More guns= less crime?

[Canis_lupus]

http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?ID=2445

"The FBI ’s report once again confirmed that violent crime rates are lower in states with Right-to-Carry (RTC) laws. RTC states had 22% less violent crime,30% less murder,46% less robbery,and 12% less aggravated assault. As usual, Washington D.C., w/ the strictest anti-gun laws, led the nation in murder (6x higher than rest of country)"

[Dapple]

That is because a profesional criminal wouldn't want to have to deal with more than what they are comfortible with, and more to the point, they would want to avoid unnesesary risk and complicaitons.

[Earl McClaw]

WeaponsCon - an old fan convention where (unlike most fan cons) everyone attending had to be armed, even if it was only a paper knife.

"An armed society is a polite society."

(Then again, back in the day you could actually force people into fighting you or being publicly humiliated.)

[RHJunior]

Nowadays we have an unarmed society.... and people perfectly willing to provoke others with gross impunity.

[Madmoonie]

Well, Washington has one the highest crime rates in the country. Why? Because the criminals carry guns and the lawful citizens can not. And the answer to this is not make more laws. Because the criminals will continue to disobey them.

[Lazerus]

Oh please.

There's a clear difference in crime rates if you compare the pro-gun and anti-gun states.

There's also a clear difference in telephone rates. To quote Twain, there are lies, there are damned lies, and then there are statistics.

By your logic, if more guns == less crime, then the middle east should be about the most peacefull, law-abiding place in the world right? After all, would you rob your neighbor knowing that he can buy a hand grenade for $50 and get an AK-47 along with it?

There are many social factors that determine the crime rate, and gun availability is a very, very minor one.

[Tbolt]

Ah, excellent, then by extrapolating your logic, then firearms presence must not encourage crime as well.

I agree, then, banning personal ownership is irrelevant! People will still commit violent crimes, stabbing, brutalizing, beating, raping, etc...

[Wanderwolf]

Ah, excellent, then by extrapolating your logic, then firearms presence must not encourage crime as well.

I agree, then, banning personal ownership is irrelevant! People will still commit violent crimes, stabbing, brutalizing, beating, raping, etc...

Bingo! Somebody finally noticed that the sword of Statistic-les cuts both ways.

Oh, and the statistics quote is actually nuch older than that; it was considered "proverbial" by 1894, well before Twain ever cited it.

Yours truly,

The wordy,

Wanderer

[Detrius]

http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?ID=2445

Tsk, a NRA website without any apparent links to the sources. Somehow I think I would feel insulted if I had more than a superficial interest in that topic.

[BrockthePaine]

Here's the FBI report broken down by state.

And Lazarus is right, to a degree: there are more things than just the availability of firearms that stop crime. The biggest thing, in particular, is the moral and religious quality of the people to stop possible criminals from deciding upon their course of action in the first place.

[Madmoonie]

Yeah....Lazerus was right, more or less about this particular subject. That is strange to say. Crime preventition is more than pro or con to gun control.

[Deckard Canine]

FWIW, 2006 saw the fewest murders in DC in 21 years: 156.

[Rangers]

Oh please.

There's a clear difference in crime rates if you compare the pro-gun and anti-gun states.

There's also a clear difference in telephone rates.

Show us those phone rates, please.

[Axelgear]

I have a monkey (Not a wrench, a full sized Orangutan) to throw in the works here. Toronto is a city of several million, about on par with Washington D.C. Public Carrying Laws are not in place. You can own a gun but you're not even allowed to store the gun and ammunition in the same room, and the gun must either be in a locked case with a rigger lock or a safe.

Murders per 100,000'

Washington, D.C.: 35.8

Toronto: 1.8

There are also lower Robbery and Break-In rates. These statistics are from 2004.

They can be viewed here

Admittently, they are probably biased in some way, but they are definitely not altered or wrong and therefore fit this purpose.

Well armed people do NOT make for a lower crime rate. Lower crime rates come from (As I have said it all along) contented people with no reason to commit crime. More or less guns have nothing to do with it.

That said, I have nothing against legal gun owners (My mother and brother being such). In Toronto, we have, what I consider, really good standards. I hate Paul Martin for trying to change them...

[Wanderwolf]

To be entirely fair, it's not (just) Toronto's stats that are a little cooked. The problem "down here" is classifying crimes.

