[Phantom Hoover]

No, the British Empire hasn't existed for half a century. Were you thinking of the Commonwealth?

http://qntm.org/uk

[Grizzly]

No, the British Empire hasn't existed for half a century. Were you thinking of the Commonwealth?

[Bobboau]

I know I said I was done with this topic, but

[jr2]

Just read this:

Buy a gun, folks — do it for the children. That could now be the message after the revelation that a Harvard University study has thoroughly refuted the gun-control agenda. The research, conducted in 2007 but suspiciously ignored until now, is enough to make a grown man cry — if that grown man happens to be Piers Morgan. Writes BeliefNet:

According to a study in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, which cites the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the United Nations International Study on Firearms Regulation, the more guns a nation has, the less criminal activity.

In other words, more firearms, less crime, concludes the virtually unpublicized research report by attorney Don B. Kates and Dr. Gary Mauser. But the key is firearms in the hands of private citizens.

The above facts have long been related in works such as economist John R. Lott Jr.’s book More Guns, Less Crime. But this study is different in that it originated with leftist bastion Harvard University. Entitled “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?” it is a trove of firearms truths. Among them is the following, writes BeliefNet:

The popular assertion that the United States has the industrialized world’s highest murder rate, says the Harvard study, is a throwback to the Cold War when Russian murder rates were nearly four times higher than American rates. In a strategic disinformation campaign, the U.S. was painted worldwide as a gunslinging nightmare of street violence — far worse than what was going on in Russia. The line was repeated so many times that many believed it to be true. Now, many still do.

Note that as Soviet KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov pointed out, such “strategic disinformation campaigns” were common. Also called “active measures” in KGB jargon, they were used, among other ways, to smear former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover as a homosexual and WWII-era pontiff Pope Pius XII as a Nazi collaborator. BeliefNet continues:

Today violence continues in Russia — far worse than in the U.S. — although the Russian people remain virtually disarmed. “Similar murder rates also characterize the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and various other now-independent European nations of the former U.S.S.R.,” note Kates and Mauser. Kates is a Yale-educated criminologist and constitutional lawyer. Dr. Mauser is a Canadian criminologist at Simon Fraser University with a Ph.D. from the University of California Irvine.

The study also addresses anti-firearms zealot Piers Morgan’s favorite gun-control poster boy. BeliefNet again:

When Kates and Mauser compared England with the United States, they found “’a negative correlation,’ that is, ‘where firearms are most dense violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense, violent crime rates are highest.’ There is no consistent significant positive association between gun ownership levels and violence rates.”

In 2004, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences released an evaluation from its review of existing research. After reviewing 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications and its own original empirical research, it failed to identify any gun control that had reduced violent crime, suicide, or gun accidents, note Kates and Mauser.

... [Yet] [s]omehow, it goes unreported that “despite constant and substantially increasing gun ownership, the United States saw progressive and dramatic reductions in criminal violence,” write Kates and Mauser. “On the other hand, the same time period in the United Kingdom saw a constant and dramatic increase in violent crime to which England’s response was ever-more drastic gun control. Nevertheless, criminal violence rampantly increased so that by 2000 England surpassed the United States to become one of the developed world’s most violence-ridden nations.

The reality is that there’s simply no empirical evidence indicating gun control reduces crime. There are nations with far stricter gun-control laws than the United States but higher murder rates; along with Russia, Mexico and Brazil are examples. There are also countries with high gun-ownership rates but very little homicide, such as Israel and Switzerland (which has the world’s ninth-lowest murder rate).

And while gun-control zealots portray the United States as a wild west of murder and mayhem, our nation actually ranks only 98th in homicide rate on a list of 194 countries — in the bottom 50 percent. Of course, it’s true that the U.K., often cited by gun-grabbers, has an even lower rate (note: this doesn’t contradict the Harvard study; Britain’s murder rate is lower, but its overall level of violence isn’t). It’s seldom pointed out, however, that New Hampshire has both a far higher gun-ownership rate than the U.K. but a lower murder rate. Explanation?

