Reply With QuoteSan Fran the bastion of the Liberals. Weren't these the same people parading and professing their support for the insurgents.
Proposition H: Mythology Instead of Criminology
LinkSan Francisco voters recently enacted Proposition H which confiscates all handguns and bans purchasing of all guns. Unfortunately this is based on the unfounded belief that the more guns in an area the more violence will occur. If that were true, the United States, with 280 million guns today, should have a far higher murder rate than after WWII when we had only 48 million guns. Instead, the murder rate is the same.
During the intervening decades, murder rates varied dramatically—but not because of rising gun ownership. In the last 30 years the number of guns owned by civilians more than doubled, yet murder declined by one third.
Accepting the mythology that guns cause murder, areas with high violence rates ban guns. But violence stems from basic social factors, not the mere availability of one among the innumerable deadly instruments in the world. In a study published last December, the National Academy of Sciences, having reviewed 43 government publications, 253 journal articles, 99 books, and its own research, could not identify even one example of gun control that reduced murder or violent crime.
Drastically increasing homicide led Washington, D.C., to ban handguns in the 1970s. So useless was this that D.C. soon had (and continues to have) the nation’s highest murder rates. Today, its residents have a 25 percent higher chance of being murdered than American troops in Iraq have of dying from enemy action.
Anti-gun advocacy is built on decades of erroneous claims that the United States, with the world's highest gun ownership rate (true), has the highest murder rate (false). Russia’s recently disclosed murder rates since 1965 have consistently exceeded U.S. rates despite Russia’ ban of handguns and strict control of long guns. Since the 1990s Russian murder rates have remained almost four times greater than American.
Anti-gun advocates used to compare the United States to England, Canada and Australia, nations specially selected because they once combined low violence rates with severe gun controls. But gun controls and initially low violence rates did not prevent their violent crime rates from steadily outpacing ours in recent decades. Although these nations banned and confiscated hundreds of thousands of guns in the 1990s, today their violence rates are among the highest in the world—more than twice ours.
If more guns mean more violence, nations with high gun-ownership rates should have high murder rates. But two international studies comparing gun ownership with murder rates in 36 and 21 nations (respectively) found “no significant correlations.”
Anti-gun advocates never mention these facts. Nor do they mention all the European nations with high gun ownership rates but very low murder. Norway, with the highest gun ownership rate in Western Europe, has the lowest murder rate—far below England's. The only European nation that bans all guns, Luxembourg, has the highest murder rate (except for Russia): 30 percent higher than the U.S. and ten times that of gun-dense Norway. Holland, with Western Europe's lowest rate of gun ownership, has a 50 percent higher murder rate than Norway. Greece has much higher gun ownership than the Czech Republic but much less murder. Finland has 14 times more gun ownership than neighboring Estonia but much lower murder rates.
These studies and facts have powerfully affected criminologists. In 1969, Professor Hans Toch of the State University of New York-Albany endorsed handgun prohibition. Thirty years of research later he recanted. “When used for protection firearms can seriously inhibit aggression and can provide a psychological buffer against the fear of crime,” he wrote. “Furthermore, 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."
University of Massachusetts Professors James Wright and Peter Rossi also began their research believing guns cause murder. Years of research later they recanted because "there is no persuasive evidence that supports that view."
In 2004, Oxford University Press published Can Gun Control Work? by New York University criminologist James Jacobs who feels "The most unrealistic control policy for the United States is prohibition of private ownership of firearms or of just handguns” This “serves no useful purpose and only fans the flames of a culture war between gun owners and gun controllers, who in fighting with one another forget that the violent crime problem is the source of our concern."
About that problem Florida State criminologist Gary Kleck, another scholar who once believed guns cause murder, writes: "Fixating on guns seems to be, for many people, a fetish which allows them to ignore the more intransigent causes of American violence, including its dying cities, inequality, deteriorating family structure, and the all-pervasive economic and social consequences of a history of slavery and racism."
Don B. Kates Jr. is a criminologist and constitutional lawyer who is a Research Fellow with the Independent Institute in Oakland, California.
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San Fran the bastion of the Liberals. Weren't these the same people parading and professing their support for the insurgents.
So whats this articles arguement?
Is it claiming that firearms arent required to commit firearm related offenses????
IMHO this is a typical pro-gun strawman arguement. It directs attention away from the fact that guns esculate violence by empowering would be criminals with mass killing potential. Nor does it answer the simple ideal that societies do not need firearms within them in order to operate.
Article from the NZ herald today:
knife-wielding man kept advancing against police bullets yesterday after fatally wounding a bystander just metres from a West Auckland main street.
