“It’s quite possible that you can sell a whole lot more guns and crime is still going down. But is the crime going down because more people are buying guns, or is the crime going down because the crime is going down?” – Andrew Goddard, president of the Virginia Center for Public Safety [h/t Jose]
This man would sooner attribute the drop in crime to fairies and witches than to an increase in privately owned firearms.
Is it just me,or is this guy Mr. Rogers little brother?
Seriously, if folks like this would bother to read John Lott’s or Wright &Rossi’s studies, they’d have their question answered. Yes! The guns ARE a major reason for the decline!(Along with “three strikes and you’re out” laws)
Well that quote was a retarded way to start my day…
I think I see where he’s going. If we allow thieves to
steal everything, there won’t be anything left to steal.
By extension this would work with murderers,
jaywalkers, etc…
Brilliant!
So if we exterminate all human beings from the earth there wouldnt be any crime(since nobody would be there to commit them)?
Lol. This statement just tickles my funny bone in so many ways.
So, maybe we can all agree that gun availability isn’t the real issue? Nah. You wouldn’t agree to that, you’d lose your job. So close, though. So close.
Well even if you won’t credit guns, can we at least agree the crime didn’t go UP with firearm availability?
How about this, more guns does not add to more crime nor the river of blood the gun control crowd like to talk about. That maybe crime has other roots other than gun ownership.
That is a reasonable statement by Andrew Goddard because if gun sales were up and crime was also up, Goddard would similarly say that crime was up because because crime was up and it had nothing to do with increased gun sales.
Huh? You don’t believe that? C’mon, it’s true I tell ya!
Oh yes, I believe. Just don’t try to sell me a bridge in Brooklyn.
I really want to punch this guy in the face….although I would never endorse or condone violence. But I’ll make an exception for this moron.
Crime is going down (if that’s even true) IN SPITE of the increase in guns. It would be that much lower otherwise.
Or because of the increase in the numbers of guns. Since we don’t have a decrease, but an increase in gun ownership and the crime rate is dropping it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that more guns equal less crime.
But you keep slinging that same hash mikey. The rest of us are moving forward and you’re just a speed bump in the rear view mirror.
My day started out crappy, caught the flu from the nieces during thanksgiving, and seeing how pathetic Mikeb is every stime he flaps his insane diatribe, I am cheered up with the realizition, I could be a million times sicker, and be like Mikeb.
Explain Chicago.
I will punch myself in the face if you can provide one ounce of quantifiable, independently verified data that will justify that statement. Just ONE piece of data that would support the idea that more guns = more crime which is what you MUST be saying based on that statement. Just go away. It’s not even fun to mess with you anymore… It’s just sad.
Oh, I’m so sorry I make you sad, Hal.
You want one ounce of what? “quantifiable, independently verified data” does it have to be god-given and constitutionally-protected and basic and human too?
How about this little tidbit I picked up today.
In 2010, there were 31,672 deaths in the United States from firearm-related injuries, up from 31,347 in 2009.
Here’s the post it came from: http://mikeb302000.blogspot.it/2012/11/gun-violence-as-public-health-issue.html
Where’s the original source of the data? Don’t tell me to look for it on your site, because I’m not clicking through.
How many of those 31,672 (or the 31,347 for that matter) were suicides, which have been shown again and again (and again and again) to be method independent?
Fixed this for you, Mike:
It’s amazing how the cherry-picking, mendacious gun-CONTROL advocates will get on something and keep pushing it regardless of it’s true worth. Most of them don’t even think, they just repeat anything that supports their mandate.
So… In other words… You don’t have any data.
For once just be honest Mike. You don’t CARE that the data isn’t on your side. The fact that the data undermines your belief system doesn’t bother you any more than the theory of evolution bothers a creationist. You want gun control because it is what you believe is the right thing to do. Neither the means of its implementation nor it’s second and third order consequences matter to you. A disarmed populace is morally superior to an armed one. We may never respect your opinion but I think we might respect you as a man if you would just be forthright instead of knowingly spewing fallacies.
