Those who support unfettered ownership and sales of guns say no, but they are just making that up. A recent study says yes. Check it out.
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Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
That incedint in Mississippi was in Oklahoma. Regarding your guns being stolen, if they were not locked up and you didn’t report the theft, etc, and they are used in a crime, you should be held responsible.
Your guns are locked up, right?
Anyway the study pointed to here proved something that you did not address in your comment.
You should definitely not be allowed to own guns.
Augustus illustrates the the fear and suspicion that’s at the root of so many of our problems, not just this one. Fear of others is obviously his major motivator. What kind of weird abusive childhood does someone need to get like that?
The report pointed to here proved nothing.
It is obviously flawed.
If the author of this article cannot figure out how it is flawed, that simply proves that he is blinded by his prejudices.
Case in point: the Tiahrt amendments prevent Gun Grabbing Assholes (GGA)* from accessing sensitive information about gun purchases such as the names, personal information, and addresses of gun purchasers. In the past, GGA have harmed gun owners by acquiring and publishing this information.
The Tiahrt amendments do not impede law enforcement one iota. Any law enforcement agency can query the BATFE’s National Tracing Center about a particular gun and receive all of the disposition information within a few hours to a couple of days.
Greg, as usual you resort to emotionally loaded words just chock full of negative connotations. E.g., your opening use of the terms “Gun Rights Apologists” and “Gun Nut” in the article about the so-called “study.”
You assume that a peson is somehow flawed or abnormal because he or she owns a gun, carries a gun, becomes a shooter, hunter, home gunsmith, or takes up any of the shooting sports. With an attitude like this, you are incapable of either understanding or even comprehending the other side of the argument, and your words here and elsewhere merely underline that fact.
Now here’s what makes this article ridiculous: its title. “Can the law keep guns out of criminal’s [sic] hands?”
The word here is criminal.
Greg, if law worked, there would be no criminals. How stupid can you be to suggest that someone (i.e., a criminal) who has already made the decision to disregard the law will be deterred by yet another law?
Here’s the way it really works in human society: there are people who strive to behave within the rules of society; these are the good guys like you and me. There are other people who disregard the rules of society; these are the criminals and sociopaths.
More rules are not going to make the scofflaws conform, nor are they going to make the good guys any more conscientious or careful.
Here’s another stupid remark: “Regarding your guns being stolen, if they were not locked up and you didn’t report the theft, etc, and they are used in a crime, you should be held responsible.”
I mean, come on, Greg, who do you think you are to judge me? The guns are in my house, some son of a bitch breaks in and steals them, and you have the nerve to suggest that it is my fault for not keeping them secure enough in accordance with your standards?
Greg, these are criminals we’re talking about here. They don’t give a rat’s ass about you, your rules, your laws, or your silly-assed GGA opinions. Many of them would just as soon shoot you, me, a cop, or an innocent by-stander as they would break an egg to make an omelet.
More laws are going to do exactly what the existing laws have already done: harm the honest citizens, the good guys, and have absolutely no effect on the criminals.
Let me sum it up for you. The FACT you, with all your self-proclaimed intelligence and education, repeatedly overlook is that honest people don’t commit crimes and dishonest people don’t give a damn for laws.
* “emotionally loaded words just chock full of negative connotations” can be applied to both sides. Why not just try to be a little objective and leave them out of your posts?
A childhood that teaches you to read the newspaper?
I gather that you believe that home invasion “incedint” cited by Augustus never occured. For that matter, you probably think that home invasion is really a myth. That there is no such thing as murder, no such thing as armed robbery. You probably believe that no one was ever mugged on the streets of New York City or Miami or Chicago, and that no jealous husband ever put his wife in the hospital with a beating. It’s obvious you believe Gary Bowles never harmed a soul.
And you, Achrachno, are a fool.
The thing about being armed is that you don’t have to be afraid; you don’t have to fear the human predator looking to take your property or your life to pay for his drug habit, reinforce his psychosis, or merely to support his unwillingness to work at an honest job.
And experience shows that if you are armed you probably won’t have to fire your gun. In most cases, the simple presence of a firearm is sufficient to stop the crime.
