columbine and gun control???

[myspace.com/jessenoah]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090420/us_time/08599189141600

 

 

 

 

Monday April 20 marks 10 years since Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold permanently etched the words Columbine High School into this nation's collective memory. What happened that day in 1999 also seemed to wake America up to the reality that it had become a nation of gun owners - and too often a nation of shooters.

 

 

The carnage in Littleton, Colorado - 12 classmates and a teacher before the killers offed themselves - and the ease with which the teenagers acquired their weapons (two sawed-off shotguns, a 9-mm semiautomatic carbine and a TEC-9 handgun) seemed to usher in a new era of, well if not gun control, then at least gun awareness. (See pictures of crime in middle America.)

 

 

In the decade since, massacres perpetrated by deranged gunmen have continued - including the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre in which Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people and wounded many others. But something odd has occurred. Whatever momentum the Columbine killings gave to gun control has long since petered out. (See pictures of America's gun culture.)

 

 

This spring, for example, Texas lawmakers are mulling a new law that would allow college students to carry firearms to campus (Utah already makes this legal). "I think people weren't concerned about it first," says University of Texas graduate student John Woods, who has emerged as a spokesman for campus efforts to defeat the bill. "They thought, 'It's a terrible idea. Why would the government consider something like this?'" But as the debate on campus has heated up, that complacency has vanished, Woods explains to TIME. Students opposed to the bill plan a big rally on Thursday at the Capitol, he says.

 

 

But efforts like Woods' are up against powerful headwinds - and not just because of the powerful gun lobby that often strangles gun-control laws. Americans in general have cooled significantly to the idea of restricting gun rights. A poll released last week by CNN showed that support for stricter gun laws was at an all-time low, with just 39% of respondents in favor. Eight years ago that number was 54%.

 

 

Woods concedes that getting help to the psychotic, would-be killers of the world would probably be an even better fix. But he has a personal reason to take the issues seriously. Two years ago, he was in his apartment in Blacksburg, Virginia, listening to sirens sounding across the campus outside his window. A half-dozen friends of his were in the classroom where Cho Seung-Hui opened fire, and the names of some of the dead belong to people he knew. "The idealist in me is shocked and angry," Woods says, that restrictions on guns have eased rather than tightened in the wake of tragedies like the one at Virginia Tech. "But the cynic in me is not surprised at all. I think if this was peanuts or pistachios causing all these deaths, then we'd be all over it. But there is no amendment about peanuts or pistachios in the Bill of Rights. People on both sides just simply won't compromise." (See pictures form the Virginia Tech massacre.)

 

 

Indeed, the debate seems to be almost one-sided nowadays, with an ongoing backlash against gun control. Another law up for debate in Texas, for example, would prohibit most companies from barring employees from keeping guns in their cars in company parking lots. In Montana, only last-minute dealmaking between the House and Senate stripped a new law of language that would have given residents the right to carry concealed weapons with or without a permit.

 

 

Since 2003, at least eight states have either passed new laws giving most residents the right to carry concealed handguns or changed existing laws to make it harder for state officials to deny those permits, according to a 2008 study in the Yale Law & Policy Review. In the past couple of years, another trend has taken root, too: the expansion of the so-called Castle Doctrine, a legal theory enshrined in common law. It is used to justify deadly force in the defense of one's home, although it's usually interpreted to include a duty to try to avoid confrontation if one can. But in the past three years, the National Rifle Association has encouraged states to write the doctrine into statute, without imposing the attendant obligation to flee for safety. Many have done so, including Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and South Dakota. In 2007, Texas took things a step farther, and expanded its law to protect shooters who act in self-defense or act to stop certain crimes anywhere the shooter has a legal right to be - such as at work, in his car or the like.

 

 

Other legal responses have been more creative still. A year after Columbine, Kentucky lawmakers agreed to repeal a law that two years before had given every preacher, priest or minister a special legal right to carry arms to the pulpit, with a handgun in the holster underneath the frock. Still, lawmakers refused to ban pistols completely from the pews. Instead, they left it up to churches to decide for themselves whether anybody, preacher or layman, can go to church carrying a piece.

