NRA video on the UK

[Jagdraben]

*Mods remove if in violation of rules*

 

Ok, I have been forwarded to a (rather disturbing) audio clip that records an elderly lady's last moments, because she decided to trust her life to the police instead of a home-defense firearm.

 

Viewer discretion, is advised

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Wow. That really makes my blood boil. Note to self: Do not become emergency dispatcher.

 

Good job, nanny state.

[Sale]

You could say it's a choice between people dead from school/mall shooters, or people dead because they couldn't defend themselves (because firearms were given up 'cause they are dangerous). A couple of points you need to think about when you weigh the options:

 

-Gun bans don't stop determined sociopaths from killing people anyways. There are ways to get guns, and quite a number of ways to kill other people.

-Far more people defend their lives than take the life of another person with firearms.

-Criminals specifically look for illegal unregistered weapons even where they are available legally.

 

So the results of a gun ban are: No added security, and more potential casualties. The failure of gun control is the most obvious in the UK, where even airsofts are now regulated because the real gun ban didn't have the desired effect. Because of non-gun violence, the net result would be negative even if the ban worked fully.

 

-Sale

[alpha54]

-Far more people defend their lives than take the life of another person with firearms.

Statistically, that's a bogus claim. In 2001, the US had just about 30,000 deaths from firearms and only 323 of those were classed as "legal intervention" - which includes legal shootings by police officers as well as self defense shootings by civilians. On the other hand, 16,000 of those deaths were ruled homicides. Seems a lot more people get murdered with firearms rather than being saved by them.

 

In the same year, there were 1,500,000 cases of violent crime, 10,500,000 cases of property crime, 90,000 cases of rape, 500,000 cases of robbery, 900,000 cases of aggravated assault and 7,000,000 cases of burglary.

 

All of this crime, tens of millions of cases, and this resulted in less than 400 self defense shootings? Given the amount of legally owned firearms in the US, it seems they really make no difference whatsoever, at a statistical level, when it comes to defending yourself.

[Jagdraben]

You're blatently ignoring the millions of people who simply have to flash a firearm to scare off an attacker. Source unknown, but it's often cited by pro-gun folk.

 

In other words, thanks to guns there are many times more people who are not victims than who are killed.

 

Also, your statistics do not take into account those who had to discharge a firearm to defend themselves, but resulted in no deaths: Which actually accounts for the vast majority of self-defense shootings.

[Cyber Soldier]

Hi alpha54, what are the statistics for gun ownership and such in Switzerland? I've often been intrigued by the idea of National Militia for a long time.

[Sale]

-Far more people defend their lives than take the life of another person with firearms.

Statistically, that's a bogus claim. In 2001, the US had just about 30,000 deaths from firearms and only 323 of those were classed as "legal intervention" - which includes legal shootings by police officers as well as self defense shootings by civilians.

 

I never said far more people _shoot_ someone in self-defence. 92% of self-defence with a firearm does not involve shooting the attacker. And in the 8% of cases that the attacker is shot and hit, they perish in a small minority of those cases. That would be the number 323 you quoted, although it also includes police shootings as you mentioned.

 

On the other hand, 16,000 of those deaths were ruled homicides. Seems a lot more people get murdered with firearms rather than being saved by them.

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear: I meant that more people are being saved than killed with legally held firearms. I'm trying to prove that those legally held firearms aren't the problem, because they have more positive than negative effects.

 

It makes sense to count out criminals with guns, because they have them anyways.

 

In the same year, there were 1,500,000 cases of violent crime, 10,500,000 cases of property crime, 90,000 cases of rape, 500,000 cases of robbery, 900,000 cases of aggravated assault and 7,000,000 cases of burglary.

 

All of this crime, tens of millions of cases, and this resulted in less than 400 self defense shootings? Given the amount of legally owned firearms in the US, it seems they really make no difference whatsoever, at a statistical level, when it comes to defending yourself.

There are about 2.5 million self-defence cases with firearms each year. These only include cases which the citizen reported it to the police afterwards, or were otherwise recorded and made it to the statistics.

 

-Sale

[Kraut]

Hi alpha54, what are the statistics for gun ownership and such in Switzerland?  I've often been intrigued by the idea of National Militia for a long time.

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Switzerland has extremely lenient gun control (more so than the US), and has the third-lowest homicide rate of the top nine major European countries, and the same per capita rate as England and Wales.

 

And this in a country where every male age 20-42 is required to own a rifle or pistol.

 

http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/4....ts4-1-Print.pdf

[Cyber Soldier]

That wasn't much help for what I'm looking for. I need real info on legislation, actual numbers of firearms in private hands and how many guns there are per person in the country.

 

I don't really care about gun crime, I'm more interested in the historcal context for national defence, which is actually a very much more relavent to Swizerland than it is to the US. France, Austria, and the Italian and German states have all claimed land rights to the Helvetian area at one time or another.

 

Pseudo political 'fact'books aren't much help I'm afraid.

[Chimpy]

Then you perhaps want to look it up yourself rather than giving a loose idea about what you want and shooting down people trying to help!?