For instance, the "murder" stat is more correctly broken down into "murder and homicide"; any crime in which someone dies tends to get placed there. Bank robbers ran over a security guard? Homicide. Drunk driver ran down a mother of two? Homicide. Truck driver lost control on I-90 and wiped out a family in a white Suburban? Homicide. (Accidental manslaughter, y'know.)

In the end, certain crimes "stuff the ballot boxes". The bank robbery counts as armed robbery AND homicide, for instance. The truck driver lists as car accident and homicide. The drunk driver counts as homicide (vehicular manslaughter), car accident, and drug-related crime.

When you start trying to pigeonhole things, it's amazing how many pigeons you suddenly have to find holes for.

Yours truly,

The wolfish,

Wanderer

[Axelgear]

Actually, that's how we do it in Toronto too. Any time someone dies in the comitting of a crime, it's a homicide.

[UncleMonty]

There are other factors which can have an effect on a city's crime rate: A culture of violence, for instance, would account for the high rate of violent crime in the Middle East. A similar culture also accounts for the high rate of crime in Washington DC. Perhaps Toronto isn't blessed with a population who feel that burning cars and stores is acceptable behavior.
To have a low crime rate, you have to have either (1) People who don't want to commit crimes, or (2) Reasons for people to be afraid to commit crimes, or in most cases, a combination of the two. The ownership of guns for self-defense is only half of the equation.

[Frigidmagi]

I would like to take a moment and speak about violence in the Middle East if I can, I know that's a bit of a side step but since it's been brought up in the context of the topic someone I feel should response.

There are several factors that ensure that violence in the Middle East will be high, one of which is that the men with AK-47s are better organized then your average band of crooks or street thug*

The groups in question whether they be members of Al Sadr's milita, Sunni insurgents, Hezbollah, HAMAS or so on, they are set up in a paramilitary organization with clearly defined leaders and unit formations. These organizations and numbers are more then enough to overwhelm your average citizen even if he has an AK-47 and a grenade which may or may go off (to put it simply the Grenades that Iraqi and other cilivians in the ME are old and are not entirely trustworthy). While that same organization and displince is not good enough to win a stright up fight against a 1st world power, it's good enough for a gureillia campaign aimed mostly at the citizenry of the area. If you doubt that, ask yourself how many Iraqis have died from the actions of insurgents and milita and compare it to the number of American troops.

Next is the enthic, religious level of strife. Last I heard there weren't athiest gangs of armed men roaming the streets of NYC looking to kill all the Christians they found. Nor have I heard of armed milita's of Christians executing Hindus or Buddhist in California or any such organized activity. Not to say that incidents don't happen. Abortion clinics do get bombed and Churches do get burnt to the ground. However compared the sheer level of hate that exist in the ME for groups that happen to be on the other side of different, North America is freaken paradise on Earth.

Another factor is the sheer amount of corruption in the ME in regards to police and military units. While military units in Iraq are generally cleaner and better trained, the blunt fact of the matter is corruption is considered perfectly normal in much of the ME. As such it becomes easy to pay off the cops or even inflirate them and turn the police force of an entire city to your will, if you have the money and these groups generally do.

Within the US and Canada police corruption is generally of low levels and the organization and displince of criminal groups is low. Therefore the average citizen does not require an AK-47 to fight off burglers and doesn't have to ask if the cops will show up or not.

*In this I'm not talking about the mob or the Coloumbian Cartels, who ironically began as a paramilitary revolutionary group but about the average street criminal.

Now on Washington D.C vs Toronto... I hate to say it since as an American the state of the capital is of great embaressment to me but Washington D.C's police department is notrious for corruption, while Toronto's is not. Consider as to whether or not that has anything to do with it. I happen to believe that corrupt cops led to more crime myself.

[Deckard Canine]

I'm not sure if our cops are corrupt or mainly just incompetent, but I've heard enough local anecdotes to get nervous whenever a cop car is nearby.

[RHJunior]

The ownership of guns may only be half of the equation--- but it's the half you need to make the other half meaningful.

Bragging your city has a low gun crime rate when people are getting stabbed, clubbed or throttled--- or are simply turning over their wallets like helpless sheep to whoever threatens them--- misses the point.