By the way, citing your own blog again? Hahahahaha. I take back what I said before; it’s both fun AND funny to mess with you. You made me a believer again! 😀
Thanks for the laugh! Flame omitted.
Isn’t the number of firearm-related deaths in 2009 and 2010 considered data by you?
Like all this GOVT data Mikeb refuses to acknowledge.
The government acknowledges in USDOJ National Gang Threat Assessment 2011, see pg 14, chart #8 for that massive number of violent crimes committed in the US each year committed by gang members.
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/2011-national-gang-threat-assessment
For several decades, studies have been conducted on crime and causalities by various bodies including major universities, criminologists and even the U.S. Department of Justice. These studies have found that approximately 80% of all crime is committed by 20% of all criminals. Some of the studies have provided slightly different numbers but all of them have found that a small group of criminals commit a vastly disproportionate number of crimes than their peers.(Wolfgang et al ., 1972; Petersilia et al ., 1978; Williams, 1979; Chaiken and Chaiken, 1982; Greenwood with Abrahamse, 1982, and Martin and Sherman,1986).
Hence add in the career criminals.
CDC -Suicidal people speak for them-selves as suicide is a felony.
Shall we review police studies in Chicago and NYC where between 76-80% of those involved in shootings, both shooter and injured were both involved in criminal activity at the time of the incident.
http://www.popcenter.org/problems/drive_by_shooting/PDFs/Block_and_Block_1993.pdf, http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/public_information/2007_firearms_discharge_report.pdf, http://www.nyclu.org/files/nypd_firearms_report_102207.pdf
So when are you going to address those three groups responsible for over 92% of all deaths using a firearm as frankly it is rather stupid not to address the largest reason for a problem, then again, we are talking about progressives here.
Oh wait, here is a HARVARD study, from a somewhat ANTI GUN university helping prove that suicides are not such an IMPULSIVE thing.
Four out of five people who commit suicide have attempted to kill themselves at least once previously.
Joiner, Thomas. 2005. Why People Die by Suicide. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
1. The acne medication isotretinoin (Acutane) has been linked to a possible increase risk of suicide. The FDA requires Acutane to include a label warning that the product may be linked to suicide, depression, and psychosis.b
b Evans, Glen, et. al. 2003. The Encyclopedia of Suicide. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Facts on File, Inc.
Dang ZITS
Oh it’s data alright, although I refuse to check your citation as it leads to your blog. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt because I refuse to support your creative work. The problem is that your data is free floating. It is not really useful to support your argument. For example, you provided that piece of data to support your claim that:
“Crime is going down (if that’s even true) IN SPITE of the increase in guns. It would be that much lower otherwise.”
As such, if I pair the data you provided with your own statement you are implying the following argument:
[There were 325 more firearms related deaths in 2010 than in 2009. There was also an increase in private firearm ownership during that timeframe. Therefore, if there had been fewer guns there would have been less crime.]
That is a VERY silly logic leap which makes you appear VERY foolish Mike. Suicides obviously make up a very significant portion of that number. I won’t bother repeating the long established reasoning for why you shouldn’t even be COUNTING the number of suicides in that figure. Once again, it makes you seem duplicitous. What I will say is that those were some very tough years for America, especially in terms of economics. Without jumping to hasty conclusions as SOMEONE in this conversation oftentimes likes to do, I would pose the following questions:
1) How many gun related suicides where there in 2009 and 2010, respectively?
2) What were the average overall suicide rates for 2009 and 2010? Did they go up? Down? Unchanged? My hunch is that they went up. Financial distress is a huge factor in suicides.
3) By what percentage did firearm sales grow from 2009 to 2010? How many NEW firearm owners were there in 2009 and 2010? How many total firearms were sold in 2009 and in 2010?
4) For each of the years in question, how many deaths were the results of firearm related accidents? While avoidable, punishable, irresponsible and tragic, these numbers should not be factored into the total for the purpose of calculating the number of “gun crimes.”
5) I’m not sure if I ever read this in any of Bruce’s work: Are Police shootings counted in these numbers? If so, please deduct.
