Do More Handguns Mean Less Violent Crime?
6o8.org11/21/11
This matter has raised many questions like those involving the required restrictions and by the constitutions, the connection about the crime control and gun control as well as the rates at which the gun control have on vices …
PERSPECTIVE: More guns does not mean more crime | Star-Exponent
www2.starexponent.com8/18/11
PERSPECTIVE: More guns does not mean more crime. By: Richmond … More guns might not lead to less crime; deterrence is a very hard thing to prove. But this much is clear: More guns do not lead to more crime. Virginia's …
Do more handguns equal more or less violent crime?
I was recently surprised to read that,
"States with Higher Percentages of Gun Owners Have Less Violent Crime".
And even more surprised to read that …
"Most conservative estimates show that by adopting shall-issue laws, States reduced murders by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%.
And if those states that did not permit concealed handgun in 1992 had permitted them back then, citizens might have been spared approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults and 12,000 robberies.
To put it even more simply: Criminals, we found, respond rationally to deterrence threats!".
I’d always been against people having guns, but if the above is true then I was wrong.
So would it really be better if our civilan societies were armed with guns?
Related posts:
Well according to an FBI crime report released in 2009, “more guns equal less crime!”.
The report shows that for the first half of 2009, that America was a less violent place even though gun ownership surged and details show that violent crime, including murder and robbery dropped steeply.
Concurrently, the FBI reported that gun sales, and especially those for assault-style rifles and handguns, which are the two main targets of gun-control groups were up at least 12% percent nationally since President Obama’s election, in part because of fears that Democrats in Congress and the White House would curtail gun rights and carve apart the Second Amendment.
Violent crime goes down when concealed carry laws are passed, simply because the bad guys don’t KNOW who has a gun and who hasn’t, which translates into fewer violent crimes.
Under this scenario, petty crimes such as larceny and car break-ins will tend to go up slightly, whereas robbery and rape and home invasion and assaults will go down.
Seems like a good trade off to me!
A simple question.
If guns are so wonderful then why does the US have a per capita murder rate higher than every country in Europe?
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
Its a simple matter of population demographics.
The US has a large population of individuals who feel entitled to everything and anything but are unwilling to work or strive to achieve.
As France and the UK are becoming overwhelm by a population with similar ideals they will have an increase in violent crimes as well.
A simple question, how many victims were unarmed?
Seems to me that with a gun question, the question should be about its effectiveness.
I do like your question though so lets explore your concept, the population makes the crime.
So what areas of the US have the majority violent crimes and what section of that population are in effect responsible.
Is it racial? Economical? Religious?
Sounds liked a good one to me!
Have started checking out some sites to provide answers to El Paso’s questions.
For starters –
1 in 3 police shootings involve unarmed people and a lot more facts too!
Well after reading the above stats that were posted by no-shmuck and live-one it would appear to be blatantly clear that allowing citizens to carry or even posses guns leads to higher murder rates!
And just take a look at this video of an event that occured on January 6, 2009
http://misconceptions.us/videos/bart.flv
And here’s the background to the killing.
BART police shoot unarmed man; caught on citizen video!
A BART police officer was caught on video pushing a suspect’s head to the ground before standing up, pulling his gun out of its holster and squeezing the trigger, killing the 22-year-old suspect instantly.
The incident occurred New Year’s Day 2009, inside a Bay Area Rapid Transit station in Oakland.
Seconds before the shooting, the unarmed victim, Oscar Grant III, can been seen on his knees lifting his hands in the air as if to show he was not resisting arrest., but at least two officers dragged him down as if to handcuff him, forcing the suspect’s chest and face on the ground.
That was when one officer stood up, pulled his gun out and shot him, possibly in the back or in the back of the head. After the shooting, the officer re-holstered his gun and placed his hands on his head, as if realizing what he had just done.
Oscar Grant III, father of a 4-year-old girl, was a butcher at a popular Oakland grocery store
The officer, whose name is Johannes Mehserle, had just turned 27 years old and was a two-year veteran of the police force, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. His first child was born a day or two after the shooting, which may be a reason it took him over five days before making a statement to the police.
John Burris, an Oakland attorney representing the family, says he plans to file a $25 million lawsuit against BART.
