Calling for a Review of Australia's Gun laws

[Tempest]

Quote:
If you think firearms have nothing to do with homicide rates then let the Australians do an experiment by placing crates of handguns, rifles, etc., and ammo around the cities, where anyone can pick what they want. Do you think homicide rates will really continue to decrease ?

Yes. If banning guns reduced homicide rates, DC would be the safest city in the US. AGAIN, areas with the highest amounts of gun control generally have the highest amounts of violence.
I have already demonstrated this and yet you continue to deny it.
Why?
I hate to beat up on Shannow's home turf but they have some problems down there:
3 times the rate of burglaries in the US:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_bur_percap-crime-burglaries-per-capita

2.5 times the rape:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita

Both New Zealand and UK beat us on total crimes rate (Australia not listed):
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita

Robberies higher in UK, Australia not far behind us:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rob_percap-crime-robberies-per-capita

Assaults per capita: US, New Zealand, UK, Canada, Australia all very closely bunched:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_ass_percap-crime-assaults-per-capita

US is 24th on the murder rate. Nearly all of the countries above us have strict gun control measures:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita

Israel has a very low murder rate in spite of some of the most lax gun control laws in the world.
Quote:
From this perspective, the research shows that the number of murders per 100,000 people was 2.35 in 1980 and 2.29 in 2006.

These numbers are low compared to other countries. In Russia, for instance, the number of murders per 100,000 people in 2004 was 18, with 7.5 in the United States during the same year.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1214492516473

Same goes for Switzerland:
Quote:
Lower murder rates in foreign countries prove that gun control works.

False. This is one of the favorite arguments of gun control proponents, and yet the facts show that there is simply no correlation between gun control laws and murder or suicide rates across a wide spectrum of nations and cultures. In Israel and Switzerland, for example, a license to possess guns is available on demand to every law-abiding adult, and guns are easily obtainable in both nations. Both countries also allow widespread carrying of concealed firearms, and yet, admits Dr. Arthur Kellerman, one of the foremost medical advocates of gun control, Switzerland and Israel "have rates of homicide that are low despite rates of home firearm ownership that are at least as high as those in the United States." A comparison of crime rates within Europe reveals no correlation between access to guns and crime.

The basic premise of the gun control movement, that easy access to guns causes higher crime, is contradicted by the facts, by history and by reason. Let's hope more people are catching on.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4706

 

[1sttruck]

"AGAIN, areas with the highest amounts of gun control generally have the highest amounts of violence. I have already demonstrated this and yet you continue to deny it."

As I've already posted several times in bitog the south in the US has the highest rates of gun ownership, but most importantly handguns which are used in the majority of homicides in the US. The south has had such a long pattern of high homicide rates in the US that it's sometimes been identified as an attribute called 'Southerness' in research. The West has the next highest of handgun ownership, and also has the 2nd highest ownership rate. New England has the lowest rate of handgun ownership.

The same trend appears to exist in Canada, where the perceived high homicide rate of 1.9 to 2.0 in Toronto has resulted in calls for handgun bans. Gee, if only other cities in the same region as Toronto had such low rates.

Switzerland evidently has the highest rates of handgun ownership in Europe, and wlthough the data is kind of old it's safe to say that it hasn't increased in Europe, if anything it's gone down.

I've already stated previously that firearms by themselves don't shoot people, except in rare accidental discharges, but firearms with a willingness to misuse them does result in higher rates of shootings, including homicides. In the US we have such a mix, which is why the US has the highest rates of homicides to complement the highest rates of gun ownership among 1st world countries.


http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/

2007 Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter
Rate per 100,000
United States 5.6
Northeast 4.1
Midwest 4.9
South 7.0
West 5.3


http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/080717/dq080717b-eng.htm

Among the provinces, the highest crime rates were in Western Canada, continuing a pattern observed over the past 30 years.