 

 

The biggest change of all came last year at the Supreme Court, when the justices struck down what had been the strictest gun-control ordinance in the country - the ban on handguns in murder-plagued Washington, D.C. Taking only its second gun-rights case in 70 years, the court established for the first time that the Second Amendment, like the First, enshrines fundamental rights that belong to each citizen, not just the community as a whole. The implications for state and local gun-control laws haven't yet been fully understood - and probably won't for years to come as lower-court cases work out how to interpret the ruling.

 

 

thoughts?

[djroge1]

I'd like to see the statistics showing which cities has the highest number of violent crimes and if their city/state policy on personal hand guns (or guns in general) restricts owning and carrying firearms is difficult.

 

My first thought is that those cities/states with strict gun laws will have a higher rate of violent crimes compared with those who make it easier for citizens to own and carry firearms legally.

[grampa]

I'm not sure that there is a correlation between gun laws, gun ownership and violent gun deaths. Gun laws are more for political posturing whether one is for or against them. Violent guns crimes are a result of the pervasive violence of our culture.

[charlie brown]

Gun control doesn't work! Ask England and Australia, among others. Law abiding citizens, with guns, aren't the threat!

And, the "criminals," will get what they want/need, anyway. Always have, always will. You want them armed, and not US?

As to the folks that decide to commit these terrible crimes...they were "lost" somewhere along the way, even

before they got "guns!" We need to address how THAT happens, first!

 

CB

[Bluemoon]

Gun control doesn't work! Ask England and Australia' date=' among others. [/quote']

 

I would be interested in hearing from our European and Australian members as to whether gun control works in their countries.

[James Allen]

Why is it that everytime some whacko goes out and kills a bunch of innocent folks, that nut job becomes the poster boy that all the lefties associate with honest folks who are responsible gun owners?

 

The folks doing the killing are the freaks, the exception to the rule. They are not the mainstream gun owners.

 

If we use the analogy of the anit gun crowd, and apply it to any other situation, we see the ridiculousness of the logic.

 

For example, let's say a man decides he's had it with his neighbor, and picks up a baseball bat, which is legal, and bashes the neighbors head in. Now, do we outlaw baseball bats?

 

Or what about a guy on some kind of depression medication kills a bunch of folks. Now, we see this a lot, don't we? But nobody is wanting to ban the meds. Why not?

 

I'm not a big gun nut, but I do own a couple of rifles. It is my Constitutional right to do so, and the vast majority of us who own are good folks.

 

Take a look at the people who use guns to kill. Most of those guns are bought illegally. Many of the folks are underage and shouldn't be allowed to buy the guns anyway. Let's start looking at the root cause of all this, and I guarantee you we will see that the ROOT cause isn't guns. It's going to be something completely different. Then, once that is identified, we can start looking for real solutions.

[Duende]

 

I would be interested in hearing from our European and Australian members as to whether gun control works in their countries.

 

 

 

My opinion, yes it works!

 

The UK of course has its problems, like anywhere (I don't want to pretend it is utopia) but considering the huge volume of people, mainly on what is comparatively such a small Island, the fatalities involving guns is not too bad.

 

LOL...at myself "not too bad". All gun crime is bad, sorry I mean in proportion to the amount of inhabitants :)

 

Matt

 

ps only guns normal English people see are on movies :)

[Bluemoon]

 

My opinion' date=' yes it works!

 

The UK of course has its problems, like anywhere (I don't want to pretend it is utopia) but considering the huge volume of people, mainly on what is comparatively such a small Island, the fatalities involving guns is not too bad.

 

LOL...at myself "not too bad". All gun crime is bad, sorry I mean in proportion to the amount of inhabitants :)

 

Matt

 

ps only guns normal English people see are on movies :)[/quote']

 

As a person who has little or no access to guns, do you sit in your house at night worrying that you have no gun to protect yourself and your family?

[FennRx]

you guys should read a guy named John Lott. it really is fascinating.

 

as for columbine, did anyone notice my post in another thread about the myths surrounding the incident? it was a link to usatoday article.

