gun control does not reduce crime?

[Emoto]

Ok, folks. Most of you know I am a staunch defender of our civil rights, so I always come down on the side of trying to keep the government's filthy paws off of our freedoms. Like the right to keep and bear arms. Nowhere else have I found as many people who seem hell-bent on placing even more restrictions on gun ownership than we already have than here. I happen to think that most of the folks here who differ with me on the issue sincerely believe that if only we control guns a bit more that we will reduce gun crime and save lives, and that is why they continue to support stronger control efforts. Am I right about that belief?

Anyway, here is something to dissect and discuss. I would appreciate more reasoned responses than "what a pantload" (you know who you are!). Have at it:

http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=nr&id=570

"Gun Laws do Not Reduce Criminal Violence According to New Study
Release Date: November 27, 2003

Vancouver, BC - Restrictive firearm legislation has failed to reduce gun violence in Australia, Canada, or Great Britain. The policy of confiscating guns has been an expensive failure, according to a new paper The Failed Experiment: Gun Control and Public Safety in Canada, Australia, England and Wales, released today by The Fraser Institute."

[LiberalVoice]

1. Im a firm believer...

in having the right to bear arms. I wasn't raised hunting in the woods or shooting beer cans off the back of 'ma daddys chevy'. Hell, I dont even own a gun. The problem isn't that were allowed to own guns. Its that were not responsible with them. Education is the key to that which holds us back.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[CO Liberal]

2. About The Fraser Institute

You can tell a lot about an organization by the links it puts on tis web site. I found the following on their "OTHER INFO SOURCES" page:

Institutes around the world with a similar focus to The Fraser Institute:

· Atlantic Institute for Market Studies

· American Enterprise Institute

· Atlas Economic Research Foundation

· Cato Institute

· EKOME (Society for Social and Economic Studies) (Greek)

· Free-Market.net

· Free The World

· The Heritage Foundation

· The Hudson Institute

· The Independent Institute

· Institute for Humane Studies

· Institute of Economic Affairs

· Institute of Public Affairs (Australia)

· Liberales Institute der Friedrich Naumann Stiftung (German)

· Montreal Economic Institute (Institut Economique de Montreal)

· National Center for Policy Analysis

· Pacific Research Institute

· Political Economy Research Center

· Public Policy Research Centre

· The University of Toronto G8 Information Centre

As far as I'm concerned, any organization that aligns itself with the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation AND The Independent Institute is suspect, and anything they print needs to be taken with a LARGE grain of salt. Like a 50-pount block.

[Name removed]

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[HereSince1628]

6. If their position on guns is as valid as global warming forget them

The following from their website:

Alarmist Claims About 20th Century Climate Change Based On Flawed Data Say Researchers
News Release

Alarmist predictions of catastrophic climate change have been driven by faulty data and calculations, according to a new study published today in the journal Energy and Environment. The study, by Fraser Institute Senior Fellow Professor Ross McKitrick and co-author Stephen McIntyre, documents significant errors in the data and methods used to study historical temperature patterns.

[MrBenchley]

8. It does seem

that this is generally a far right wing site...

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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[MrBenchley]

7. You have to wonder

why the RKBA crowd keeps linking to far right wing sources over and over and over and over....

[alwynsw]

21. Here's a right wing source for you

I'll not do you the disservice of posting the stats. You can look them up yourself at the FBI website.

Most restrictive gun control laws in the country? D.C., NYC, MA, LA (actually all of CA nowadays), Chicago, SF among others.

Now compare the crime rates across the board in those cities compared to those with relatively lax gun control laws.

A thought on why Switzerland and Israel have two of the lowest crime rates in the world: could it be because every Swiss male from 10-60 has a government issued light assault rifle, with ammo, at home and is required to keep it servicable at all times? Also Israel, sans the terrorist issue (guns are no hindrance to "martyrs") has one of the lowest crime rates - possibly because of nearly universal gun ownership - that and the fact that many Israelis "carry"?

Just a thought.