Burris, who has represented clients in more than a dozen officer-involved shootings, said he had never seen such a long delay before an officer made a statement to investigators and said that it raised the possibility that the statement would be affected by the video footage and by loss of memory, among other things.
It’s pretty shocking to me”, Burris said. “When you delay like this, it raises questions about the integrity of the investigation. It raises the question”, “What has BART been doing, you want to prevent collusion. You want to prevent people from tailoring their statements to the evidence”.
This incident once again proves the importance of citizens being allowed to film and photograph freely without intimidation or fear from authorities.
Another questionable arising was the fact that BART police “confiscated numerous cell phone images” from witnesses, supposedly for evidence, according to Fox News.
BART police officers are fully certified and have the same authority as city or county law enforcement officers. They are in charge of enforcing the law on the Bay Area Rapid Transit, which is the fifth busiest rail system in the country and serves four counties in the San Francisco bay area.
How did it all end?
Officer Johannes Mehserle resigned and was later charged with murder.
The verdict?
As he sentenced former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle to two years in prison for involuntary manslaughter, Judge Robert Perry delivered unusually lengthy and detailed remarks.
He laid out his view of the trial’s evidence, siding largely with the defense, and explained why he had to, in the interest of justice, throw out a separate allegation that Mehserle intentionally fired a gun at unarmed rider Oscar Grant during an arrest at Fruitvale Station in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009.
Perry’s comments Nov. 5 in Los Angeles County Superior Court suggest he was concerned about how the public would receive his ruling. They elated defense attorneys, who saw them as vindicating not only their position that the shooting was an accident, but their view that the Alameda County district attorney’s office had overstepped and had given in to protesters and rioters when it sought a murder conviction.
The remarks stunned prosecutors and Grant’s relatives. They were particularly upset at Perry’s assertion that Grant had been resisting officers when he was shot, and at his statement that "no reasonable trier of fact" could agree with prosecutors that the shooting was intentional and not the result of Mehserle confusing his gun and Taser.
Some of Grant’s family members walked out of court as Perry spoke.
America is an extremely violent place and to deny it would be folly!
Just take a look at ..
Why is America So Violent?
America is on a downward trajectory and it’s not surprising given its "Live Now Pay Later", and "Acceptance of violence as being normal!" attitude!
America’s credo used to be, "In God We Trust" but that has long since been replaced!
America forgot it, and it really gets no simpler than …
You "reap as you sew".
Breyer: Founding Fathers Would Have Allowed Restrictions on Guns
If you look at the values and the historical record, you will see that the Founding Fathers never intended guns to go unregulated, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer contended Sunday.
Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Breyer said history stands with the dissenters in the court’s decision to overturn a Washington, D.C., handgun ban in the 2008 case “D.C. v. Heller.”
Breyer wrote the dissent and was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He said historians would side with him in the case because they have concluded that Founding Father James Madison was more worried that the Constitution may not be ratified than he was about granting individuals the right to bear arms.
Just received this …
Seems a guy cruises thru a stop sign, or whatever, and gets pulled over by a local policeman. Guy hands the cop his driver’s license, insurance verification, plus his concealed carry permit.
“Okay, Mr. Smith,” the cop says, “I see your CCW permit. Are you carrying today?”.
“Yes, I am”.
“Well then, better tell me what you got”.
Smith says, “Well, I got a .357 revolver in my inside coat pocket. There’s a 9mm semi-auto in the glove box. And, I’ve got a .22 magnum derringer in my right boot”.
“Okay,” the cop says. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, back in the trunk, there’s an AR15 and a shotgun. That’s about it”.
“Mr. Smith, are you on your way to or from a gun range?”.
“Nope”.
“Well then, what are you afraid of?”.
“Not a damn thing”.
It wasn’t signed, but was probably taken from the NRA’s manifesto
I am neutral to this. Everything is possible and knowing that guns are accessible, no one can stop you from using it.
“Do More Handguns Mean Less Violent Crime?”
Yes! I agree because many people today have their own guns and I know that they are capable of handling that thing. They are already aware of what would happen if they used that kind of thing.
I am a believer that violent behavior will be exhibited regardless of the level of availability of the tools (weapons) to do so. Here in Arizona, where it’s very easy to get a gun, violent crime is less than Philadelphia, for example, where they are on a record pace for murders this year.