[SRV-Zeppelin]

This has nothing to do with Canada vs America or any of that crap, just simple statistics, building on what djorge1 said:

 

Washington, DC (and surrounding suburbs) and the Greater Toronto Area both have a population of around 6 million people.

In 2005 (2006?) DC had over 1000 gun murders.

Toronto had 18.

 

The difference: down south in the US, gun laws are lax at best (or at least were) and guns are a part of the american culture.

In Canada, we have gun registry, and besides, for most of the year it's too damn cold to do drive-by shootings.

 

If you play with fire, expect to get your fingers burnt.

[djroge1]

This has nothing to do with Canada vs America or any of that crap' date=' just simple statistics, building on what djorge1 said:

 

Washington, DC (and surrounding suburbs) and the Greater Toronto Area both have a population of around 6 million people.

In 2005 (2006?) DC had over 1000 gun murders.

Toronto had 18.

 

The difference: down south in the US, gun laws are lax at best (or at least were) and guns are a part of the american culture.

In Canada, we have gun registry, and besides, for most of the year it's too damn cold to do drive-by shootings.

 

If you play with fire, expect to get your fingers burnt.[/quote']

 

That's great to point that out, however DC has some very strict gun laws. It has been a few years since I lived near there (I live on a military base - Ft. Meade), but I thought gun ownership was illegal in DC (could be wrong about that though).

 

I'd like to see the numbers for DC vs. Ft. Worth or Dallas where guns and permits to carry them are more lax.

 

I love your thought about "too cold to do drive-by shootings." that's classic.

[FennRx]

canada also doesnt have the social history that the united states does. nor does canada share a border with mexico. there are socio-economic and historical reasons for crime that might not exist in other places.

 

just a thought.

[The Mick]

the little pirate problem is basically a gun control problem. Treaties that ships can't arm themselves.

[Jesus Is Dead In My Basement]

 

I would be interested in hearing from our European and Australian members as to whether gun control works in their countries.

 

 

 

I was born in England and actually went to school there for 9 years and will tell you we like our gun control laws and we are scared of Americans because of the very reason that you guys own guns.

[TommyK]

 

As a person who has little or no access to guns' date=' do you sit in your house at night worrying that you have no gun to protect yourself and your family? [/quote']

 

If I weren't armed I would worry. In the US it's about self protection. MOST of us don't expect, the government to coddle us and protect us from all ills, there are those that who fell the governemnt should coddle us, protect us from all ills and make everything better. The government can't.

 

I don't live in a big city. I live in a remote area. The big city problems are pushing out like cockroaches. When we summon the John-de-arms there is a noticable wait. In the 30 minutes, at best, time it takes for them to roll up to my address. In that amount of time, the would-be perpetrator would have killed me, had his way withy my daughter, wife and dog, then made off with my stuff. A .357 buys you 30 minutes, or a determined perpetrator... an eternity. It's his choice.

 

You ever try to swing a ball bat in a hall way?

[charlie brown]

Britain, Australia top U.S.

in violent crime

Rates Down Under increase despite strict gun-control measures

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Jon Dougherty

© 2009 WorldNetDaily.com

 

 

 

 

Law enforcement and anti-crime activists regularly claim that the United States tops the charts in most crime-rate categories, but a new international study says that America's former master -- Great Britain -- has much higher levels of crime.

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.

Interestingly, the study found that one of the lowest victimization rates -- just 15 percent overall -- occurred in Northern Ireland, home of the Irish Republican Army and scene of years of terrorist violence.

 

Analysts in the U.S. were quick to point out that all of the other industrialized nations included in the survey had stringent gun-control laws, but were overall much more violent than the U.S.

 

Indeed, information on Handgun Control's Center to Prevent Handgun Violence website actually praises Australia and attempts to portray Australia as a much safer country following strict gun-control measures passed by lawmakers in 1996.

 

"The next time a credulous friend or acquaintance tells you that Australia actually suffered more crime when they got tougher on guns ... offer him a Foster's, and tell him the facts," the CPHV site says.

