Do Fewer Guns Mean Less Crime?

CMartucci · 12-06-07, 01:30 PM

This is from an article I wrote (and recently made a speech about), and I figured I'd post it here and see what everyone has to say.

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I'm going to attempt to prove three things:

Guns and crime exist completely independently of one another
Gun control can not be fairly compared among other nations, namely the UK
Guns do far more good to society than harm

The first problem occurs when people claim that America would be safer if only we restricted, or even got rid of guns entirerly.

“It is time that we ban handguns. We have to do that in order to protect our cities.” -Dennis Kucinich

This claim is simply false. I will attempt to prove this through use of example. Canada and France have roughly the same amount of guns per capita as the United States, yet only a 5th of the crime. The same goes for France. Here is an excerpt from an article I wrote a few months ago:

Quote:

In 1999, 39 percent of households in the United States had a gun in them. There were 3.72 (per 100,000) gun-related homicides in that year. Norway suffered only 0.30 homicides a few years earlier, a number well under that of the United States. Yet 32 percent of households in Norway had a gun, only 7 percent less than US households. Similar statistics are evident in France with 22.6 percent of households with guns and only 0.44 gun-related homicides.

Source 1

See the following chart to put this into perspective:

As you can see, even though France and Canada have roughly the same amount of guns per capita, their crime rate is much lower. Thus, their low crime rate must logically depend on another factor, and not the availability of guns.

Here is another example (from another article I wrote

)disproving the correlation between gun availability and crime:

Quote:

In 1994 the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act was passed which limited gun purchases and required mandatory background checks. In 1993, prior to the act, firearm death-rates were 6.77 per 100,000. In 1994, when the act was passed, firearm deaths were 6.45, indicating that the act had decreased gun-violence. However, in 1997 the act was declared unconstitutional, and did firearm homicides go up after that? No. They continued to drop, and in 1998 firearm homicide rates were 4.21, a 0.55 drop from 1997, a much larger drop than that between 1993 and 1994 when the bill was enacted.

As you can see, even though the act seemed to be working, crime was going down anway.

Source 2

The second problem occurs when people attempt to use the UK as an argument in favor of gun restrictions. England, with strict gun controls, has almost no gun murders and a very low murder rate. Doesn't this show that gun control is effective in reducing murder rates? Well not so fast. First of all, prior to having any gun controls, England already had a homicide rate much lower than that of the United States. Second of all, comparing nations with such widely differeing cultures and legal systems is an illogical procedure. Consider this, taken from an article written in the 90's:

Quote:

Unlike murder, rape seldom involves a gun...While 62% of murders in the U.S. in 1981 involved a firearm, only 7% of rapes did so...Therefore, if crime rates in the U.S. and Britain can be fairly compared, we should find that British rape rates were equal to U.S. rape rates, minus the 7% of U.S. rapes committed with guns.

The 1984 British Crime Survey reported 2,288 rapes in England and Wales -- an area with a population of 49 million people! This gives 4.67 rapes per 100,000 people...By comparison, America's rape rate for 1987 was 73 per 100,000 female. [This gives 36.5 per 100,000 people.] Subtracting the 7% of U.S. rapes that are committed with firearms gives 34 rapes per 100,000 people -- far higher than Britain's rate.

Britain's very low rape rate must be more than just the absence of firearms -- much more.

Source 3

(For reference, here is a list of factors assembled by the FBI which DO cause crime. Note that the availability of guns is absent from the list: http://www.guncite.com/gcgfbirc.html)

The third problem occurs when people claim that guns can not be beneficial to society. A lot of people assume that guns take more lives than they save. That, however, is untrue. "Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 per day...Often the gun is never fired and no blood (including the criminals) is shed." "Every day, 550 rapes, 1,100 murders, and 5,200 other violent crimes per day are prevented just by showing a handgun.”

Source 4

That's 1,100 murders that are prevented every day! Compare that to the 175 children who are killed by guns each year. So we can get rid of guns and save those 175 children each year, OR in the same year we can keep guns and save well over 400,000!

The fact is, the danger of guns is mostly media hype. In reality, more children die in swimming pools then from accidental shootings in the home. In fact, you are roughly 100 times more likely to die in a pool then in accidental gunplay.

Source for child deaths by firearms and swimming pools: Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, page 150

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So in conclusion, guns and crime have nothing to do with each other. They exist independently. A country with limited availability of guns is not necesarilly safer than a country with easy access to guns. In fact, Switzerland which has one of the largest gun supplies in the world is one of the safest countries in the world (Source: Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Lies...sorry for the bias source lol. I encourage you to check me on this.)

The fact is, guns generally benefit society more than it hurts it. Guns level the playing field for people who might not feel safe living alone, especially elderly couples. I urge you all to consider all of these things. Guns are not nearly as dangerous as the media would have you think.

drb14 · 12-06-07, 02:07 PM

I quite honestly didn't get the whole way through.

However, assuming the numbers in ex. 1 were correct, and that graph is an accurate representation of those numbers, it can fairly be argued that amount of guns per capita increases, the rate of firearm related homicide increases at a faster rate than the rate of increase of the per capita firearms.

From a base possession level of 0.26 and a correlating homicide rate of .44, an increase of .03 firearms possessed per capita (from .26 to .29) yields an increase in homicides of .32. However when the per capita firearm possession increases by .10 (from .29 to .39), the increase in homicide increases 2.96 (unless my math is fuzzy).