One in five homicides in Canada occurred in Toronto in 2007. However, taking population differences into account, homicide rates were highest in Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary.



http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2709342,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf

The only country with a higher rate of suicide with guns than Switzerland is the United States. And it's not just suicide: every month or so, a Swiss man turns his gun on his family. The country has the highest rate of domestic violence using guns in Europe.


http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-switzerland.htm

Switzerland is frequently cited as an example of a country with high gun ownership and a low murder rate. However, Switzerland also has a high degree of gun control, and actually makes a better argument for gun regulation than gun liberalization.

Switzerland keeps only a small standing army, and relies much more heavily on its militia system for national defense. This means that most able-bodied civilian men of military age keep weapons at home in case of a national emergency. These weapons are fully automatic, military assault rifles, and by law they must be kept locked up. Their issue of 72 rounds of ammunition must be sealed, and it is strictly accounted for. This complicates their use for criminal purposes, in that they are difficult to conceal, and their use will be eventually discovered by the authorities.

As for civilian weapons, the cantons (states) issue licenses for handgun purchases on a "must issue" basis. Most, but not all, cantons require handgun registration. Any ammunition bought on the private market is also registered. Ammunition can be bought unregistered at government subsidized shooting ranges, but, by law, one must use all the ammunition at the range. (Unfortunately, this law is not really enforced, and gives Swiss gun owners a way to collect unregistered ammunition.) Because so many people own rifles, there is no regulation on carrying them, but 15 of the 26 cantons have regulations on carrying handguns.

Despite these regulations, Switzerland has the second highest handgun ownership and handgun murder rate in the industrialized world. A review of the statistics:

Percent of households with a handgun, 1991 (1)

United States 29%
Switzerland 14
Finland 7
Germany 7
Belgium 6
France 6
Canada 5
Norway 4
Europe 4
Australia 2
Netherlands 2
United Kingdom 1

Handgun murders (1992) (2)

Handgun 1992 Handgun Murder
Country Murders Population Rate (per 100,000)
-----------------------------------------------------------
United States 13,429 254,521,000 5.28
Switzerland 97 6,828,023 1.42
Canada 128 27,351,509 0.47
Sweden 36 8,602,157 0.42
Australia 13 17,576,354 0.07
United Kingdom 33 57,797,514 0.06
Japan 60 124,460,481 0.05
By contrast, Germany, France, Canada, Great Britain and Japan have virtually banned handguns and assault weapons to the general public.

 

[1sttruck]

There have been calls for stricter gun laws in Switzerland and laws have been passed, in part due to some high profile shootings there. The gun laws are in some case stricter than what is gnerally found in the US.

A few years back I remember reading a reply from a Swiss army officer to some right wing nuts in the US who were going on and on about the militia in the US and having machine guns and all. The reply was polite but did not in any way have anything nice to say about the militia in the US, or the people he had seen advocating it. People forget that the Swiss tend to be pretty conservative, and that 'conservative' in other parts of the world dosn't usually mean 'proud to be a redneck'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

The issuing of ammunition was however abolished after a family shooting, in which the victim was a former ski champion.



3.2.2 Switzerland: Regulations on guns (most of this contributed by Emmanuel BAECHLER)

NOTE: A new law has been adopted by the Parliament in June 1997. This new law should enter into effect by the end of the first semester of 1998. Some points of application (Ordonnance) are not yet clear. The English translation of that law is available at: http://www-internal.alphanet.ch/~schaefer/scs/gun_law_1998 It has been translated by Emmanuel BAECHLER. Please pay attention to the disclaimer and copyright on that document. The following information is still accurate until 1998.

First of all, firearms are regulated by a Federal law, but it has to be applied by Cantons, thus there are 26 practices. Happily most of them agree, in a sensible way, on how to apply that law.

Note that a new federal law is being prepared. Its content is not yet known.

In order to buy a handgun, you must get a purchase license from the police. To get it, you must be over 18, you must be member of a shooting society (at least for the first ones) and, if you live with other people, they must somewhat agree with that (I really don't know what can happen if they don't). You must also produce a good-morality certificate.

The first license takes a little bit of time, around one month. all the other ones come in a few days (between a week and two weeks and a half in my experience).

