An Unbiased Analysis of Gun Crime vs. Gun Control?

lyapunov asks: "I have been trying to become more learned on the issues surrounding gun control and crime. I have had quite a time searching the internet for references about these issues. Practically everything that I have found has been written for, or is a study funded by, one of the groups that hold extreme viewpoints on the subject, e.g. the NRA or the Brady Foundation. The same holds true for references that I have found in our library. I was wondering if any of the members of the slashdot community have come across articles that are objective in dealing with these subjects, and I would also ask what ideas the members of this community have about this issue and what FACTS they can offer to support their ideas."

"Just so everyone knows where I stand, and why I am asking this, I offer the following. I enjoy guns and regularly compete in shooting matches and hunt occasionally. I am a member of the NRA, not for political reasons, but due to the fact that most competitions are closed to non-members (which I do think is screwed up). Having said this I am undecided on what a logical path for the future is. I do believe that an unarmed nation is a bad idea, but as Michael Moore pointed out in 'Bowling for Columbine' Canada has a much higher per capita gun ownership rate compared to the US and has nowhere near the amount of violent crime that the US has. All of the statistics that I have seen about countries that have altogether outlawed guns have been manipulated by those extreme groups. As such I find it hard to believe anything that either side presents.

Thanks, I look forward to reading all of your comments and the references that you provide."

Decide for yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

I submit for your consideration, John Lott's book: "More Guns, Less Crime." It's obvious from the title what his take on the issue is, but the part that I find valuable is that he includes citations for ALL of his data and sources (mostly us DOJ crime statistics). You can then look up this information for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

For what it's worth, I tend to agree with his conclusions based on the data and his analysis of it.

Oh boy...

[Darth Maul]

The problem with finding "unbiased" data is rarely does anyone with an opinion either way just decide to do a study. Think of trying to find "unbiased" studies on Linux vs. Microsoft stuff. Everyone has an agenda.

I, for one, and a huge fan of the U.S. Constitution. And that means I think the government shouldn't be able to stop me from speaking, stop me from gathering in a peaceful manner, stop me from going to church, or stop me from owning a gun for my own self-protection. I carry a gun every day, in fact. It's MY responsibility for my and my family's safety, not the police deparment who will show up 20 minutes late to clean up the mess. I take that responsibility seriously, and in this "land of the free", nobody should be able to take that right of self-protection away. The founding fathers saw those as "God-given" (sorry athiests, but our Founding Fathers were actually believers. Deal).

If you want some good stuff to research, try these links:

http://www.guncite.com/

http://secondamendmentstuff.com/

http://stealthboy.dyndns.org/~msherman/cowards.h tm l

Look at how it's affected crime in the UK

[mesozoic]

Rates of violent crimes in the United Kingdom have been steadily rising for years, while rates in the United States have been steadily falling. There is a considerable argument to be made that gun control is to blame for an increase in violence in Britain.

The logic is simple: criminals will always find ways to get guns, whether legally or not. If the average civilian cannot own a gun for self-defense, the chances that a criminal will use a gun against a civilian become much higher.

Reason did a very good article on this a little while ago: Gun Control's Twisted Outcome [reason.com].

CATO

[Figec]

Try http://www.cato.org [cato.org].

Or more specifically:http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa109.ht ml [cato.org]

Or something short like: http://www.cato.org/dailys/05-13-00.html [cato.org]

Or this has both sides of the issue laid out a bit http://www.ncpa.org:80/bothside/crime.html [ncpa.org]

More Guns, More Crime

[jamie]

More Guns, More Crime [ssrn.com]

MARK DUGGAN
University of Chicago - Department of Economics

October 2000

Abstract:
This paper examines the relationship between gun ownership and crime. Previous research has suffered from a lack of reliable data on gun ownership. I exploit a unique data set to reliably estimate annual gun ownership rates at both the state and the county level during the past two decades. My findings demonstrate that changes in gun ownership are significantly positively related to changes in the homicide rate, with this relationship driven entirely by the impact of gun ownership on murders in which a gun is used. The effect of gun ownership on all other crime categories is much less marked. Recent reductions in the fraction of households owning a gun can explain at least one-third of the differential decline in gun homicides relative to non-gun homicides since 1993. I also use this data to examine the impact of Carrying Concealed Weapons legislation on crime, and reject the hypothesis that these laws led to increases in gun ownership or reductions in criminal activity.

Re:Guns and geeks...

[thinkliberty]

They seem to mix just fine http://www.geekswithguns.com

Re:Guns and geeks...

[RobotRunAmok]

Guns and Geeks don't mix, do they?

Um, they do [geekswithguns.com], actually.

Especially when the Geeks grow up, get married, and start raising teenage daughters...

Canadian statistics are skewed...

[jvl001]

Although Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" is a very good movie, and I would recommend it to anyone, the statistics related to gun ownership versus homicide by gun are a bit skewed. It is true that Canadians own a similar number of guns per capita as Americans. Canada suffers less than 300 homicides by gun per year compared to greater than 11000 for the US. However, handgun and assault rifle ownership is much tighter controlled in Canada than in the US. The vast majority of guns owned in Canada are of the hunting rifle variety and are limited in clip capacity.

That being said, it is still difficult to explain the two orders of magnitude difference in homicide rate. Another interesting statistic is that in Canada's largest city, Toronto, it is estimated that 3 out of 4 hand guns involved in a crime are imported illegally from the US.

Draw your own conclusions.

Re:Decide for yourself

[jamie]

"I submit for your consideration, John Lott's book: 'More Guns, Less Crime.'"

That book has been thoroughly debunked. Some examples:

awed gun policy research could endanger public safety [ajph.org]

American Journal of Public Health, Vol 87, Issue 6 918-921,
Copyright (c) 1997 by American Public Health Association

DW Webster, JS Vernick, J Ludwig and KJ Lester
Center for Gun Policy and Research, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 21205, USA.

A highly publicized recent study by Lott and Mustard concludes that laws easing restrictions on licenses for carrying concealed firearms in public substantially reduce violent crime. Several serious flaws in the study render the authors' conclusions insupportable. These flaws include misclassification of gun-carrying laws, endogeneity of predictor variables, omission of confounding variables, and failure to control for the cyclical nature of crime trends. Most of these problems should bias results toward overestimating the crime-reducing effects of laws making it easier to carry concealed firearms in public. Lott and Mustard's statistical models produce findings inconsistent with criminological theories and well-established facts about crime, and subsequent reanalysis of their data challenges their conclusions. Public health professionals should understand the methodological issues raised in this commentary, particularly when flawed research could influence the introduction of policies with potentially deleterious consequences.