[MrBenchley]

27. Too frigging funny...

Switzerland not only registers all its guns but requires each round of ammunition to be accounted for in writing...and they are rethinking their policy after a lunatic shot up the regional parliament of a canton. And trying to pass off Israel as a model of domesticc tranquility is ridiculous.

[alwynsw]

35. But did you look up the FBI crime stats?

Or are you going to continue to spout your bile unsuported by facts?

Notice that I referred to crime rates (not terrorist acts) in countries that have nearly universal gun possession and/or ownership in private hands.

The state oversight of firearms in Switzerland is overly restrictive in my opinion, but the possession rate is unarguable. As for Israel, check the crime, not terrorist incident, rates. Once again, firearms are no barrier to one who cares not if he lives or dies during his act of terrorism. You may find your argument that strict control of firearms - zero ownership/possession by private citizens - that you seem to favor does nothing to lower the crime rate. as evidenced by the cities here in the U.S.A., mentioned in my previous post, strict gun control correlates to an increase in crime across the board.

Criminals, by definition, care not one whit about gun control measures. It logically follows that the old saw, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" is far more accurate than the person who coined that slogan likely imagined.

[MrBenchley]

36. No, I already know

what a pantload you're peddling.....

"Criminals, by definition, care not one whit about gun control measures."
So why not let the gun industry cash in, eh? What a disgraceful bit of rubbish.

[MrBenchley]

4. Gee, why do I suspect

This is the Canadian equivalent of one of our right winng propagnada mills like Heritage or Cato?

Let's see, their discussion of the Canadian /Endangered Species Act is titled "Crying Wolf"...Their global warming paper concludes CO2 has nothing to do with global warming....Their educcation section pushes the same voucher idiocy as right wingers do here....their public health section praises the way the US pharmaceutical industry does business and wishes Canadians could do the same....

Foreign policy? "The most important item on Prime Minister Martin’s agenda will be to win back the trust and goodwill of president George W. Bush. "

http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore1.asp?sNav=ed&id=223

"In sensitive matters of social policy such as gay marriage, the government has pre-empted democratic deliberation altogether by handing political hot potatoes to the courts for judicial resolution. Canadians have a right to demand that the Supreme Court be accountable for these decisions. "

http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore1.asp?sNav=ed&id=198

Bet Iverglas could tell us more....

[el_gato]

11. gee, why do I suspect the gun grabbers would give up all our rights

perhaps because they want to give ever more control to the government
and in times like this when it is more corrupt than ever i see nothing
but insanity behind it

[MrBenchley]

13. Too funny, gato...

Why is it that the RKBA crowd is always allied with these right wing shitheels, do you suppose?

[alwynsw]

23. Likely because of the weak-kneed

lack of support for RKBA from all but a few within our own party.

[MrBenchley]

25. More likely

because "gun rights" is a pantload peddled by the scummiest right wingers around...

In many cases, it's good old fashioned bigotry wearing a different colored sheet.

[iverglas]

24. remembered what I was saying

When my system so rudely crashed.

In sensitive matters of social policy such as gay marriage, the government has pre-empted democratic deliberation altogether by handing political hot potatoes to the courts for judicial resolution. Canadians have a right to demand that the Supreme Court be accountable for these decisions.
- Frasier Institute

The problem the poor Fraser Institute has is that in an Ipsos-Reid survey published in April 2002, 70% of Canadians (count me as one) reported that they trusted the courts more than any other individuals or institutions (including politicians) to protect their constitutional rights. Apparently we don't have any problem with "these decisions", and so we have nothing at all that we wish to hold anybody "accountable" for.

.

[MrBenchley]

38. You see this kind of toe-dancing a lot on the right

They have no way to actually come out and say, for example, they don't think gays ought to have the same rights as every one else without sounding as bigoted as they are...so they make up this straw man ("judicial activism" in this case) and beat on him instead..

We get the same thing here from gumps like Bill Buckley and George Will....it's the way right wingers who are just as bigoted and ignorant as Jesse Helms can get the same message across without having to sound as bigoted and ignorant as Jesse Helms...but it fools only themselves.