On each license, you must mention your motivation. The most current one is ``shooting and collection''. In fact it is so frequent that it has been proposed to directly print it on the sheets. Unhappily the police did not like the idea.

As long as your motivation is ``shooting and collection'', the policy is that a .22 is *STRONGLY* recommended as a first handgun. However you will be able to buy a 9mm, a .357 or a .45.

The handguns that you won't be able to get for the first licenses are pocket handguns (snubs) and monsters (>= .44 Magnum). Pocket handguns remain difficult to get, unless you are a collector, or if you ask for a purchase license, with ``defense'' as a motivation.

The practice about ``defense'' licenses varies over time. A few years ago, the police was rather restrictive and you really needed ``good reason'' to get them. They are more liberal, now. This makes more sense as concealed carry is permitted in many cantons (for example Vaud).

Full auto rifles are submitted to licenses. In order to get one, you must be considered as a collector. In some cantons, this is automatic after the fifth firearm. People in that situation can get almost whatever they want. However, people cannot use full auto rifles. There are some exceptions, but they are quite rare and require quite a lot of effort to get them. The only real one is that you can use your privately owned full auto Stgw90/Fass90 in the OFFICIAL ranges under the same conditions as military ordonnance Stgw90/Fass90, or the old model 57. Note that the weapon kept at home by soldiers is a fully working Stgw90/Fass90 (or 57), or a handgun for officers.

Repeating and single action rifles are free of license.

Repeating and self loading shotguns require a purchase license, unless you block their capacity at three shots and have a hunting permit. In this case, they are considered as hunting firearms and do not require any license.

In many German speaking Cantons, both self loading rifles, repeating and self loading shotguns can be owned freely.

Finally, carrying is not regulated in some Cantons. So, when you get a handgun license, you are totally free to carry it, if you want: this is your responsibility. The practice is such that unless you are a money carrier or something like that, you should carry your(s) weapon concealed. Carrying a weapon openly cannot cause you real problems, but you risk much more controls from the police (ID checks, ALWAYS carry an ID in Switzerland -- and five francs, but that's another story).

The exceptions:
- Geneva and Basel forbid full auto rifles.
- Geneva almost forbid semi-autos rifles (they make *very* difficult to get them).
- Basel authorizes the purchase of at most 4 self loading rifles per year.
- Geneva and Zurich require a concealed carry permit which is very difficult to get.
- Basel requires a concealed carry permit, which can be obtained without motivation.

In many cantons silencers are forbidden.

About ammunition: There is no restriction, in the sense that you can buy whatever you find on the market without any quantity limitation. If you buy ten tons of 9mm Para, I am however sure that the police will become highly interested by your activities.

Private companies can import ammunition freely, but they must have a pretty serious material and financial base.

Note that individuals can import privately batches of 500 rounds of ammo.

In Vaud, there is no limitation about the quantity of firearms that you can own. However, if you buy 4 AK-74's a week, the police might ask you some questions.

Finally, established foreigners have the same rights that Swiss citizens about firearms, but I don't know the situation for peoplewith 1 year-renewable working permits.

 

[1sttruck]

The article is about suicides in Switzerland but also has data on rates of firearms in households as well as homicides, where private handguns appear to be the most common weapon used.

http://www.schutz-vor-waffengewalt.ch/downloads/070903_Studie_Andreas-Frey_Suizid-und-Waffen.pdf

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
According to the U.N. International Study on Firearm Regulation, England's 1994 homicide rate was 1.4 (9% involving firearms), and the robbery rate 116, per 100,000 population. In the United States, the homicide rate was 9.0 (70% involving firearms), and the robbery rate 234, per 100,000. England has strict gun control laws, ergo, the homicide rate is lower than in the U.S. However, such comparisons can be dangerous: In 1900, when England had no gun controls, the homicide rate was only 1.0 per 100,000.

Moreover, using data through 1996, the U.S. Department of Justice study "Crime and Justice" concluded that in England the robbery rate was 1.4 times higher, the assault rate was 2.3 times higher, and the burglary rate was 1.7 times higher than in the U.S. This suggests that lawfully armed citizens in the U.S. deter such crimes. Only the murder and rape rates in the U.S. were higher than in England. The small number of violent predators who commit most of these crimes in the U.S. have little trouble arming themselves unlawfully.