 

"In 1998, the rate at which firearms were used in murder, attempted murder, assault, sexual assault and armed robbery went down. In that year, the last for which statistics are available, the number of murders involving a firearm declined to its lowest point in four years," says CPHV.

 

However, the International Crime Victims Survey notes that overall crime victimization Down Under rose from 27.8 percent of the population in 1988, to 28.6 percent in 1991 to over 30 percent in 1999.

 

Advocates of less gun control in the U.S. say the drop in gun murder rates was more than offset by the overall victimization increase. Also, they note that Australia leads the ICVS report in three of four categories -- burglary (3.9 percent of the population), violent crime (4.1 percent) and overall victimization (about 31 percent).

 

Australia is second to England in auto theft (2.1 percent).

 

In March 2000, WorldNetDaily reported that since Australia's widespread gun ban, violent crime had increased in the country.

 

WND reported that, although lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story:

 

 

Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent.

Assaults are up 8.6 percent.

Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent.

In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent.

In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily.

There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.

Related stories:

 

Crime up down under

 

Australia shoots back at NRA

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Jon E. Dougherty is a Missouri-based writer and the author of "Illegals: The Imminent Threat Posed by Our Unsecured U.S.-Mexico Border."

[Hoyt]

By Golly. As the right wingers say, "arm everyone and you wouldn't have these mass killings."

 

Yep, every insecure gun worshiper, wanting to be a cowboy hero to prove he's got gonads, would be pulling their weapons to get in on the action. They'd kill a lot more innocent folks if they can even get it out of the holster without shooting themselves.

 

Maybe we should start with laws to stop production of so-called "assault weapons" and restricting toting privileges. (Yea I know the right wing mantra -- "what's an assault weapon?")

[TommyK]

I was born in England and actually went to school there for 9 years and will tell you we like our gun control laws and we are scared of Americans because of the very reason that you guys own guns.

 

Exactly.

[Bluemoon]

 

If I weren't armed I would worry. In the US it's about self protection. MOST of us don't expect' date=' the government to coddle us and protect us from all ills, there are those that do. I don't live in a big city. I live in a remote area. The big city problems are pushing out like cockroaches. When we summon the John-de-arms there is a noticable wait. In the 30 minutes, at best, time it takes for them to roll up to my address. In that amount of time, the would-be perpetrator would have killed me, had his way withy my daughter, wife and dog, then made off with my stuff. A .357 buys you 30 minutes, or a determined perpetrator... an eternity. It's his choice.

 

You ever try to swing a ball bat in a hall way?[/quote']

 

Hey, I am with you. I owned a .357 for many years. I got rid of it when my daughter was born.

 

Not sure what the solution is. How do get guns off the streets? We seem to be in this Catch 22. You can't restrict guns because that would infringe on the rights of citizens who have a constitutional right to own them. But unless you start taking guns out of circulation, you can't curtail their illegal use. And even if you did restrict or ban guns, there are so many in circulation that you wouldn't see much of a change for decades.

[TommyK]

...Maybe we should start with laws to stop production of so-called "assault weapons" and restricting toting privileges. ..

 

Umm.....they did.

 

Didn't work.

[dc3c46]

 

If I weren't armed I would worry. In the US it's about self protection. MOST of us don't expect' date=' the government to coddle us and protect us from all ills, there are those that do. I don't live in a big city. I live in a remote area. The big city problems are pushing out like cockroaches. When we summon the John-de-arms there is a noticable wait. In the 30 minutes, at best, time it takes for them to roll up to my address. In that amount of time, the would-be perpetrator would have killed me, had his way withy my daughter, wife and dog, then made off with my stuff. A .357 buys you 30 minutes, or a determined perpetrator... an eternity. It's his choice.

 

You ever try to swing a ball bat in a hall way?[/quote']

+1000000

[charlie brown]

Gun Control Around the World: Lessons to Learn

 

Dr. Gary A. Mauser

 

Gary Mauser is a professor on the faculty of Business Administration at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. This paper is adapted from the Sixth Annual Civitas Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia held April 26 though 28, 2002.