[iverglas]

10. for those not in the Canadian know

Quoting the Fraser Institute is about equivalent to quoting the NRA. Except that it has more letters after its names, usually. Same extreme right-wing garbage, bigger words. Think "Heritage Foundation", off the top of my head.

I don't have time to read any of its drivel this afternoon, but I'll take a shot later in the week and see how good old Fraser explains away the consistent decline in firearms crimes and homicides in Canada in recent years ...

The Fraser Institute has a grand tradition of disingenuously selective cherry-picking of the factors considered in analyses it publishes. There's its ranking of the Canadian healthcare in the subzero range, as compared to other OECD countries, for example, based on carefully chosen indicators like "availability of medical technology" ... and completing failure to acknowledge that it was comparing access to technology by everyone in Canada to access to technology by those who can afford it in the US. And it criticized the health care plans for not being "universal" because two provinces charge nominal (e.g. $56/month) premiums ... as compared, perhaps, to what they would pay an HMO? And for not being "portable" because it only covers out-of-country medical treatment at the rates paid in Canada. Can we say speaking with forked tongue? Criticizing something because it doesn't do what one opposes well enough??

Anyhow, that's just my "pantload" contribution to the discussion. Find me a serious study by a credible source, and I'll be more eager to read it.

... Oh, all right, I clicked on it and glanced at the news release, but not the report itself.

For chrissakes, it's Gary Mauser up to his old tricks. Gimme a break. Please.

And as expected, he attempts to discredit the UK's firearms laws because they don't do what they WERE NOT INTENDED or designed to do -- reduce "gun crime". Where's Pert_UK when ya need him? Ditto for Australia, of course.

Canada's laws are less restrictive, and some aspects of them *are* designed to reduce gun crime: specifically, for instance, the virtual ban on handguns. I wonder how Mauser explains the declines in handgun crimes and homicides ... and how he figures that a Canadian law would be likely to reduce crimes and homicides committed using handguns smuggled into Canada from the US.

I'll just have to wait until I have time to read it, I guess.

.

[MrBenchley]

16. I figured you would know

who these humholes are when they're at home...

Love the paper they have bemoaning the "fact" that Canafdian pharmaceutical firms aren't doing the same swell job for Canadians that US equivalents are doing to Americans....I mean, for Americans (mainly giving one and all a soaking).

[iverglas]

18. youse guys beat me to it

While you were outing Fraser, I was looking at the press release, and looking around for something about that health care study.

What was I in the middle of saying when I crashed my system ... damn. Something earth-shaking.

Oh yeah. Somebody'd better go look at the National Post. It will undoubtedly be trumpeting this on the front page, complete with no critical comment from anyone qualified to assess the study. (That would be like quoting WorldNewsDaily when it quotes the Heritage Foundation ...)

I'm sure that the serious gun nuts here are familiar with Gary Mauser already. Hell, even I'd heard of him, and read trashings of his nonsense.

Fraser may have more letters after the names of its artistes than WorldNetDaily has, but it's the exact same right-wing garbage, only with bigger words.

.

[4farmgun]

22. I'll bite

if you tell me the sources you find as acceptable. There is no need for me to find data only to have you reject it out of hand. OBTW anything that has any conection with the 'left wing' don't count

[MrBenchley]

26. Excuse me?

"OBTW anything that has any conection with the 'left wing' don't count"
What was the name of this place again?

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

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[4farmgun]

31. Thanks to a2birdcage

It seems that my poor spelling and bad diction has confused some, oh well, we do proceede.

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

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[CO Liberal]

29. Here's a Suggestion

This is Guideline #3 from our "Guns In The News" threads:

Bear in mind that any links to extremely right-wing sites (such as Newsmax, CNS, or the Washington Times) or intentionally pro-gun or pro-control sites (such as the NRA or the Brady Campaign) are not considered reliable sources by many DU-ers. If at all possible, try to find a link for your story from a more mainstream source, such as a general-circulation newspaper or magazine site. If you choose to use a slanted site, be prepared for any negative feedback you may receive.

I hope that clears things up for you.

