For those of you who believe that gun control is the answer to anything, China. In China, only the military and certain police officers can own guns. Period. No exceptions. The penalty for making or selling firearms is, you guessed it, death. No one knows the crime stats in The People’s Republic of China, least of all the Chinese. The world’s most populous country has no idea how many people live within its borders, never mind exact stats on what Chinese criminals or their more than occasionally corrupt police get up to. So we don’t know if total gun control is a good idea for crime prevention. But we do know that it’s a bad idea for freedom of expression. While we can talk about guns and gun control and gun-related matters here on Al Gore’s Internet, the Chinese can do no such thing. china.globaltimes.cn reports . . .
Beijing police deleted about 30,000 online messages aimed at illegal selling or providing illicit information about guns and explosives, said an official with the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Public Security Tuesday.
Beijing police started a round of investigations into illegal guns and explosives in March, and discovered a number of online messages pertaining to the use, selling or even the manufacture of guns, said Guo Yilin, vice director of the dangerous goods control section with the security administration department of the bureau.
He added that, in fact, most of the information found was misleading or untrue. However, some was not and was based on people’s real life experiences of handling guns.
Since this March, Beijing police have seized 468 guns including air guns, and more than 6,000 bullets. More than 928 people have been detained for illegal possession of guns, explosives and other dangerous goods.
Consider the opening stat: just 30,000 “messages.” Here at TTAG, we’ve had 265,948 page views in the last 30 days. And we are, let’s face it, a piss ant little gun blog. Imagine the suppression needed to keep an estimated 1.3 billion people from saying anything about guns on the Chinese Internet, or finding 928 people who own guns, explosives or “other dangerous goods.”
FYI This website is blocked in China. And the same Google that protested Chinese censorship won’t allow The Truth About Guns to use Google Adsense. Just sayin’ . . .