 

In the past few months, widely televised tragedies in France, Germany, and Switzerland have spurred politicians to introduce changes in their countries' already strict gun laws to make them even more restrictive. Perhaps you remember the headlines? A depressed student in Germany ran amok and killed several people in his school after he'd been expelled. In both France and Switzerland, angry individuals have stormed into local councils and began shooting legislators indiscriminately.

 

This is not a new story. We've seen this show before. First, there is a horrible event, say a disturbed student shoots people in a school, or a maniac goes on a rampage in a public place. Media coverage is intense for a few weeks. "Experts" on television wring their hands in concern about the danger of "gun violence." Then the government feels it must do something to protect the public, so the police are given sweeping new powers, or new restrictions are introduced on owning firearms. Afterwards, the media rush off on a new story, and the public forgets. Later, there is another tragedy somewhere else, and the process starts all over again.

 

Does this sound familiar? It should. This has been the pattern followed by virtually every gun law that has been introduced in the twentieth century around the world. In the 1990s, we've seen this drama on television from Australia, Great Britain, the United States, not to mention Canada, as well other countries. It's time to pause and ask a few basic questions. If gun laws work to prevent criminal violence, why do these events keep occurring? And not just in places where the gun laws are comparatively lax, but in countries where it is all but impossible for an average person to own a handgun. Guns are banned in schools. How could gun attacks happen in "gun free" zones such as schools?

If gun control is supposed to reduce violent crime, then eventually this must be demonstrated to be true, or gun control is no more than a hollow promise. However, most criminologists admit (albeit reluctantly) that there is very little empirical support for the claim that laws designed to reduce general access to firearms reduce criminal violence (eg, Kleck 1997). Frequently, assertions that gun laws work turn out to be bogus. In Canada, the government uses the falling homicide rate as support for their claim that gun control laws are working. Unfortunately for this argument, the homicide rate has been falling even faster in the United States.

 

FIGURE 1 US VS. CANADIAN HOMICIDE RATES

 

The drop in the criminal violence is much more dramatic in the US than it is in Canada (Gannon 2001). Over the past decade, the Canadian homicide rate has declined about 25%, but the violent crime rate has not changed. In the US during the same time period, both the homicide and the violent crime rates have plummeted by more than 40%. We can't credit gun laws entirely with this success. In both countries, the aging population has helped bring down crime rates, and, in the US, long jail sentences for violent criminals has also been effective.

 

 

Figure 1

 

 

 

 

Figure 2. Rates of Violent Crime

 

FIGURES 2 US VS. CANADIAN VIOLENCE RATES

 

 

 

1) Violent crime uncludes homicide, aggravated assault, and robbery. For comparison purposes, the Canadian category of aggravated assault includes attempted murder, assault with a weapon, and aggravated assault. Trend analysis starts in 1983 due to the reclassification of Canadian assault categories in 1983.

 

Source: Uniform Crime Reporting program, CCJS: Uniform Crime Reporting program, FBI

 

 

The United States

 

Nevertheless, gun laws have played an important role in reducing crime rates in the US. Since 1986, more than 25 states have passed new laws encouraging responsible citizens to carry concealed handguns. As a result, the numbers of armed Americans in malls and in their cars has grown to almost 3 million men and women. As surprising as it is to the media, these new laws have caused violent crime rates to drop, including homicide rates. In his scholarly book, More Guns, Less Crime, Professor John Lott shows how violent crime has fallen faster in those states that have introduced concealed carry laws than in the rest of the US (Lott 2000). His study is the most comprehensive analysis of American crime data ever completed. He shows that criminals are rational enough to fear being shot by armed civilians.

 

FIGURES 3 & 4 - CRIME RATES IN CONCEALED-CARRY STATES VS. NON-CARRY

 

These graphs compare the relative drop in violent crimes in those states that recently introduced concealed-handgun laws with those that did not. Since these laws were introduced in various years, from 1986 to the 1990s, these changes are calculated from the year the law was introduced ("0"). As can be seen, crime rates were increasing before the legislation was introduced, and the rates declined afterwards. Figure 3 examines the impact upon violent crime in general, and Figure 4 looks at homicide specifically.