[Emoto]

39. Ummm

FWIW, I don't know Fraser Institute from a hole in the ground. I have downloaded the report and hope to read it relatively soon if I can.

One of the biggest problems "here" in the J/PS forum is that NOBODY accepts anyone else's sources of data. How the heck are we supposed to support anything we say with that being the case?

[iverglas]

30. really?

"OBTW anything that has any conection with the 'left wing' don't count"

And what point on the spectrum have *you* joined us from??

Me, I'm not automatically suspicious that a source connected with the "left wing" is attempting to deceive me into believing something that is false and contrary to my own best interests.

I'm suspicious that the Fraser Institute is doing just that, not simply because it is absolutely committed to the implementation of right-wing policies on every issue you can name, but specifically because I have experience with it and know it to have been deceptive and untrustworthy in the past -- an example of which I gave, as others have done.

If you have any such objections to any "left wing" source that I might cite, do feel free to voice them.


"I'll bite
if you tell me the sources you find as acceptable."

For raw data on trends in crime in Canada, I of course recommend Statistics Canada. Some examples:

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/020925/d020925b.htm
Homicides in 2001

Firearms involved in about one-third of homicides

Firearms were involved in 31% of all homicides in 2001, a proportion consistent with previous years.

Of the 171 firearm-related homicides, 110 were committed with a handgun, 46 with a rifle or shotgun, 7 with a sawed-off rifle or shotgun, 3 with a fully automatic firearm, and 5 with another type of firearm.

Handguns were used in 65% of all firearm homicides. This proportion has risen from 46% in 1998 as a result of the continuing decline in the number of homicides involving rifles or shotguns.

Rifles and shotguns may be legally owned in Canada with very little restriction: they are required to be registered and may only be acquired with a permit, which is not particularly difficult to get. Handguns may not be legally owned by most people. How odd that the Canadian laws did not reduce the numbers of handgun homicides, eh? A law didn't stop gangs/organized crime from smuggling; quelle surprise.

http://www.statcan.ca:80/Daily/English/031001/d031001a.htm
Homicides in 2002

Handguns account for two-thirds of firearm homicides

Handguns accounted for two-thirds of the 149 firearm homicides in 2002, up from about one-half during the 1990s and one-third prior to 1990. The 98 homicides committed with a handgun last year were consistent with the annual average over the past decade.

There has been a declining trend in the use of rifles and shotguns; they now account for only one-quarter of all firearm homicides. A total of 37 homicides were committed with a rifle or shotgun in 2002, substantially fewer than the previous 10-year average of 67. The remaining 14 firearm homicides were committed with other types of firearms.

Of all the handguns used to commit homicide that were recovered by police since 1997, about three-quarters (72%) were not registered. Where ownership could be determined by police, the handgun was owned by the accused in 49% of these homicides and by the victim in 3%; the majority of the remaining handguns were stolen or borrowed.

http://www.statcan.ca:80/Daily/English/031001/c031001b.gif

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/030724/d030724a.htm
2002 crime statistics

Violent crime down as robberies, assaults decline

Police reported about 300,000 violent crimes in 2002, encompassing everything from homicide to attempted murder, assault, sexual assault, robbery and abduction. Nearly two-thirds of these violent crimes were minor assaults.

Nationally, the rate of violent crime dropped 2% in 2002, driven by a 3% decline in the rate of robberies and a 2% decline in assaults. The violent crime rate has generally been dropping since the early 1990s.

So like I wuz saying ... can you tell us how Gary Mauser explains all this away? Or is it more likely that you haven't even read the press release about his report, let alone his report, and are therefore engaged in a completely pointless dispute of the challenges to his credibility -- when you haven't even bothered to investigate whether he IS credible?

.

[4farmgun]

34. Wow

It sure spoils a good fight if your going to use facts. the guns used in crimes are not registered, imagine that, criminals not obeying the law.

[iverglas]

37. isn't it just?

Amazing, that is.

"the guns used in crimes are not registered, imagine that, criminals not obeying the law."

Obviously, US homicide laws do not work to prevent homicide: just look at all the people in the US who are murdered every year.

Better repeal 'em, I guess.