But if you are forced to protect yourself, you have the means to do so.
A 90-pound, 80-year-old woman living in a hovel who still has her late husband’s.38 caliber revolver is a physical match for a 250-pound, meth snorting thug. And if she has to use that pistol, she’s doing us all a favor by removing a germ from the human gene pool.
If Lynda Ann Healy had owned a .22 derringer, she and at least 30 other people would still be alive. Of course, that doesn’t fit in with your theory because Lynda Ann had a normal, loving childhood.
The important thing about experiencing remorse after killing a piece of human trash is that you are ALIVE to experience it.
And remember, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away. 9mm is better than 911 when your life is in the balance.
Charlie, the study stands on its own and it does as I described it (in the blog post to which I pointed). I’m not sure, by the way, why you were afraid to make your comments over there.
People like Augustus are one of the reasons I get uptight going to the states. I’m feel as if I’m more likely to be shot by some ‘law-abiding’ gun owner trying to stop a crime than I am by a criminal.
We have lots of stories up here in Canada about folks being in the states and watching some citizen yank out his gun and fire shots off trying to be a hero at some crime in progress, and endangering everyone else.
I just get the impression life isn’t valued as highly in the states as it is in other developed countries (there isn’t even a universal health care system; empathy for the poor seems pretty low, etc)—I could be wrong about life not being as highly valued, but that’s the impression we get from across the border.**
Last time I was in the states was March 2008. Camping in the mountains. First night there, gunshots fired, someone killed and the police choppers were flying back and forth all morning. Looked like they were doing a manhunt so we elected to do our birding elsewhere.
Ha! Do you have any idea how expensive a sword was? Very much a high status item. Strictly the preserve of the nobility, but only because nobody else could afford them. The modern equivalent would be a fancy sports car.
Actually, peasants were mostly required to own arms of some kind (usually much cheaper and more effective arms than swords though), so that they could fulfil their feudal duties… But let’s not let minor details like facts get in the way of a good rant.
There is no possible way to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals. I own several guns. What if someone steals one of them? Then the criminal has a gun which he DID NOT purchase. How do you prevent such a scenario without trampling my human right to self defense?
Well, you could start by keeping your guns locked up, in a house that you also keep locked up. Then you could pay a few dollars more in taxes so the cops could have more resources to chase down armed criminals.
No. A locked gun is useless.
Where do you live, Somalia? If you’re so afraid that you have to keep your gun out and ready at all times, you should probably call the cops, describe the specific threat you perceive to them, and let them help. Trust me, it’ll make you both safer and less stressed without diminishing your right to defend yourself.
it’s like a paramedic locking the keys in his ambulance.
Only if you lock your keys in the gun-locker. Damn but you’re a stupid little gun-nut. If you can’t even be responsible enough to keep your precious guns out of the wrong hands, then you’re in no position to lecture about rights. Where did you come from — the special-ed wing of the NRA?
Without the peasants owning guns, your Muslim Brotherhood and islamofascist comrades would have never overthrown the presidents of Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia.
First, the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia were won by peaceful organized resistance, not gun battles. And second, most of the rebels’ guns in Libya came from defecting army/security forces. Stop fethishizing guns and start reading books. You think you can handle that? We can.
A 90-pound, 80-year-old woman living in a hovel who still has her late husband’s.38 caliber revolver is a physical match for a 250-pound, meth snorting thug.
You’re assuming the meth-snorting thug doesn’t also have a gun. If he did, he’d have his out and ready first, and the old woman’s gun would be useless. That’s the problem with you gun-nuts: you’re too hysterical and scared to even distinguish between government and criminals, and you romanticize and fetishize guns and have absolutely zero understanding of mundane tactical issues that mean the difference between life and death. Grow the fuck up and get over yourself — guns are useful, but hugely overrated.
I mean, come on, Greg, who do you think you are to judge me? The guns are in my house, some son of a bitch breaks in and steals them, and you have the nerve to suggest that it is my fault for not keeping them secure enough in accordance with your standards?
