The Great Gun Control Debate

[Horse_Soldier]

If you think you can kill someone for stealing your DVD player I will put you in jail and leave you there.  Where I live only 1 in approx 330 home robberies result in violence. Most of the perps are stupid teenagers/early twenties. Many still live with their parents. Killing a stupid teenager for your tv or some jewels?  Civilization means not committing atrocites for minor crimes. The punishment should fit the crime. I am not going to some parents house to say that their kid was murdered over a home entertainment system. I feel embarrassed for you.

The punishment should fit the crime - hmm, gotta love Gilbert & Sullivan.  The Mikado was probably the best of their repertoire.  The problem I have is that the punishment in this country rarely fits the crime.  Granted, blowing some dumb fuck away with a 12 guage because he wanted to steal & sell your stereo instead of earning money the honest way is a bit over the top.  But considering the resources police put into home robberies nowadays (almost nil, from the anecdotal evidence I've gathered following a break-in into my home and those of friends/acquaintances), the dumb teenagers who do the break-ins have little if any deterrent from acting the way they do.  So permit me to be a bit cynical about the homilies I hear from the "Law & Order" side.  The YOA is a joke.  I think a 17 year old trying to feed a video game habit with the proceeds of selling his neighbours CDs & DVDs would get a much more salutary lesson from a good, old-fashioned beating with a baseball bat than anything our justice system can throw at him.  Somehow, I have a really hard time figuring why I should give a fig over an individual (teenager or not) who gets hurt, maimed or killed while committing a crime.  Break the law, suffer the consequences.  And if they're still living with their parents, then the parents deserve their share of the blame.  Say what you like.  Someone breaks into my home while I am there, I will take any and all means to defend my family, and if that means some mommy's precious  little young offender gets the thrashing he deserves, so be it.  Charge me.

 

[Infanteer]

As for handguns, it's too bad we don't have concealed or open carry permits here. Crazed killers run amok with semi-automatic rifles don't get very far when gunned down by lawful citizens who carry.

This is something that I believe as correct.  I remember once reading a commentary that posed the question of whether the two mass-murderers at Columbine would have wrecked as much damage as they did if their had been someone in the school who was armed and prepared to use the weapon.  Human beings have always armed themselves against the depredations of their fellow man - even without weapons, things like Martial Arts turned farming implements into weapon for protection of one's life and property.  I don't see how living in a modern, industrial society suddenly revokes this requirement.

Anyways, here is the excerpt on Concealed-Carry permits I was referring to, read it and make your own assumptions:

"Economist John R Lott Jr., surveyed the data on guns and murder from several recent years.  He focused on the thirty-one states that have nondiscretionary (also known as "shall-issue") concealed carry weapons (CCW) laws.  These states issue to any nonfelon who passes their safety and legal tests a license to carry a concealed handgun.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans now legally carry concealed weapons on this basis.  Lott examined the records of fifty-four thousand such licences from 1977 to 1994 and analyzed dozens of variables relating to violent crime.  He intended his research to answer the question,"Does allowing people to own or carry guns deter violent crime?  Or dies it simply cause more citizens to harm each other?"  The title of his book, More Guns, Less Crime. may seem to provide the answer, but that would oversimplify the issue.

Lott found that, contrary to popular notions, even after more than a decade, no CCW permit holder had been convicted of having used her or his gun to murder anyone.  Instead, many permit-holding women escaped being murdered (or raped) because of the use of their guns.  For example, women who did not resist violent aggressors were injured 2.5 times more than women who used guns to resist them.  Further, resistance with a gun led to women being seriously injured only one-quarter as often as did resistance without a gun.  Polls reveal that Americans defend themselves with guns between 760,000 and 3.6 million times yearly!  These figures coincide with a much broader study by Gary Kleck, a professor of criminology who also spent several years researching the effects of guns on enhancing versus preventing violence.

In his book Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, Kleck reports that private citizens in America use guns 783,000 times (handguns 645,000 times) yearly to protect themselves from felonious assaults.  That breaks down to once every 48 seconds.  Meanwhile, criminals use guns against victims 660,000 times yearly.  One-third of randomly polled Americans considered citizens armed with guns to be the best defense against criminals.  Roughly half of all gun owners said that their firearms were primarily for protection.  Indeed, the FBI reports between 1992 and 1996, private citizens shot and killed 1,382 violent offenders, a total close to (68 percent of) the 2,035 felons shot by police, to protect themselves.  What do police think of this?  Lott cites two major polls showing that more than 93 percent of responding police officers consider private ownership of firearms necessary for the average citizen to protect himself or herself.

