Three Common Gun Control Myths

[d90king]

Due to character limits I am posting these through links rather than the actual text.

1) A gun in the house means you are three times more likely to be killed.
http://gunowners.org/sk0701.htm
2) Children Gun Deaths are at epidemic proportions.
http://gunowners.org/sk0702.htm
3) Gun control has reduced the crime rates in other countries.
http://gunowners.org/sk0703.htm

[John]

Let me add a fourth:

Gun Control Laws by definition implies that only law-abiding citizens will abide to them.
Outlaws live outside the law, so they do not abide to Gun Control Laws.

So whoever believes that more or stricter Gun Control Laws will reduce crime, is by definition an idiot.

[Rekladan]

The is also something else to consider. Concrete data is sparse, but it is widely acknowledged that Crete has the highest number of illegally owned firearms in this country. The existence or absence of laws makes little difference to these people, except that since nearly all their guns are illegal, when they go 'gun-shopping' it makes little difference to them whether they by, say, a semi-auto pistol, or a full-auto AK-47, complete with 2000 rounds of ammo. Both would be illegal to them, and carry the same sort of penalty if discovered.

Governments' refusal to legalize guns means that there isn't even 'partial' control to what guns do exist... or, even more importantly, to how these guns are used...

[John]

Yes, but Crete doesn't have a significantly higher crime rate than the rest of Greece, does it? So the existence of (even illegal) firearms doesn't mean a thing as far as crime is concerned.

[Rekladan]

As far as I know it doesn't. This is very much a gun culture. 6 out of 12 members of the Greek National Practical Shooting Team come from here, shooting legal guns, obviously (and, by the way, they had a good going in Austria two weeks ago)! I intend to start a thread in the appropriate section to explain a few things about how this place got to where it is, gun-wise, I think it would be interesting for our American friends to see a, let's say alternative gun culture, as well as the potential long-term effects of gun-control on otherwise law-abiding citizens.

[d90king]

Let me add a fourth:

Gun Control Laws by definition implies that only law-abiding citizens will abide to them.
Outlaws live outside the law, so they do not abide to Gun Control Laws.

So whoever believes that more or stricter Gun Control Laws will reduce crime, is by definition an idiot.


+ 1000 well said. Criminals are not inclined to obey laws.......... leaving only the law abiding at the mercy of the criminal.

[KCShooter]

How about a couple facts:

(Keep in mind, this is from England, so here's what actually happens when handguns are banned)

One is six times more likely to be mugged in London than in New York City.
More than half of English burglaries occur when someone is at home, while the frequency of such “hot burglaries” is only 13 percent in America.
Since handguns were banned in 1998, handgun crime has more than doubled.



Source: Joyce Lee Malcolm, “Self-Defense: An Endangered Right,” Cato Institute, Policy Report No. 2, March 2004.

[Tom]

I want to say there is a similar spike in crimes in Australia since they became "enlightened".

[d90king]

You are correct Tom, there is a video of a march from there but I cant post it because of a few bad words. :o

[Rekladan]

The UK (like many other countries, including mine) had laws in place to deal with gun ownership, but these laws were not of constitutional calibre.

(side note: you can start a debate today in the UK on whether or not the country has a constitution. It does, but not in the way most of us understand the term)

Gun ownership there was more or less banned completely in 1998, following a school shooting. Changing the law was simple, since it was a 'mere' law, not something enshrined in a Bill of Rights.

I've written this before - I really like Brits, they have a culture that has to be seen up close to be appreciated, beyond all the stereotypes and fanfare. The reserved way with which Londoners behaved through the London bombings (which happened while I was in the country) is a telling tribute to the country's law-abiding citizens.

But the fact that, even before the 1998 ban, whole generations have grown up without seeing guns anywhere, be it on Police belts or elsewhere, means that such a decision to ban guns could be made with little opposition from the public. The shooting community in the country was too small to be heard.

Unlike other European countries, where men have to serve a mandatory National Service, thus exposing the citizenry to guns, Britain abolished national service decades ago. This is generally seen as a positive thing (and I happen to agree), but it eliminated the only opportunity left for people to handle guns and realize that, actually, they are just tools. Really. Quite how the once-great British gun industry still manages to continue to exist, is a miracle, if you ask me.

At the moment, there is some debate in the UK concerning placing laws and restrictions on... knives. Newspapers and TV news programmes reported on the rising trends of 'knife-crime', complete with pictures of various folders, fixed-blades and even surplus bayonets, laying on display cabinets of 'evil shops'...

Then, one TV reporter in a programme I watched had the decency to point out that, actually, the vast majority of such crimes were commited using cheap kitchen knives! Some groups pressed on with their aim to ban even these (!), but I believe this caused many people to wonder if it is really a good idea to keep on blaming the tool...

[Rich-D]

Rekladan, Great insight on another culture! I wish that more folks from other countries would provide us with their experience. Hopefully they will come, being a new site we still have to nourish and grow.


Rich

[Rekladan]

Thanks, I will try to get some references for all that, to put it in a proper context. I hate hearsay.

[Frank]

For an excellent study of the erosion of gun and self defense rights in Great Britain while the rate of violent crime increased, read Guns and Violence, the English Experience by Joyce Lee Malcolm (Harvard University Press, 2002).