 

 

 

Figure 3. The Effect of Concealed-Handgun Laws on Murders (Lott 1998)

 

The drop in the US crime rate is even more impressive when compared with the rest of the world. In 18 of 25 countries surveyed by the British Home Office violent crime increased during the 1990s (Barclay et al, 1999). This contrast should provoke Canadians to wonder what happened in those countries where they believed that introducing more and more restrictive firearm laws would protect them from criminal violence.

 

Before we leap to the conclusion that our personal safety lies in making it ever more difficult for average citizens to own and use firearms, we should look around the world to see what other countries have done and how successful these experiments have been. Canadians are particularly interested in studying "English-style" firearm laws such as followed by other countries in the British Commonwealth.

 

 

 

Figure 4. The Effects of Concealed Carry-Handguns on Violent Crimes (Lott 1998)

 

Canada

 

Despite the drop in rates of criminal violence in Canada, the gun law has little to do with it. In a study Professor Dennis Maki and I did recently, that will be published later this year by Applied Economics, we found that this legislation may even have caused an increase in armed robbery. In our study we evaluated 9 other factors in our model as "covariates." Once we factored out the effects of these other variables, the Canadian gun law still had a significant effect. Unfortunately, this effect was positive, that is to say, the gun law actually acted to increase criminal violence.

 

FIGURE 5 - M&M T-TEST TABLE

 

Great Britain

 

The first country to consider is Britain, where they have endured a serious crime wave. In contrast to North America, where the homicide rate has been falling for over twenty years, the homicide rate in England and Wales has doubled over the past thirty years. In the 1990s alone, the homicide rate jumped 50%, going from 10 per million in 1990 to 15 per million in 2000 (British Home Office 2001).

 

Figure 5. Pooled Regression Models for Robbery and Robbery with a Firearm.

 

Dependent Variables Robberies Total Robberies with a Firearm

Independant Variable Coefficient T-ratio Coefficient T-ratio

1977 Gun Law 1.578 1.81* 4.518 2.11*

 

Registered Indians -2.417 -1.36 -2.253 -0.47

Male Youth -0.805 -0.72 -2.146 -0.85

Unemployment Rate 0.085 0.46 0.144 0.34

International Immigration 522.13 6.14* 958.79 4.14*

Clearance Rate1 -0.003 -0.44 -0.074 -1.91*

Police Effectives -0.008 -0.98 -0.032 -1.74*

UI Benefits 9.993 0.90 37.701 1.55

Internal Migration 31.731 1.11 -45.737 -0.63

Transients -435.59 -2.37* -592.33 -1.27

 

Constant 11.386 0.85 109.89 3.36*

 

Buse R square 0.521 0.576

 

Note 1: CR differs for each dependent variable.

*Indicates t-values significant at .05

Source: Mauser and Maki, Applied Economics (forthcoming).

 

In response to rising crime, British politicians, both Conser-vative and Labour, have brought in laws that increasingly re-stricted firearms ownership by the general public. Important changes to the firearm laws were made in 1988, and then again in 1992, before banning all handguns in 1997 (Greenwood 2001; Munday and Stevenson 1996). The Home Office has also tight-ened up on enforcement of regulations to such an extent that the firearm community has been virtually destroyed. Shotgun per-mits have fallen almost 30% since 1988 (Greenwood 2001). And the result of this Draconian gun control law in Great Britain? It's not pretty. No end appears in sight for the continuing crime wave.

 

FIGURES 6 AND 7 - INCREASE IN CRIME RATES VS. DECLINE IN REGISTERED GUNS

 

Year Shotgun Certificates Total Robbery

1980 781900 15006

1981 785200 20282

1982 780699 22837

1983 783400 22119

1984 798400 24890

1985 819300 27463

1986 841000 30020

1987 861300 32633

1988 882000 31437

1989 865100 33163

1990 802300 36195

1991 724600 45323

1992 589200 52894

1993 681100 57845

1994 670000 60007

1995 653800 68074

1996 638000 74035

1997 623100 63072

1998 627600 66172

1999 625692 84277

2000 600733 95754

 

 

Figure 6. Total number of shotgun certificates in England and Wales and total number of robberies with, or without, a firearm.