Surprisingly, there exists a huge difference in risk to bystanders depending on whether a police officer or a private citzen discharges his or her firearm in self-defense against a felonious assault.  Carol Ruth Silver and Donald B Kates Jr., found that police shooting at suspects were 5.5 times MORE likely than private citizens to shoot an innocent bystander.  By contrast, only about 28 mistaken intruders are shot per year.  Many of these shootings result when a gun owner keeps a firearm net to the bed and fires before waking up fully.

Lot explains what the ability to protect oneself means in regard to murder:
"Violent crimes are 81 percent higher in states without nondiscretionary laws.  For murder, states that ban the concealed carrying of guns have murder rates 127 percent higher than states with the most liberal concealed carry laws.
Overall, my conclusion is that criminals as a group tend to behave rationally - when crime becomes more difficult, less crime is committed....
Guns also appear to be the great equalizer among the sexes.  Murder rates decline when either more women or more men carry concealed handguns, but the effect is especially pronounced for women.  One additional woman carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for women by about 3-4 times more than one additional man carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for men."

Lott reports that studies showing that guns kept in the home lead to more homicides than would otherwise occur were flawed (or fudged).  Instead, Lott concludes, a 1 percent increase in gun ownership correlates with a 4.1 percent drop in violent crime.  He notes that "the passage of nondiscretionary concealed handgun laws in states that did not have them in 1992 would have reduced murder in that year by 1,839; rapes by 3,727; aggravated assaults by 10,900; robberies by 61,064....The total value of this reduction in crime in 1992 dollars would have been $7.6 billion." (Lott also notes that this decline would have been at the cost of perhaps nine additional accidental deaths in all concealed handgun states.)  Ultimately, Lott was able to answer - and to successfully defend his answer scientifically against critics - the question his research originally asked.  "Will allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns save lives?  The answer is yes, it will."

Michael Ghiglieri, The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence: pp 121-123.

There you have it - remember the author, when he set out on researching his book, was a strong proponent of gun control.  Pick it apart if you wish, but is appears to be quite solid to me.

If you rationalize it, it makes perfect sense.  The job of the police is not to protect us through preventing crime, it is to serve us in ensuring the laws of the country are upheld.  Policing is a reactive institution in that police cannot lock criminals up on the assumption that they will re-offend unless under certain extreme circumstances (Dangerous Offender status is declared by medical professionals).

When it comes down to it, you and you alone are responsible for the safety of your person and your property.  Just as it is silly for Canadians to say that we do not need a military to uphold our sovereignty because "the Americans will do it", it is silly for individuals to abrogate their own responsibilities by saying "it is not my job to protect myself, the police will come".  Obviously, the police cannot be around to protect every individual.  I think that many of the problems with home-invasion and violent gangs of youths beating people in the parks that are taking the headlines in BC would be avoided if these people knew there was a good chance of the person defending themselves capably with a firearm.   How am I supposed to know if the home invader or the group of toughs merely wants my wallet or is intent on harming me as well?   Are you willing to take that chance with your own life?

Some may choose not to own a firearm for protection.  Some will take other measures to ensure personal safety (alarm system, self-defence courses, pepper-spray, etc) but I firmly believe that carrying a firearm, responsibly and according to rational legal guidelines, and being prepared to use it if necessary is the most decisive way of ensuring ones personal safety.

Just as state sovereignty is upheld by the will to arms, the only real free citizen is an armed one, as your "freedom" amounts to nothing when a criminal invades your home or assaults you in the street and imposes his will over you.

 

[P Kaye]

>> A criminal will commit a felony because he figures he has a real good chance of getting away with it - their is a significant deterrent value when they have reason to believe that the person they are going to assault may put two rounds into their chest.

This is a very interesting point... would be very interesting to see further research on this.

>>  Hunting and shooting in Canada is the safest sport bar none

I think Curling or lawn bowling might be competitors

 

[Infanteer]

You probably posted that as I was putting up the except.

Ask and ye shall receive....

 

[Farmboy]

Infanteer see the two links on my last post.

I remember once reading a commentary that posed the question of whether the two mass-murderers at Columbine would have wrecked as much damage as they did if their had been someone in the school who was armed and prepared to use the weapon.

Not to mention.............

