A message to the citizens of the United States from Australia and the UK
- Thread starter Scott Free
- Start date
It may be both, Cliffy. It is usually very difficult to establish a causative relationship between two variables; there are invariably other compacting factors.
Let me give you an example. There apparently is a direct correlation between number of churches and number of bars in a town, usually higher the number of churches, the more bars there are in a town. Does that mean the two are related?
That is why I said that probably there is a link between the easy availability of guns and the high crime (and murder) rate in USA. No doubt the picture is not that simple, there are many complicating factors. But in my opinion, at least part of the reason for high crime rate in USA is the easy availability of guns.
Wrong!
Everyone in Swizzerland is required to own a gun....tell me...what is there murder rate?
Don't bother to look unless you want to look like a fool.
No gun has ever shot anyone all by itself.
The first part of your reasoning is excellent but then you go on to contradict yourself!?!?!
The fact is that more churches and more bars are the product of a larger population; if you removed the population both churches and bars would close shop.
More gun crime is a product of a violent society; if the society weren't violent there wouldn't be any gun crime.
Saying churches cause bars is like saying guns cause crime; neither statement is true however.
It's very easy to kill someone with a knife if you know what you're doing.
Most people would not know how to fight with a knife, but with very little
training they can fire a simple hand gun, or even a long range rifle, if that
is the method they need.
Every gun killing isn't done by a psychotic person, just some.
If you don't telegraph your intent there is almost no chance your victim will survive.
A physical battle with someone is a 'risk', standing a distance away, and firing a
bullet into their body has no risk for the gun holder.
Again, only if you're psychotic at which point the outcome is more important than the method.
When I said it takes the emotion out of the killing, it's true, as the gun does everything
you need it to do, you don't get your hands dirty, you don't get injured, you can run away,
or you can phone the cops, whatever.
This doesn't make sense. Why plan carefully if your little or big unless you intend to get away with the murder? How hard is it for a little lady to stab someone with a needle full of insulin? Or use a box cutter to slash their victims femoral artery? Or use a skewer and stab the heart? Non of this requires any great skill or strength just the opportunity to act first.
It's what you have to put into the needle that is hard to get, and it is also a 'close' encounter,
actually have to touch the person, becomes a nerve racking experience.
Guns take much of that emotion away.
Anyway, it has long been the feminine method (young or old) to find someone to do their dirty work for them. It is fairly rare to find a woman that actually does the crime but fairly common to find one behind the crime, generally claiming she too was a victim
Men a naturally more physically violant that women, that's just the way it is, I could never
physically fight with anyone, (unless I was attacked, and fighting for my life).
Your last comment is out of line and meant to hurt, you do have a way of doing that don't you.
It only reflects back to you, has nothing to do with me, or any other woman.
More gun crime is a product of a violent society; if the society weren't violent there wouldn't be any gun crime.
Scott Free, sure violent society is responsible for gun crime, but I think so are the guns. Take the guns away and violent crime probably goes down. It is much more difficult to kill with a knife or with bare hands, strangling, etc. (although of course, it can be done).
The fact is that more churches and more bars are the product of a larger population; if you removed the population both churches and bars would close shop.
I gave this example merely to show that it is difficult to establish a cause – effect relationship between two variables. It has nothing to do with gun crime.
There are two things essential in establishing a correlation in science. First, we must observe apparent correlation, which we do both in terms of churches and bars and also for guns and crime.
However, the second criteria, if anything is even more important. The second criteria is, is there any reason to believe that the two variables should be related, is there any reason to think that a correlation exists?
Churches and bars fall down in this criteria; there really is no reason why churches and bars should be related. However, in the case of guns, we do have reason to believe that guns and crime may be related, guns kill people and what is more, it kills much more easily that any other weapon.
So we do have reason to believe that there may be a correlation. And when we do observe the correlation in practice, we can (at least I can) say with some confidence that there indeed may be a correlation between guns and crime.
Scott Free, sure violent society is responsible for gun crime, but I think so are the guns. Take the guns away and violent crime probably goes down. It is much more difficult to kill with a knife or with bare hands, strangling, etc. (although of course, it can be done).
The fact is that more churches and more bars are the product of a larger population; if you removed the population both churches and bars would close shop.
I gave this example merely to show that it is difficult to establish a cause – effect relationship between two variables. It has nothing to do with gun crime.