The U.N. study omits mention of Switzerland, which is awash in guns and has substantially lower murder and robbery rates than England, where most guns are banned.

Here are the figures: The Swiss Federal Police Office reports that in 1997 there were 87 intentional homicides and 102 attempted homicides in the entire country. Some 91 of these 189 murders and attempts involved firearms. With its population of seven million (including 1.2 million foreigners), Switzerland had a homicide rate of 1.2 per 100,000. There were 2,498 robberies (and attempted robberies), of which 546 involved firearms, resulting in a robbery rate of 36 per 100,000. Almost half of these crimes were committed by non-resident foreigners, whom locals call "criminal tourists."

http://www.theblessingsofliberty.com/articles/article11.html
Quote:
Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture - but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept.
The country has a population of six million, but there are estimated to be at least two million publicly-owned firearms, including about 600,000 automatic rifles and 500,000 pistols.

In addition to the government-provided arms, there are few restrictions on buying weapons. Some cantons restrict the carrying of firearms - others do not.

The government even sells off surplus weaponry to the general public when new equipment is introduced.

Guns and shooting are popular national pastimes. More than 200,000 Swiss attend national annual marksmanship competitions.

But despite the wide ownership and availability of guns, violent crime is extremely rare. There are only minimal controls at public buildings and politicians rarely have police protection.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1566715.stm
That from the pro-gun

BBC.

From your link, 5 of the whopping 15 murders that occurred happened with illegally possessed firearms. Gun laws worked great, eh?
40% of the homicides were due to domestic disputes.

I could care less about suicide rates because you are dealing with people that are not right in the head to begin with and they are only harming themselves.
The US is WAY down the list of suicide rates, and pretty much all the countries in front of us have very strict gun control.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

There can simply be NO correlation made between gun ownership and violence.

 

[1sttruck]

"Moreover, using data through 1996, the U.S. Department of Justice study "Crime and Justice" concluded that in England the robbery rate was 1.4 times higher, the assault rate was 2.3 times higher, and the burglary rate was 1.7 times higher than in the U.S. This suggests that lawfully armed citizens in the U.S. deter such crimes. Only the murder and rape rates in the U.S. were higher than in England. The small number of violent predators who commit most of these crimes in the U.S. have little trouble arming themselves unlawfully."

FBI data shows that the property and violent crime by region is highest in the south, the region the highest rate of gun ownership. The crime rates in the rest of the regions track by rates of gun ownership.

The 'small number' of people using firearms in crimes is merely about half a million.


http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/offenses/standard_links/regional_estimates.html

 

[chevrofreak]

What is the crime rate like in Montana? 85% of households here have a gun in them.

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
FBI data shows that the property and violent crime by region is highest in the south, the region the highest rate of gun ownership. The crime rates in the rest of the regions track by rates of gun ownership.

First, I would like to see some data that supports your suppositions since none is given.
Second, even if is, it is a very broad stroke and is a flawed analysis. It does not break down urban vs. rural, areas with stricter or looser gun control, etc...

You are trying to generalize an entire region as though it is homogeneous and that is in no way the case.

Quote:
The 'small number' of people using firearms in crimes is merely about half a million.

Again, based on what?

 

[1sttruck]

You've asserted that not only is there is no relationship between firearms and homicides, you've asserted that homicides will actually be lower in areas with more firearms. Since most homicides are committed with handguns one really needs to look at handgun ownership artes.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1447364

In the United States, regions and states with higher rates of firearm ownership have significantly higher homicide victimization rates. This result is driven primarily by gun-related homicide victimization rates, although non–gun-related victimization rates were also higher in states with higher rates of firearm ownership. The close correspondence between our proxy (FS/S) and survey-based (GSS) measures of household firearm ownership is readily apparent in Table 1 , in which results obtained with survey and proxy measures are nearly identical.