BORN : October 26, 1964

DIED : December 6, 1989

VICTIMS : 14 (all female)

Marc Lepine was a bit of a loony. He was obsessed with war and violence, neighbours complained about the volume of his TV as he watched non-stop war films. He also hated women. The reason for this one was quite simple - they didn't like him, or they didn't find him attractive. This hatred of women grew into an absolute loathing. Lepine ended up labelling all women who didn't want him 'feminist.' He particularly hated feminists.
Eventually Lepine found a woman who liked him a little, and she became pregnant. For Lepine this was a solution, she couldn't get away if they had a child together, and he would have a son. Unfortunately for Lepine his girlfriend decided she didn't want a kid, and told him she was getting an abortion. For Lepine this was too much, and he decided to take the ultimate revenge on all the feminists he could.
December 6, 1989. The last day of term before the Christmas break - and the day Lepine would be revenged. He stormed an engineering class at the University of Montreal.

"Okay, everybody stop what their doing."
Lepine's opening line.

As Lepine spoke the line he pulled out an automatic rifle. He was wearing blue jeans, an anorak and a red baseball cap. The students all thought it was a practical joke, until Lepine put a bullet into the ceiling.

"Move! Split into two - the girls on the left, the guys on the right."

Their were only nine girls in the class of sixty, and once gathered Lepine ordered the males to leave. They did, still thinking that it must be a prank.

"Do any of you know why I'm here?....
I'm here to fight feminism!"

Lepine then opened fire on the girls - killing six, wounding the other three. Lepine then left the room firing indiscriminately at the males still outside the room. He was heard yelling -

"I want the women"

Lepine reloaded the rifle. He then proceeded to walk through the building, killing four more women along the way. He then went into room 311 where he killed three more women, and wounded others. He then walked up to one of the wounded, drew out a hunting knife and ended her suffering with three stabs. The classroom was still full of students, all scattered under desks, but Lepine seemed not to notice as he took off his anorak, wrapped it around the rifle, and blew his baseball cap off (with the assistance of the top of his skull).

INTERESTING BITS

The police were not called until 5.17pm. Lepine's brains were on the ground at 5.20pm.
He could have kept going for at least 5 more minutes before they could have stopped him.

Lepine was another shorty - He was only 5' 6"

He was born Gamil Gharbi and he later changed it to Marc Lepine.



 What would have happened here had someone been armed?

I think Curling or lawn bowling might be competitors

The study I saw took into account all injuries including broken fingers, torn ligiments, ect.

 

[Farmboy]

http://www.cdnshootingsports.org/gunbenefits.html

Because gun owners are the safest citizens in Canada, insurance companies make money granting them $5 million of primary liability insurance for only $3.35.

http://www.gunowners.org/op0302.htm

According to the National Safety Council, Injury Facts, 1999 and a 1991 Harvard Medical Practice Study:

You are 100 times more likely to be injured in a swimming pool than by a gun.
You are 31 times more likely to be injured riding in a car than by a gun.
You are 1,900 times more likely to be injured by an "iatrogenic" error than by a gun ("iatrogenic" error is medical speak for a doctor or hospital injuring you accidentally).

Oh yeah and if you could reply to my post at the top of the page.....

 

[Brad Sallows]

>If you think you can kill someone for stealing your DVD player I will put you in jail and leave you there.

Perhaps you should read more carefully. I wrote about a scenario in which someone posed a manifest threat with a firearm of his own.  You may feel embarrassed for yourself if you wish.

>only 1 in approx 330 home robberies result in violence

Why?  Because no-one is home during the robbery?  Because in the absence of armament and clear-cut powers of self- and property defence and/or understanding thereof no-one dares to lift a finger and simply permits the property to walk away?  Because addicts and other thieves are notoriously gentle people who put down the property and back away effusively begging forgiveness when confronted in the act?

Out of curiosity, what do you think a person should be permitted to do to restrain a burglar?  Assume the burglar will at least attempt to brain you with your DVD player if he is otherwise unarmed.

 

[muskrat89]

A criminal will commit a felony because he figures he has a real good chance of getting away with it - their is a significant deterrent value when they have reason to believe that the person they are going to assault may put two rounds into their chest.

That's why I said that, in many neighborhoods, anti-gun people are protected (somewhat) by the potential presence of firearms. Thus - the suggestion that the real serious anti-gun folks should post a sign in their front yard stating that there are no firearms on their property  ;D


"Concealed Carry Permits/States"  is a bit misleading also. In Arizona, I can carry a pistol for example almost anywhere, as long as it is in plain sight. I have seen, literally, people in home depot with a holstered pistol strapped to their side (not sure why). The Concelaed Carry permit is required for just that - if the Home Depot guy wanted to carry in a shoulder rig, under his coat, he'd need a CCW Permit. Another example - I can carry a pistol in plain view on the seat of my truck. If I want to put it in the glove compartment  - I need a CCW Permit.