Two other people were injured during an apparently unprovoked catalogue of violence amid lunchtime shoppers in busy Railside Ave, Henderson.
Police last night named the dead bystander as Kevan Bruce Newman, a 65-year-old heavy-vehicle driving instructor of Mt Albert.
The drama began at 12.55pm when a man in his 30s entered sports goods shop Norcross Fishing World and brandished a knife at owner Robert Norcross.
Mr Norcross, who sells fishing tackle and ammunition, swung a ladder to defend himself but was slashed across his lower right arm and shoulder before fleeing out of the rear of his shop with one of his staff, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
Police said their attacker chased them, but then returned to Railside Ave, where he crossed the road and stabbed Mr Newman on the pavement.
Mr Newman died of his wounds in an ambulance on the way to hospital.
Witness Ken Wang, who runs a second-hand tool shop, said he saw a man in the street clutching his stomach and calling for help.
"I called the ambulance - there was lots of blood."
The knife-wielding man crossed the road again, where he was challenged by at least two armed police to put down his weapon.
But he bore down on them and was shot several times.
Police spokeswoman Philippa White said the man kept advancing on the officers, who were not members of the armed offenders squad, even after being hit by the first bullet.
She said it took the bravery of a parking meter reader, who tackled the knifeman and was slashed during the fracas, to bring him to the ground.
The meter reader and Mr Norcross were taken to Auckland City Hospital.
Mr Norcross, who would not talk about his ordeal, was expected to remain in hospital overnight.
The devastated family of Mr Newman said he went out of his way to help people and always put others first. He was a "loved partner, loved brother, loved by many friends," his family said.
Through a friend at their Mt Albert home, the family said they had "lots of good memories and will be sadly missed by us all."
The Police Complaints Authority has been notified and will investigate, but the police issued a statement last night in which they said they were "left with no alternative other than to shoot".
The statement said police issued warnings to the man to put the knife down "but he continued to advance." They said it was clear the attacks on Mr Norcross and Mr Newman were unprovoked and there was no attempt to rob either victim.
"It seems it was a very bizarre situation, it was unprovoked," Ms White said.
The knifeman, who police said was noticed lurking about the area in the morning by witnesses who thought he looked "disturbed", was last night in a serious but stable condition in hospital.
He had yet to be interviewed or charged.
A witness to the shooting, 15-year-old Kelston Boys High School student Ian Kirkpatrick, said he saw the man running and trying to attack a woman police officer.
He was in the back of his parents' car as it stopped at a red light at the intersection of Gt North Rd and Railside Ave, metres from the shooting.
"The officer was walking backwards and the man, who was holding a knife, continued following," he said.
He told the Herald it was the policewoman who opened fire, but Ms White was adamant last night that it was a male officer who shot the knifeman.
"She shot at him three or four times and he seemed to be hit in the thigh before a member of the public ran up and tackled him from behind," Ian said.
"I was surprised, to say the least, and Mum yelled to me to 'get down'."
The meter-reader was not the only hero of the hour, according to witnesses.
Sosefo Sime, of Pasifika Consulting further along Railside Ave, said Mr Norcross staggered into his building from the rear of the sports shop bleeding badly and concerned that one of his younger staff was still inside. He tried to staunch Mr Norcross' wounds with tea-towels and sent one of his own staff members, Murray Conroy, to the sports shop to check on the young attendant.
Mr Conroy said last night that the shop was "pretty smashed up" but he was too shaken to talk any more about the ordeal.
His boss, Mr Sime, described him "as a really brave sort of character".
Witness Sam Pootinun said he saw one of the stab victims come out of the shop with blood on his hand and get into the ambulance.
He said that sort of violence worried him. "Sometimes I have my 3-year-old son in the office with me and it is not very nice."
About 50m of the northern end of Railside Ave remained cordoned off last night as a 30-strong police team and forensic scientists continued their investigation.
Police vehicles took at least 12 witnesses away to give statements, but were appealing for more information
My point about the above article is how much more damage could this knife welding madman have done if he had been armed columbine style?
Leave firearms to those who are trained when and how to use them as you cannot predict when an ordinary citizen will use one to commit crime.
That's right, has nothing to do with the intent to do others harm???Originally Posted by Belrick
Just imagine if one of those poor knife victims had been armed, there would be a dead knife weilding maniac on his way top the morgue.
2.5million defensive uses of firearms a year over here, that tells me allot, it has nothing to do with having access to a weapon more the fact there are those that choose to break the law.
Trained, by who, why the hell was nut job shot in the thigh by armed police????
Anywho, please remember your comments above next time you plan on doing any DIY, because unless trained(like myself) you could hurt yourself or an innocent member of the public."She shot at him three or four times and he seemed to be hit in the thigh before a member of the public ran up and tackled him from behind," Ian said.