6) Is there a quantifiable increase in violent crime during periods of economic decline? If so, is there a general formula that can be applied? For example, without mitigating factors such as target hardening (ie increased firearm ownership, many thanks to Average Casey for reminding me of the term) for every 1% the economy shrinks there is an X% increase in violent crime?
My unproven hypothesis is that if we answered those questions, the increase you’re touting would be marginal or nonexistent. Heck, it might actually show a decrease. Only time and Bruce Kraft can tell.
So sure, you have data. But your data is about as useful as the number of ferret related animal attacks in 1976. By throwing out a broad chunk of related but variable-ridden information without assuming those variables and adjusting accordingly, for all rational and realistic purposes you have no data. It’s just a free floating factoid that cannot be used to support your argument.
It is absurd given that the aforementioned questions remain unanswered but for the sake of argument let’s assume that the number did increase by 325 deaths and they were all related to violent gun crimes. Um, how many more firearms were sold in 2010 than in 2009? I’m pretty sure that I, alone, purchased five firearms in 2010. Given that that increase from 2009 to 2010 is most likely in the millions, can you see how ridiculous it is to argue that an increase of 325 gun related homicides is significant? If it were a round number like 1,000,000 more guns than in 2009, which I don’t believe is unreasonable, there would then be an average increase of 0.000325 firearm related homicides for each new gun sold. Or, an average of one new gun homicide per every 3076.9 more guns sold in 2010 (not total guns sold, mind you).
More nanny state BS from the master statist.
Still, like I said before. You’re not really concerned if the unintended pitfalls of gun control end up being far worse than the problems it attempts to address. A disarmed population is morally superior to an armed one and to he11 with the consequences. The societal principle outweighs the suffering of the masses.
We disagree and will continue to defeat gun control whenever and wherever possible.
Wait, not so fast there, slick Hal. Your first words of this rant were, “Oh it’s data alright,”
Does that mean you were wrong earlier when you said I never provide any? Yes, I suppose it does. But not being able enough to admit it fully, you qualified my data with “The problem is that your data is free floating.” Then you covered that up with a tedious and lengthy diatribe.
You threw in there the superfluous refusal to click on my blog. Well, I’ve got a news flash for you. That doesn’t hurt me but it makes you sound like a petulant teenager.
” I won’t bother repeating the long established reasoning for why you shouldn’t even be COUNTING the number of suicides in that figure.”
This is only “long established” among gun-rights fanatics for the simple reason that otherwise your fetish item might be tarnished by its association with such a drastic and dismal act as suicide. Everyone else recognizes that the lethal and efficient action of a gun makes suicide attempts more likely to succeed and that many of those people would change their minds if fortunate enough to have the chance.
But, you keep spinning it, Hal. You’re pretty good at it.
Oh by the way Mike, how about a study that proves that for every 1,000 firearms sold (X) , gun crime rises by an average rate (Y). Something like that. The reason you shoot off shady and misleading figures is because such a study does not exist. Such a study does not exist because the number of guns does NOT increase instances of crime!
I’m pretty sure I asked for quantifiable, independent data that supported your argument (that crime would have been even lower with fewer guns) What you gave me was a misleading, variable packed data turd. It only supports your argument if one is willing to suspend all critical thinking and to stop asking questions. So I feel pretty comfortable stating that you have still not produced a piece of data that shows that an increase in the number of guns (X) = an increase in crime (Y). Was it data? Yes. Was it the data I asked you for? YOU, the guy on the well-honed, tippy tip of the pointy spear of gun control advocacy? No you still haven’t produced that. Look, I can provide data too. Cats sleep between 16 and 18 hours every day! Data is fun… and my data isn’t misleading. Now if you had provided the total number for firearm homicides from 2009 and 2010, then at least you would have had a leg to stand on. There still would have been variables to discuss and other factors we would need to weigh. However, at least it would have been arguable.
Violent crime as a whole, with or without guns, is more likely determined by the size of our criminal class as well as the vulnerability of their targets.
As for which one of us is acting like a child; citing your own work is something that wouldn’t fly in middle school. So if I’m a “teenager” for exercising my ability to choose which sites I award with visits, then you’re a pimply faced 11 year old who likes Twilight.
