Your sources who live in Australia can't be very reliable, if they think all guns were banned here.For homicide statistics in Australia, see for example http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/facts/2006/02_selected_crime_profiles.html Figures 12 and 13. I've had more difficulty finding gun-related robbery figures, because most armed robberies here do not involve guns, but data for New South Wales is available at http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/bocsar/ll_bocsar.nsf/vwFiles/BB39.pdf/$file/BB39.pdf Figures 4 and 4a.thor, I think you make too sharp a distinction between "law-abiding citizens" and "criminals". If a law-abiding citizen is one who always obeys the law, there aren't too many of them in existence. There also aren't so many career criminals. Yes, of course there's a black market here in firearms, but very few people have the contacts. Even the average petty thief doesn't have the contacts, let alone the guy at school or work who is ready to explode, or the quiet person who nurses a burning hate against someone or other.Scotty, it seems you are assuming that most homicide consists in someone making up his mind to kill someone else, and then deciding on the means. That of course does happen in some premeditated murders, but surely very often the availablity of easy means determines whether the thing happens at all, and especially in homicides on the spur of the moment, or that can only be readily carried out from a distance, or where easy getaway is important, or multiple homicides.I think also another issue is that whether someone like a burglar carries a gun at all, and whether he uses it, depends on what he expects to face. If the general population is armed, in any confrontation he must fire first, and so does.
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Hey Chance!
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Quote:Isn't that line of logic assuming that if the gun is not available then the murder will not take place or at least most of those murders won't take place? no, not at all. What the statistics show is that percentage of violent crime that is committed with a gun is dispraportionatly high Still using the charts on Nation Master for reference....US murders per capita = 4.28 per 100000 peopleUS firearm murders per capita = 3.6 per 100000 peoplethat means 84% of murders in the US are committed with a gunZimbabwe murders per capita = 7.5 per 100000 peopleZimbabwe firearm murders per capita = 4.75 per 100000 peopletha means 63.3% of murders in Zimbabwe are committed with a gunAlthough the murder rate in Zimbabwe is higher than the US, the percentage of those muders that are committed with a firearm is lower.I'm not suggesting that Zimbabwe has stricter gun laws that the US, I doubt it does. But the fact that the percentage of murders committed with a gun in the US is so high illustrates that there is a problem.If we want to toss Canada in for a comparison, we can't use the NM stats because we didn't even make the grade for firearm homicide. Canada has moderate gun laws, more strict than the US (84%) and less strict than the UK (10.7%).But if we compare the muder rate cited on Nation Master with the firearm murder rate cited by GCN, we come up with a little over 26%Even if you question the statistic's accuracy by 5 or even 10%, they still tell the same story.
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I had to post my previous post in a hurry, and I should say a little more.I regret that first sentence; it is petulant. It's possible there was confusion because in 1996 not only were certain military-style guns banned, but there was also a general offer of a buyback by the government of (I think) any sort of firearm, which resulted in over 600,000 firearms being handed in. However this was not compulsory. It remains possible in Australia to possess handguns, rifles and shotguns with a licence. Most farmers have guns, and hunters continue to exist.As you'll notice, the statistics do not show a rise in gun-related crime from 1996. However they also do not show a dramatic fall. A gradual decline that had already started before then continued. It is possible this might have levelled out without the gun control measures, but there is no proof. Personally I don't think the 1996 measures made much difference, because most Australians already then did not have a gun culture. (I suspect most of the guns handed in then had been old hand-downs, long out of real use.)One thing does interest me, thor. If you believe that removing guns in the US would increase the US crime rate, then that means the difference between the crime rates in the US and elsewhere must be even bigger. Why do you think the US has so much crime?
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I don't deny a gun ban would save some from being murdered as in the situation you suggest, I just think the fix suggested ignores the cause of the problem. The advocates of a gun ban seem to ignore the root causes of crime in the first place and focus on the gun. Crime has more to do with economic deprivation and society than it does a tool and those aren't taken into account by siting statistics where a gun was used in the commission of a crime.Sorry if this is disjointed but I've been typing on this little paragraph for over an hour.
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I know that guns don't cause the problem but they sure make murder a lot easier and less personal. Not too many stories of a drive by stabbing or high school massacre with a baseball bat.