The number of privately owned guns in the U.S. is at an all-time high. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) estimates that there were about 215 million guns in 1999,1 when the number of new guns was averaging about 4.5 million (about 2%) annually.2 A report for the National Academy of Sciences put the 1999 figure at 258 million.3 According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 60.4 million approved (new and used) NICS firearm transactions between 1994 2004.4 The number of NICS checks for firearm purchases or permits increased 3.2% between 2003-2004.
The FBI reports that the nation`s total violent crime rate declined every year between 1991 2004.12 In 2004, the violent crime rate fell to a 30-year low, lower than any time since 1974. The murder rate fell to a 39-year low, lower than any time since 1965. The 2004 robbery and aggravated assault rates were lower than any time since 1968 and 1984, respectively. Since 1991, total violent crime has decreased 39%; murder and non-negligent manslaughter, 44%; rape, 24%; robbery, 50%; and aggravated assault, 33%.13 Between 2003-2004, the violent crime rate declined 2.2%.14 Concurrently, the most recent Bureau of Justice Statistics crime victimization survey found that violent crime is lower than anytime since 1973, when the first such survey was conducted.15
BATF, "Crime Gun Trace Reports (1999) National Report," Nov. 2000, p. ix (www.atf.gov/firearms/ycgii/1999/index.htm).
2. BATF, "Firearms Commerce in the United States 2001/2002" (www.atf.gov/pub/index.htm#Firearms).
I doubt that guns are the only variable in this equaton. I have a feeling that guns actually are a very small variable and socioeconomic situations play a larger role. I once saw a professor "prove" (using reputable statistics and sources) that Roe V. Wade made a large impact on the crime rate (i.e. was a major factor in the decline). I did not buy this of course, but it made me think about how statistics and theories can be manipulated to "prove" untrue points and "facts."
Then you are talking about societies impact on certain individuals(whole other topic). My point was the amount of guns in America with correlation to the crime statistic.
The correlation means absolutly nothing though if all sides of the possible causes, and all variables for that matter, are looked at.
It's a good thing that madman didn't have a U-Haul, a ton of ammonium nitrate, and a grudge. I don't know of any San Francisco laws banning fertilizer. I also don't understand the concept of leaving firearms to the cops and G men alone as we "cannot predict when an ordinary citizen will use one to commit crime." No one can predict the future, and San Francisco's attempt to legislate it strikes me as particularly dumb. Assuming I lived in a large American city, I would want some form of protection from the inevitable crime. Seeing as no city is a static element, black market trade from adjacent counties and states would ensure anyone who really wants a gun easy access for the right price. I enjoy my status as a non-felon, and would want things to stay that way, so if I lived in S.F., I guess I would have to go without protection for the common good (an unfamiliar concept in America), despite the fact that I personally have done nothing wrong to negate my owning a firearm with which to protect myself. Even if there were no black market for firearms (purely theoretical) I could still be killed by a group of criminals with blunt weapons, leaving me, the victim, dead in a safe, gun-free utopia. I would honestly love to understand the mentality of a city that votes itself out of its own rights. It's my personal view that we should never sacrifice our rights for a guarantee of safety, and it's even worse that San Francisco has been sweet talked into handing their rights over for the impression of crime reduction.
As an anti gun, gun nut
I applaud SF for it's stance on the issue as it's a step in the right direction towards a safer society. However simply having a weapons ban only helps in preventing certain crime and is not be all to end all as is claimed by such groups as the Brady's who give normal anti gun dudes a bad name.
Like everything in life. Such laws need to be combined with other reforms especially programs designed to get people into work, increase unemployment benifits, ect
It's interesting to note that while groups such as the NRA claim that by allowing fire-arms lowers crime. And they can even produce facts to support their case. They fail to bring into account the socio-econimic factors. For example, if the economy is booming along, unemployment is low, consumer confidence is strong as opposed to recession like conditions.
On this subject for instance crime rates were falling yet at the same time less states had concealed carry laws. During Clintons adminustration which also introduced the Assault Weapon Ban. Yet is during this time of sustained economic growth, low unemployment that groups such as the NRA gain their numbers to prove that lax gun laws work.
But one must be concerned with the opening up of gun laws and with the economy under increasing strain and with major employers facing the economic pinch and with so legal guns in circulation one must be worried in the event that so many legal gun owners are soon to be unemployed.
I finish by stating that there is no definitve proof that gun laws work and conversly there is no definitive proof that lax gun laws work in reducing crime. As the sole reason for crime as both sides of the debate claim.
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