[quote="Fluffy_Bunny":203b2]You know, the policemen in England don't carry guns, let alone the citizens.[/quote:203b2]
why then has Londons crime skyrocketed? No guns mean no crime right? Only the criminals have the guns.
as far as shooting them in the leg, well thats a joke. If you are dumb enough to pull it out be smart enough to pull the trigger. There is no such thing as "just shoot them in the leg" thats from Hollywood. If you point a gun at anything you must be willing to destroy what you are aiming at. Not hurt, not maim but destroy. These are not toys, they kill what you point them at. here is what I have found so far
[url="http://www.cdc.gov/"]http://www.cdc.gov/[/url]
http://www.fbi.gov/
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Firearms are lumped in to a category that is 5th in causes of death in the United States titled “Unintentional Injuries”. Firearms are then ranked 15th as far as causes of deaths sub-categorized in the “Unintentional Injuries” category. The top 7 causes in this subcategory are Motor Vehicles 42,271 deaths, Falling 14,992 deaths, Poisoning 14,053 deaths, Unspecified 7,192 deaths, Suffocation 4,941 deaths, Fire/Burns 3370 deaths, and Drowning 3179 deaths.
Firearms down in its 15th position came in at 800 deaths.
Where is the call to ban Motor Vehicles? They did cause almost 53 times the amount of deaths that firearms caused.
Where is the call to ban all house hold goods containing poison?
Maybe we should be calling for a ban on water. It is indeed causing almost 4 times the deaths that firearms are causing every year.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) firearms are used approximately 550,000 times a year in the commission of a crime. There are several studies on the use of firearms for the prevention of crime. The Justice Information Center has a study on the low end of the spectrum putting the number of times a firearm was used by private citizens to deter a crime at 560,000 times a year. A study by Gary Kleck has this number at over 2,500,000 times a year.
Even the low end shows firearms are being used more times a year to prevent crime than to commit crimes.
The FBI says that there are about 2,300,000 firearms in private ownership in the U.S. and that 99.8% of those have never been used in the commission of a crime. The FBI also indicates that over 60% of the firearms used in crimes were stolen and that over 30% of the firearms used in crimes were purchased illegally. Is there any reasonable American who can look back over the past ten years and conclude: that restricting law abiding citizens from exercising a constitutionally protected right that is being obeyed by 99.8% of the population is a rational solution to a criminal element that statistically falls in to a small portion of attributed deaths in this country.
The rational argument here is that the facts on firearms prove that firearms are not being banned to save lives or to prevent crime, but that firearms are being targeted for purely political reasons. The facts overwhelming prove time and time again that guns save lives, and more guns in the hands of law abiding citizens (99.8% of gun owners) results in the reduction of crime.
and
Weapons bans miss the mark
By John R. Lott Jr.
AUSTRALIANS are a dangerous lot. Weapons that would hardly cause a second thought in the hands of a citizen in another country generate concern when held by an Australian.
Fortunately, some Australian state governments have understood the dangers of letting ordinary Australians get access to weapons such as laser pointers, a popular device for making business and academic presentations in countries such as the US.
Americans may feel safe when an academic addresses a conference using a laser pointer. In the hands of an Australian, however, there is understandable fear that these devices could do untold harm. An Australian academic with a laser pointer would cause real panic.
Now the Victorian Government is achieving international recognition for protecting Australians from a danger that has been around for far too long: swords. After July 1, swords will be banned and violators will face penalties that previously have been reserved for laser pointers - six months in jail and a $12,000 fine.
Swords are broadly defined as a cutting or thrusting weapon with a long blade, a hilt and one or two sharp edges. Although this unfortunately exempts knives with either no sharp or three or more sharp edges, or knives without handles, not specifying a blade length in the legislation hopefully ensures many knives will be banned.
A licensing process will be set up so that a select few will be granted an exemption and pay a $135 fee, but they will have to lock their weapons in sturdy safes and put in burglar alarms. If properly enforced, the law could produce other benefits, such as ensuring that dishes are promptly washed after dinner so that any offending steak knives can be placed back in their safe. On the downside, the knives would still be available during dinner when many family arguments might get out of hand. It is also not clear if the family will be able to use the knives if the licence holder is not present.
And if Australians can't be trusted with laser pointers or swords, they surely can't be trusted with guns. Citizens in other countries are obviously much more trustworthy. Americans, for example, can own all these items. Indeed, 46 states in the US even trust millions of law-abiding Americans to carry concealed handguns when walking on the street or eating in restaurants.
And, yes, in most states an academic addressing a conference or a class can carry a gun along with a laser pointer. Over the decades, concealed handgun permit holders in the US have proven to be extremely law-abiding, losing their permits at only hundredths of thousandths of one percentage point for any type of firearms related violation.
If dangerous weapons made citizens in other countries dangerous, no one would visit Switzerland. There, all able-bodied men between the ages of 20 and 42 are trusted to keep a machinegun in their homes as part of their military service. (Not the wimpy centre-fire semi-automatic rifles everyone is afraid to trust Australians with.) Yet the trust in the Swiss is well placed. Switzerland has one of the lowest murder rates in Europe.
Letting law-abiding citizens in the US and Switzerland own guns lowers crime because would-be victims are able to deter criminals or, if confronted, protect themselves. Australians are clearly quite different. They understand the risks of letting Australians own guns. The International Crime Victimisation Survey shows that Australia's violent crime rate is already twice that of the US or Switzerland. Australia's violent crime rate is about as high as England's, a country that bans handguns.
It would be simple enough just to blame Australia's high crime rates on its largely English heritage or its convict history, but for much of the past century Australia had lower crime rates than the US or the UK. Violent crime rates have gone up dramatically in Australia since the 1996 Port Arthur gun control measures. And violent crime rates averaged 20 per cent higher in the six years after the law was passed (from 1997 to 2002) than they did in 1996, 32 per cent higher than the violent crime rates in 1995. The same comparisons for armed robbery rates showed increases of 67 per cent and 74 per cent, respectively; for aggravated assault, 20 per cent and 32 per cent; for rape, 11 per cent and 12 per cent; murder, attempted murder and manslaughter rose by 5 per cent in both cases.
Perhaps six years of crime data is just not enough to evaluate the experience. Yet Australian governments seem to believe that if gun controls don't work at first, more and stricter regulations (like getting rid of swords) are surely the solution. Remember, never second-guess government regulations.
While the ban on swords is modelled on the gun control measures, the Victorian Government obviously hopes that its new measure is more successful in reducing crime. Australian gun laws also require people to lock their guns in safes and ban many types of guns. But requiring an alarm for storing any swords, unlike the 15 or more rule for guns in Victoria, is a nice touch and may make the crucial difference.
Metal swords have been around since the Bronze Age, 4600 years ago. Yet citizens in few countries have so clearly posed dangers to themselves and it is fortunate that Victoria recognises this.
Possibly, Australians can turn now to solving some really important problems. One suggestion: 240-volt electrical currents can kill you. Is it really true that Australians have these overpowering urges to try sticking metal in electrical sockets?
John Lott Jr, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, is author of "More Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press, 2000) and "The Bias Against Guns" (AEI Press, 2003).
more to come
03-25-2004, 03:42 PM
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