As for suicide, I think you and I can both agree that it is terrible. But it’s not always preventable. In my own personal experience someone I worked with had had suicidal ideations and had made a previous attempt. I was involved in the process of working with him on his issues and counseling him towards health and away from the option of suicide. I worked with him for about six months through that process. Early on, if I remember correctly, the powers at the time had removed his firearms from his home.
He came from a broken family, had PTSD and was financially ruined. I worked hard to try to alleviate each of these issues. For the last two months of his life he dedicated a lot of time and effort into convincing those around him that everything was getting better. Once everyone’s guard was down he hung himself with a hose. It did not break his neck and he died a terribly painful, slow death by choking. When all was said and done, he had made up his mind and nothing we were going to say or do was going to stop him. As I look back on it now, as awful as it was, a gunshot would have been more humane. At least he would not have felt any pain.
I don’t blame the hose. The hose didn’t jump out and say “hi there bud! Use me!” He took his life because that was what he was determined to do. You’re correct that once a gun is used for this purpose there is no going back… it is very final. But so is jumping in front of a train. We will NEVER be able to eliminate suicide from our world. Period. A gun, though final, is by far the most humane way to go for those who exercise that option of self determination, right or wrong.
But back to the root of the argument. Do you truly believe that suicide rates should be counted among crime rates? Non-firearm related suicides aren’t combined with other crime reporting criteria, but magically when there is a gun involved it’s now considered a crime and gun crime goes up? Is there an honest bone in your body?
As for accusing my community of having a fetishistic relationship with our guns, which one of us is being petulant, Mike? Your capacity for hypocrisy never ceases to amaze me.
Your suicide story is anecdotal. Do I even have to say that? You’re offering that as what, proof that ALL people who have suicidal thoughts will eventually do it?
One very convincing study I read about took survivors of attempted gun suicides and interviewed them. Every one expressed gratitude for having failed and had not tried it again.
This makes sense to me. I’ve known several people who attempted suicide. They were looking for a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And then they got over it. Removing guns from people like that is essential. And, yes, I think the gun suicides should be counted with the gun murders whenever we’re trying to add up the damage caused by gun availability.
Ha! While I agree that my experience is not representative of all suicides, there IS a percentage that will persevere for better or for worse. I never claimed that all suicides will eventually succeed. Only that not all can be prevented.
Additionally, I appreciate your openness in demonstrating that you are a raving mad ideologue. Only a complete drone would lump suicides in with murders and tally them together.
Oh well. Each day this nation (which you have forsaken) wakes up and verifies that an armed society can and does exist. The sheer number of guns and gun owners when compared to the relatively few deaths is a replenishing source of assurance that our ideology > yours. Cheers Mikey. I’ll name the next “assault weapon” I buy after you. I’ll be sure to buy pleanty of mags too!!! 😀
Mikey the results of an infinite loop in programming are still DATA. Just BAD DATA.
Love how England murder rate in 1898 was 1.0 per 100k people and no gun control, yet in 2010 had a murder rate of 1.3 and strict gun control.
Amazing how gun control was never the reason for their lower murder rate.
Such a consistent trend in gun ban paradises.
South Africa banned guns in 1996 also, amazing how their violent crime rate is over 4 times higher than here in the US and their murder rate is almost 7 times higher than here in the US.
In S Africa, The Firearms Control Act of 2000 rationed gun ownership—no more than one self-defense gun per person and no more than four guns total. The lifetime limit on gun ownership is the logical extension of current efforts by American anti-gun lobbies to ration firearms with “one-handgun-per-month” laws.
All guns must also be registered—the better to enforce the ownership caps.
Semi-automatic long guns are not allowed, except for farmers and a few other special categories. The lone self-defense gun must be a handgun or a manually operated shotgun.
At its outset, about a third of gun owners had more guns than the FCA allowed, so they were required to sell the guns or surrender them to the government. Section 137 of the FCA expressly promised that compensation would be paid to people who surrendered their excess guns—either because they had “too many,” or because they were enticed by one of the government’s voluntary gun surrender programs.