There are two things essential in establishing a correlation in science. First, we must observe apparent correlation, which we do both in terms of churches and bars and also for guns and crime.
However, the second criteria, if anything is even more important. The second criteria is, is there any reason to believe that the two variables should be related, is there any reason to think that a correlation exists?
Churches and bars fall down in this criteria; there really is no reason why churches and bars should be related. However, in the case of guns, we do have reason to believe that guns and crime may be related, guns kill people and what is more, it kills much more easily that any other weapon.
So we do have reason to believe that there may be a correlation. And when we do observe the correlation in practice, we can (at least I can) say with some confidence that there indeed may be a correlation between guns and crime.
Probably huh?
400 victims of knife crimes each week
The full extent of stabbings and robberies at knifepoint is made clear in the country's first census of knife crime.
Police recorded 5,023 serious knife crimes in England and Wales in the first three months after they began to count the offences as a separate crime category last spring. It is equivalent to about 400 offences per week.
The highest rate is in London, where every resident has a one-in-1,100 chance of falling victim over the course of a year.
Londoners stand more chance of being stabbed or robbed at knifepoint than of being killed or seriously injured in a road accident.
Manchester and Birmingham are near the top of the league with shire counties having much lower rates of knife crime. However, Bedfordshire, a predominantly rural county, reports the third-worst rate.
The findings give the clearest picture yet of the extent of the "knife culture" on the nation's streets. The statistics, compiled in line with Home Office instructions, include only such serious offences as attempted murder, wounding and knifepoint robbery.
Totals would have been higher had ministers not told forces to exclude thousands of less serious offences, including possession of knives and stabbings that caused only minor injuries.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "These shocking figures betray the desperate state of violent crime under this Government. The Home Secretary says violent crime is down, but the figures show almost three serious knife crimes committed every hour. Labour's denial of the problem is part of the problem."
Until April, official statistics counted knife offences with other assaults involving weapons, making it harder to detect emerging trends.
Police began to keep a separate tally of serious knife crimes after a series of high-profile stabbings earlier this year.
Kodjo Yenga, 16, a youth team footballer with Queens Park Rangers, was killed in Hammersmith, west London, in March. Three days later, Adam Regis, 15, the nephew of John Regis, the former Olympic sprinter, died in Plaistow, east London.
The new figures were obtained from 37 of the 43 forces in England and Wales under the Freedom of Information Act. The remaining six, mostly smaller forces, said they were unable to provide data.
Adjusting for the missing areas, and adding in an estimated 50 knife murders which were excluded under Home Office counting rules, there were an estimated 5,450 serious knife offences during the three-month period, equivalent to one offence every 24 minutes or more than 21,000 over a full year.
Police in Bedfordshire said the figures were high because crime levels in Luton, the biggest town, were on a par with parts of London. Luton has the fourth-highest immigration rate of any town outside London, and a senior police officer claimed that the trend was fuelling crime.
Chief Supt Nicky Dahl said: "Knife crime is a real concern. There is a culture of young people carrying knives and we need to change that culture.
"When the census was taken in 2001, we had a population of 180,000. It is now far in excess of that. More than 2,500 Poles alone have arrived, with many arrested for drinking and violent offences."
Source
The problem has never been guns.
I really can't understand why anyone would think otherwise. It is extremely easy to kill people. If anything guns offer a quick release that prevent even more people from being killed.
And the reason knife crime is up is because guns were taken away or turned in because of prohibition. I will bet that most instances took place in pubs or nearby, some after returning home. Beer and knives are good bedfellows.
[FONT=Palatino, Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=+2]Crime up Down Under[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Palatino, Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=+1]Since Australia's gun ban, armed robberies increase 45%
[/SIZE][/FONT]Since Australia banned private ownership of most guns in 1996, crime has risen dramatically on that continent, prompting critics of U.S. gun control efforts to issue new warnings of what life in America could be like if Congress ever bans firearms.
After Australian lawmakers passed widespread gun bans, owners were forced to surrender about 650,000 weapons, which were later slated for destruction, according to statistics from the Australian Sporting Shooters Association.
The bans were not limited to so-called "assault" weapons or military-type firearms, but also to .22 rifles and shotguns. The effort cost the Australian government about $500 million, said association representative Keith Tidswell.