The association between higher household gun ownership rates and higher overall homicide rates is robust. Regressions were driven neither by either the most populous states nor by the states with the most extreme rates of gun ownership. Overall, the results obtained when we analyzed all 50 states and the 40 least and 40 most populous states were equivalent to those obtained when analyses excluded the 10 states most extreme in FS/S (i.e., the 5 states with the highest FS/S and the 5 states with the lowest FS/S). The firearm–homicide association remained significant even when state-level analyses controlled for rates of poverty, urbanization, unemployment, per capita alcohol consumption, and violent crimes other than homicide (i.e., aggravated assault, forcible rape, and robbery). In fact, the cross-sectional association between rates of firearm ownership and homicide victimization was so stable over time that regressions across states in any given year produced point estimates that were within 8% of the point estimate obtained when all 10 years of data were analyzed.


http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=234

Region, % households with any gun, with handgun

East 34, 14
Midwest 39 20
South 43 31
West 39 26


http://www.newsbatch.com/gc-regionowndeath.html

Comparison of Hangun Ownership and Gun Homicide Rates by Region

 

[chevrofreak]

How about finding comparisons of murders rather than homicides? Not all homicides are murders. There are thousands of people killed in self defense by civilians and police officers every year. Those are homicides, but not murders. The anti-gun groups always lump them together to inflate their numbers.

 

[1sttruck]

How about you providing evidence that the rates are not based upon murders. I've provided the links to sites like the FBI UCR, so it will be easier to point out a specific item instead of making unfounded statements.

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
although non–gun-related victimization rates were also higher in states with higher rates of firearm ownership.

That one sentence blows your entire theory out the window. And any time you see that they are using proxies it becomes very iffy.
Indeed, Jsharp busted this one 2 years ago and showed the flaws in it:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubb...true#Post977565

It's a culture problem, not a gun problem.

And the region map is very interesting considering it is by "ban handguns now" of which the link listed is dead but takes you to VPC (Violence Prevention Center, a known anti-gun group) site about opinion polls. There is no way to verify the accuracy of that map and the slant of the producers is more than obvious.

The CDC site they link to does not break out handgun deaths so I'm not exactly sure how they were able to put this map together without magic.
Indeed the CDC site says:
Quote:
Not ranked as one of the 10 leading causes of death: a subcategory of Accidents, Homicide, and Suicide.

about firearm injuries. NOTHING about handguns.

 

[1sttruck]

" "although non–gun-related victimization rates were also higher in states with higher rates of firearm ownership."

That one sentence blows your entire theory out the window."

No, as you've stated that there is no correlation between firearm ownership and friearms related crimes, but the data shows that there is, and you've stated that firearms prevent crimes, the data shows that isn't the case.

I've stated that guns by themselves don't shoot people, except in rare ADs, and that it takes people willing to use firearms in a crime and firearms being present in order for firearm crimes to happen. In the US we appear to have both in quantity, at least regarding handguns being used in crimes. I've also noted more than once that when the Economist lookd at violent crime in the US they oberved that one is more likely to see fights in bars, on the street, at games, etc., than in the US, but the use of firearms in the US is why some fights result in such high homicide rates.

 

[1sttruck]

whine whine "... opinion polls" whine whine...


Surveys are the ONLY way to determine rates of firearms ownership, and the way to determine accuracy is to compare results between polls over time. Surveys in the US on firearm ownership have been conducted for decades.

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
the data shows that isn't the case.

I (with the help of jsharp) have just shown all of your "data" to be false and yet you continue??

Opinion and surveys of firearm ownership are 2 very different things!

And you have yet to provide any credible information tying the two together.

 

[1sttruck]

Three different surveys of firearm ownership rates provided, pretty similar results.

The US as a whole has the highest rate of homicides in the 1st world, has for decades, it has the has highest rate of gun ownership in the 1st world, and to no ones surprise the homicide rate is driven by fireams homicides, as it has been since about the first of the last century.

Homicides vary be region in the US and are correlated with handgun ownership rates. This is a fact, supported by years of crime and gun owership data. Don't be the monkey who merely covers his eyes to pretend otherwise, accept the facts and move on to try to explain why the correlation is or isn't a cause and effect realtionship. .