More than 600,000 guns have been given to the government, yet the government has yet to pay a penny. In 2005, National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi declared, “You can’t be paid for doing away with an evil thing.”
The new licensing system went into effect in 2004, applying immediately to new applicants. People who had licenses under the old system (the former Arms and Ammunition Act were divided into groups based on date of birth, and required to apply for new licenses starting in 2005. The final set of applications was due on June 30, 2009.
To obtain a gun license in South Africa, one must pass a written “competency test.” The South African constitution recognizes 11 official languages, but the test is only given in two of them, Afrikaans and English. Imagine if your gun ownership rights depended on passing a written test in a language you could not read!
Applicants are not issued licenses if they are deemed to be at risk of becoming violent. As enforced in South Africa, this could simply mean that a person was divorced, separated or fired within the past two years.
Processing of applications is very slow. For example, of the applications submitted in 2006, only about a quarter have been fully processed.
Licenses are valid for two, five or 10 years, depending on the legal category of the license, so keeping a gun can mean staying on a near-constant treadmill of paperwork, fees and uncertainty. The majority of the 2005 applicants, who are supposed to renew in 2010, are still waiting for a decision on their 2005 applications.
Note that complying with all the laws is no guarantee law-abiding people will be able keep their guns. South Africa now has what Sarah Brady, head of the Brady Campaign, described as her long-term objective: “needs-based” licensing. (New York Times, Aug. 15, 1993.) You get to buy or keep a gun only if the government decides that you need it. In South African law, the formal term is “good motivation.”
Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula wrote in a letter to the Gun Dealers’ Association: “Licenses for firearms should not be granted to private individuals.” Similarly, his spokesperson Lesley Xinwa announced, “We are determined to cut down on the number of guns in the country.”
Many license applications are denied, particularly for blacks and others who wish to own self-defense firearms. The Central Firearms Registry (CFR) refuses to say what actually constitutes a good “motivation” for a self-defense firearm. Instead, applications are rejected with the terse verdicts “lack of motivation” or “insufficient need.”
Married women who want guns for protection are told that their husbands will protect them—as if South African woman should behave like Taliban wives, and never leave the home except with their husbands. People who live in high crime areas are told that the police will protect them—except that the police obviously don’t, as South Africa is one of the most crime-ridden countries in the world.
Adults who are less than 27 years old are told that they are too young—even though the FCA sets the gun ownership age at 21 (an increase from the old law, which was 16).
Ownership of a firearm without a license is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
The results have been catastrophic. From 1999 to 2007, the number of legal gun owners fell by 44 percent, according to the South African Police Service (SAPS). Now, only 5 percent of South Africans legally own guns.
The ANC claimed that the FCA would not cause any job losses. Yet in 2004, just two years after the law went into effect, the number of gun stores plunged from 600 to 200.
The government originally claimed that administration of the new law would cost taxpayers 270 million Rand (about 34 million U.S. dollars). But by the time the act was implemented, the true cost had risen to about 263 million U.S. dollars. The millions wasted on the licensing bureaucracy could have been spent actually protecting citizens.
Blacks suffer most under the restrictive licensing program.
“The situation is running out of control,” Abios Khoele, chairman of the Black Gun Owners Association of South Africa (www.bgoasa.co.za), told the Sunday Times. “We blacks only want arms for self-defense—after all, crime is worst of all in the townships [segregated slums created by the apartheid regime]. The trouble is that the government is clearly targeting white gun owners and they really aren’t the problem anymore. The extremist white right is dead and buried. It’s criminals—murderers and rapists—who we have to defend our families against.
“For most of the apartheid period, blacks weren’t allowed to own guns, and now a black government is taking away our right to self-defense. … The criminals are extremely well armed.”
Khoele sees the disarmament of blacks as a ploy by a government that is afraid of poor people because of the government’s failures on jobs, housing and services.
“White people want more firearms for sport, and black people only want one gun for self-defense,” Khoele notes. “In our townships, it is not safe at all, especially for people who are taking early transport to work, when it’s still dark and they’re walking a long distance.”