Though lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story:
Australian press accounts report that the half a million-plus figure of weapons turned in to authorities so far only represents a tiny fraction of the guns believed to be in the country.
According to one report, in March 1997 the number of privately-held firearms in Australia numbered around 10 million. "In the State of Queensland," for example, the report said only "80,000 guns have been seized out of a total of approximately 3 million, a tiny fraction."
And, said the report, 15 percent of the more than half a million guns collected came from licensed gun dealers.
Moreover, a black market allegedly has developed in the country. The report said about 1 million Chinese-made semi-automatics, "one type of gun specifically targeted by the new law," have been imported and sold throughout the country.
Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said the situation in Australia reminds him of Great Britain, where English lawmakers have passed similar restrictive gun control laws.
"In fact, when you brought up the subject of this interview, I didn't hear you clearly -- I thought you were talking about England, not Australia," Pratt told WorldNetDaily. "It's hard to tell the difference between them."
Pratt said officials in both countries can "no longer control what the criminals do," because an armed society used to serve as a check on the power and influence of the criminal element.
Worse, Pratt said he was "offended by people who say, basically, that I don't have a right to defend myself or my family." Specifically, during debates with gun control advocates like members of Handgun Control, Inc. or similar organizations, Pratt said he routinely asks them if they're "against self defense."
Most often, he said, "they don't say anything -- they just don't answer me. But occasionally I'll get one of them to admit it and say 'yes.'"
Pratt said, based on the examples of democracies that have enacted near-total bans on private firearm ownership, that the same thing could happen to Americans. His organization routinely researches and reports incidents that happen all over the country when private armed citizens successfully defend themselves against armed robbers or intruders, but "liberals completely ignore this reality."
Pratt, who said was scheduled to appear in a televised discussion later in the day about a shooting incident between two first graders in Michigan on Tuesday, said he was in favor of allowing teachers to carry weapons to protect themselves and their students on campus.
Pratt pointed to the example of a Pearl, Mississippi teacher who, in 1997, armed with his own handgun, was able to blunt the killing spree of Luke Woodham.
"By making schools and even entire communities 'gun free zones,' you're basically telling the criminal element that you're unarmed and extremely vulnerable," Pratt said.
Pratt also warned against falling into the gun registration trap.
"Governments will ask you to trust them to allow gun registration, then use those registration lists to later confiscate the firearms," he said. "It's happened countless times throughout history."
Sarah Brady, head of Handgun Control, Inc., issued a statement calling on lawmakers in Michigan and in Washington to pass more restrictive gun access laws.
"This horrible tragedy should send a clear message to lawmakers in Michigan and around the country: they should quickly pass child access prevention or 'safe storage' laws that make it a crime to leave a loaded firearm where it is accessible by children," Brady said.
Brady also blamed gun makers for the Michigan shooting.
"The responsibility for shootings like these do not stop at the hands of the gun owner," Brady said. "Why are ... gun makers manufacturing weapons that a six-year old child can fire? This makes no rational sense. When will gun makers realize that they bear a responsibility to make sure that their products do not mete out preventable deaths, and that they do not warrant nor deserve special protection from the law to avoid that burden? Instead of safeguarding the gun makers, we should be childproofing the guns."
In contrast to near-complete bans in Australia and Great Britain, many U.S. states have passed liberal concealed carry laws that allow private citizens to obtain a permit to carry a loaded gun at all times in most public places. According to Yale University researcher John R. Lott, formerly of the University of Chicago and a gun control analyst who has conducted the most extensive study on the impact of concealed carry laws in the nation's history, the more liberal the right to carry, the less violent crime occurs.
Lott, who examined a mass of crime data spanning decades in all 3,200-plus counties in the United States, concluded that the most important factor in the deterrence of violent crimes were increased police presence and longer jail sentences. However, his research also demonstrated that liberal concealed carry laws were at the top of the list of reasons violent crime has dropped steadily since those laws began to be enacted by state legislatures a decade ago.
The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, a division of Handgun Control, Inc., disagreed with Lott's findings, as well as the overall assumption that a reduction in the availability of guns in society reduces violent crime.
