Re: Gun Laws Do Not Reduce Criminal Violence

"Some Guy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "Frog" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > http://tinyurl.com/wxk3
> >
> > 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
> > http://tinyurl.com/xcv4 , released today by The Fraser Institute.
> >
> > "What makes gun control so compelling for many is the belief
> > that violent crime is driven by the availability of guns, and
> > more importantly, that criminal violence in general may be
> > reduced by limiting access to firearms," says Gary Mauser,
> > author of the paper and professor of business at Simon Fraser
> > University.
> >
> > This new study examines crime trends in Commonwealth countries
> > that have recently introduced firearm regulations. Mauser notes
> > that the widely ignored key to evaluating firearm regulations is
> > to examine trends in total violent crime, not just firearm crime.
> >
> > The United States provides a valuable point of comparison for
> > assessing crime rates as that country has witnessed a dramatic
> > drop in criminal violence over the past decade - for example,
> > the homicide rate in the US has fallen 42 percent since 1991.
> > This is particularly significant when compared with the rest of
> > the world - in 18 of the 25 countries surveyed by the British
> > Home Office, violent crime increased during the 1990s.
> >
> > The justice system in the U.S. differs in many ways from those
> > in the Commonwealth but perhaps the most striking difference is
> > that qualified citizens in the United States can carry concealed
> > handguns for self-defence. During the past few decades, more
> > than 25 states in the U.S. have passed laws allowing responsible
> > citizens to carry concealed handguns. In 2003, there are 35
> > states where citizens can get such a permit.
> >
> > Disarming the public has not reduced criminal violence in any
> > country examined in this study. In all these cases, disarming
> > the public has been ineffective, expensive, and often counter
> > productive. In all cases, the effort meant setting up expensive
> > bureaucracies that produce no noticeable improvement to public
> > safety or have made the situation worse. Mauser points to these
> > trends in the countries he examined:
>
> They conveniently omit the following paragraph from the executive summary:
>
> "In this study, the author examines crime trends in Commonwealth countries
> that have recently introduced firearm regulations: i.e., Great Britain,
> Australia, and Canada. The widely ignored key to evaluating firearm
> regulations is to examine trends in total violent crime, not just firearms
> crime. Since firearms are only a small fraction of criminal violence, the
> public would not be safer if the new law could reduce firearm violence but
> had no effect on total criminal violence."
>
> Obviously the claim that "firearms are only a small fraction of criminal
> violence" is completely inapplicable to the United States. So whatever
these
> guys may conclude is of no use to Americans.
>
> Then they go on to effuse about the American ocean of guns, pointing out:
>
> "The upshot is that violent crime rates, and homicide rates in particular,
> have been falling in the United States. The drop in the American crime
rate
> is even more impressive when compared with the rest of the world."
>
> But they fail to mention that a) American crime rates previously went up a
> lot in association with crack-cocaine and the recent decline is just
return
> to more historic levels, and b) while the percentage reduction may be
large,
> the absolute level of violence in the US is still higher than otherwise
> comparable countries that have less guns.
>

Maybe then you should worry about the causes of violence, since CLEARLY,
guns do not cause it. At best they are used in sone of the incidents..