Block, SkipCaptcha, Upload, Automoderated users, edit, rollback
14,697
edits
Changes
→The Fallacy and Motivation for Gun Control: + criminal gun deaths' statistical smallness
[[Image:No Weapons Allowed.gif|right]]
[[Image:No Weapons Allowed.gif|right]]
Gun control potentially causes an increase in crime by restricting its main deterrent: [[self-defense]]. A study by Professor Gary Kleck, initially a liberal critic of gun control, caused him to change his mind on this issue when the evidence showed that crime was predominantly ''prevented'' when people could carry guns. ''See Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America''.<ref>http://www.largo.org/effects.html</ref> In the United States, law-abiding uses of guns outnumber criminal uses by about a factor of 1000 to 1,<ref>http://www.americanselfdefense.com/gunfacts3.0.pdf (p. 60)</ref> and the removal of guns from everyone eliminates the lawful use of self-defense and its deterrent effect. "[[Americans]] use firearms to defend themselves from criminals at least 764,000 times a year."<ref name="Gallup_LAT">"This figure is the lowest among a group of 9 nationwide surveys done by organizations including Gallup and the Los Angeles Times." (Just Facts - [http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp Gun Control])</ref> Specific examples of guns being used successfully in [[self-defense]] are easy to find.<ref>Two 70-ish store owners stopped armed robberies of their stores by shooting at the bandits. "The person came in and pointed the gun at him and my father shot him. I'm proud of him." [http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/buffaloerie/story/253849.html Buffalo News]</ref><ref>[http://sittingduckpolicy.com/ Sitting Duck Policy: True Stories of Self-Defense]</ref> "In 1982, a survey of imprisoned criminals found that 34% of them had been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim."<ref name="Gallup_LAT"/> When Florida began allowing its citizens to carry a concealed weapon, [[Florida]]'s firearm homicide rate fell by 37% while the national average ''increased'' by 15%.<ref name="Gallup_LAT"/> As explained below, the political effect of gun control is to cause voters to become more dependent emotionally on government and more supportive of bigger government.
Gun control potentially causes an increase in crime by restricting its main deterrent: [[self-defense]]. A study by Professor Gary Kleck, initially a liberal critic of gun control, caused him to change his mind on this issue when the evidence showed that crime was predominantly ''prevented'' when people could carry guns. ''See Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America''.<ref>http://www.largo.org/effects.html</ref> In the United States, law-abiding uses of guns outnumber criminal uses by about a factor of 1000 to 1,<ref>http://www.americanselfdefense.com/gunfacts3.0.pdf (p. 60)</ref> and the removal of guns from everyone eliminates the lawful use of self-defense and its deterrent effect. "[[Americans]] use firearms to defend themselves from criminals at least 764,000 times a year."<ref name="Gallup_LAT">"This figure is the lowest among a group of 9 nationwide surveys done by organizations including Gallup and the Los Angeles Times." (Just Facts - [http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp Gun Control])</ref> Specific examples of guns being used successfully in [[self-defense]] are easy to find.<ref>Two 70-ish store owners stopped armed robberies of their stores by shooting at the bandits. "The person came in and pointed the gun at him and my father shot him. I'm proud of him." [http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/buffaloerie/story/253849.html Buffalo News]</ref><ref>[http://sittingduckpolicy.com/ Sitting Duck Policy: True Stories of Self-Defense]</ref> "In 1982, a survey of imprisoned criminals found that 34% of them had been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim."<ref name="Gallup_LAT"/> When Florida began allowing its citizens to carry a concealed weapon, [[Florida]]'s firearm homicide rate fell by 37% while the national average ''increased'' by 15%.<ref name="Gallup_LAT"/> As explained below, the political effect of gun control is to cause voters to become more dependent emotionally on government and more supportive of bigger government.
Actual gun-related crime deaths in the United States are far out of proportion to the 300 million firearms owned by its populace.
There are about 30,000 gun-related deaths per year out of a population of 328 million, but a recent breakdown shows that even these low amounts have little to do with violent criminality. 23,000 of them are suicides, which can't be prevented by gun laws. 1,000 of them are caused by police in the line of duty, so are not connected to gun-control laws. 500 are accidental deaths, so are also non-criminal, leaving mostly criminal 5,500 gun-related deaths.