John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime: An Alternate Q&A [bradycampaign.org]

Many of these scholars found serious, fundamental flaws in Lott's methodology and found his claims to be unsubstantiated. These researchers include Jens Ludwig at Georgetown University; Daniel Black of the University of Kentucky and Daniel Nagin at Carnegie Mellon University; Stephen Teret, Jon Vernick and Daniel Webster, all of Johns Hopkins University; Arthur Kellermann at Emory University; and Douglas Weil at The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

[...]

Now, after several years in which the nation as a whole has enjoyed a declining crime rate, there is direct evidence that Lott's conclusions are wrong. A 1999 analysis of crime statistics conducted by The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence (formerly the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence) demonstrates that allowing people to carry concealed handguns does not mean less crime. The Center found that, as a group, states that rely on permissive concealed weapons laws as a crime fighting strategy had a significantly smaller drop in crime than states which looked to other means to combat crime rather than make it easier to obtain a concealed weapons permit.

In the 29 states that have lax CCW laws (where law enforcement must issue CCW licenses to almost all applicants), the crime rate fell 2.1%, from 5397.0 to 5285.1 crimes per 100,000 population from 1996 to 1997. During the same time period, in the 21 states and the District of Columbia with strict carry laws or which don't allow the carrying of concealed weapons at all, the crime rate fell 4.4%, from 4810.5 to 4599.9 crimes per 100,000 population. The decline in the crime rate of strict licensing and no-carry states was 2.1 times that of states with lax CCW systems, indicating that there are more effective ways to fight crime than to encourage more people to carry guns.

Furthermore, according to the CPHV analysis, violent crime actually rose in 12 of 29 states (41%) which liberalized their CCW laws over the five years beginning in 1992, compared to a similar rise in violent crime in only 4 of 22 states (18%) which did not change their CCW laws. The disparity in the decline is even more obvious for rates of gun violence. From 1992 to 1997 (the last five years for which data exists), the violent crime rate in the strict and no-issue states fell 24.8% while the violent crime rate for states with liberal CCW laws dropped 11.4%. Nationally the violent crime rate fell 19.4%.

[...]

....Lott's inability to accurately identify when states changed their carry laws

....small changes in the statistical models Lott uses to reach his conclusions result in large changes in his findings...

....a number of factors that affect crime rates, but which Lott failed to address in his research...

....a well known, formal statistical test that proved that Lott failed to include a number of important variables...

....according to the Voter News Service it is not possible to compare the 1988 and 1996 exit poll numbers on gun ownership...

More Guns Mean More Guns: Why John Lott is wrong [reason.com]
Robert Ehrlich

As a gun owner myself, I was quite prepared to accept Lott's thesis that the positive deterrent effect of guns exceeds their harmful effects on society, but as a scientist I have to be guided by what the data actually show, and Lott simply hasn't made his case. Here's why:

Lott misrepresents the data. [...]

Lott's results are not consistent. [...]

Lott's results cannot account for all the relevant variables. [...]

Lott doesn't properly compute statistical significance. [...]

Do more guns cause less crime? [unsw.edu.au]
Tim Lambert

The main argument of a recent book by John Lott is summarized in the title: More Guns, Less Crime [23]. There are three parts to this argument:

1. that there were more guns
2. that there was less crime
3. that more guns caused less crime

Lott's argument depends on all three parts being true. If any one of the parts is incorrect, the entire argument fails. In fact, as I will show in the next three sections of this document, all three parts are wrong:

1. there weren't significantly more guns
2. it is unclear whether there was less crime
3. even if there was more guns and less crime, more guns did not cause less crime

John Lott's book

[gsfprez]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226 493644/qid=1039469029/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-891185 5-5319946?v=glance&s=books

More Guns, Less Crime is a book by a liberal that takes unbiased FBI numbers regarding what happened when concealed carry laws were passed, and other very controversial subjects..

and he found that the more law-abiding people that had guns there were, the lower the crime rate because of the fear factor.... that is, the criminals were fearful of the well armed citizens that were ready to defend themselves.

its not politics, its logic.

If it were legal to carry a gun here in LA, maybe that guy wouldn't have tried to carjack me in the Tace Bell drive-thru. He saw a small, white guy in an expensive sports car. I was an obvious and easy target.

I got away - thankfully - by hitting him with my car.

but fsck that. I just carry a small auto now. I'm not going to hope to get lucky next time.

bad guys.. there are a LOT of us nerds carrying now.. and we're growing in numbers. Just so you know.

Re:Interesting title

[Anonymous Coward]

Book was written by John Lott, a liberal Harvard professor who was "trying" to prove the gun grabbers point, fortunately for America, when he found out the opposite, he was a man of honor and did not skew the numbers like Jonh Bellasie.

More guns equals less crime. It is a fact.

Re:Guns

[Elwood P Dowd]

For those of you downmodding the parent, the whole point of Bowling for Columbine, the referenced movie, is that despite higher or lower rates of gun ownership in foreign countries, the US has a shockingly high amount of gun deaths, compared to other first world nations.

So his quote might strike you as offensive, but it's *exactly* the point of the discussion. Why do Americans kill each other with guns more than Canadians?

Unbiased statistics

[hndrcks]

Report that elderly people are 50% more likely to commit suicide when they own a gun. [rochester.edu] - this one from a suicide-prevention research project at a university. Not involved in the gun / anti gun debate.

Report showing a positive correlation between handgun ownership and prevalence of suicide, homicide, and injuries / deaths of children. [harvard.edu] This one by Harvard School of Public Health, Injury Control Research Center .

The list goes on... but the data is pretty clear:

1.You are more likely to die in an auto accident, statistically, if you have a little red Italian sports car parked in your garage.

2. You are more likely to die earlier, statistically, if you chain-smoke cigarettes.

3. You are more likely to die, kill someone else, or kill yourself, statistically, if you own a gun;

and most importantly,

4. I am probably subsidizing all that risky gun-owning, sports-car driving, chain smoking activity through higher taxes, higher insurance premiums, etc., to the tune of 35% of my gross income. And I'm not very happy about it.

Re:Look at how it's affected crime in the UK

[Sycraft-fu]

FYI: I own guns and support gun ownership.

It can also be easily argued that it is simply due to other factors in Britan. One is the huge population density in the large cities, another might be economic issues, and so on. Remember: Correlation does not imply causation.

This is the problem with all gun studies, for or against, that I've seen. The best they can do is find raw numbers or a correlation. Well neither of these prove causation and hence don't mean anything.

Re:Same old NRA rhetoric

[Anne_Nonymous]

"A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

Try again, troll.

