Gun Control

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ared0025

New member
Let me re-iterate.

I am not claiming the gun ban can be directly linked to any set of figures.

I am simply refuting some other claims made in your posts.

1. I think the most important point is that 2002 is years after the ban and that they were experiencing higher gun crimes than in the year of the ban or of the incident that led to the ban. Thus you have to question how effective the ban is at reducing crime.

I pointed out that the number of deaths had halved during that time period, which was actually the point of the ban. Gun crime (which includes the use of replicas and airguns) rose, but this was accounted for by the latter two categories.

2. So violent crimes, gun crimes, and murders being up while gun deaths being down is a success for the gun ban? I am not sure that being killed by a different method is any better than being killed by a gun. If the number of gun crimes are up, then it seems the number of illegal guns must be skyrocketing.

I showed that violent crimes were down, murders were down (check the graph again, knock off 54 for the July bombings, figures will be similar or lower than the '96 level for example, definitely lower than the 94/95 levels), and gun crimes were up because of increased use of air and replica weapons.

Moving on:
Even the OP questions the veracity of those stats.

I'll have to dig around some more. But it's almost irrelevant. Replica and air weapons show rises in use which account for most of the rise in gun crime.

So many factors have changed over 30 years it is impossible to take this as a simple linear time frame where an event "should happen" at a certain frequency. It is similaryl impossible to directly attribute decreases in murders and gun deaths solely to the gun ban. I've never argued otherwise.


As far as I remember both were carried out by the registered owners. I haven't time to dig out a source to corroborate that so if anyone can clear that one up I'd be grateful.


The BCS generally shows higher incidences than the reported crime figures issued by the police as some people don't bother reporting incidents. As mentioned above, even the OP questions the figures shown in that source from 7/8; I can find nothing from police, govt or any other source that goes anywhere near that.


Dealt with above. Remove terrorist attacks and the figures are lower.

What do you want?



The figures aren't mixed they're clear.
Gun deaths are down.
Murders are down.
Violent crime is down.
The only figure to show any increase is "gun crime", primarily because it also includes replica and air weapon use.

Mitch
 
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onanutmission

New member
I really haven't made any claims. I am asking questions based on the info posted in this thread. Well I guess I did claim that NYC and Washington, DC have the highest murder rates in the US along with the strictest gun control laws. But I doubt anyone would disagree with that.

As you said, you don't know the percentage which are real guns. Therefore, how can you determine that the repelicas and airguns account for the difference. According to the article, the number of gun crimes were triple, are more than 70% of the crimes with the replicas and airguns? What was the percentage that was not real guns before?



Try looking at the graph again. The rate went up in 97 (year of the ban, the year after the incident) and continued up until 2003. If you drop off the 54, you will still be higher than 96 or 97. But if the ban was effective, wouldn't the numbers be lower rather than higher? Even if the numbers were the same instead of higher, would that be an indication of success?


The OP questioned the increase percentage. Isn't the homeoffice an official gov't website? If so, why would we trust something else more than the official gov't website that is linked from the page you supplied?



I appreciate the effort. But if we don't know the percentage, do we really know that it accounts for most?



True, you didn't argue that. But two others did. As you say, things of this nature are not really linear and don't happen on a schedule. But to say 10 years of not having a massacre shows the success of the ban when it was 10 years without a massacre before the ban is a poor argument.


I would also be grateful.


Other than BCS, the others are dealt with above. But why would surveys be more accurate about murders? Either the person is murdered or not?


Numbers that show that it really is effective.



The figures aren't mixed they're clear.
Gun deaths are down. - Which source was that? I forgot.
Murders are down. - No they aren't, according to your source.
Violent crime is down. - Or way up according to the gov't.
The only figure to show any increase is "gun crime", primarily because it also includes replica and air weapon use. - If we don't know percentages before or after, is this true?
Click to expand...
 
M

Maaskant

New member
Please note that only the years in red are relevant to a discussion of the ban. While you had a 19% drop during the ban period, you had a 29% drop before the ban period.

According to what I read at Wikipedia, the ban really was a ban on new licenses, and that licenses have to be renewed every five years. Is that accurate?
 
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bearlystable

New member
Firearm is defined as anything that looks like a gun ....

bannana in a bag robbery = armed robbery = +1 firearm robbery.
Toy gun = +1 firearm robbery
BB gun = +1 firearm robbery.

Robbers believe, falsely, that they will get a lesser sentence if the gun isnt real. Cos after all, they were never gonna kill anyone, right? wrong - same sentence as if it had been real.