In truth, blacks do not enjoy the security of whites, who often live and work in enclaves with electric fences and high walls.
Undefended by the police, and not allowed by the government to obtain a gun license, many blacks are getting guns anyway, just to protect themselves and their families, observes Khoele.
“Most of the people, they’ve already started to buy illegal firearms,” he told The New York Times in 2005. “Most of them are for self-defense, because they’re living in areas where the police are unable to protect them.”
The result of the FCA has been to help create a thriving underground market in illegal guns. On the streets, a small pistol can be bought for 25 U.S. dollars, or an AK-47 for 100 U.S. dollars. In contrast, a legal gun costs about 500-625 U.S. dollars, plus more than 125 U.S. dollars for fees and mandatory training.
One can understand why desperate, decent people would obtain a gun illegally. The police take hours to respond to burglary calls. Sometimes a burglary victim who has captured the burglar may be told to take the burglar to the police station himself, because the police cannot send someone out.
The gun prohibitionists maintain that legal gun ownership must be drastically reduced because legal guns are stolen by criminals. Yet since the FCA mandates that guns be stored in safes, there is no good rationale for banning guns.
Moreover, police claims that criminals’ guns are stolen from law-abiding civilians are often conjectural. If a criminal’s gun has an obliterated serial number, the police rarely conduct the difficult forensics of restoring the number. Instead, they just assert that the gun must have come from a licensed civilian owner.
The leading opposition party in South Africa is the Democratic Alliance (DA), which grew out of the anti-apartheid movement. The DA is a staunch critic of the ANC’s campaign against gun owners. Dianne Kohler Barnard, the DA’s spokeswoman on safety and security issues, rebuts the stolen-gun pretext for citizen gun bans. She points out that in 2008, the recovery rate for stolen guns was 106 percent—meaning that the police recovered more guns than were stolen, and cut into the pool of guns that had been stolen in previous years.
In contrast, the recovery rate for stolen police guns is only 15 percent. In 2008, there were 2,944 police guns reported stolen, and most of them remain in criminal hands. Similarly, of the guns owned by municipal governments, 8 percent (1,260) have been lost or stolen.
“The country is not awash with criminals holding civilian guns, but with criminals holding police guns,” Kohler Barnard told Cape Argus last October. “We must just sit in our homes unarmed while they [criminals] come with police guns to kill us.” Similarly, of the guns owned by municipal governments, eight percent (1,260) have been lost or stolen.
Kohler Barnard points out that many citizen’s guns that were surrendered to the police have later been used in armed robberies, apparently after being sold by corrupt police.
SAPS says that from April 2006 to March 2007, there were 14,682 civilian firearms reported stolen. That’s out of 2.5 million licensed firearm owners. In other words, one annual gun theft per 170 gun owners, which is a high rate by global standards.
Contrast that with the nearly 3,000 guns stolen from South Africa’s police in a one-year period—one stolen gun per 47 officers. And then there are the many incidents in which citizens gave guns to the police for safekeeping—for example, when a citizen going on extended vacation wants to make sure a gun is not stolen from his home. When attempting to reclaim them later, citizens are often told their guns are “missing” (The Citizen, Sept. 21, 2007).
Simply put, the single largest supplier of criminals’ guns in South Africa is the South African government. As one businessman told All Africa in 2006, “There are many cases where serving police officers and soldiers have been found among gang members in cash-in-transit heists and bank robberies.”
Johannesburg’s Sunday Times reported “… there is a huge leakage of weapons from the army and police, who often sell them at a profit. Another source [of criminals’ guns] is homemade guns, turned out in township backyards.”
Many South African criminals use automatic carbines (the R5 and predecessor models), which are the main small arms of the South African National Defense Force. These guns are not legal for civilian ownership.
Who owns the very biggest arsenal of unregistered, unlicensed guns? The African National Congress itself.
The ANC is thought to retain 100 tons of weapons and munitions, left over from its days as a revolutionary army. No one knows how many of these have been sold to criminals. The ANC has never explained why—15 years after it took power in a democratic election—it remains the only political party that has the capability to raise a private army.