Re:Good Book

[Anonymous Coward]

One note about this book and its author, John Lott:

Before he commenced his study, he was "anti-gun." His hypothesis was that more guns would lead to more crime, and he believed that his research would debunk the notion that concealed carry deters crime.
He was dismayed by the lack of objective studies and decided to do his own study.

The conclusion he reached was that a community in which the citizens are/may be armed deters crime. In addition, states with concealed carry laws had a significant reduction in violent crime following the enactment of the laws.

This conclusion surprised Lott and resulted in him re-evaluating his own opinions. He became an active proponent of gun ownership/concealed carry rights: a 180 from his position prior to the study.

Re:Decide for yourself

[Mullen]

It's funny you quoted those people in that post. It obviously shows you are a blind gun grabber.
Every single one of those people, who are critical of John Lott are anti-gun folks from anti-gun groups. None of them are qualified to even argue against John Lott. You might as well have quoted Sara Brady herself.

Worst of all, they use a study where they picked the data they used by excluding certain counties and dropped states. John Lott addresses this in the 2nd addition of his book, More Guns, Less Crime. He simply asks, why would anti-gun folks use a study that contains less data and data *they* select to try to debuke his study? It does not make sense.

The author, John Lott

[GMontag]

As others in this thread have mentoned (but are only scored at 1 as I write this), John Lott was trying to prove the opposite of his book title. Turns out the evidence proved to him that a "more armed" community will have less gun violence (and other violent crimes) than "less armed" communities. He published his findings honestly.

Please, mod these other folks up in this thread, they were here first but somehow were not posted with a +2 like this post.

Re:Same old NRA rhetoric

[Wyatt Earp]

Actually, Congress has cleared that up, and one needs to look at what the Framers thought about Militias.

http://www.constitution.org/mil/militia_debate_1 78 9.htm
http://www.constitution.org/mil/mil_act_179 2.htm
http://members.ll.net/chiliast/GGGH/history /debate .html

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia."

10USC Sec 311
EXPCITE TITLE 10 - ARMED FORCES

Subtitle A - General Military Law
PART I - ORGANIZATION AND GENERAL MILITARY POWERS
CHAPTER 13 - THE MILITIA

HEAD Sec. 311. Militia: composition and class

STATUTE (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

b) The classes of the militia are -

(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and

(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of National Guard or the Naval Militia.

Facts re: Bowling for Columbine

[God! Awful 2]

Bowling for Columbine is an interesting movie, but keep in mind that Michael Moore tends to be very loose with his facts. At one point, he repeats a "fact" that someone mentioned that Canada has 10 million households and 7 million guns and he incorrectly concludes that 70% of Canadians have a gun.

In fact, gun ownership (particularly handgun ownership) is much lower in Canada. Only 22% of Canadian households have a gun, as opposed to 49% of American households. But most of the Canadian guns are hunting rifles and such. When you look specifically at handguns, only 2% of Canadian households have a handgun, as opposed to 25% of Americans. These are 1996 figures [tamerlane.ca]. It's ironic that Moore would get these facts wrong, since they would tend to support his belief that guns cause violence.

-a

Re:Look at how it's affected crime in the UK

[Richard Platt]

I can't see how you could reasonably claim that gun control caused an increase in gun violence in Britain. Handgun ownership was low even before the ban, and restricted to use in sport - self-defence has not been a legally valid reason to own a gun in Britain for a *long* time, and you need to supply a good reason for wanting a firearms licence before you were allowed to own them. The guns were also required to be stored in locked cabinets, so weren't readily available for defensive purposes.

It would be rather more reasonable to suggest that the ban had no effect whatsoever on gun crime in the UK, and I'd agree with that.

Re:Interesting title

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha liberal, right. More libertarian than liberal, but general labels necessarity distort the particulars. He's currently a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, accoring to their webpage. Plus he got his degree at UCLA, a fairly conservative economics program. He did a stint as an Olin Fellow at the University of Chicago. I don't see where on earth you get the idea he's a liberal. His other earlier (non-concealed carry) papers aren't liberal.

Also his vita at AEI does not refer to him being at Harvard. Just Chicago and Yale most recently. UCLA, Rice, and Texas A&M previously.

Having stated all this, I do not mean to imply he did "skew the numbers" to favor concealed-carry laws. I just don't believe his conclusions are out of line with what you might expect them to be based on his background.

Re:Look at how it's affected crime in the UK

[IamTheRealMike]

Rates of violent crimes in the United Kingdom have been steadily rising for years

That's due largely to an influx of cheap drugs. In particular, in London there are big problems with Yardies blowing the living daylights out of each other. Rather ironically, the "violent crimes" are often perpetuated by criminals against themselves.

There are other factors at work as well. For instance, in the UK if somebody gets raped, unless they are trained in martial arts or something, I hate to say it but if the opponent is stronger there isn't much that can be done (as far as I know). In the US, I'd guess the rapist would get a bullet through the head.

Is this better? Well, it's an interesting question. As society, should we let take a hypothetical person and let them be raped, or let them kill the rapist? By implication, if we let them kill the rapist then we should be willing to execute all rapists. Outside of a few states in the US capital punishment has been eliminated however. Where does that put us now?

Books

[return 42]

The first book I read on this subject is A Well-Regulated Militia by William Weir. Does a good job of debunking the extremism of both sides.

The second one I read (but not completely, due to lack of time) is Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control by Kates and Kleck. Kates strikes me as somewhat biased against control, but at least he backs it up with facts (though I haven't checked them yet). Kleck is much more balanced.

Kleck's Point Blank and Targeting Guns have been cited as the definitive scholarly works on the subject. Haven't read either one myself.

Wright and Rossi's Under the Gun is also said to be very good.

There was an article on K5 [kuro5hin.org] about this a few months ago. Can't find it right now, their server is having trouble. K5 would probably be a better place to ask this question.

HTH.

Re:Facts vs. Conclusions

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Which just proves it's easy to publish lies. The total number of accidental deaths in the USA in 2000 is 97,900. So their statistic for "accidental deaths caused by physicians" is impossible.

They are also intentionally ignoring the 10,800 firearms homicides every year.

CDC

[ikeleib]

The Centers for Diseas Control and Prevention (CDC) tracks gun deaths as an epidemic. As such, they have correlation data for various aspects of gun deaths in America. They can for example, show you the correlation between guns in a home and suicide or homicide. They even do some study of gun death and injury among 26 industrialized nations.

You can see the CDC data on the subject at:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/fafacts.h tm

From all my research, gun ownership correlates very well with gun death and injury in America. This doesn't seem to be true in all countries.

Re:NRA is an extreme point-of-view?