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Given that the U.S. is a violent society, more so that I think most realize, what percentage of change would you expect to see if a gun ban where enacted in the U.S.?I apologize for being so dense but I still don't see what difference the method of murder makes. So what if it's with a gun or a meat cleaver. Murder is murder, is it not. Given, some lives would be saved with a gun ban what evidence is there to believe that it would be that many. As I said to Pete, I think the murder rate has far more to do with the economic conditions and the nature of a society than it does with the accessibility of guns. Just seeing a statistic with regard to the method by which people are murdered, I don't think, demonstrates much about cause. That is to say if you ban meat cleavers in a country your probably going to have fewer people in that country that are murdered with a meat cleaver. Does that really mean anything to the rate of murder. Here's an interesting statistic. I don't think any kind of concrete correlation can be drawn form it but I found it interesting. The murder rate in the U.S. is 4.28 per 100,000 people with 3.6 per 100,000 of those murders using a firearm. In the U.S. prison system, where neither guards or inmates have access to firearms in the general population, the murder rate is 4.5 per 100,000. That's pretty close reflection of the murder rate of society overall. I just found it interesting.I tend to think the murder rate is a reflection of society rather than a reflection of access to firearms and I've seen no evidence to demonstrate otherwise.Here's another thing to consider. How do you in other countries view your law enforcement people? Here I think there is a good portion of the population that is afraid of them or at very least has absolutely no trust of them. Not only are they not going to protect us (any honest cop, my father-in law included will tell you that's not his job) but the may even attack us or let us be attacked for their own reasons. Maybe that plays into the U.S. love affair with the gun.
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I think what you might be missing is the ease of use and the impersonal nature of the gun. I think the murder rate would in fact decrease if the perpetrators had to stand face to face and within arms reach of every victim, don't you?
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No, I don't think it would make much of a difference at all... if any.Murder is personal anyway other than the random person in the wrong place at the wrong time for the drive-by. I have no statistics to back it up but I would imagine by far most murders, even with guns, are done close up and personal. Murder from a distance take some skill that most don't poses.
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don't investigators usually consider stabbing, beating and strangulation as being of a more personal nature than shooting?I know we're just disagreeing on our own feelings about the matter now so I'll have a look to see if there is any published info on such matters.Personally, when I am so upset with someone that violent fantacies sneak into my mind, they never involve a gun. That aint science, that's just me
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Originally Posted By: IneligibleWhy do you think the US has so much crime? Good question. I wish I knew the full answer. But I think part of it has to do with folks here believing they're entitled to have more than folks generally do in other places. Folks here are much less comfortable being poor.As for stats, you can compare other countries to the US all day long...it means nothing. What you need to do is compare stats IN THE SAME COUNTRY both prior and subsequent to restrictive gun laws being enacted. When handguns were banned in England, the gun-related crime rate went UP around 40%. That's a meaningful stat...especially since it went up, and not down. Makes clowns out of gun-law proponents who claim guns create crime. I honestly think if every US citizen openly carried a gun, the gun-related crime rate would drop to near zero. Very few could get away with criminally using their guns without eating a bullet for their trouble.
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Quote: I honestly think if every US citizen openly carried a gun, the gun-related crime rate would drop to near zerojust like it used to be when everyone did carry a gun.
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btw, whick firearms act in England are you refering too?
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Originally Posted By: unsuperviseddon't investigators usually consider stabbing, beating and strangulation as being of a more personal nature than shooting?I know we're just disagreeing on our own feelings about the matter now so I'll have a look to see if there is any published info on such matters.Personally, when I am so upset with someone that violent fantacies sneak into my mind, they never involve a gun. That aint science, that's just me Maybe it's just the pragmatist in me. I don't care how he's killed just as long as he's dead. Whether I'm choking the life out of him with my bare hands or taking him out from 700 yards doesn't matter just as long as he isn't getting back up.I guess with me it's just business.
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really?The people I really want to kill, I feel as if they have to die from my hand, watching the life and the light go out while my fingers are pressed deep in their throat, blocking off any air after a truly epic ass beating. maybe hung from two trees upside down to keep teh blood on the brain so they live longer while a bow saw is pulled back and forth from the crotch to the middle of the chest, or a large iron box with them welded inside, force fed, too small to stand up in but to tall with the head poking out a tight hole to ever sit down in while the chemical reactions of the piss and shit with the iron eat the skin and tissue over months in a promising painful death.Why use a gun and let them off easy when I can do this other shit instead?Once they die its over, and them to suffer is what I desire, not just to have them off the face of the planet.
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Nah, it's not me. It takes to much time and set up and I've got to get on with my life while theirs has ended.
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Originally Posted By: unsupervised
btw, whick firearms act in England are you refering too?
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thanksgoes to show that no law is worth a shit until the enforcement catches up.
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Originally Posted By: unsupervisedgoes to show that no law is worth a shit until the enforcement catches up. Don't hold your breath.
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yeah, well, the passing or not passing of laws for the purpose of political immage is an issue all on it's own.
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'some guns have no purpose but to kill people'. so? so fucking what? when i am going to grab a gun to kill someone i don't wanna grab a hunting rifle. asshole.