During the war decades before 1994, both sides supplied huge quantities of arms to their allies and proxies, in the Republic of South Africa and in nearby countries. Now, many of these guns are flowing past South Africa’s porous borders, to supply the criminal black market.
Khoele, of the Black Gun Owners’ Association, told the Sunday Times, “The ANC smuggled huge numbers of guns into the country and after liberation made no effort to collect them back. Those same weapons are now often used in holdups.”
It is South African governments, past and present, which have supplied the criminals’ guns, and then blamed gun crime on law-abiding gun owners.
South Africa still has an independent judiciary. A decision this summer by the Western Cape High Court ordered the government to pay the legally required compensation for surrendered guns, although whether the government will do so remains uncertain.
It’s important to note that Gun Free South Africa started its offensive against gun ownership by convincing businesses or other organizations to declare their property “gun free.” The businesses certainly had the right to choose to do so, but they ended up becoming pawns in GFSA’s long-term campaign to destroy all choice about gun ownership and to make the entire nation of South Africa “gun free.” Or rather, “free” only of guns owned by law-abiding citizens.
Of course, we understand that “gun-free” zones often become killing zones. That is what happened in Rwanda in 1994, where the defenseless genocide victims were “gun free.” That is what is happening today in Zimbabwe, where everyone except Robert Mugabe’s criminal government and its allies is “gun free.” That is what is happening right now in South Africa’s impoverished townships, where robbers armed with government-supplied guns routinely murder their defenseless victims.
Is there hope for South Africa? Two-thirds of South Africans believe they have a right to own a gun (Financial Mail, Aug. 31, 2000), as indeed they do, since human rights are inherent even when governments refuse to respect those rights.
Although the ANC has been steadily consolidating power and removing constitutional checks and balances, South Africa for now remains a democracy, with a free printed press, uncensored Internet and strong opposition parties who stand up for the self-defense rights of South Africans of all races.
The ANC’s Safety and Security Ministry spokesman, Trevor Bloem, told the Associated Press in 2006, “Gun control is here to stay across the world, including in the United States. Anything else would lead to chaos.”
He is being proven wrong about the United States. And he may be wrong about South Africa, for it is the mean-spirited, dishonest and irresponsible gun-control policies of the ANC that are devastating the rule of law and leading to chaos in South Africa.
Wow! Thanks for a very interesting and informative read, Jarhead1982! This paints a nightmare picture of what can and will happen when a Government sets out on a campaign of intentional tyranny to disarm its own people.
Where did you copy and paste that from? You should include a link. When I have time I’ll be sure to read it, after I get through Bruce Krafft’s last dissertation.
Hey at least he didn’t cite himself mister credibility.
Just google S Africa Firearms Act 2000, it will pull up.
Many more examples of gun ban paradises being so violent, courtesy of people like Mikeb who refuse to acknowledge the blood on their hands.
But is the crime going down because more people are buying guns, or is the crime going down because the crime is going down?
My answer is, it doesn’t matter. Crime is down, and you have (sadly, for you) lost “more guns = more crime” as a justification for your attacks on my RKBA. The rest is just hand-waving.
+1 to Matt the Floridian
Could we do a quick research article back to firearms sales/ownership rates from the 70s and 80s? I assume firearms sales took a hit after the GCA ’68. It would be interesting if there was a correlation. I’d be happy to do it tonight, but the Googlefu is weak with this one. What say you guys?
I don’t have the stats, my google fu is weak, but I have the memories. I remember when you could mail order a gun straight to your door. Pistols, rifles and shotguns with no waiting period and no background checks. I remember a country that was much safer and people were much more relaxed and sociable. I realize that it goes deeper than simply having access to guns.
But the streets weren’t running with blood. I’ve never believed that tripe about the ready availability of guns causing crime. And I feel sorry for the weak minded that fall for that line.
I never said they were, and didn’t mean to if it sounded that way. I’d just be interested to see two line graphs overlayed with each other: crime rate and gun sales rates.
Crime is down except in areas with Big Brother, Democratic, anti-gun, pro-slavery Guber-mints!
I thought Bagdad Bob was selling rugs in Iran, seems I was wrong.