[jjo]

Well, the NRA certainly tries to uphold its version of the Second Amendment. In some circles, it seems like the Second Amendment, and the NRA's interpretation thereof, were handed down from Mt. Sinai just after the Ten Commandments. However, you might keep in mind that some people think that the phrase

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state

is just as important as the phrase

the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

I and many others believe that some measures are quite reasonable in supporting a "well regulated" (i.e., well-disciplined*) militia:

• universal registration of guns, similar to the registration of cars now, and
  
• universal licensing of those who keep and bear arms, similar to driver licensing now.
  

In spite of what the NRA says, these measures would be upholding the Constitution, as it is actually written. I don't expect you to believe this, since closed-mindedness on this subject is rampant, but please at least recognize that reasonable people believe differently than you, and that your views are not necessarily as "moderate" as you think.
---
*see the Oxford English Dictionary for contemporary citation of "well-regulated"

Find biased sources!

[strider]

In general for research it is better to find biased sources that clearly state their arguments and methods, than to look for "unbiased" ones to follow. Read up from allot of different sources, especially academic ones (www.jstor.org is a great place to find journals, but you may have to get onto a college campus to access it) and thumb through their footnotes. Where are they getting their information? How are they using the data? How good it their argument? Then make your own mind up based on all these biased sources.

Re:Center for Disease Control

[Anonymous Coward]

A man driving 10mph under the speed limit because of bad, winter conditions loses it on a patch of black ice and hits a kid, killing them.

A man gets drunk at a bar and drives home, speeding and recklessly driving, and he hits and kills a kid.

What's the difference? Both were killed by cars?

The difference is that in one instance, you have a child playing with something they may not understand, accidentally discharging a gun. It should have been locked up in the first place, but that's another issue.

In the other instance, you have a "kid" who knowingly break the law and threatens another persons life with a weapon while attempting to rob them. The store clerk, acting in self-defense, shoots the armed robber.

You're blind if you can't see the difference.

Re:Guns

[Mr_Matt]

Eek, you're right. s/10,000/100,000/g in my original post - I blame the tacos. :) And it's interesting to see the 2000 numbers as compared to the 1997 ones I have saved somewhere - but what stays the same is that firearms account for ~2/3 of homicides (give or take 2%.) With the 2000 numbers, it looks like the non-firearm homicide rate (per 100,000, darnit :) is about 2 per 100,000 - still a touch higher than the average European homicide rate, including European firearms-related homicides.

a decent paper.

[kasper37]

although it is from 1988 this is still the best paper I've ever read on the subject [cato.org]. He covers all of the pertinent points and more importantly he lists his refereces.

Re:Guns

[psicE]

Overcrowding: Bah. Canada is much more densely populated. It's just that Canada is right next door to another country with an insanely huge amount of land and no one living in it. Keep in mind that 80% of Canadians live in urban centres of 100,000 or more, and a majority of people live in one of four metropolitan areas (counting Calgary/Edmonton as one), whereas in the US I'm not even sure if a majority of people live in urban centres period.

Gun control: Nothing to do with it. Switzerland has the most lax gun laws in the world, and also one of the lowest murder rates. Meanwhile, Britain's got damn strict laws, but the worst murder rate in Europe. There are lots of other countries in Europe that have more "normal" correlations.

Culture: You're on the right track, but it's not just "gun culture", it's "homicide culture". Again, look at gun-crazy murder-light Switzerland.

So what is it that drives Americans to murder people with firearms more than other societies with more or less firearms, higher or lower population densities? You're right on target with "social welfare". Someone who lives in Canada can be broke and still know that, if they have a life-threatening disease, they're covered; and no one in Canada will be broke, because people don't get cut off the welfare rolls for being unable to find a job in a certain time period.

If the US really wanted to stop gun crime, there's an easy solution. End the drug war, making all drugs legal (marijuana the same way as tobacco, hard drugs by prescription and safe injection centres) and making legalized distribution networks. End the gun war, making all firearms legal, and requiring child/owner-safety measures (ideally, all guns sold should be required to use fingerprint identification, a new technology making it impossible for anyone but the owner of a gun to figure it). And redirect all of that money formerly spent on fighting drugs and guns, and also the taxes collected on sales of drugs and guns (including alcohol and tobacco), to [a] providing public health resources to help people help themselves end addictions (to drugs or guns); [b] providing national catastrophic health care coverage, meaning that anyone who has a medical emergency, or permanent life-damaging condition (aka AIDS or cancer), can get treatment for free, no questions asked (regular non-emergency care would remain private for the time being); and [c] hugely increasing welfare so that anyone who doesn't make at least a povery-level salary, instead of paying income tax, collects the difference from the government.

When we try to "fight" gun use, we just provoke other people to fight more. Stop the war, make peace with gun/drug users, give them resources they can use to help themselves, and give them a reason to live.

Re:Facts vs. Conclusions

[BattyMan]

Look at the NRA. Do you think everyone in the NRA went to the library, carefully and thoughtfully evaluated the statistics, then reluctantly decided to support gun ownership because the facts supported it? No!

Well, yes, this _has_ happened - to a liberal Florida State University professor named Gary Kleck, who was hired by a liberal anti-gun organization to dig up stats to prove that guns do more harm than good. The numbers he wound up with put the number of times guns are used (annually) to _prevent_ crimes at somewhere between 2 and 4 million (an admittedly _VERY_ fuzzy number, but undisputably huge), compared to about 10-15,000 criminal shootings (no cops, not self-defense, no suicides, just criminal gun use). Usually, crimes are deterred by the mere display of a firearm, no shots are fired, and the gun owner is hesitant to report the incident since his behavior (drawing a perhaps illegally carried gun on someone) borders on criminal aggravated assault in many areas.

The organization who hired him promptly buried his raw data (which they paid for and own) so deep it'll never be found.

Gary nonetheless wrote a book from the results, entitled "Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America" [amazon.com](unsurprisingly out of print) which many in the NRA read, nodded their heads, and agreed with. Their agreement in no way invalidates any of his information.

Yeah, he's only one guy, but his credentials can't be impeached, and if he can be accused of bias it's clearly in the _other_ direction.

Violent crime rates are higher in the UK now

[GlenRaphael]

How about the point that despite these rising vs. falling crime rates in the UK and in the US, US still has a much much higher violent crime rate than the UK?

Answer: It's false. You're more likely to be a victim of a violent crime in the UK today than in the US. That wasn't the case 20 years ago, but it is now. "Crime rates as measured in victim surveys are all higher in England than the United States." Check it out [usdoj.gov].

Re:Question for you

[stoolpigeon]

You think this justifies you carrying a gun.

Yes

You having a gun would have helped if you were in one of those cars how?

