Gun Control? What Gun Control?

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Fact: from (http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html)
The U.S. has a higher non-gun murder rate than many European country's
total murder rates. On the other hand, Taiwan, the Philippines, and
Mexico have non-gun murder rates in excess of our total murder rate.

The past administration said what? Bill Clinton in an appearance on MSNBC repeated, "everyone says to enforce the laws, enforce the laws, enforce the laws" to solve gun related law violations. He then said that, "If we enforce the laws, then everyone will turn to the gun shows to buy guns". He is using this as an excuse not to enforce the current laws on the books. Some pundits then said that for political expediency, the President [Clinton] thinks it is ok not to enforce existing laws and let criminals get away with rape and murder just to be able to scare the public into accepting more gun control laws.

Page 1 had a table with figures up to and including the year 1997 (the article was written in 2000). To quell date complaints, here is an updated table from 2000 that shows little difference in numbers or percentages between countries. It's taken from: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb502.pdf.

Two very serious Gun Control advocates are The Brady Center and Michael Moore. For some reason neither of them uses the full list of countries when they speak about the US and gun control. Why is that? It makes the US look like the most violent place in the world. Of course from the last article and the table here, we see that is not so. If they spin the facts or refuse to print all of them, it agrees with their hidden agenda.

The numbers both give as total gun homicides is 11,127. FBI figures shown here put it a lot lower. They report gun homicides were 8,719 in 2001, 8,661 in 2000, and 8,480 in 1999. (2001 UCR, p. 23). Here's the table: (found in pt.2 on pg.23)

According to hardylaw.com "..To be utterly fair, this is a count of the 13,752 homicides for which police submitted supplemental data (including weapon used): the total homicide count was 15,980. But what weapon, if any, was used in the other homicide is unknown to us, and was unknown to Moore [or Brady, (I add)].

After an email tip, I [Mr. Hardy] finally found a way to compute precisely 11,127. Ignore the FBI; use Nat'l Center for Health Statistics figures. These are based on doctors' death certificates rather than police investigation. Then -- to their gun homicide figures, add the figure for legally justified homicides: self-defense and police use against criminals. Presto, you have exactly Moore's 11,127. I can see no other way for him to get it."

You want a real clear graph of murders per capita check out nationmaster.com. Funny, we're 23rd on the list of countries. That is closer to what Dr. Stolinsky says on page 1. Why all the discrepancy in numbers with Moore and Brady? Well, they both want to drop the current homicide numbers (actually we all do). No law or policy has ever been totally effective in doing that. They want to be the saints that folly the current administration's policy of dropping the numbers. How do you do that? One way is to lobby Congress. Another is to change public opinion. Public opinion will in turn influence voting at the polls or the voting in Congress because of Congress' fear of the public opinion. Both end up doing the same thing in the long run. How do Moore and Brady do that? By instilling fear in the public that we are indeed a violent nation. "All White people are running scared shooting people at will. Dear God man, we have to do something before we or our precious children are gunned down." I think Mr. Moore and Mr. Brady have been found out and the American people are not going to take heed to their spin anymore.

Another thing both refuse to examine is the poverty issue in relation to crimes involving guns. Is this too touchy a subject to jump into? Do they have any fears of repercussions for printing the truth on that issue? Dustin Habermann in Daily Lobo Jan 23, 2003 points out that "Moore glosses over the poverty issue entirely. He mentions in his U.S. vs. Canada section that Canada has a higher rate of unemployment than the U.S. What he fails to mention is Canada's superior welfare and social support programs. Moore actually illustrates the U.S. poor social programs to make an "unrelated" point. He recounts the story of the six-year old child's school gun death in Flint, Mich. One of the factors, he points out, is that the perpetrator's mother was a welfare mother who under the Michigan "welfare-to-work" program and was forced away from her child for most of the day. The point he inadvertently makes here invalidates his hypothesis, which doesn't include a class analysis." And about the other countries with total homicides about 10,000 per year: "One thing all of these countries have in common is a vast polarity between the rich and the poor. It seems that poverty may very well be a large issue here." Hmmm. Something those 2 should look into.

Two "must reads" are from studies in Australia and Canada. These figures have never been seen by Michael Moore or the Brady Center. "Gun Control in Australia" from 2001, which has "end notes" (so if you're a Al Franken fan the article must be fiction). And "The Failed Experiment" by Canadian criminologist Gary Mauser from 2003, outlines Canada, England, Wales, as well as Australia (it also has end notes and thus must be lies). These articles address international comparisons of firearms laws and firearm crime rates. I highly recommend reading them both if you're interested in serious research figures instead of hype and spin from "media with a hidden agenda".

Jim Blair from bigissueground.com reports the factor that dare not be discussed:

Much has been made of the comparison of gun deaths in two cities that are similar in many ways: Seattle and Vancouver. Gun deaths are much higher in the US city (where guns are readily available) than in the Canadian one (where they are banned). Point for gun control? But looking deeper shows another disturbing factor. The difference is due almost entirely to deaths of and/or by African-Americans.

Poverty breeds crime and violence you say? Vancouver also has a poor lower class. But they are recent immigrants from Asia. They live in poverty but their kids do well in school, and no one worries about then becoming an underclass. We all know their poor kids will grow up to go to college and become doctors and scientists, and in a generation will be above the average income. But the African-Americans will continue to drop out of school and fall into poverty, and kill each other with guns.

Is it because of race? Maybe. But there is at least one other possible explanation. Almost all the Asian kids in Vancouver (and in the US) have a father that is married to their mother. This is not the case for most poor African-American kids. Is this the key to our gun/crime problem?

PS to Europeans: There is a certain lack of gratitude in criticizing the US for getting into wars, when our biggest one in this century was to liberate you from Nazi occupation. And when Holland lets in as many 3rd world immigrants as the US does, we will be more open to your suggestions about discrimination.