[Cyber Soldier]

I would have thought that saying my interest was in the National Militia system would have been a pointer.

[Chimpy]

Yeah and expecting people to do your leg work is a bit much with this being a discussion and not www.whataretheanswerstomyinterests.com.

[hardboiledcop]

Yeah and expecting people to do your leg work is a bit much with this being a discussion and not www.whataretheanswerstomyinterests.com.

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Epic post Chimpy.

[Cyber Soldier]

Of course, if you go back to what I originally said, I was asking a specific person for info on a particular aspect of their home country's gun ownership laws and not a generic up in the air question about crime rates. Still, I am grateful to Kraut for his input, though not what I was looking for I found the lnk interesting.

[Kraut]

Google holds the answers to anything and everything.

[Sale]

I believe the statement that everyone in Switzerland has an assault rifle is a bit exaggerated. The strength of their national defence reserve is around 400 000 IIRC, so compared to the population of roughly 7.5 million, the number of assault rifles is quite lower than "every other".

 

In any case, there's a significant amount of fully automatic weapons in regular people's hands there. In addition to these, there are the sport and hunting weapons and handguns.

 

-Sale

[Perch]

well, a fully automatic rifle is not the best anyway. you can mostly achieve much more with semi

 

but you shoulnd't forget about all those Kar11, Kar31 and Stgw. 57 which are still in private hands! that pushs it well over a million armed people!

[Pablo]

Hmmm. In 2000, Switzerland had 16.3 McDonalds branches per million people. US had 45.6 per million. Coinkidink? Almost certainly. Statistics are fun, aren't they?

 

Ooh, source: http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:wrXLe...clnk&cd=4&gl=uk

[sekiryu]

What does McDonald's have to do with guns

[Epyon]

Big Macs = Less gun control............duh

 

 

 

 

[sekiryu]

I thought more Big Macs = more Michael Moore types.

[Pablo]

What does McDonald's have to do with guns

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Well according to those figures, perhaps we should find out.

 

I was making a point about people posting up statistics and sources. Anyone can use 'em to prove or disprove anything they like.

 

 

Seki - you mean investigative reporters or fat people?

[sekiryu]

Seki - you mean investigative reporters or fat people?

 

Fat people who print a bunch of bull *beep* and attack the very country they were born in.

[Sale]

Pablo: I think you're going besides the point.

 

People use statistics (high amount of guns per capita) when they try to explain the high level of gun crime and violent crime in the US, and argue for gun control. I think it's only fair to point out that there are countries (and areas within the US) with a very high availability of guns, yet very low violence and gun crime rates. So it evens out quite nicely.

 

You are correct to point out that correlation does not equal causation. But I think the gun people are in a defensive position, so the argument stands. That's the point I'm trying to say when I mention examples like Finland and Switzerland: The high amount of guns and gun crime in the US as a whole is just a correlation, not causation. Just like a high amount of guns does not cause crime, banning them does not reduce it.

 

(By coincidence, statistics of comparable areas always somehow correlate that gun bans are followed by increase in violent crime, while relaxed carrying is followed by reduced violent and property crime. I am biased and quick to believe that guns recuce crime, but I don't have scientific studies to prove it. Because of this I'm willing to accept that it is simply a coincidence.)

 

If someone starts actually arguing that gun ownership reduces the net amount of crime, you can pull out the example about McDonalds.

 

-Sale

[Chimpy]

You can also equate the stable murder rate in the US with technological and sociological changes. Simply more people get to a hospital in time and the hospitals are better equipped and have better trained staff than fifty years ago. There's some study which I have forgotten the name of that shows a 3-fold improvement from 1957 to the time of the study (mid 90's IIRC).

 

If you look at the rates of aggravated assaults, that is assaults where the person is attacked with one or more of a number of deadly weapons (the premise being that the intention is to kill). They have gone up massively in a similar time period but the murder rate hasn't increased. Why? Well we could correlate it with the increased prison population. Simply more violent criminals are locked up. The two actually tally very nicely together as well.

 

Does that actually prove anything? No. The statistics fit the hypothesis certainly but in ignoring many other factors they could never give a whole answer.

 

The gun debate using statistics is pretty meaningless until someone takes a holistic view of the statistics violent crime, it's causes and the attempted solutions. This all then needs to be put into context.

 

For example Sales town where people are required to have a gun is mainly rich middle-class and family oriented. Statistically the incidences of violent crime in these areas, particularly when well segregated from deprived areas is always very low. Compare that to a deprived slum in DC and it's easy to go "ZOMG teh stats show owning a gun lowers violent crime". I would like to see the statistics for that town for twenty years before and after the passing of that particular gun law. That is where context matters.

 

Also the pro and anti gun lobby both throw statistical broadsides at one another. These are mostly bite-sized things like "most incidents don't involve firing" and "you might shoot yourself answering the phone". Totally meaningless in the scope being discussed which is really incidence of Violent Crime and what to do about it.

 

That Freakonomics book links crime rates to the legalisation of abortion.

 

Personally I am as against laws that force people to carry weapons as I am against laws making it illegal to own weapons.