If I were in one of those cars- probably not- we would have been heading to the hospital as rapidly as possible. If I had been in one of the many, many cars there at the time. That would have been a different story. I would have stopped and killed him. Maybe save a life or 2 while I'm at it. That's what I mean by an individual's responsibility towards the whole. If 10 more people like me had been there- even if all 3 hit had been packing, that leaves 7 to take care of business.

Do you play the lottery?

No - it is taxation of the poor.

Do you have any idea how small the odds are that someone will try to kill you with a gun?

Yes. It's funny that you mention it because I bring up the same point in discussions all the time. I am astonished that so many people think that they have a chance of winning the lottery but find it inconceivable that someone else may try to harm them. I am not willing to gamble on the hope I never need my gun.

Do you know how LARGE the odds are that the guy shooting those people stole his gun from someone just like you who has it legally?
This is why I hate statistics like that. They are meaningless. You have no idea what the odds are of someone stealing my guns. I take extreme care to secure my fire arms. I take my freedoms and responsibilities very seriously. I have invested considerable money, time and effort to be sure that what you describe does not happen.

And last but not least I am not interested in comparisons between the U.S. and anywhere. We are not Canada. There are what 10 people living in that country? (just a joke- lighten up) I don't want to live there if for no other reason than I don't feel like dealing with sucky health care. (Don't try to argue the point with me there please- I wont reply I'm just answering your question)

There were no 'Indians' in Canada? You need to read some history. You do not live on land that stood empty for thousands of years waiting for the ancestors of all those French and English Canadians to show up.

Enough of that- Just trying to answer some of your questions.

Firearms + Society = ???

[rutaran]

I live in New Zealand. We have a very strict set of gun controls. In general our society (well at least the law-abiding-majority) does NOT have easy access to firearms. In fact, my current firearms license (which lasts 10 years) "allows" me to own only rifles. In fact I need a license to purchase a rifle or even any ammunition.
If I wish to own a pistol, I must join and attend a pistol club for a time, then apply with references from the club. This would then require me to purchase further more strict containment facilities for any pistol I wish to purchase. The police would come around and inspect those facilities. Again, the same holds true for any MSSA (Military Style Semi Automatic), in fact I would have to prove that I am interested in being a collector, not just a user!
If you wish to review the NZ Firearms Code it can be downloaded from here.
http://www.police.govt.nz/resources/2000/ar ms-code .pdf

It all sounds very strict and bordering on a police state. However, more importantly than that it comes down to the fact that the general society takes the use and ownership of firearms very seriously. They are not considered a means of "asserting one's views", "protecting one's rights". This of course is a side affect of our history, being a nation founded from the days of the ever expanding British Empire, and NOT having asserted the right of independence. We are a constitutional monarchy. Yes have firearms related incidents, but they are not very common, and usually they are used as a threat.

My 5c worth, is that introducing strict gun control measures is not an immediate solution to the firearms problems in any society that has these problems. In my opinion it comes down to educating people in appropriate uses, ownership reasons and reducing the criminal elements access to them.
Basically anybody should have access to them, I don't have a problem with that, however, the question society should ask is, does this person warrant having this firearm for legitimate reason and is this person responsible enough to own one?
Of course all of this breaks down once the criminal element enter the scene.

don't feed the trolls

[maxpublic]

Guess you wanted to get the anti-gun "let's tell everyone else how to live their lives" freaks all riled up. Talk about pushing hot buttons.

For the uninformed and the just plain deluded, here's some statistics from National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 49, No. 12, October 9, 2001. These are *facts*, unlike what most people seem to be pulling out of their hairy asses:

In the United States, homocide ranked 15th in causes of death, down 6.5% in the last year (2000), a steady decline since 1991. Some numbers:

homocides - 16,137
septicemia - 31,613
influenza and pneumonia - 67,024
accidents - 93,592

You are more likely to die as a result of contracting a non-specific infection during a hospital stay than you are to be murdered, by any means.

You are more likely to die in a non-car-related accident (almost three times as likely, in fact) than you are to be murdered, by any means. This includes falls, drownings, accidental poisonings, and so forth.

You are four times more likely to die of the flu or pneumonia than you are of being murdered, by any means. Note that the statistics for flu and pneumonia are separate from those concerning HIV-related deaths by pneumonia and infectious disease. HIV isn't to blame for these flu deaths.

If someone does try to murder you, there's a fair chance they'll use what's known as a 'weapon of opportunity', e.g., the handiest blunt object or sharp instrument. You are much more likely to die by blunt object or sharp instrument than by gun unless you're a) a criminal, or b) a black male living in certain particularly dangerous urban areas.

Accidental gun deaths accounted for 808 people in 2000. In comparison:

falls - 12,604, mostly down stairs or from ladders

drowning - 3,343, primarily in back yard pools or recreational areas.

poisoning - 9,803

Clearly, accidental gun deaths aren't nearly as common as falling, drowning or poisoning. If folks are so concerned about accidental deaths they should first concentrate on more primary offenders like stairs, ladders, and swimming pools, not to mention general stupidity (e.g., accidental poisoning).

Since 1930, the number of annual fatal firearms accidents has decreased 56% while the number of privately owned guns has quadrupled and the U.S.
population has doubled. This information has been independently confirmed by the National Center for Health Statistics, the National Safety Council, the Bureau of the Census, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

According to the FBI the biggest purchaser of firearms during the last decade has been women, mostly under the age of 40. This makes sense given that this women of this age group are the most likely people to be victimized by a crime, especially a violent one.

For the male dick-measurers in the crowd, you might consider the impact of banning firearms completely with respect to the safety of women. Very few women can match an average man in a physical confrontation and win; the gun completely eliminates the size and strength advantage that a man has. At worst both the man and woman will have a gun - and then at least they'll be on equal ground. Ban the gun and men are once again the winners of any physical contest, in a country where we *know* we can't protect women from violent crime. But I suppose the mysogynistic bastards among you will rejoice at the thought that you can beat your wives and girlfriends without fear of getting your ass shot, as you deserve.

According to the FBI, somewhere between 200,000 and 800,000 violent crimes were prevented last year because the victim was armed. A 'violent crime' is defined as a rape, robbery, or murder. More than 60% of these victims were women who were carrying a concealed weapon illegally, which is why the statistics range so much (they don't report because they'll be arrested if they do). That's a minimum of 200,000 crimes that otherwise would've occurred had the victim not been armed. The firearm was actually discharged in less than 1/10 of 1% of these cases. And please note: the FBI isn't known for it's fondness of the 2nd Amendment.

Of course, I know none of this will mean anything to the anti-gun nuts. They're so piss-scared of everything around them that they'll say and do just about anything to make sure their neighbors aren't armed. Cowards. These are the kind of folks who'd rather see a women raped and strangled with her own pantyhose than defend herself with a firearm.