"Using violent crime data provided by the FBI, the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence determined that, on average over a five-year period, violent crime dropped almost 25 percent in states that limit or prohibit carrying concealed weapons," the Center said. "This compares with only a 11 percent drop in states with lax concealed carry weapons (CCW) laws. Moreover, states with some of the strongest laws against concealed weapons experienced the largest drops."
Without naming its source, the Center also claimed "a prominent criminologist from Johns Hopkins University has stated that Lott's study was so flawed that 'nothing can be learned of it,' and that it should not be used as the basis for policy-making."
In his most recent research, Lott noted a few examples of mass shootings in schools when teachers who were armed, albeit illegally, were able to prevent further loss of life among students indiscriminately targeted by other students with guns.
Ironically, both Lott and Handgun Control acknowledge that the reams of gun control laws on the books in Washington and in all 50 states have been ineffective in eradicating mass shootings or preventing children from bringing weapons to school. However, Lott's research indicates the criminal element has been successful in obtaining weapons despite widespread bans and gun control laws, while HCI continues to push for more laws that further restrict, license or eliminate handguns and long guns.
Source
That's the problem with relying on assumption and correlated data only :roll:
[FONT=Palatino, Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=+1]Since Australia's gun ban, armed robberies increase 45%
[/SIZE][/FONT]Since Australia banned private ownership of most guns in 1996, crime has risen dramatically on that continent, prompting critics of U.S. gun control efforts to issue new warnings of what life in America could be like if Congress ever bans firearms.
After Australian lawmakers passed widespread gun bans, owners were forced to surrender about 650,000 weapons, which were later slated for destruction, according to statistics from the Australian Sporting Shooters Association.
The bans were not limited to so-called "assault" weapons or military-type firearms, but also to .22 rifles and shotguns. The effort cost the Australian government about $500 million, said association representative Keith Tidswell.
Though lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story:
- Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;
- Assaults are up 8.6 percent;
- Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent;
- In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent;
- In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily;
- There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.
Australian press accounts report that the half a million-plus figure of weapons turned in to authorities so far only represents a tiny fraction of the guns believed to be in the country.
According to one report, in March 1997 the number of privately-held firearms in Australia numbered around 10 million. "In the State of Queensland," for example, the report said only "80,000 guns have been seized out of a total of approximately 3 million, a tiny fraction."
And, said the report, 15 percent of the more than half a million guns collected came from licensed gun dealers.
Moreover, a black market allegedly has developed in the country. The report said about 1 million Chinese-made semi-automatics, "one type of gun specifically targeted by the new law," have been imported and sold throughout the country.
Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said the situation in Australia reminds him of Great Britain, where English lawmakers have passed similar restrictive gun control laws.
"In fact, when you brought up the subject of this interview, I didn't hear you clearly -- I thought you were talking about England, not Australia," Pratt told WorldNetDaily. "It's hard to tell the difference between them."
Pratt said officials in both countries can "no longer control what the criminals do," because an armed society used to serve as a check on the power and influence of the criminal element.
Worse, Pratt said he was "offended by people who say, basically, that I don't have a right to defend myself or my family." Specifically, during debates with gun control advocates like members of Handgun Control, Inc. or similar organizations, Pratt said he routinely asks them if they're "against self defense."
Most often, he said, "they don't say anything -- they just don't answer me. But occasionally I'll get one of them to admit it and say 'yes.'"
Pratt said, based on the examples of democracies that have enacted near-total bans on private firearm ownership, that the same thing could happen to Americans. His organization routinely researches and reports incidents that happen all over the country when private armed citizens successfully defend themselves against armed robbers or intruders, but "liberals completely ignore this reality."
Pratt, who said was scheduled to appear in a televised discussion later in the day about a shooting incident between two first graders in Michigan on Tuesday, said he was in favor of allowing teachers to carry weapons to protect themselves and their students on campus.
Pratt pointed to the example of a Pearl, Mississippi teacher who, in 1997, armed with his own handgun, was able to blunt the killing spree of Luke Woodham.
"By making schools and even entire communities 'gun free zones,' you're basically telling the criminal element that you're unarmed and extremely vulnerable," Pratt said.
Pratt also warned against falling into the gun registration trap.
"Governments will ask you to trust them to allow gun registration, then use those registration lists to later confiscate the firearms," he said. "It's happened countless times throughout history."
Sarah Brady, head of Handgun Control, Inc., issued a statement calling on lawmakers in Michigan and in Washington to pass more restrictive gun access laws.