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
Three different surveys of firearm ownership rates provided, pretty similar results.

NONE of them are valid.

One you posted has no information on crime!

You are not providing ANY information that stands up to scrutiny.

Quote:
Nearly five centuries of growing civility ended in 1954. Violent crime has been climbing ever since. Last December, London's Evening Standard reported that armed crime, with banned handguns the weapon of choice, was "rocketing." In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent.

Gun crime is just part of an increasingly lawless environment. From 1991 to 1995, crimes against the person in England's inner cities increased 91 percent. And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled. Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York. England's rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America's, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police. In a United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations published in July, England and Wales led the Western world's crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people.

Quote:
The murder rates of the U.S. and U.K. are also affected by differences in the way each counts homicides. The FBI asks police to list every homicide as murder, even if the case isn't subsequently prosecuted or proceeds on a lesser charge, making the U.S. numbers as high as possible. By contrast, the English police "massage down" the homicide statistics, tracking each case through the courts and removing it if it is reduced to a lesser charge or determined to be an accident or self-defense, making the English numbers as low as possible.

The London-based Office of Health Economics, after a careful international study, found that while "one reason often given for the high numbers of murders and manslaughters in the United States is the easy availability of firearms...the strong correlation with racial and socio-economic variables suggests that the underlying determinants of the homicide rate are related to particular cultural factors."

http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html
Quote:
In their piece entitled Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and some Domestic Evidence, Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser eviscerate "the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and that fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths." In so doing, the authors provide fascinating historical insight into astronomical murder rates in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and they dispel the myths that widespread gun ownership is somehow unique to the United States or that America suffers from the developed world's highest murder rate.

To the contrary, they establish that Soviet murder rates far exceeded American murder rates, and continue to do so today, despite Russia's extremely stringent gun prohibitions. By 2004, they show, the Russian murder rate was nearly four times higher than the American rate.

More fundamentally, Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser demonstrate that other developed nations such as Norway, Finland, Germany, France and Denmark maintain high rates of gun ownership, yet possess murder rates lower than other developed nations in which gun ownership is much more restricted.

For example, handguns are outlawed in Luxembourg, and gun ownership extremely rare, yet its murder rate is nine times greater than in Germany, which has one of the highest gun ownership rates in Europe. As another example, Hungary's murder rate is nearly three times higher than nearby Austria's, but Austria's gun ownership rate is over eight times higher than Hungary's. "Norway," they note, "has far and away Western Europe's highest household gun ownership rate (32%), but also its lowest murder rate. The Netherlands," in contrast, "has the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe (1.9%) ... yet the Dutch gun murder rate is higher than the Norwegian."

Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser proceed to dispel the mainstream misconception that lower rates of violence in Europe are somehow attributable to gun control laws. Instead, they reveal, "murder in Europe was at an all-time low before the gun controls were introduced." As the authors note, "strict controls did not stem the general trend of ever-growing violent crime throughout the post-WWII industrialized world."

Citing England, for instance, they reveal that "when it had no firearms restrictions [in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries], England had little violent crime." By the late 1990s, however, "England moved from stringent controls to a complete ban on all handguns and many types of long guns." As a result, "by the year 2000, violent crime had so increased that England and Wales had Europe's highest violent crime rate, far surpassing even the United States." In America, on the other hand, "despite constant and substantially increasing gun ownership, the United States saw progressive and dramatic reductions in criminal violence in the 1990s."

Critically, Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser note that "the fall in the American crime rate is even more impressive when compared with the rest of the world," where 18 of the 25 countries surveyed by the British Home Office suffered violent crime increases during that same period.

Furthermore, the authors highlight the important point that while the American gun murder rate often exceeds that in other nations, the overall per capita murder rate in other nations (including other means such as strangling, stabbing, beating, etc.) is oftentimes much higher than in America.