Max

Re:Open source it

[terrywin]

>As far as Canadian gun control is concerned,
> we've just wasted over a billion bucks on a
>gun registry program (which was supposed to
>cost only 2 million bucks), and I don't think >there's a billion dollars >worth of guns in the
>whole country!

And the sad fact is that this "system" has failed
to reduce or prevent ANY crime to date. It has
been a dismal failure.

I feel sorry for the Canadian people.

Terry

Re:Same old NRA rhetoric

[Noren]

The 'white' bug has been fixed, the 'male' bug is still in code, although there's a partial workaround for female members of the National Guard.

See the law in question [findlaw.com]

Re:Guns

[Anonymous Coward]

I would also like to comment on the "Switzerland" approach. Often used in example in a bad way (less gun regulations) the "cultural difference" is the real reason for their low level of problems.

For example, many tourists in Switzerland say "It's so darn clean everywhere". Because for the Swiss throwing a paper on the sidewalk is almost as bad as taking a crap at the same place.

Same goes for gun responsibility. In the US the education about guns is done via the movies and music (a few rappers come to mind). It is not "cool" to have a gun (anyone can have one) but what is cool is to use it.

In Switzerland (years ago anyway, I am getting old) every adult male had to do military service where learning the responsibilities of gun ownership and gun handling is more important than learning to aim and pull the trigger. After your service the army then issues you a gun to keep in a safe place in your house (they teach you that). So in case of invasion 50% of the population (the men) have guns and are ready to fight. Furthermore, each year they have to spend some time back to the military. It is a bit like the reserve in the US, but less demanding and a citizen's responsibility to his country.

So there is more into it than "They have almost no regulation and almost no problems". I am sure that if every American would be forced to "Serve" in the military between 18 and 20, the US would have less gun problems, and maybe less "hot heads" driving around with a gun at reaching distance.

Re:Anthropology and violence

[Anonymous Coward]

There reason for high violence in the US seems fairly self-evident to me.

There are higher levels of stress in the US than many other places. Look at the average work week...it's over 40 hours. We've actually been beating Japan for several years in the "coveted" longest work week stat.

http://www.libraryspot.com/know/workweek.htm:
" According to a study by the National Sleep Foundation, the average employed American works a 46-hour work week; 38% of the respondents in their study worked more than 50 hours per week. "

Even those not directly working the 40+ hour week seek are very effected by it. Care to wager what would have happened in Columbine if the the Trenchcoat Mafia's parents didn't work all the time and leave the kids home unsupervised? There is a large amount of crime that happens in the late afternoon, when students get out fo school. It's kind of like smoking...you're not just effecting yourself when you have a family and work 46/wk.

Absolute must read on the subject

[Anonymous Coward]

I most absolutely recommend you read "More Guns, Less Crime - Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws", by John R. Lott Jr.

Here's an address where you can read a bit about the book... http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/1 3530.ctl [uchicago.edu]

Mr Lott's book is a very dry, analytical look at the hard numbers involved. This text in particular, is hated by the gun control lobby for the way it looks at the numbers... then challenges the extremists' point of view by looking at the numbers using their arguments. The key is not in which numbers either side chooses to include. It lies in which numbers one side or the other chooses to EXCLUDE, in order to come up with "the solution" they want.

I found this to be an excellent resource to back up many discussions between myself and my non-shooting friends.

You can judge for yourself if you think it is biased either way. Personally, I dont think it is, given the NATURE of the attacks against Mr. Lott's findings.

Ken Cormack
NRA Member

Re:Facts vs. Conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps most in the NRA are this way, I couldn't say as I am not in the NRA. I am not even unt the U.S.A. and am not a U.S. citizen.

I also happen not to like guns.

Here is my take on the situation as it relates to the U.S. - it looks to me like the constitution allows them to be owned, and as far as I can tell from the historical situatin, one of the reasons it allows this is so that the citizens can fight their own government should it ever get out of hand. They had a revolution because they thought their government at the time was out of hand.

So, it seems to be that the NRA are a bit mild, they could push for private ownership of fully armed Apaches, F16s and the like and from what I could see, they would be right under the constituion as written.

Now, I am not saying that I think that Joe Citizen should have these rights (or should not have them,) only that they do presently have them. The correct and honest way to remove these rights is to ammend the constitution. Why don't the people who want to control gun ownership get up a drive to ammend the constitution?

BTW, I live in the Bahamas, a country where it is very difficult to get more than a shotgun and next to impossible to get a handgun unless you are someone special as I understand it, yet it is common for criminals to commit crimes with UZIs and the like which NO ONE is allowed to have, yet somehow the criminals seem to get.

Think how hard you have it in the U.S. stopping drugs. We have the same problem controlling illegal drugs and illegal guns too it seems. Just something to ponder.

A Nony Mouse

The studies you want

[The AtomicPunk]

1. In 1996, the most comprehensive "gun control" study of all time was published by John Lott of the University of Chicago Law School. Fifteen years of FBI files from all 3,054 counties in our country were analyzed regarding the correlation between the occurrence of violent crime and the prevalence of concealed weapons on law-abiding citizens. Invariably, where responsible, law-abiding citizens were allowed to carry firearms, the rate of violent crime plummeted. The criminals were afraid to attack those who "might" be armed.

2. Professor Gary Kleck is a life long (self-avowed) liberal democrat, author of Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America. He had expected the research involved in that writing to infer negatively on gun ownership. He discovered a vast amount of violent crimes were prevented by firearms usage. Even though this was contrary to his original premise, he had the integrity to stand by his research. Although that book was awarded the best book (of 1993) on criminology by the American Society of Criminology it was largely ignored by gun control advocates such as most medical journals and our Government's Justice Department and Center for Disease Control.

[from largo.com]

Re:Decide for yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if you look at the time periods that Lott chose to look at, he was very selective in choosing the starting point, statistic, and duration so that the data would be most favorable.

For example, he wrote an editorial that appeared in the Baltimore Sun critizing child safetly locks on guns. He cited a very low incidence of "accidental gun deaths of children under the age of 13". True, true, but if you let the age go up to 13 it looks pretty bad, or if you include serious injuries, or even deaths that occured within 1 year of the shooting incident (i.e. shot in the kidney and took a year to die from the complications), or if you simply picked the MOST RECENT 5 year period for which data was available, or chose a 10 year period. If you had done ANY of these things the statistic would have been significantly worse. Funny he just happened to "objectively" choose the one criteria, age cut-off (13 year olds are children for gosh sake), time period, and starting date to get the lowest single number available.
Yes, quite funny.