The most charitable response I can offer here is “You’re kidding, right?” First you insist that guns give us the power to protect ourselves against criminals, protect our freedoms, and call ourselves men; than you cry about how unfair it is to expect you to keep someone from stealing your guns? Your attitude is so mindless and babyish it doesn’t even rise to a level where it can be called hypocritical. Are you even self-aware enough to remember and think about what you’re saying?
I cannot help but get a good laugh every time Raging Bee tries to put forward his vacuous (but politically correct) ideologies. Surely he could take a little time one day and try to think about his nonsensical opinions.
First, Bee, don’t try to make my arguments for me.
Second, Bee, understand that there are few absolutes in this world.
Third, there is one big absolute, but it supports my arguments, not yours: death. If you become dead at the hands of a criminal there is no going back. There is no way the cops can arrive a minute later and make you alive again.
Having made those obvious points, let me take apart Bee’s arguments, one by one.
No, I’m not assuming any such thing. I am asserting a truth: without the gun, the old woman has no chance whatsoever. With the gun, she just might survive because she is, for that moment, the physical equal or superior of the miscreant.
Granted, the thug could be armed with a gun, but the odds are against it. Most of the time, robbers are not armed with guns. Mostly, violent offenders use their physical size or numbers to intimidate their victims. If they are armed, the overwhelming majority of the time the weapon will be 1) a bludgeon or 2) a knife. Re: Crime in the US, 2009. Department of Justice, FBI.
So your solution, Bee, is to take all chance of survival away from the old woman because you have an unreasoning and irrational fear of guns.
Do you understand that there is a difference between self-defense and a burglary of a house?
My point was that Greg had no business judging me by his prejudiced standards. He had no right to attempt to apply his unrealistic ideas to me and my life. I am not going to play that game with him or with you.
If Greg wants to assert that a certain behavior or practice is correct or better than another, okay. I welcome his input even when I disagree. But when he follows that assertion by claiming that I am wrong or negligent because I do not conform to his standard, he is out of line.
One other thing about your idiotic quote above: I did not say anything about either protecting freedom or being able to “call ourselves men.” If you want to argue against strawmen, have at it. You seem to be able to do quite well arguing both sides, but leave me out of the discussion when you do so.
Greg, there you go again: assuming something that is unproven and then trying to force me to react to your assertion.
So far, I’ve seen no proof or even indication that I was “afraid” to comment on the other article at its URL. The fact is that I simply did not comment over there. On another note, if you want to know why your so called study is flawed, just ask. I’ll be happy to explain it to you.
I, in my turn, am not sure why you ignored the great majority of my post which went a long way towards exposing your arguments for the nonsense they are. It seems to me to be another mote-and-beam situation. Matthew 7:3-4.
Charlie, the reason you are afraid to comment on the actual post to which you are reacting is that you know there are more people with reasonable points of view over there and you would get shredded.
Not that the people here don’t have reasonable points of view. What I mean is, this post here is just a pointer to the post where the main conversation is going on.
The reason I didn’t address the rest of your post is because I prefer the conversation happen over on the blog in which the conversation was started.
Granted, the thug could be armed with a gun, but the odds are against it.
What color is the sky in your bubble-verse, where guns are traded freely but criminals are rarely armed? It sure as Hell ain’t any metropolitan area in the USA. God you’re an idiot. What’s your fucking problem — you spent too much time at your high school rifle club, and too little time learning anything else?
In Australia, the uniform gun laws that were introduced caused an immediate massive drop in gun-related crime.
The psychopathic guy posting above obviously relishes gun violence – “blew his lungs out his backbone” – indicating he would be a very poor candidate for being issued a gun licence here in Australia. His anecdote is also far outweighed by the massive incidence of gun-related crime in the USA which results from its lax gun laws. Something like 30,000 americans die by gun every year.
It’s going to be hard, Bee, to break you of arguing with yourself.
I cited my source of information.
Now here are a few facts. You know what facts are, don’t you?
If a weapon, force, or physical threat is involved, the crime is considered to be violent. Guns are used in approximately 8% of the non-fatal, violent crimes. See below.
There you go, Raging Bee. The chances of facing a gun during a violent crime are less than one out of twelve. As I stated, the odds are against it.
