Questions for gun owners, afficianados, and those curios.

[Eukaryote]

So your argument is that if we get rid of guns we'll cut down on suicide? If a person is going to kill themselves then they will find a way. Getting rid of one way to do it is not going to prevent it. People who wish suicide do not truly care if if it's a bullet to the brain or a slit throat. They will use what is available.

Ditto, plus if someone wants to commit suicide they have that right.

 

[Mulholland]

Mulholland,

I gave an exampe, in real-life, about Kennesaw. What is to doubt about that? In DC, they banned handguns, and crime is STILL rampant.
Unless you can tell me why economic theory is severely flawed here, what argument can you proffer up to counter it? What doubts? Tell me them and I'll tell you how they're handled! Don't be Vauge!

If you raise the cost of committing a crime (ie, greater chance that the target will shoot you), you naturally LOWER the incidence. Supply and Demand, that's all this is.

Secondly, "meaningful?" How about just economic development, education, opportunity?

Thirdly, here is a strategy for reducing gun crime. Legalize drugs. Gun violence is highly linked to gang activity, and gang activity is highly linked to drug distribution, turf wars, et al.

Fourthly, banning guns does nothing to prevent gun crime except ensuring that law abiding citizens do not have guns.

In the US we have devolved into a nanny culture. That's a weakness.

Good post. While I agree with you on many points I am still skeptical about the case of Kennesaw. You're right about the cost of being shot for commiting a crime could lower the incidence. perhaps crime did go down in that area but what about the surronding areas. Perhaps the criminals just migrated there. What if the plan were to be implimented nationally? Would the crimnals simply give up? I don't think so, they're desperate and/or morally vaccuous people most of the time. And while being robbed at gunpoint is no cakewalk, if the criminal belived you were likley to pull out your own gun and kill him he in turn would be more likley to kill you.

What I mean by meaningful economic development is not simply a real estate boom that lines the pockets of devellopers, construction workers, and city planners, while making rents/prices out of reach of the poorest citizens. I'm talking of a broader approach that takes into account affordable housing, decent public schooling, and training programs that teach those w/o skills to properley capitialize on the boom.

Criminals are made from desperate people, reduce that desperation and we should have fewer criminals.

I agree on the legalizng drugs aspect, you gnarly economist.

As for not banning guns, I don't think you can convince me otherwise.

In a govenment that is for the people by the people I guess the majority think that societey does need a babysitter.

regards,
Mul.

 

[IglooDame]

Good post. While I agree with you on many points I am still skeptical about the case of Kennesaw. You're right about the cost of being shot for commiting a crime could lower the incidence. perhaps crime did go down in that area but what about the surronding areas. Perhaps the criminals just migrated there. What if the plan were to be implimented nationally? Would the crimnals simply give up? I don't think so, they're desperate and/or morally vaccuous people most of the time. And while being robbed at gunpoint is no cakewalk, if the criminal belived you were likley to pull out your own gun and kill him he in turn would be more likley to kill you.

Forty-seven US states (in 2007 it'll go up to forty-eight states) have some degree of concealed carry permits available, and over two-thirds of fifty are shall-issue meaning the vast majority of people that apply for them can get them (unlike New York, New Jersey, Maryland, California, or Massachusetts, which are varyingly close to no-issue). They've been implemented between twenty or so years ago and a few months from now. If the implementation of those permits had led to the smallest upward tick in the murder rate, do you think we'd not have heard about it?

And in almost every state where the bill comes before their legislature, anti-gun people talk about the Wild West, blood in the streets, mayhem, etc. - and so far, their fears have been realized in zero of over thirty cases. The jury is out on whether 'liberalized' concealed carry laws reduce crime, but they most definitely do not increase crime in general or the felony murder rate in particular.

 

[Mulholland]

I found a study that simply shows that increased rates of gun ownership in Canada are linked with more gun related deaths. The figures certainly seem to speak for themselves.
http://www.guncontrol.ca/Content/TheCaseForGunControl.html

 

[IglooDame]

I found a study that simply shows that increased rates of gun ownership in Canada are linked with more gun related deaths. The figures certainly seem to speak for themselves.
http://www.guncontrol.ca/Content/TheCaseForGunControl.html

The easiest response to suggestions that Canadian civilians need guns to protect themselves is to look south to the US to see where arming for self protection leads. While rates of violence in the US are comparable to countries such as Canada, Australia and Great Britain, rates of lethal violence are much higher. For example, murders without guns in the US are about 40% higher (1.4 times the rate) than in Canada while murders WITH handguns are 1500% higher (15 times the rate).

Yeah, that is the easiest response, but not the correct one. We've already been round and round on OT and in general that comparing one state to another (or one province to another) doesn't work, and comparing one country to another doesn't pan out either. Switzerland, France, New Zealand, Norway, and Finland are countries comparable to Canada in terms of percentages of households containing guns (between 20-30%, the US is about 40%). They're not experiencing this rash of lethal violence. Perhaps there's also a correlation between lethal violence and distance from the poles. Furthermore, as I've noted previously, the number of households containing guns and the availability of legalized concealed carry have both risen dramatically in the last two decades, with no concurrent rise in rates of lethal violence.

I'm not here to tell Canadians what to do about their gun laws (my opinions on it are probably obvious, but it is their/your country with your own peculiar social traits). I am here to say that in the US, restrictions on guns generally doesn't work as a practical matter and is probably in violation of a "framer's intent" reading of the Constitution's 2nd Amendment anyway.

Shifting gears a little, can you tell us how that pan-Canadian gun registration program is going?

 

[Mulholland]

Shifting gears a little, can you tell us how that pan-Canadian gun registration program is going?

It's been off the radar for a while. But it was quite the disaster for the Liberal government. While most Canadians agreed with it in principal it spiraled out of control into one big bucket of pork. Harper recently passed stiffer sentances for gun crimes and had previously promised his Western Conservative constituents he would axe the bill. I'm pretty sure it will pass as soon as the conservatives win a majority.
Edit:Last news is that he set up a new comitte on how to properly axe the program.