 

[Gunnerlove]

It is funny how the public can live in fear of home invasions yet be unwilling to accept the fact that a dead home invader is not a loss to our society.

I am sick of the bleeding heart "but he was only a kid" lines in the news. If a house is broken into and the criminal is killed or injured we must not forget that the victim of crime is still and will always be the home owner.

Pay for play, if you choose to break into houses or to commit crimes you choose to accept the increased risk of getting dead.

 

[1feral1]

I don't know haw many of us older types(pre C-7) know this or did it, but the FNC1 could be made full auto with a paper match put in the safety sear and there was no way to fix this and still have a working semi auto so this as I understand was a consideration in the propitiatining of it.

The L1A1/ C1A1 and FAL type rifles were restricted because of the large influx into Canada of the Australian L1A1 SLR 1983, where $550 got you a rifle, 4 mags, bayonet and cleaning kit, plus  'investor packs of 4 were also sold. Suprislingly a vast qty of these rifles were sold to CF and former CF members, including myself. These SLR Aussie rifles were Singapore and Mayalsian contracts, many marked SPF (Singapore Police Force) on the lower receiver. The Canadian government simply did not want large quantities of these rilfes to be owned freely, unrestricted in the hands of it's own citizens. I had inquired through my local MP who had provided me this info in writing, so I am not bull-shyting here.


As for the lifting of the trigger sear by a ball of foil, or matchead, sure this worked, but not always reliable, and you could get a uncontrolable slam fire situation too (fires once the action goes forward like an open bolt weapon emptying an entire 20rd mag). Plus if you were caught (by any decent MCPL or SNCO you were in a heap of trouble (as you should be too).

For commercial purposes, many importers removed the safety sear from the rifle, and ground off the 'notch' on the underside of the breech bloock carrier. Safety seards and triger sears are too different things, and the safety sears primary function was to ensure the rilfe would NOT fire out of battery, hence the name safety sear, so in removing such, a serious safety delema was crearted, where then the rifle could fire with the action not fully forward, causing a explosion in the breech, and possibly injuring the shooter or someone standing nearby.

There was never a ruling on the removal by our aresehole Ottawa polititians, so in todays privatly owned L1A1s, C1A1s and military FAL rilfes rifles will be encountered with and without safety sears, and with an without ground carriers. Commercial FN FALs which wre deemed imported into the USA or USA manufactured upper housings have no provision for a safety sear or no 'notch' on the carriers to comply with BATF regualtion, which mean nothing in Canada.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I know it doesn't add much to the debate, but i just found this little gem on the internet:

"Saying guns kill people is like saying pencils cause spelling mistakes"

Kinda sums it up for me

 

[Slim]

[quote author=Torlyn

I'll have to ask where you got that particular tidbit...  The references that I have (Stats Can, Juristat, etc) say different.  Cheers.

T


Hi all...

Sorry I just hopped on and saw this answer to my post...

To be honest I have seen stats like the ones I mentioned above and will hunt them down in a spare moment. However I can point to the latest gun seizure by the Toronto Police Service. A friend of mine who is a serving police officer told me (and I have seen on the news) that the latest haul of illigal firearms in T.O. included a MAC 10 SMG...which is deffinetly a prohibited weapon here in Canada, but not in the U.S.

The average gun owner here would not have this item sitting in their basement for the baddies to steal...

Cheers

Slim

 

[rw4th]

Interesting thread.

There is no proof that gun control in its current incarnation works. In fact, all proof points to the contrary.

1- Handguns have been registered in Canada since the 1960's. Handgun crime has gone continuously up. The same has happened in European countries like England where personal firearms ownership is all but banned.
2- Rifles, automatic weapons, .50 caliber rifles, etc are not used in crimes; the statistics are negligible and certainly do not warrant a 2 billion dollars investment to try and control them. The percentage of crime with legally owned rifles is even lower.
3- High capacity magazines do nothing to reduce crime.
4- CCW and open carry laws do not cause the â Å“bloodbathsâ ? that their opponents claim they do. In fact all proof points to the contrary.

Because something makes you â Å“comfortableâ ?, does not mean that it has any real effect. Not only that, but where does one person get off on enforcing what makes them comfortable on another person without any reason or proof beyond a feeling. There is no real reason I should not be able to own am automatic rifle or a .50 cal rifle.