An actual answer to the posters question

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with citing a particular study is that whatever conclusion the study comes to, the other side assumes that it is an indication of bias. The mere fact of concluding guns are beneficial indicates to a gun controller bias, the conclusion is evidence enough. The same is true all to often of gun advocates when judging pro gun control studies. This is horrible science but great politics.

The study by Professor Gary Kleck, Criminology professor of the Florida State Univeristy, called "Point Blank: Guns in America" concludes that gun control is extremely detrimental to the health and safety of the nation. This despite the aleged fact that Kleck originally set out writing the book to prove the opposite.

(The conclusion is based on the fact that the benefit of defensive gun use in preventing violence greatly outweighs the cost of gun violence.)

That is about the best you can do, it is such a hot button topic that any other study will be immediately accused of bias (as this one will undoubtedly be.) The reality though is that Kleck and another study "More Guns Less Crime" by John Lott are together the most comprehensive studies of the subject available today.

Call them biased if you like, but the reality is that they studied many, many more people and crimes that then very weak and selective studies done by the gun control advocates. (This is objectively true, but I am sure many will see it as an indication of my bias.)

Statistics is not a science that the average man in the street can readily judge, certainly not in sound bites. Tiny details matter a great deal (sample size, sample randomness, manner of posing question etc.) and analysis of statistics is something that takes time and reflection, not "fox news phone poll - results after these messages from our sponsors."

The trite posting of "margin of error +/- 3%" in tiny type hardly captures the nuances of true statistical analysis.

Re:SUNY-Binghamton

[dhandler]

SUNY-B Class of 92 - Here is the report you are talking about:

When the number of people carrying concealed handguns increases, crime decreases.

The economics of crime: Analysis suggests concealed handguns deter criminals, BU prof says
By Ingrid Husisian

That's the socially controversial finding of Binghamton University economist Florenz Plassmann and his collaborator, who used the principles of supply and demand to analyze crime rates.

Plassmann's premise was detailed in an article in the October 2001 issue of Journal of Law and Economics. The article, "Does the Right to Carry Concealed Handguns Deter Countable Crime? Only a Count Analysis Can Say," was written by Plassmann and T. Nicolaus Tideman, who was Plassmann's dissertation adviser at Virginia Tech.

Plassmann's assertion isn't the first of its ilk, but it is something of a surprise to him, he admits. In a 1997 book More Guns, Less Crime, economist John Lott similarly analyzed the relationship between the right to carry concealed handguns and the crime rate. Lott was the first to use economic principles to suggest that concealed weapons have a clear deterrent effect. If more people carry concealed handguns, crime decreases, his study showed.

Plassmann, an assistant professor of economics, says he was certain that a re-examination of Lott's work would find Lott's methodology questionable and his conclusions mistaken, he said.

"I believed guns would increase crime," he said. "I had just finished a dissertation analyzing data similar to Lott's. His data are 'count data' (non-negative integers), which means that you cannot have a negative number of murders, or 2.5 robberies. If you analyze such data with standard methods, you are likely to get erroneous estimates. Because Lott had ignored this, I thought that I had a valid reason not to trust his results."

When Plassmann contacted Lott about his concerns, Lott turned his data over to Plassmann and encouraged him to re-examine the methodology and attempt to replicate the results.

"I did my own analysis," Plassmann said. "To my surprise, it suggests that the right to carry concealed handguns does deter crime. Lott's analysis has been criticized because his findings are not very stable, but our results are much more robust.

"To emphasize that a statistical analysis is valid only if the statistical model fits the data, we included a little play on words in the title of our article: Because crimes are 'countable,' you must examine them with a 'count' analysis, and not with standard methods," he added.

Plassmann and Lott are now working together on related research. They are writing a paper that examines the relationship between gun ownership and crime.

The concept of viewing crime through an economic lens actually stems from the work of Gary Becker, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, Plassmann said.

"We can see crime as the outcome of supply and demand," he noted. "If all potential victims are unarmed, crime is easy and, therefore, inexpensive. However, if potential victims are armed, crime becomes more difficult and expensive."

From the "demand" perspective, when the cost of preventing crime becomes more expensive then the "demand" to commit it, the more likely society is to let another crime happen, Plassmann said.

As a researcher, Plassmann doesn't advocate for or argue against carrying handguns, concealed or otherwise.

"I think all this analysis can do is suggest that the theory 'More guns will cause more crime' is probably not correct in this simple form," he said.

But very important words, they are

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

My argument is anything but a strawman. I claim that every sentence in your previous post until the last two is flat out wrong. To refute some of your next post in more detail...

But most healthy folks can get out of the lethal range of a knife much easier than they can if their attacker has a gun.

That, unfortunately, tends not to be how it works. The sort of person who uses a knife tends to be the sort of person capable of catching up to someone who runs away (and notice that in places like the US, someone using a knife is making an active choice to do so instead of using the more obvious choice of a gun, making this even more likely). They are likely to choose a spot for an encounter where there is limited room for escape, and they will get in close before you know they have the knife, if you ever know they have it at all before you're stabbed, which you won't if they're at all clever (and the sort of person nasty enough to actually use a knife at all is likely to be that smart).

But note I didn't say that attackers with knives weren't dangerous, my point was that attackers woth guns are alot more dangerous (in response to someone who claimed that he could just as easily kill someone with a gun as without one).

This point is also rather more controversial than you may realise amongst an informed community. Rumour has it that certain US law enforcement bodies changed their firearms rules of engagement after making the same assumption, and discovering how many of their people could be killed by a skilled knife wielder even from a significant distance. The incident is documented [bujinkan-belgium.com] if you care to look it up.

Now, granted Guro I has rather more skill with a knife than most, but it does go to show that guns are not an automatic win from a distance. And of course, up close a knife is much more dangerous.

So, while I appreciate that it seems obvious that guns are more dangerous, I don't think it's wise to assume that it's black and white.

Yeah thanks for the PSA, but again, how many people die from drive by knifings? Knife ricochets? Sniper knifings?

How many such incidents are there? Do you have any figures to show that a knife is less effective than a gun when it's used? Certainly people have been literally stabbed in the back or had their throats cut without any chance to respond, which is pretty much a sniper knifing, and sadly happens rather more often than the recent shooting-from-a-distance incident to which I assume you're referring.

I'm not sure I'm challenging your claim in this post that "a gun is alot more dangerous than a knife in an untrained hand", though I'd hesitate to agree with it either without seeing some hard data. It's certainly not as black and white as you make out, and I stand by my previous claim that the vast majority of your previous post to which I replied was Just Plain Wrong.

Re:Operative word: unable to escape

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting, How many of the guns used in drive by shootings are aquired legally? Sniper Shooting? Muggings? Robberies? Actually very few. Banning guns won't work, especially considering the number of gun laws that are already being violated in these acts. Bottom line, it's already illegal to kill someone? Will making it illegal to get the gun really help?