The reason that gun ownership doesn't correlate with murder rates, the authors show, is that violent crime rates are determined instead by underlying cultural factors. "Ordinary people," they note, "simply do not murder." Rather, "the murderers are a small minority of extreme antisocial aberrants who manage to obtain guns whatever the level of gun ownership" in their society.

http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/current/in_our_opinion/Gun-Ownership.htm
Also:
http://gunowners.org/op0746.htm
Quote:
The non-firearm murder rate in the US is higher than in those countries people are always comparing the U.S. to (England, Australia, Japan, et cetera). Did the availability of guns in the U.S. somehow cause a rise in murders that are done with matches, poison, knives, baseball bats, ice picks, hammers, shovels, et cetera? Even if every murder that was committed with a gun were erased from history, our murder rate still would be higher than in these countries.

Mexico, our southern neighbor, has a murder rate more than twice that of the United States, yet it has very restrictive gun controls. Estonia, Philippines, Brazil, Taiwan, and Northern Ireland also have higher rates of murder than the US. If the murder rate in the US is caused by our high rate of firearm ownership, doesn't that then suggest that this is true in all of those other countries-- even though they don't share America's"permissive" gun laws?

Different racial groups commit murder at vastly differing rates in the US. The supply of crime guns (which are primarily stolen from lawful owners) is the same regardless of the race of the criminal seeking the gun. If our rate of crime is a result of gun availability, why does 12.7% of our population commit 55% of the gun murders (this is from US government numbers)?

http://porcupinenine.blogspot.com/2005/07/addressing-americas-murder-rate.html

There can be no correlation made. It is a CULTURAL issue.

 

[Tempest]

Further:
Quote:
Key Findings:
• Offenders who were affiliated with a gang or were involved with drugs prior to
conviction recidivated more quickly than those not affiliated with gangs or drugs.
These offenders also had higher reconviction rates.
• Those involved with gangs and/or drugs were also more likely to have unstable
relationships, live in and return to disadvantaged communities, and have poor selfesteem.
• The researchers also found that misconduct while incarcerated was a predictor of
recidivism and reconviction timing.
• An unexpected finding was that owning/carrying a gun did not have any effect on
recidivism or the timing of reconviction.

http://www.ncpc.org/publications/research-briefs-and-digests/recidivism-of-young-offenders.pdf
Quote:
Moreover, statistics provided by Baltimore city police to WBAL-TV showed that more than 50 percent of murder suspects had previous gun crime convictions.

http://ncpc.typepad.com/prevention_works_blog/2008/09/baltimore-takes.html

 

[Tempest]

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4441/is_200609/ai_n17194955
Quote:
Fifty-six percent of the violent felons convicted in the 75 most populous counties from 1990 through 2002 had a prior conviction, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Of the offenders with prior felony records, the study found that at the time of the new crime 18 percent were on probation, 12 percent on release pending disposition of a prior case and 7 percent on parole.

The bureau also reported 38 percent had a prior felony conviction and 15 percent had been previously convicted for a violent felony.

In another finding, the bureau said youths under age 21 commit 30 percent of all homicides.

Those convicted of robbery, murder and felony assault were the most likely to have prior criminal convictions while rapists were least likely to have a history of conviction.

Repeat offenders are THE problem as these people are not even allowed to own guns yet they have them!

 

[1sttruck]

"The non-firearm murder rate in the US is higher than in those countries people are always comparing the U.S. to (England, Australia, Japan, et cetera). Did the availability of guns in the U.S. somehow cause a rise in murders that are done with matches, poison, knives, baseball bats, ice picks, hammers, shovels, et cetera? Even if every murder that was committed with a gun were erased from history, our murder rate still would be higher than in these countries."

The non-firearm homicide rate has been pretty steady for decades, with rates for knives, blunt objects, etc., being pretty steady. The large variation in the homicide rates has been due to firearms, in the last few decades due to handguns.

If a group of people are violent to begin with, what do you think will happen when if you give them ready access to firearms ? The answer is obvious and it is what we see in the US. How many homicids are committed with heavily regulatd machine guns ? Very, very few. How many homicides are committed with readily available firearms ? The majority. Projection of force and lethality is why the police and military use firearms as a primary personal weapon, and not bats, knives, etc.