I agree with your overall point. I hate to say it yet I think another reason for the increased crime in Democrat-party dominated ‘urbanas’ are because of the specific demographic groups in those areas (along with their lousy and costly economic policies).
Aharon – *cough cough Memphis! cough*
I dont know what scares me more. The ghettos or the idea of trying to OC around a Memphis LEO.
“is the crime going down because more people are buying guns, or is the crime going down because the crime is going down?”
— Wow, like that is such deep thinking (sarcasm off). If crime was going up along with there being more guns in society then he would probably say it’s all about the increased ownership in guns regardless of whether or not guns were used in those hypothetical crimes.
I think real crime is ‘somewhat’ higher than the politicians seeking to look good to the public for their next election campaign want people to believe. Non-gun crime often gets watered down a bit and gun-crime still gets the public spotlight.
Look at the gun grabbers face. He looks like another puzzified metrosexual. What he needs is to be thrown into the Alaska wilderness for a year with a group of pro gun Alaska hunters and trappers. That should clean him up.
— Wow, like that is such deep thinking (sarcasm off).
It really is. Several hours of intensely-focused navel contemplation enabled Goddard to come up with such a profound question.
Thinking back to my criminology courses in college, I can say that it is a possibility that guns are the reason crime is going down or it may be other things. There are a lot of theories about what precipitates crime in a particular area but they are basically all based upon one particular theory called strain theory. The basis for strain theory is that the difference between the people who are low income see how hard it is to get ahead in the world to become middle or upper class that they take shortcuts (i.e. commit crime) to get what they want. This is why I believe in giving welfare and food stamps with fraud investigation and time limits. Now, what could be a possibility is that Obama is directly responsible with the reduction in crime because of all of the expansion of giving so much to poor people (I really don’t want to give him credit).
In school, we also studied how to prevent crime and the most effective way in doing so was called target hardening. Target hardening is providing the idea to criminals that a property or area will be harder to hit for a crime. It can be signs displayed, video cameras, etc. This is why there is a possibility that firearms ownership being elevated could deter crime. If criminals know that there are a disproportionate amount of people carrying firearms, they know that a target is hardened. This would explain if there is a lot less crime in places that have high carry rates like Colorado or Texas while Chicago and Washington D.C. is a mess.
If there were a place where you could get a lot of data like concealed carry rates, crime rates, and entitlement rates you can use statistical analysis to perform hypothesis testing to determine whether or not concealed carry and entitlement spending have correlation with crime. Now correlation does not prove causation but can give credence to the idea. I hope that it is true that concealed carry is responsible for the reduction in crime but it is possible to tell. I’m actually surprised that the NRA or another pro second amendment organization hasn’t performed a study to examine this as any statistician or even student could do it. So guns ownership and/or concealed carry may prevent crime (I hope it does).
Even if crime was going down because it was going down, the statement proves that GUNS dont cause crime.
If GUNS caused crime would crime rates not in fact be going up with the purchases?
Meant to say “in fact” rather than “not in fact”
So, if you take Goddard’s question “… is the crime going down because the crime is going down?” and turn it into its derivative statement, you get “The crime is going down because the crime is going down.” This, folks, is what is defined as a tautology, which is a meaningless repetition of what has already been stated, or an obvious statement of what is undoubtedly true. To offer a tautology in serious discussion is tantamount to declaring “I have no valid argument to offer, so I will argue ‘what it is is what it is’ and count on those to whom I am speaking to be too stupid to recognize the cheap trick I am foisting on them”
Removing the tautology from his question, you get “But is the crime going down because more people are buying guns, or is the crime going down?” The first rhetorical supposition is valid as both cause and effect are offered, but the second rhetorical supposition is not valid because only effect and no cause is presented.
He’s merely trying to hide the fact he has no valid response to the matter he is addressing…but he has to say something to maintain the “party line” and keep those Supporter’s dollars coming in…**FLAME VOLUNTARILY OMITTED**
“An honest but mistaken person, once shown the truth, either ceases to be mistaken, or ceases to be honest.”
This one has chosen to be honest, but remains mistaken.
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