Originally posted by Goober5000
Okay. But of the people in the militia - who owned the weapons? The people, not the "militia" as an organizational entity. If the militia weapons were solely supplied by the government (Britain, of course), then Britain could have quelled the rebellion rather easily by simply reclaiming all the weapons from the militia.
You could argue that that's partly what they tried to do. But they were unsuccessful in seizing all the weapons precisely because most of the colonists owned weapons themselves.Precisely. Look at Iraq. But do you really think the Iraqi resistance would be so successful if they were unarmed?
Well, wait a mo, here; we're not talking about whether people have guns, but how they can obtain them. Anyone can refuse to return a weapon; this is more akin to the prospect of the, say, police refusing to submit to a coup. I'm sure you'd recognise the concept of the British simply going round and saying 'sorry, chaps, but you're getting a bit rowdy so we'd like your guns' is a totally nonsensical one; the Brits did try to recover weapons and ammunition, but these things can be hidden and would be by a rebellious population (remembering that militia were irregular troops).
(the 'powder alarm' regarded as being one of the initial flashpoints was caused by British troops seizing gunpowder and arms from a military warehouse)
And ultimately we have the other issues within that war; the early formation of a regulated army by Washington, foreign involvement, and the simple logsitics of a remote island occupying a gigantic continent which would make any sort of sustained rule (even if they won the war) more cost than it was worth.
It strikes me, though, that the Iraq reference is a self defeating one. If gun ownership was common in Iraq, then how can the idea of rebellion co-exist with the repressive, minority Sunni-based regime of Saddam? And if it wasn't common (re above), then where did the current insurgency get their weapons? (the obvious answer being the thousands of Iraqi army deserters left unemployed and perhaps wanting to sell their ak-47s.... or maybe even the simple likelihood the insurgency is comprised of many former army officers... and not to mention all that unguarded ordenance after the fall of Baghdad and 'end' of the war).
In any case, the conditions that led to the insurgency (i.e. the 'war') led to a massive availability of weapons. I'm pretty sure that even if guns were widely owned by private citizens under Saddam, RPGs and artillery shells (used for IEDs) were
not.
Originally posted by Styxx
First, access to firearms isn't easy, not by a longshot. You need to provide a reason for owning one, have a clean police record and undergo a course and certification exam to be able to own one. And you still can't carry it with you unless you have a permit, which is a lot harder to have, involving much more thorough checks. So, by all accounts, right now criminals or former criminals shouldn't have legal access to weapons.
Second, yeah, the government should work on improving the living conditions of the population in general, which could be of some use reducing the crime problem (though I, personally, think that the "unfair society makes criminals" line is bull****). That's a long term solution though, and would require a whole infrastructure of reforms to be allowed to happen, starting by finding a way to curb governmental corruption - which is, frankly, the ultimate root cause of most of Brazil's problems right now. I'm all for societal improvement, but it takes willing politicians, which is close to a pipe dream, and lots of time. Improving the odds of the police against criminals would be a lot faster and would give tangible - and permanent - results if properly done. There are a lot more aspects to the issue, of course. Both (and more) should be done, in my opinion, but one could be done right away and with relatively little political effort.
Well, I can't find stats on per-instance cases of gun crime in Brazil (in english, at least). But can you dig up the number of times a legal weapon has been used to succesfully defend a person, versus the number of legally owned weapons stolen, and versus the number of legal weapons used in shootings/murder/robbery?
What I did (just) find;
Apparently, a report by the government of the state of Rio de Janiero found that 72% of guns used in crime were once legally owned; specifically that 78% of armed theft, 67% of rapes at gunpoint, 58% of gun homicides and 32% of kidnappings at gunpoint used legally registered (at one point) guns.
I've also read a disarmament (guns for money) campaign last year led to the first drop in shooting deaths (by 8%) for the first time in 13 years.
I also read that Nelson Mandela was put on posters saying he opposed the ban. Apparently he's set to sue over that (he promotes gun control in S.Africa).
I always thought it was quite simple; the more physical guns you have in a country, the easier they are to get. Even if that's through theft (individual or shipment) or dodgy dealers. And that's assuming the legit owner will never misuse that gun, either; because criminals aren't born with a record, after all.
I've never -
ever - said gun control/ban is a solution to crime; but I think it can be shown to help reduce it (well, specificall gun crime) and I believe most if not all statistics (on a national or large region basis) will be seen bear that out. But, again, I never said it could exist alone and it of course requires social and police change to ensure law enforcement actually does its job (after all, the very feeling of 'need' to have a gun is a sign the police are either/both not effective or visible enough).
I'm not one of those people who says 'it's not their fault, they grew up in a bad place' either, but I would say that deprivation and/or social inequality often makes crime seem a more appealing option - or perhaps a more realistic one.