Firearms laws in their current incarnation are nothing more then feel good measures. They stem from the overall trend in our population to eschew personal responsibility; personal safety is perhaps the ultimate responsibly, and the also the scariest. Feel good gun laws make people feel safer, but they do nothing to reduce violent crime. The only thing that will reduce violent crime is for people to stand up and stop being victims.

Where shooting an intruder in concerned, if a guy breaks into my house, and I challenge him with a gun in my hand, the ball is in his court; if he gets shot then it's his own fault. I'm not advocating shooting unarmed people here, if the guy runs, all the better, but he attacks me then I'll shoot him.

 

[rw4th]

that the latest haul of illigal firearms in T.O. included a MAC 10 SMG...which is deffinetly a prohibited weapon here in Canada, but not in the U.S.

Yes, actually it is. Or at least it the US equivalent of "prohibited". Private ownership of automatic weapons has been restricted in the US since the 1930's. Only people with special licenses can own them. The same is true in Canada.

 

[Slim]

Yes, actually it is. Or at least it the US equivalent of "prohibited". Private ownership of automatic weapons has been restricted in the US since the 1930's. Only people with special licenses can own them. The same is true in Canada.

Hey Bro

I think that the siezed MAC 10 SMG was a semi-auto...Which ( I believe) are legal down there...

Cheers

Slim

 

[rw4th]

I think that the siezed MAC 10 SMG was a semi-auto...Which ( I believe) are legal down there...

And if it was, then it's no different then a pistol. In fact, it's less effective for a criminal then a pistol due to its larger size.

The only people made safer by firearms registration and prohibition are criminals.

 

[Farmboy]

http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/publications/violentcrimesfirearms.htm

FIREARMS FACTS - UPDATE

 

STATISTICS CANADA REPORTS ON THE NUMBER OF VIOLENT CRIMES COMMITTED WITH FIREARMS

 

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO BREITKREUZ'S HOUSE OF COMMONS ORDER PAPER QUESTION Q-149 â “ JUNE 3, 2002

 

(k) In what percentage of all violent crimes are firearms actually used in the commission of the offence?

STATISTICS CANADA RESPONSE: (k)

In 2000, 3% of all violent crime incidents were committed with firearms.
In 1999, 4% of all violent crime incidents were committed with firearms.
In 1998, 4% of all violent crime incidents were committed with firearms.
In 1997, 4% of all violent crime incidents were committed with firearms.
 

Note: Excludes â Å“other firearm-like weaponsâ ? (e.g. pellet gun, nail gun).

 

BREITKREUZ'S OBSERVATIONS: (k) When Statistics Canada released their Crime Statistics for 1999, they reported on page two: "Police reported just over 291,000 incidents of violent crime in 1999."  The last paragraph on the same page stated: "In 1999, 4.1% of violent crimes involved a firearm."  Unfortunately, this 4.1% statistic was overstated because Statistics Canada defines â Å“involvedâ ? not as â Å“usedâ ? in the commission of the offence but only as â Å“presentâ ? at the scene of the crime.  That's why the RCMP statistics on firearms involved in violent crime are dramatically lower. 

 

In July 1997, the Commissioner of the RCMP wrote the Deputy Minister of Justice to complain about the department's misrepresentation of RCMP statistics.  The Commissioner set the record straight: â Å“Furthermore, the RCMP investigated 88,162 actual violent crimes during 1993, where only 73 of these offences, or 0.08%, involved the use of firearms.â ? 

   

The Library of Parliament Research Branch examined two different reports published by Statistics Canada on violent crime in 1999.  They determined that the â Å“Presence of a Firearm in Violent Incidentsâ ? was 4.1%, but the â Å“Use of a Firearm in Violent Incidentsâ ? was only 1.4% - three times lower than the figure normally reported by Statistics Canada and accepted and repeated by the media without any explanation.  If the government hopes to reduce violent crime, law abiding firearms owners are clearly the wrong targets!

 

[Farmboy]

http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/firearmsquickfacts.htm

 

[muskrat89]

I wonder how many crimes are associated with alcohol use? Maybe prohibition is a more practical solution....  (yes, I drink)

 

[rw4th]

I wonder how many crimes are associated with alcohol use? Maybe prohibition is a more practical solution....    (yes, I drink)

Maybe not prohibition, but think of the lives that could be saved if we took that 2 billion dollars and spent it equipping every vehicle with a Breathalyzer switch. Now that would actually make a difference.