gun crimes continue to rise in London. It seems that cheap guns are easy enough to get that gang fights which used to be settled with knives are now prosecuted with guns. Not only does this show the futility of banning guns because people who don't value the law will always break the law, but banning anything creates a black market and that economy fosters organized crime. Any time a good is made artificially scarce, such as a legal ban, the profit margin for supplying it illegally skyrockets. Organized crime is the mechanism that fulfills this black market and profits handsomely from it. This applies to any good, even difficult to handle items such as illegal perishable meats.
This isn't just an English phenomenon either. India reports rising gun use by criminals. If you remember, India's strict gun control laws were highlighted during the Mumbai massacre in 2008 where no armed citizens slowed the terrorists and even many of the police officers didn't have guns. Australia banned most all guns in 1996, confiscating and destroying over a half million firearms. They too have seen a steady rise in gun crime as the criminals don't seem to follow the law. As has been said many times before, allowing law abiding citizens to have and carry guns does not affect the access to, or use of guns by criminals. While there might be a very slight increase in accidental gun deaths, the beneficial effects on overall violent crime rates and the number of murders, rapes and violent crimes stopped by citizens defending themselves with guns far outweigh those costs.
Even before they banned guns in the U.K. in 1997, research from 1992 by Hans Toch and Alan J. Lizotte showed an inverse correlation between gun density in the population and the violent crime data for that population. “The fact that national patterns show little violent crime where guns are most dense implies that guns do not elicit aggression in any meaningful way. . . . Quite the contrary, these findings suggest that high saturations of guns in places, or something correlated with that condition, inhibit illegal aggression.” Hans Toch & Alan J. Lizotte, Research and Policy: The Case for Gun Control, in PSYCHOLOGY & SOCIAL POLICY 223, 232 (Peter Suedfeld & Philip E. Tetlock eds., 1992)
Research by John Lott and others up to the present day find the same thing. Arming the law abiding citizens doesn't cause mass carnage, but does lead to a reduction in violent crime. When will the anti-gun crowd accept the truths of history and the facts on the ground?
UPDATE: We grieve for the families of those who lost loved ones in the massacre at Fort Hood, Texas. Please pray for the healing of those wounded in the attack. Here again, firearms in a gun free zone were illegally used to lethal effect. Do you think the military might reconsider its gun carry policy?
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Comments
"Do you think the military might reconsider its gun carry policy?"-Bidstrup
No, I don't. If they did they would pierce the shield of "we know best", and would view that as an admission of failure. Failure is something no political system will admit, for to do so means they are not omniscient. That could in turn cause much more serious questioning of their policies. Once a population feels free to question their government, that government loses it stranglehold on power. No government gives that up willingly.
Now is when they put on a dog and pony show of "beefing up" security by "authorized" forces. It will be the same empty shell that the TSA is, but that is what they will do. They will sell a perception, rather than alter the reality.
The politicians in England are no different than they are here. Gun control has never been about reducing crime, only disarming the citizenry to make them more compliant with government edicts.
"If you can't keep guns off an island, where can you succeed?" I'd like to add: "If you can't keep illegal drugs out of a maximum security Federal prison, how do you expect to keep guns of an island?" Smugglers could possibly be the most inventive of criminals; but they wouldn't have a chance to be criminals if our betters wouldn't embargo so many inanimate objects.
Another insight you offered, Dan (not criticizing, but again our betters don't seem to notice), is: ". . .criminals don't seem to follow the law." I'm conducting an empirical study in company with an enthusiastic and most lovely research assistant to determine whether that tendency is genetic. Perhaps we can breed our way to a law-abiding society.
Dan there’s one flaw with your idea of allowing people to be armed
It makes too much sense!
Prior to the 1968 Gun Control Act we could buy guns through the mail NO background checks, No 4473 forms.
People with mental health problems and non-violent felons could buy guns, yet crime was low!
The disqualifiers are nothing more than a touchy feely feel good way to promote tyranny.
Bottom line if you’re not in prison or in a mental hospital you have the right to own a firearm.
An important point about -for instance- the UK gun ban, is highlighted here below:
(snipped)
January 16 2000
timesonline.co.uk
Killings rise as 3m illegal guns flood Britain
Jon Ungoed-Thomas
...
Home Office officials insist the legislation has cut off an important supply of guns to the underworld. They say the handgun ban was never intended to combat firearms-related crime, but was a direct response to Dunblane, which involved legally held handguns.
"It is lunatic that a handgun ban was imposed which even the Home Office accepts won’t reduce crimes involving firearms," said Chris Price, chairman of the Gun Trader Association. "It’s not the criminals that have suffered, but legitimate gun users and gun traders."
- - - - - - - -
So we see what the intent of gun bans is? The citizens can't be trusted with "dangerous objects".
We see this frequently, every time a Brady campaign mouthpiece opens theirs: always doubts of the sanity and restraint of each other.
Americans will always be armed to the teeth regardless of laws to the contrary.
The FBI announced this month that background check applications for gun purchases in October/2009 numbered 1.3 million. That doesn't necessarily translate to 1.3 million gun purchases because one application will suffice for one individual buying several guns. Overall gun purchases since Obama and a decidedly far left legislature took power less than a year ago, are approaching 15 million.
That's unprecedented in history. Not even during WWII were that many firearms manufactured to satiate military or civilian demand for a nine-month period. Furthermore, demographic studies of gun buying show that in decidedly liberal venues like Eugene, Oregon and Portland, Oregon for instance, gun sales are off the charts: up 500% over any other time in history.
It would seem that a lot of Obamites are giving the president lip service support on the one hand, while on the other they’re running down to the gun
Britain first passed gun control legislation in 1920, not as any sort of public safety or crimefighting measure, but in response to the Russian Revolution. They didn't want their subjects getting ideas.
You re article contains a blatant falsehood. It is NOT true Australia has seen a steady rise in gun since 1996. To say that is to outright lie.
In 1996 Australia instituted strict gun laws. Before the introduction of those there were 99 murder victims in that year were guns where the weapon used and the murder rate was 1.8. In 2008 there were 38 murder victims where guns were the weapon used and the murder rate was 1.2. The decline from 1996 in the murder rate and use of firearms was quite consistent. In fact in all violent crime types the number of offenses where firearm were involved has fallen, ie firearm use in robbery going from 1,585 in 1996 to 1,047 in 2008. And this despite the population rising over 10% in that time. This data is sourced from ABS publication 4510.0 available at www.abs.gov.au .
If you wish to make an argument CHECK YOUR FACTS lest you and your work be viewed as utter nonsense.
Pottering: Learn to read, and then to spell as well as the proper use of grammar. Then perhaps people might actually listen to you before they call you a lunatic.
Patrick, thanks for your kind advice. Pity your flawless spelling and grammar wasn't used on anything substantive, just a throwaway accusation. My comment remains as stated, "It is NOT true Australia has seen a steady rise in gun since 1996. To say that is to outright lie." Come back when you actually have something worthwhile to contribute.
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