"This horrible tragedy should send a clear message to lawmakers in Michigan and around the country: they should quickly pass child access prevention or 'safe storage' laws that make it a crime to leave a loaded firearm where it is accessible by children," Brady said.
Brady also blamed gun makers for the Michigan shooting.
"The responsibility for shootings like these do not stop at the hands of the gun owner," Brady said. "Why are ... gun makers manufacturing weapons that a six-year old child can fire? This makes no rational sense. When will gun makers realize that they bear a responsibility to make sure that their products do not mete out preventable deaths, and that they do not warrant nor deserve special protection from the law to avoid that burden? Instead of safeguarding the gun makers, we should be childproofing the guns."
In contrast to near-complete bans in Australia and Great Britain, many U.S. states have passed liberal concealed carry laws that allow private citizens to obtain a permit to carry a loaded gun at all times in most public places. According to Yale University researcher John R. Lott, formerly of the University of Chicago and a gun control analyst who has conducted the most extensive study on the impact of concealed carry laws in the nation's history, the more liberal the right to carry, the less violent crime occurs.
Lott, who examined a mass of crime data spanning decades in all 3,200-plus counties in the United States, concluded that the most important factor in the deterrence of violent crimes were increased police presence and longer jail sentences. However, his research also demonstrated that liberal concealed carry laws were at the top of the list of reasons violent crime has dropped steadily since those laws began to be enacted by state legislatures a decade ago.
The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, a division of Handgun Control, Inc., disagreed with Lott's findings, as well as the overall assumption that a reduction in the availability of guns in society reduces violent crime.
"Using violent crime data provided by the FBI, the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence determined that, on average over a five-year period, violent crime dropped almost 25 percent in states that limit or prohibit carrying concealed weapons," the Center said. "This compares with only a 11 percent drop in states with lax concealed carry weapons (CCW) laws. Moreover, states with some of the strongest laws against concealed weapons experienced the largest drops."
Without naming its source, the Center also claimed "a prominent criminologist from Johns Hopkins University has stated that Lott's study was so flawed that 'nothing can be learned of it,' and that it should not be used as the basis for policy-making."
In his most recent research, Lott noted a few examples of mass shootings in schools when teachers who were armed, albeit illegally, were able to prevent further loss of life among students indiscriminately targeted by other students with guns.
Ironically, both Lott and Handgun Control acknowledge that the reams of gun control laws on the books in Washington and in all 50 states have been ineffective in eradicating mass shootings or preventing children from bringing weapons to school. However, Lott's research indicates the criminal element has been successful in obtaining weapons despite widespread bans and gun control laws, while HCI continues to push for more laws that further restrict, license or eliminate handguns and long guns.
Source
That's the problem with relying on assumption and correlated data only :roll:
The difference between people like the Swiss concerning firearms and the people of the US is the attitude that they have towards firearms. Get a grip and grow up. Fred Gangmember has a different attitude towards firearms than Joe Farmer.
When Canada and the US mature to the point that Switzerland or Israel concerning attitudes towards firearms, then we'll be a step toward less firearms related crime.
When Canada and the US mature to the point that Switzerland or Israel concerning attitudes towards firearms, then we'll be a step toward less firearms related crime.
The whole concept of banning guns is quite ridiculous. While I have no doubt you could live in a safer society with banned guns, you need to build the infrastructure.
In the same way banning cars would make the country vastly safer would require massive changes to infrastructure first (putting in busses to handle the massively higher demand)
Disbanding peoples ability to defend themselves requires a VAST increase in the numbre of police officers to make up for the loss. It does require a police state (benevolent or not) to bring said security.
If you disband the militia then you either need to increase the army or have ended all prospect of war.
Seeing as we can't eliminate crime (and if we could we wouldn't need to ban guns), its pointless.
In the same way banning cars would make the country vastly safer would require massive changes to infrastructure first (putting in busses to handle the massively higher demand)
Disbanding peoples ability to defend themselves requires a VAST increase in the numbre of police officers to make up for the loss. It does require a police state (benevolent or not) to bring said security.
If you disband the militia then you either need to increase the army or have ended all prospect of war.
Seeing as we can't eliminate crime (and if we could we wouldn't need to ban guns), its pointless.