If you (from the little I can tell) and yours weren't insisting that firearms control *must* prevent criminals from disobeying the law (and *must* accomplish things it was never meant to accomplish), I'd think you were making sense.

I'll bet break and enter offences have risen stupendously in the US since 30 years ago. Damn, if they'd only repealed that stupid law against breaking and entering 30 years ago, there'd probably be none now at all.

But hark! I hear the siren call of apple and oranges.

The law that criminals didn't obey when they used unregistered guns to kill and rob people ... was it the crime of not registering their firearms? Well, most people would think that the real crime was the killing and robbing. Whether the firearm was registered or not is really a matter of secondary importance. Keeping firearms out of their hands, one objective of firearms control legislation, is a worthwhile goal, obviously. Will any law keep anything from ever happening?

How odd. A law requiring people to register their firearms did not stop criminals with unregistered firearms from killing and robbing.

And has the law requiring you to register your motor vehicle stopped people who steal cars from speeding?

The law requiring people to register firearms is designed to make it possible (1) to track firearms, so that there is a disincentive for transferring them illegally (to people who use them to cause harm) and storing them unsafely (whence they are stolen by people who use them to cause harm), and (2) to confiscate firearms from people who are shown to a court to present a threat of harm to others.

The aims are therefore:
- to keep lawfully owned firearms out of the hands of criminals
- to keep lawfully owned firearms from being caused by their owners to harm people

I'm just not sure how the law could have been designed to stop people from smuggling firearms into Canada. Or how it could actually *prevent* people from transferring their firearms illegally or storing them unsafely, or using them to harm others without first giving notice.

I know it may be a novel idea ... but laws don't really *prevent* anyone from doing anything. They provide disincentives for doing things, but there are always those who are not discouraged, from doing a wide range of illegal things, by the possibility of a little jail term.

.

[beevul]

45. Yes indeed

"I'm just not sure how the law could have been designed to stop people from smuggling firearms into Canada. Or how it could actually *prevent* people from transferring their firearms illegally or storing them unsafely, or using them to harm others without first giving notice."

"I know it may be a novel idea ... but laws don't really *prevent* anyone from doing anything. They provide disincentives for doing things, but there are always those who are not discouraged, from doing a wide range of illegal things, by the possibility of a little jail term."-iverglas

I was just eating some left overs from turkey day,(please don't try to banner my home with Canadian banners and such when the triptophan sp? takes effect LOL) and saw this.

Right on the money, and to the point as well. I might disagree about the "little" jail term, but heck, I'm in an agreeable mood today, the eyes of little kittens staring up at you have that effect I guess.
In fact, those innocent little eyes staring in wonder have a tendency to turn me into jello. Anyway, good points iverglas.

[iverglas]

48. I had an awful fear

that you were talking about eating kittens. Such a quick segue from eating things to innocent eyes staring up at you. Like a salmon.

If you need any extras, I should have a few in the spring. We have a feral cat colony on the block, and I provide my garage, with some old comforters and a bucket of Whiskas, for its members to live in. Raúl, a long-time member of the colony, big beautiful (except for the beady eyes) long-haired grey, seems to have found himself a mate last summer. We discovered a little fluffy lighter grey and cream mother cat (complete with collar and bandana) and her baby on the deck in late August. Mama was quite domestic, baby was quite small and wild, and the horrible Raúl actually seemed to be sharing parenting. Couldn't take mama to get her spayed while baby was still so young and uncatchable, because of the period of confinement required afterward; couldn't catch baby. Because of baby's identical colouring (a variation on calico, always female, and these two are ever so pretty), I have to anticipate multiplication of the population.

I've found homes for so many stray and abandoned cats on the block in the last 20 years (including the 4 in my own house at the moment), and so many of the neighbours already have so many cats (some from the same source), that I couldn't likely have found another this fall, even for this fine little family. So now I'm faced with finding several times more homes for several times more of them, come spring thaw.

All this in aid of saying: why are you having kittens? why is your cat not spayed?? Or are did you get suckered in by a stray too?

.