Demographics. As Dr. Thomas Sowell put it in 2012, “Neither guns nor gun control is the reason for the difference in murder rates. People [are] the difference.”

A major factor in the U.S. murder rate having dropped during the last few decades is that the proportion of young people — the age demographic with the highest crime rate — has dropped as our society has grayed. There are other demographic correlations, too. As Sowell wrote, “The rate of gun ownership is higher in rural areas than in urban areas, but the murder rate is higher in urban areas. The rate of gun ownership is higher among whites than among blacks, but the murder rate is higher among blacks.”

Then there’s an even more striking example. Japan, which has strict gun control, “technically” has the world’s fifth-lowest homicide rate (critics point out that, due to the application of different criteria, that nation’s actual rate is twice the reported one). Yet Japanese-descent Americans living in the United States — under our relatively lenient gun-control laws — have a murder rate half that of Japanese living in Japan.

Unfortunately, none of this changes the minds of demagogues bent on advancing an anti-Second Amendment agenda. For example, after the tragic Charleston shootings that left nine dead, Barack Obama said that “this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.” But he’s wrong. In terms of mass killings relative to population, the United States actually ranks behind five nations, including Norway and Finland — which both have firearms regulations labeled “Restricted.”

So, as North Coast Journal’s Terry Roberts noted, “What we are seeing is ideology in collision with reality.” And when reality loses, we get nonsense such as “Gun Free Zones,” and Americans lose their lives. But perhaps reality needs to be brought home to the ideologues. Note that when liberal journalists were offered the opportunity in 2013 to “support the cause” and place signs stating “THIS HOME IS PROUDLY GUN FREE” on their lawns (video here), they all declined. One even said, “Somebody driving by around here might think it’s an invitation to come barging in.”

Perhaps the solution is to accept new gun-control bills with one rider attached: Any legislator voting for it or chief executive signing it into law must place a “Gun Free Zone” sign in front of his house. Now that would be ideology colliding with reality.

[Dragon]

Interesting. This is what I've often though to be the case, but backed by a lot of actual, solid numbers. The magnitude of the effect is quite amazing. I guess even the possibility of someone being able to defend him/herself makes potential criminals reconsider. I suppose it has to do with risk to reward ratio. In Poland, if you decide to rob someone, the worst thing that would normally happen would be that you get beaten up and put in jail (not even for particularly long). If you try that in the US, especially in a gun-rich area, that might be the end of you right there. This is why I'm for gun registration and mandatory training, not gun removal. It is more about accident prevention than anything else since guns, unfortunately, also tend to introduce another way for idiots to hurt themselves and others by accident.

[Mars]

In Poland, if you decide to rob someone, the worst thing that would normally happen would be that you get beaten up and put in jail (not even for particularly long). If you try that in the US, especially in a gun-rich area, that might be the end of you right there. This is why I'm for gun registration and mandatory training, not gun removal

In my mind, beaten up and thrown in jail for petty theft sounds about right. Being shot dead does not.

[z64555]

Great find, jr2.

[jr2]

Great find, jr2.

Thanks.  Happened upon it and thought maybe it would add to the discussion here.

[Phantom Hoover]

It's yet another driveby ****post from jr2, not sure why you're praising it so much?

[NGTM-1R]

It'd add to the discussion if not for the fact it works very hard to be out of context and otherwise distort information.

[karajorma]

Yeah, that's the most cherry-picked nonsense I've ever read in my life. Japan has no guns and the 5th lowest murder rate in the world. It's completely contradictory to our claim that more guns = less murders but we're going to explain that by saying Japanese-Americans (Many of whom are by now 3rd or later generation Americans) don't commit a lot of murders and therefore it's not in their culture to murder people back in Japan.



N.B I'd also love to point out how despite the entire tone of the thread was on the reasons why this never gets solved, one side has gone entirely back to shouting their rhetoric again. Why am I not ****ing surprised.