Out of over 6,300,000 violent crimes in 2000, only 15,517 were homicides, and two-thirds of those were commited with a firearm. So a victim’s chance of dying from a gunshot is less than 2/10 of one-percent, or 2 out of 1000. As I stated, the odds are against it.
The non-fatal violent crimes considered in these numbers include rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault.
You asked me, “What’s you ******* problem?”
The answer is, I make rational decisions based on real data, something you’ve never learned to do and therefore, a problem for you.
Do you consider yourself intelligent?
If so, why? The data indicates otherwise.
Actually, Vince is wrong. In Australia violent crime rates showed no change traceable to the gun ban.
Conclusion: In Australia, as everywhere else it’s been tried, gun control does not work, and thus is not worth the effort.
This is because guns are not the root problem; human fallibility is the problem.
References from http: //www.gunsandcrime.org/auresult.html
I agree that humanity’s fallibly is the issue. Charlie, you’ve given great examples of that in your discussion of gun safety.
We should probably be restricting firearms ownership until that problem is settled, though, don’t you think?
Chuckie, you keep on dodging about between “gun crime” and “violent crime” and “non-fatal violent crime.” Which leads me to believe you’re being either very lazy, very ignorant, or very dishonest in your use of the statistics.
Also, the study you cite refers to Australia; and to only one kind of gun-control law; and makes no reference to actual enforcement of said law. So no, it doesn’t prove “gun control doesn’t work” in general, nor does it prove that “guns are not the problem.”
And even if it did prove that “human fallibility” was the problem, that would still be all the more reason to take reasonable measures to keep guns out of the hands of at least the most fallible humans. If humans weren’t fallible, we’d have no need for laws of any sort.
Furthermore, it’s downright hypocritical to insist that “gun control doesn’t work,” when even gun-rights advocates (the ones with enough sense to walk unassisted at least) do indeed take measures to control access to their own guns, and to keep them out of the hands of people they have reason not to trust.
Bee, the three categories are different. If you took the time to do a little research, you would learn that homicide is tracked separately from other violent crimes. But I included the reference to homicide in order to underline the relatively low number of fatal crimes compared to the huge number of violent, non-fatal crimes. Apparently, you missed that connection.
The category of gun-crime is nonspecific. You should have known that.
Non-fatal violent crime is not categorized by gun or non-gun crimes, but by type: i.e., rape, robbery, simple and aggravated assault. To assess the effect gun control has on violent crime, it is necessary to look at all violent crime, not just those crimes involving a gun.
Why? Because criminals, like everyone else, compensate for any lack by substituting another resource. Reducing the absolute number of guns would be of no value if criminals switched to other weapons while the violent crime rate stayed the same.
So to determine if there is any benefit from gun control, it is absolutely necessary to 1) Look at all violent crime, and 2) Eliminate the other factors which might have resulted in observed changes. Reason 2) is something you touched on in your next comment.
Apparently you did not notice that I was replying to the post by Vince Whirlwind wherein he incorrectly claimed that the Australian gun ban had resulted in a decrease in crime. The report I cited refuted his claim. Go figure.
Secondly, the report did indeed take into account other factors; it actually enumerated some of them. So your objections are of no merit. I.e., you are simply mistaken.
Thirdly, I did not state that “guns are not the problem.” I stated that “guns are not the root problem.” Would you like me to explain the difference to you?
Could you possibly think of another explanation for locking up firearms valued at several hundreds if not thousands of dollars? Other than to call it gun control, that is?
Guess what, Raging Bee? Gun owners and dealers take measures to keep other people from taking their guns, particularly those people they don’t trust. It’s called common sense.
Similarly, car owners take measures to keep other people from taking their cars. Ditto home owners. Ditto jewelers. Ditto liquor store owners. Need I continue or do you get the message?
I gather that you have not lived when there was no gun control. If you had, you would know that the 1968 GCA has been a total failure. Ditto the Brady Bill. Ditto the Assault Weapon ban. Ditto the High-cap magazine ban. Ditto the Sullivan Act.
By the way, Bee, do you own a gun? Do you carry a gun?