Of these 5,500, a large share of these occur in large cities, the greatness of which suggest them to be the effect of municipal mismanagement rather than an excess of firearms. For example, strict gun controls in London on the other side of the Atlantic caused a mushrooming of knife crime.
America's large cities' tendencies to violence, the deaths of which would not be expected to change, regardless of weapons of choice, can be subtracted as follows: 298 in St. Louis, 327 in Detroit, 328 in Baltimore, 764 in Chicago. These four chronically-mismanaged cities alone account for a full 30% of all statistically-reduced 5,500 criminal gun deaths, leaving 3,900 criminal gun-related causes-of-death for everywhere else in America.
Risk-comparison studies show these numbers of deaths in the United States to be small both when compared with other causes of death and when compared with the proportion of media coverage they receive.
For example 70,000+ die each year of drug overdoses, 49,000 die each year of the flu, 37,000 die of traffic fatalities, 250,000 die of preventable medical errors and 610,000 die of heart disease.
Studies by [[John Lott]] and others indicate that gun control causes higher crime rates.<ref>[http://www.johnrlott.com/ John Lott's Website]</ref> [[Washington, D.C.]] has one of the highest crime rates in America even though it completely bans private handguns.<ref>[http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/dccrime.htm District of Columbia Crime Rates 1960 - 2006]</ref> "Switzerland, Israel, Denmark and Finland, all of whom have a higher gun ownership rate than America, all have lower crime rates than America, in fact, their crime rates are among the lowest in the Western World."<ref>Slashdoc - [http://www.slashdoc.com/documents/71244 gun control]</ref> Lott demonstrates that in Britain, [[Australia]] and [[Canada]], increased gun control in the late 1990s led to increased crime, the exact opposite of what the proponents of the gun control promised.<ref>John R. Lott Jr. and Eli Lehrer - [http://johnrlott.tripod.com/op-eds/IBDGunConFailure.html Add Gun Control To Litany Of Misbegotten Gov't Plans]</ref> States in the [[U.S.]] that have enacted concealed-carry laws enjoy lower crime rates.<ref>[http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4706 Cato report]</ref>
Studies by [[John Lott]] and others indicate that gun control causes higher crime rates.<ref>[http://www.johnrlott.com/ John Lott's Website]</ref> [[Washington, D.C.]] has one of the highest crime rates in America even though it completely bans private handguns.<ref>[http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/dccrime.htm District of Columbia Crime Rates 1960 - 2006]</ref> "Switzerland, Israel, Denmark and Finland, all of whom have a higher gun ownership rate than America, all have lower crime rates than America, in fact, their crime rates are among the lowest in the Western World."<ref>Slashdoc - [http://www.slashdoc.com/documents/71244 gun control]</ref> Lott demonstrates that in Britain, [[Australia]] and [[Canada]], increased gun control in the late 1990s led to increased crime, the exact opposite of what the proponents of the gun control promised.<ref>John R. Lott Jr. and Eli Lehrer - [http://johnrlott.tripod.com/op-eds/IBDGunConFailure.html Add Gun Control To Litany Of Misbegotten Gov't Plans]</ref> States in the [[U.S.]] that have enacted concealed-carry laws enjoy lower crime rates.<ref>[http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4706 Cato report]</ref>
[[image:Robbery victims per 100K.png|300px|thumb|<small>Source data: Australian Bureau of Statistics</small>]]
[[image:Robbery victims per 100K.png|300px|thumb|<small>Source data: Australian Bureau of Statistics</small>]]
[[image:Robbery victims.png|300px|thumb|<small>Source data: Australian Bureau of Statistics</small>]]
[[image:Robbery victims.png|300px|thumb|<small>Source data: Australian Bureau of Statistics</small>]]
In Australia, where gun ownership was less widespread and the gun control measures were less strict, there was an immediate increase in robbery and armed robbery after the gun control went into effect in 1996 (see chart at right).<ref>
In Australia, where gun ownership was less widespread and the gun control measures were less strict, there was an immediate increase in robbery and armed robbery after the gun control went into effect in 1996 (see chart at right).<ref>