I'd like to see stats on REAL firearm crimes, but I cant seem to find em...
 
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NightFun

New member
Other than violent crime, murder etc being up which I've disproven.

I'm sorry but I'm not doing your running around for you, go back through the thread. It's there in black and white.

They are as near to identical to 96 levels as can be discerned from that graph. They are lower than pre 96 levels. They are in no way significantly up.
I cannot find the stats in Wesson's post. We'll have to wait for that. Until then I have cited govt stats demonstrating clearly that they are down. Can you show different?



A quick bit of finger counting based on the sources I've already cited.
1996 Handguns 24% Air Weapons 56%
1998 (First time replicas are a seprate category in the stats I have availble) Replicas 4%
2005 Handguns 19% (down 5%) Imitations 14% Air 51%

So handgun use is down, Air is down (it had risen in between), replica is hugely up.

What numbers? Be specific.

Mitch
 
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dpiesse

New member
Some of the problems with this graph have just been pointed out. Plus it only shows robberies, not "Gun Crime" as a whole.

Plus those two are only components of "Violent Crime", not the whole.

I'm waiting for the stats that show Violent Crime has risen in the UK as you claimed.

Mitch
 
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bluebubble39

New member
As I'm not familiar with London, I won't comment. But as Wesson noted, if Daddy locks the firearm up, kid won't get at it.



It is their legal status, Sgt. Gun control laws ultimately have very little impact on illegal firearms. You can regulate the sale and use of firearms all you want, but waiting periods, ID checks and the like will not impact the thug who buys a stolen gun on the street, only the law-abiding citizen who wants to buy one through proper channels. The only laws which impact the thugs are the mandatory sentences, but by the time those are imposed, it's likely to be too late.
 
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JSBluck

New member
But again, considering the number of crimes committed with legally owned firearms versus the much greater number of crimes committed with illegally obtained firearms, what do you think you're accomplishing?
 
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chadp10

New member
That attitude is pretty deplorable. 32 people were murdered this week with a legally acquired handgun. For all we know, this wouldn't have happened if he had been forced to purchase one illegally.
 
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dancer4LIFE

Member
No you haven't. And I have only used the numbers posted here.


I found them and already highlighted the numbers you gave. While you didn't give a source, I am sure you had a legitimate one and will accept them. However, I also highlighted that the majority of the drop was before Dunblane and well before the ban took effect. In actuality, there was a slight uptick after the ban before going back down. Yet the numbers are higher than at the far left of the graph. Blow it up and you can the lines are not level. It is higher. But even if it were a level line showing the same, that would mean that the ban didn't drop the rate. I don't see how that is hard to understand. I think you can legitimately argue that there are other factors and that they are the reason it didn't go down but arguing that it did go down when it didn't in the chart you posted is ridiculous.



I am willing to wait for him to show exactly where he got the numbers from.


If gun usage has tripled as in the newspaper article, and the percentage is down 5%, wouldn't that mean that the numbers are up? I mean 24 is less than 3 times 19. That would actually be more than double the amount of real guns being used, correct?



Numbers that show that violent crime, including murders, robberies, etc. is down. If guns are the problem and the gun ban is effective at reducing the amount of guns used illegally, they should all be down. Is the reason for the ban to reduce crime or to see crime shift to other weapons? I would hope that the reason is to see crime drop.
 
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Marinita

New member
I don't think it is deploreable but rather realistic. Trying to equate anyone that disagrees with gun control as being unconcerned with tragedies is what is deplorable. Trying to emotionally browbeat people into agreement with a policy that needs to be logically debated is a very poor argument.

If we banned schools, there would be no school shootings. If we got rid of all antifreeze, there would be no poisionings with antifreeze. If we got rid of all knives, we could eliminate all stabbings with them. But we would have little education, cars would stop working due to overheating or frozen engine blocks, and we would have problems eating. A better choice is to punish those who use things to committ crimes. Sure, all of those aren't really good examples, but there also legitimate reasons to have guns.
 
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jessicafan

New member
You may think my attitude is "deplorable" but the fact of the matter is that you cannot hold every sane and normal citizen out there responsible for the actions of an obviously unbalanced child. It simply doesn't work that way. I will *not* be emotionally browbeaten into giving up my rights b/c every now and then someone commits a crime.
 
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Jenova

Member
There is no legitimate reason to need a gun aside from professional interest ie. in marksmanship. It is unneccessary for effective self defence, home defence, etc.

Fact is, if the American Government banned all handguns and enforced the ban, then there wouldn't be an unbundance of firearms legal or otherwise with which to commit crimes.
 
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