 

ENGLAND

 

Clearly, the firearm laws have not caused violent crime to fall, and the gun laws have probably increased criminal violence by disarming the general public. Despite banning and confiscating all handguns, violent crime, and firearm crime, continues to grow. The number of violent crimes involving handguns has increased from 2,600 in 1997/98 to 3,600 in 1999/00. And firearm crime has increased 200% in the past decade. The British Home Office admits that only one firearm in 10 used in homicide was legally held (British Home Office, 2001). But, the politicians continue their policy of disarming responsible citizens.

 

Year Homicide per M pop

1967 7.3

1968 7.4

1968 6.8

1970 7.0

1971 8.3

1972 8.3

1973 8.0

1974 10.7

1975 9.0

1976 9.9

1977 8.5

1978 9.6

1979 11.1

1980 11.1

1981 10.1

1982 11.2

1983 9.7

1984 10.8

1985 10.7

1986 11.2

1987 11.9

1988 10.9

1989 10.3

1990 10.9

1991 12.2

1992 11.4

1993 11.0

1994 12.3

1995 12.8

1996 11.2

1997 11.7

1998 12.5

1999 13.2

2000 15.5

 

Figure 7. Homicide rate in England and Wales with, or without, a firearm.

 

Australia

 

English-style gun laws have failed in Australia too. In 1997, the Australian federal government panicked, following the horrific murders by a deranged man in 1996, and banned and confiscated 600,000 semiautomatic "military style" firearms from their licenced owners (Lawson 1999). The result? Violent crime continues to increase.

 

FIGURES 8 AND 9 - INCREASE IN CRIME RATES IN AUSTRALIA

 

Year HG Percentage

92-93 16.9

93-94 21.7

94-95 17.7

95-96 13.1

96-97 36.2

97-98 45.6

98-99 42.2

99-00 47.5

 

Table 8. Percentage of homicides committed with a handgun in Australia.

 

Year Armed Robbery B&E

1993 30 25000

1994 29 28000

1995 30 32000

1996 38 33000

1997 50 35000

1998 58 37000

1999 50 36000

 

 

Table 9. Armed Robbery and break in rates in Australia with or without a firearm

 

The destruction of the confiscated firearms cost Australian taxpayers an estimated $Au500 million, and there has been no visible impact on violent crime. Robbery and armed robbery rates continue to escalate. Armed robbery has increased 166% nationwide - jumping from 30 per 100,000 in 1996 to 50 per 100,000 in 1999 (AIC, 2001). The homicide rate has not declined, and the share of firearm homicide involving handguns has doubled in the past five years (Mouzos 2001). As in Great Britain and Canada, few firearms used in homicide are legally held; in 99/00 only 12 out of 65 (18%) were identified as being misused by their legal owner (Mouzos 2001).

 

CONCLUSION

 

Gun laws may not reduce violent crime, but crime causes gun laws. The loser in this drama is individual freedom. The winner is bureaucracy. Since it is a truism that only law abiding citizens obey gun laws, or any other kind of law for that matter, it is an illusion that further tinkering with the law will protect the public. No law, no matter how restrictive it is, can protect us from people who decide to commit violent crimes. There have always been criminals, and there have always been deranged people. Murder has been illegal for hundreds if not thousands of years. The truth is we live in a dangerous world, and the government can't completely protect us.

 

This brief review of gun laws in the British Commonwealth suggests that English-style gun laws have failed to reduce violent crime. However, more research needs to be done before we can draw this conclusion with much confidence. All I've been able to do so far is to examine simple two-way analyses. Before we can have any confidence in our conclusions, we need to conduct econometric studies in order to disentangle the complex events that occurred at the same time that new firearm laws were introduced.