[4farmgun]

12. pantload is here

I see the discussion has focused on the source and not the substance. I am so suprised. Don't ever let the facts get in the way of a good argument

[CO Liberal]

14. Some Sources Have No Facts

And this seems to be the case with The Fraser Institute.

[MrBenchley]

15. Yup, and it WAS quite a pantload, sure enough....

"Don't ever let the facts get in the way of a good argument"
Especially when somebody's trying to peddle right wing propaganda off as "facts" AGAIN.

[4farmgun]

17. Education has one 'c'

but that is not the point. This is a study that you find flawed. So be it. Why?

[MrBenchley]

19. Because it comes from

right wing idiots.

[iverglas]

20. better question

How about he who / they who find the study to be worthwhile actually attempt to state the case?

Anybody can write a "report", and anybody can post a link to it. Let's hear you and yours tell us what the study says, and why we should care.

Until then, all we have is "I found a source I like", "I don't like your source". The naysayers really did *not* start it.

Unless and until someone decides to offer something other and better than a bald assertion of (someone else's) opinion, which is all we've had so far regarding the "report" in question, I see nothing that needs addressing.

.

(edited to insert omitted word)

[Emoto]

40. Like I said...

"Anyway, here is something to dissect and discuss. I would appreciate more reasoned responses than "what a pantload" (you know who you are!). Have at it"

I don't know the Fraser Institute and I don't know who in Canada is left, right, or center, or how (or if) that relates to the same labels in the USA. My intention was to throw it out there and learn what was either right or wrong with it.

So far, all I have learned is that some people hate and distrust the messenger.

[iverglas]

41. quelle surprise

And I would repeat: WHAT suggested to you that this was "something to dissect and discuss"?

What would your response be if I offered you something written by a source that was 100% devoid of credibility and respect, in your eyes, or was just a meaningless bit of drivel, in your eyes -- and if you could demonstrate *why* your eyes saw things that way as I clearly have?

Does the fact that somebody somewhere said something make it automatically worthy of the time and effort I might spend dissecting and discussing it?

Might I not expect that what is lobbed at me might be at least a tiny bit novel, and a tiny bit substantiated, before I go spending time and exerting effort on it?

If YOU think it's worth dissecting and discussing, then YOU do it. Unless and until you do, there simply is no onus on me or anyone else to "discuss" it, since we wouldn't be discussing it WITH anyone, and that would be a bit of a pointless exercise.

There Gary Mauser's product sits, in all its Fraser Institute glory. It was there before you posted a link to it, and it's still there. Just like a gazillion other things in the world. If you like, I could haul a few over here for you. Perhaps a recipe for sweet potato soufflé? Then you can just dissect and discuss it to your heart's content.

Normally, someone who offered a recipe, even, would say *something* about it. Yummy, yucky, what have you.

So what is it? Is Mauser's thingy yummy or yucky -- and WHY?

.

[Emoto]

42. there you go...

...on and on, discussing something that you claim to have no interest in discussing, yet instead of not discussing it, you attempt to reframe things by bringing up all sorts of irrelevancies. If I don't want to talk about something, I STFU.

So far, all I have heard is a lot of hand wringing and gum flapping about how dreadful the source is. When I hear actual argument based on the study itself, I will consider taking it seriously.

[MrBenchley]

43. Too funny, moto

"When I hear actual argument based on the study"
Like the lady said...you first.

[Emoto]

44. Why?

I AGREE with the conclusion! If you do NOT, then say why.

[MrBenchley]

46. Why not?

"I AGREE with the conclusion!"

And yet just a few posts ago...

"I don't know the Fraser Institute and I don't know who in Canada is left, right, or center, or how (or if) that relates to the same labels in the USA. My intention was to throw it out there and learn what was either right or wrong with it. "

Well, now you know that it comes from a source that cannot be trusted.....

[Emoto]

47. I don't know that to be true.

I only know that you and Iverglas don't like them. So, show me what is wrong with this study that proves what I believe. I would think you would love to do something like that...

[MrBenchley]

49. Been there, done that.....

[Emoto]

50. When?

This study?

[MrBenchley]

51. Read the thread...