[z64555]

Well shame on me for being lazy and going by what people present at face value, I guess. 

[jr2]

Yeah, that's the most cherry-picked nonsense I've ever read in my life. Japan has no guns and the 5th lowest murder rate in the world. It's completely contradictory to our claim that more guns = less murders but we're going to explain that by saying Japanese-Americans (Many of whom are by now 3rd or later generation Americans) don't commit a lot of murders and therefore it's not in their culture to murder people back in Japan.



N.B I'd also love to point out how despite the entire tone of the thread was on the reasons why this never gets solved, one side has gone entirely back to shouting their rhetoric again. Why am I not ****ing surprised.

Cherry picking and skimming, eh?       

Let's try again:

Then there’s an even more striking example. Japan, which has strict gun control, “technically” has the world’s fifth-lowest homicide rate (critics point out that, due to the application of different criteria, that nation’s actual rate is twice the reported one). Yet Japanese-descent Americans living in the United States — under our relatively lenient gun-control laws — have a murder rate half that of Japanese living in Japan.

[karajorma]

Read what I said again.

When Kates and Mauser compared England with the United States, they found “’a negative correlation,’ that is, ‘where firearms are most dense violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense, violent crime rates are highest.’ There is no consistent significant positive association between gun ownership levels and violence rates.”

I figured I'd address this too cause it shows the basic level of deception going on here. The statement sounds good until you consider one important fact. Handguns are basically banned for private ownership in the UK. So when we're talking about the highest density of firearms, we're basically talking about villages in the countryside where farmers have rifles for shooting game or vermin. Is anyone ****ing surprised that they have a lower crime rate than inner cities?

Seriously, both sides need to leave "The island nation of England" the **** out of this debate. Our crime statistics have **** all to do with what America should do about their countries gun laws yet we constantly get dragged in by both sides. This is an American problem. It needs an American solution. Comparing things against the UK only causes problems and misinformation because the people doing the review are usually incredibly badly educated about the differences between the UK and US.

Leave us the **** out of your nasty little disagreements.

[Phantom Hoover]

That article is so desperate to find convenient stats it's pathetic. I mean seriously, if you end up having to break the US down into individual ethnic groups to get material you can cherry-pick it says a lot about how one-sided the actual gun violence stats are.

[666maslo666]

Japan has no guns and the 5th lowest murder rate in the world. It's completely contradictory to our claim that more guns = less murders but we're going to explain that by saying Japanese-Americans (Many of whom are by now 3rd or later generation Americans) don't commit a lot of murders and therefore it's not in their culture to murder people back in Japan.

Sounds reasonable to me. I do believe that cultural attributes of the people living in some place, including age structure, ethnicity, poverty rate, education, are FAR MORE important for violent crime rates and murder rates than rate of gun ownership or gun laws. You cannot claim that Japan is an example of successful gun control unless you account for these differences first. And in all likelihood they will drown out any effects of gun legislation. It is just very hard to isolate. And that goes for both sides of this argument, I doubt any of them is really supported by solid science.

[Phantom Hoover]

when i see arguments like this they always seem to be, to one extent or another, code for 'gun violence isn't the problem, black people are'

[headdie]

except the issue is not [Racial Group] is the problem
the problem is the social situation [Racial Group] often finds itself in

[666maslo666]

when i see arguments like this they always seem to be, to one extent or another, code for 'gun violence isn't the problem, black people are'

Well in all these cases we are dealing with white male shooters, so I dont think you can make that argument. I am talking about cultures here, not races.

[karajorma]

The arguments jr2 was posting about was nothing to do with spree killers and everything to do with standard gun violence.

As for the Japanese thing. I don't have an issue with saying that certain cultures are less prone to violence. My problem is then using it to say "See! Gun control is unnecessary!" For all we know, the reason Japan is so peaceful is cause of years and years of not having a gun culture. To then claim that this then proves America + guns = OK is idiotic.

That said, using it to prove America - guns = OK is similarly stupid.