 

Nevertheless, we can say that disarming the public has not reduced criminal violence in any country we've examined here: not Great Britain, not Canada, and not Australia. Only the United States has witnessed a dramatic drop in criminal violence. One of the important reasons is that many states in the past two decades have encouraged responsible citizens to carry concealed handguns. Perhaps it is time criminologists encouraged more individual self-reliance.

 

REFERENCES

 

Australian Institute of Criminology. Australian Crime, Facts and Figures, 2000. AIC, 2001.

 

Barclay, G. C. Tavare, and A. Siddique. "International comparisons of criminal Justice statistics, 1999." Issue 6/01. England and Wales.

 

British Home Office, May 2001.

 

British Home Office. Criminal Statistics, England and Wales, 2000. December 2001.

 

Gannon, Maire. "Crime comparisons between Canada and the United States." Juristat, Vol 21 (11), December 2001.

 

Greenwood, Colin. "Labour's Gun Plan." Shooting Times and Country Magazine, 12 April 2001, p. 8.

 

Kleck, Gary. Targeting Guns. Firearms and Their Control. Aldine de Gruyter, 1997

 

Kopel, David. The Mountie, the Samurai, and the Cowboy. Prometheus Books, 1992.

 

Lott, John, Jr. More Guns, Less Crime, Second Edition, University of Chicago Press. 2000.

 

Mauser, Gary. Many of my published papers related to gun control in Canada are available on my webpage. <www.sfu.ca/~mauser>

 

Mauser, Gary and Dennis Maki, "An Evaluation of the 1977 Canadian Firearm Legislation: Robbery Involving a Firearm," Applied Economics. (forthcoming).

 

Mouzos, Jenny. "Homicide in Australia, 1999 - 2000," Australian Institute of Criminology, Trends and Issues, No 187, February 2001.

 

Mouzos, Jenny and C. Carcach, "Weapon involvement in armed robbery," Australian Institute of Criminology, Research and Public Policy Issues, No 38, 2001.

 

Munday, R.A.I. and J.A. Stevenson. Guns and Violence. Piedmont Publishing, 1996.

[FirstMeasure]

Gun Crime statistics seem to suggest the economy and population of a state has more to do with Violent Gun Crimes than Gun Laws do. What do you know about that? Same with World Wide statistics, the more Populated and Poor a country is the higher the crime rate. Most of those countries have strict gun laws.

 

Honestly, if you haven't had a firearm, learned how to use it safely, taken it down to the range and squeezed off a few rounds you really don't understand what you're banning.

 

While we're blaming the guns for columbine, how about the pipes they used for bombs? Should we ban them while we're at it.

 

Some Stats

[myspace.com/jessenoah]

great work on the stats and info CB

[Bluemoon]

One thing that gets lost in this debate is that there is a perception that the US is so violent. However, a lot of the violent crime reported here are criminals shooting criminals (mostly gang related, etc.). I live in Chicago. I am more concerned with petty crime than anything else...car getting stolen, pick pocketed, etc. I am also more concerned with some pervert kidnapping my daughter as she plays outside. I've never been concerned about a criminal shooting me or getting caught in a gang cross fire.

 

The problem is that both sides of the gun control debate use the statistics and try to create a perception that we live in an ultra-violent society. The two sides feed each other. Gun advocates use the stats to show that we all need to arm ourselves because the criminals are out of control. Gun control advocates use those same stats to argue for the need to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. The media then helps fuel that perception. In deciding what to report in the news, journalists often use the phrase, "if it bleeds, it leads." Violent crime makes for interesting copy.

 

At the end of the day, most of the shootings (outside the gang-related stuff) are family members killing other family members. And those types of killings are going to happen regardless of whether the person has access to guns. A case in point is a family in the Chicago area who were killed over the weekend. They were killed in the middle of the night by the daughter's boyfriend after a fight. He used a kitchen knife.

 

And as FirstMeasure points out, it is pretty easy for a kid to go online and figure out how to build a pipe bomb. So gun control might make it harder for someone to go on a rampage, but at the end of the day if they are that unstable they are going to figure out how to kill a bunch of people.