Any intelligent responses to this recent LA Times article?

[Mangachk]

My cousin who is highly pro gun regulation posted this on my facebook in response to a pro arms article I posted.

foreign gun laws tightened after massacres have reduced homicides - latimes.com

Does anyone have any good sources to counter this? The article potentially makes a good case for gun control but my gut churns at the idea of more gun regulation in the U.S.
It's really hard for me to believe that disarming the public really brings homicide down. My instincts tell me that crazies who shoot up places like theaters or elementary schools will obtain weapons one way or another and go to gun free zones to do their work. My instincts also tell me that violent crime would go up in countries that make having weapons hard because criminals would be armed and the public wouldn't be.
All these laws do is make it harder for law abiding citizens and do nothing for criminals, who don't care about the law. But what do I know.... Any suggestions?

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[RicT]

Mangachk,

There are lots of places that have the info you need to refute your cousin's "facts", but I don't have them at my fingertips right now.

I just read a book (Guns and Violence: the English Experience), in which the author traces the history of gun control in Britain, along with the results for each time period. The results are quite the opposite of what the linked article states. This author also examines the statistics for both the British and American deaths by firearms, and explains the differences in the culture of each nation. The book is very informative, and not expensive (I bought my copy on Amazon for about $6).

I'll look up some of the other info/sources I have for this and get back to you tomorrow.

RicT

[shadowwalker]

Well there was a case awhile back in the UK about some one putting barb wire around there home because they were always getting robbed and it seems the BG got hurt while breaking in so the people that put up the wire got charged for injuring BG

[Mangachk]

Thanks, I would appreciate that.

[Mangachk]

Yeah, from what I can tell the numbers of assault, etc. in G.B. and Australia have risen.

[mprp]

What gets me is this was printed in the Los Angeles Times. If they looked out their windows once in a while, they should see first hand that gun control doesn't work. They want to print crap about other countries but aren't even able to look out their own window, where by the way, is also in the same shared area as drug control.

[mulle46]

I believe the key to this is shutting down the transfer of weapons at their source. One of the ways, currently illegal, is to make the suppliers of weapons responsible, with prison sentences, for crimes and murders committed with guns they sold, if a crime or murder is commtted with one of their weapons. The restrictions gun dealers would place on picking and choosing their potential customers would make gun dealers our own best policemen. This should include laws mandating use of a data base, currently ignored, of potential killers, either due to pas behavior, such as arrests, or mental problems. Most of the lone gunmen mass murderers of recent decades had been diagnosed or were being treated while they were allowed to buy as many assault weapons as they had the money to pay for them. From a comment there, holding a manufacturer responsible for the actions of a client?so car companies should be responsible for accidents?

[sensei2]

to the best of my knowledge, virtually ALL of the "studies" which supposedly show reduced crime and violence following more restrictions on gun ownership are out and out LIES.

the people writing these 'advocacy articles' START from the position that guns are 'bad' and must be banned or restricted, and tailor their "evidence", "facts", and conclusions to support this point of view. then other like-minded people come along and cite these earlier papers to support their newer "research". it's just an incestuous relationship, which, over the years APPEARS to be an impressive body of work supporting more gun restrictions. in reality, it's just a house of cards, ready to fall over and be exposed by anyone who really checks into how this 'research' was done.

see books such as, "Guns - Who Should Have Them", by David B Kopel; "Shooting the Bull", by Guy Smith; "Armed", by Gary Kleck and Don B Kates; and "Shooting Blanks", by Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman.

the reason these anti-gun people lie is simple: they believe with a fanatical fervor that guns are evil and MUST be eliminated. but the FACTS don't support their position, so they lie instead.

[ost911]

ppl need to take their blinders off!

[mcp1810]

Part of the problem with the numbers from the Brady Bunch as cited in that article is that they are using raw numbers for countries, some of which are smaller than individual states, and comparing them with the entire U.S.
Britain is about the size of Idaho, Spain falls between California and Texas. If you were to add the state of Maryland to Germany it would be about equal to Montana.
Hardly valid comparisons.

The populations of the New York City and Los Angeles metro areas alone are about equal to then entire population of Canada. The NYC metro area and Boston metro area equal the population of Australia. The population of Finland is less than that of the Washington D.C. metro area.
Again, hardly comparable.

If it is the rate of gun ownership that is the problem, why does Canada with only 23.8 firearms (privately owned) per hundred people have more killings (per the article) than Germany which has 30.3 (privately owned) per hundred? And wait a minute! Finland has 45.7 per hundred! Their gun ownership rate ranks them #4 in the world! (ownership rates courtesy of Gun Policy .org web page) Brazil only has 8.0 privately owned guns per hundred people but their murder rate is about nine times that of Finland! Venezuela has a gun ownership rate about one quarter of Finlands but it's homicide rate is roughly twenty times that of Finland.

Guns are not the problem.

[Mangachk]

"Homicides involving firearms dropped by 59% in the decade following Australia’s gun law reforms, Harvard University researchers reported last year in an analysis of the Australian statistics. “In the 18 years prior to the 1996 Australian laws, there were 13 gun massacres (four or more fatalities) in Australia, resulting in 102 deaths,” Howard noted. “There have been none in that category since the Port Arthur laws.”
Can anyone give an response to this quote in the article? Does anyone have a good sources?

[mulle46]

"Homicides involving firearms dropped by 59% in the decade following Australia’s gun law reforms, Harvard University researchers reported last year in an analysis of the Australian statistics. “In the 18 years prior to the 1996 Australian laws, there were 13 gun massacres (four or more fatalities) in Australia, resulting in 102 deaths,” Howard noted. “There have been none in that category since the Port Arthur laws.”
Can anyone give an response to this quote in the article? Does anyone have a good sources?

what about the other violent crimes? Since the ban, and before ?

[rangefinder]

Gun Control works! Just ask all those Mexican peasants.

[Mangachk]

Assault, sexual assault, and kidnapping/abduction have all increased by over 100% from 1996 to 2010 (according to their own government document on crime facts and figures). It was shortly after 1996 that they enacted their tough gun laws. What my cousin would argue though is that homicide has still decreased so less lives are lost even though more have been affected by assult, etc.

[Mangachk]

(Referencing Australia btw)