On another note, I too can testify about the fatality level of a small person with a knife. My best friend, a large individual with some skill in hand-to-hand, and a lot of street fighting background was killed by a 16 year old pint size punk with a kitchen knife. Saying a gun is more dangerous than a knife is like saying being run over by a freight train is worse than being run over by a mack truck. You're dead either way...

Personal Experience

[cluge]

In truth the most compelling thing I have to offer is personal experience. I have used a fiream 3 times in my life to defend both myself and others, including a total stranger from harm. In two of the three cases the firearm did not even have to be drawn or displayed to be an effective deterrant.

The ability to let it be known to the assailants that I was armed was enough. In each case people's lives were at stake, and I was outnumbered in 2 of the 3 instances and in every case the assailant was armed with a weapon (car, chains, and knives). In my view a firearm in the hands of a competent and level headed citizen is more effective at stopping crime than an our armed police, search and seizure laws and no knock warrants.

cluge

No, they don't.

[JeanPaulBob]

Moreover, the Swiss government holds each person strictly accountable for the ammo for each of these guns. Any ammo boxes that are unsealed without an appropriate explanation would put you at the top of the list of suspects.

The Swiss government holds each person strictly accountable for the ammo issued by the government. This does not apply to ammo purchased by the individual.

In other words: The Swiss government does not register every bullet. It registers every bullet it pays for and distributes. Enormous difference.

I doubt gun owners would mind the US government giving everyone ammunition, even if they registered it.

More Guns, Less Crime by John Lott

[evilpaul13]

A book written by someone setting out to show gun control reduces crime that discovered that the opposite was overwhelmingly true.

Not wanting to just point you to a few conservative or NRA (or whoever's) websites and articles which will have an obvious bias, check a pretty basic and vannilla Google search [google.com] of the title and author.

Best wishes with your research!

2 words in a google search

[OhioJoe]

... will find you what you need.

+Lott +Mustard

Type these words into a google search, and there you will find an unbiased report that found empirically that an armed populace means less violent crime. Professor John Lott, University of Chicago, looked at all federal, state, and local law enforcement data as well as economics (Eric Mustard's purpose) since economics play a part in crime rates independent of guns. All other guns studies ignore the natural ebb and flow of crime rates, and thus erroneously report the effect of concealed carry legislation.

Re:Polarizing and Inflamatory Rhetoric.

[rjh]

Uh, guy, you do know that Teflon-coated bullets aren't armor-piercing, and that the NRA actually led the way in writing legislation to ban armor-piercing ammunition, right?

Thought not.

You see, you make armor-piercing bullets out of very hard metals--steel, zinc or brass all work. They're much harder than lead, they don't deform when they hit the target, and as a result, they can punch through steel. Including the steel of a gun barrel--firing steel bullets out of a gun will destroy the barrel in just a few shots.

So in order to protect the barrel from the steel bullets, the KTW Corporation started... coating their bullets in Teflon.

And this is how the media myth of Teflon bullets came about.

The NRA was opposed to anti-Teflon-bullet laws because the NRA knew that wouldn't solve the problem. Instead, the NRA wanted to push legislation which would ban bullets which had cores made out of certain materials--like steel, zinc and brass.

Of course, because "everybody knew" the Teflon was what made a bullet armor-piercing, the NRA got pilloried in the press.

The NRA did the country a favor when they convinced Congress not to ban Teflon rounds, and instead to ban steel, brass and zinc-core rounds... and the country will never forgive the NRA for it.

(And no, I'm not a member of the NRA.)

Re:Facts vs. Conclusions

[1010011010]

Perhaps we should prohibit the rest of the world from not owning guns -- at least until we can trust them to maintain a decorus violent-crime statistic.

The International Crime Victims Survey, conducted by Leiden University in Holland, found that England and Wales ranked second overall in violent crime among industrialized nations.

Twenty-six percent of English citizens -- roughly one-quarter of the population -- have been victimized by violent crime. Australia led the list with more than 30 percent of its population victimized.

The United States didn't even make the "top 10" list of industrialized nations whose citizens were victimized by crime.

Jack Straw, the British home secretary, admitted that "levels of victimization are higher than in most comparable countries for most categories of crime."

Highlights of the study indicated that:

* The percentage of the population that suffered "contact crime" in England and Wales was 3.6 percent, compared with 1.9 percent in the United States and 0.4 percent in Japan.
* Burglary rates in England and Wales were also among the highest recorded. Australia (3.9 percent) and Denmark (3.1 per cent) had higher rates of burglary with entry than England and Wales (2.8 percent). In the U.S., the rate was 2.6 percent, according to 1995 figures;
* "After Australia and England and Wales, the highest prevalence of crime was in Holland (25 percent), Sweden (25 percent) and Canada (24 percent). The United States, despite its high murder rate, was among the middle ranking countries with a 21 percent victimization rate," the London Telegraph said.
* England and Wales also led in automobile thefts. More than 2.5 percent of the population had been victimized by car theft, followed by 2.1 percent in Australia and 1.9 percent in France. Again, the U.S. was not listed among the "top 10" nations.
* The study found that Australia led in burglary rates, with nearly 4 percent of the population having been victimized by a burglary. Denmark was second with 3.1 percent; the U.S. was listed eighth at about 1.8 percent.

Re:Decide for yourself

[x1048576]

Every single one of those people, who are critical of John Lott are anti-gun folks from anti-gun groups. None of them are qualified to even argue against John Lott.

Well, I'm one of those people who are critical of John Lott and I'm not a member of any anti-gun group and I'm sure that Robert Ehrlich isn't either.

As for qualifications, Ehrlich, Lott and myself all have PhDs, but none of us are criminologists, so that's pretty even.

And none of this is relevant. What is important is the arguments. There are a lot of things wrong with Lott's work so my critique [unsw.edu.au] is long, but that can't be helped.

Tim Lambert

Re:Look at how it's affected crime in the UK

[sql*kitten]

There are other factors at work as well. For instance, in the UK if somebody gets raped, unless they are trained in martial arts or something, I hate to say it but if the opponent is stronger there isn't much that can be done (as far as I know). In the US, I'd guess the rapist would get a bullet through the head

There was a case recently of a farmer, Tony Martin, who was repeatedly victimized by local criminals. One day, they invaded his property carrying weapons, so he shot one of them. The police eventually arrived and arrested everyone.

The burglar got out of jail before the farmer.

The fact is in the UK today the police have adopted the position that they won't protect you, and they won't allow you to protect yourself. Guns merely level the playing field [libertyartworx.com].