This therefore, demonstrates, conclusively and irrefutably, that as gun possession increases within a population, the gun related homicide rate increases exponentially (or is it logarithmically? Or geometrically? I can never keep'em str8).

Actually, it doesn't, but it is a better argument than saying that just because the U.S. "only" has a "little bit more" guns per household/person/chicken, that then any differences in "crime" are unatribuatable to the rate of gun possession.

Also, it's not really honest to equate the gun related homicide rate with "crime" genrally. Blanket statements do little.

CMartucci · 12-06-07, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Actually, it doesn't, but it is a better argument than saying that just because the U.S. "only" has a "little bit more" guns per household/person/chicken, that then any differences in "crime" are unatribuatable to the rate of gun possession.

I think it's a fine example of how guns and crime are not correlated. That's all I attempted to prove. If they were correlated, and people could fairly compare us to the UK (as many people do) then we should find that countries with just as many guns as we have have just as much crime. They don't. It is simply disproving a silly claim.

drb14 · 12-06-07, 02:29 PM

That is exactly my point. The graph in ex. 1 does not compare countries with the same rate of possession.
It does, however, show that as a country possesses more guns per capita, the rate of "crime" increases at an accellerated rate.

CMartucci · 12-06-07, 02:38 PM

Oh, okay sorry, I didn't understand. I guess it could be interpretted that way, but it's not true.

Quote:

Fatal gun crime declined by almost sixty percent from 1975 to 1995, yet the number of guns per capita increased by almost forty percent (National Safety Council).

Just that would cause a problem with the claim.

hackster · 12-06-07, 06:39 PM

gun control in my home:

i hit my target.

Mach · 12-06-07, 07:10 PM

OK, I'll give it a once over for how reasonable it is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CMartucci

This is from an article I wrote (and recently made a speech about), and I figured I'd post it here and see what everyone has to say.
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I'm going to attempt to prove three things:

Guns and crime exist completely independently of one another

That's false to begin with, many crimes are comitted with guns, wanting them to be independant of one another is just words or wishful thinking. Guns are a tool, and a good tool to committ certain crimes with, which is why we have gun crimes to begin with.

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[*]Gun control can not be fairly compared among other nations, namely the UK

That cannot be true, if one knows all relevant data, it can be statistically compared and described, with the appropriate caveats and margins of error. I think what you may mean is that most of the general published data is not sufficient to fairly compare the U.S. to other nations in terms of gun control.
That's possibly true (I haven't researched it but I have seen this stated a number of places). But please, make the distinction!

Quote:

[*]Guns do far more good to society than harm

Why does Japan do OK with the most stringent gun control laws? Apparently there are other factors involved that can contradict that.

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As you can see, even though France and Canada have roughly the same amount of guns per capita, their crime rate is much lower. Thus, their low crime rate must logically depend on another factor, and not the availability of guns.

Your conclusion is NOT logical. You note that it must NOT logically depend on the availability of guns, this is false. However, you may correctly claim it does not ONLY depend on the availability of guns, a much weaker, but correct, argument.

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The second problem occurs when people attempt to use the UK as an argument in favor of gun restrictions. England, with strict gun controls, has almost no gun murders and a very low murder rate. Doesn't this show that gun control is effective in reducing murder rates? Well not so fast. First of all, prior to having any gun controls, England already had a homicide rate much lower than that of the United States.

You seem to be missing the actual point here.
If you give a tool that can be used to defend against, or commit crimes, among other things, to a population that does not committ crimes, and therefore has little need to defend against said crimes, *Why would you think adding guns would increase crime rate?*

If you take a less stable population that participates in a lot more crime, and you give them guns, you will expect to see more guns used in crimes, necessarily, and more fatalities as a result. This starts an arms race, now to defend against a crime you need a gun, since people comitting crimes have guns widely available.

Quote:

Source for child deaths by firearms and swimming pools: Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, page 150

This is entirely irrelevant to the argument. Lots of people die of Cancer. And...and nothing. It's irrelevant too.

-Mach

danarhea · 12-07-07, 03:44 PM

A gun in my hands means less crime against me, and that's all I give a rat's a$$ about. Sure, I believe in gun control. I control my gun, and you control yours.

akgamer0615 · 12-12-07, 07:22 PM

I believe that before restricting firearms further, we should consider the consequences of doing so.
First, you could argue, restricting guns will prevent criminals from acquiring them. FALSE. The vast majority of people who purchase firearms are not buying them to commit crimes, and never will. What you are doing by restricting the sale further is preventing people from acquiring protection against criminals who DO have firearms.
Also, remember that criminals do things that are ILLEGAL. So, remembering this, if criminals are unable to acquire firearms legally, how will they acquire them? Well, illegally of course--they've already decided to or have committed crimes, so they won't care if they acquire their firearms by illegal means.
Consider the two paragraphs above. It is quite clear that, by limiting the sale of firearms, you are leaving more innocent people defenseless, and more criminals with weapons.
So, what happens when a criminal has a gun and breaks into your home? Well, without a weapon to defend yourself, you don't stand much of a chance; a baseball bat or pepper spray to defend yourself--ya......you try running at a criminal with that, and I can guaruntee that they can fire a bullet through you before you can prepare to swing or "spray".
Basically, by limiting gun control, you are leaving citizens defenseless against criminals who are going to acquire the weapons one way or another.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mach

You seem to be missing the actual point here.
If you give a tool that can be used to defend against, or commit crimes, among other things, to a population that does not committ crimes, and therefore has little need to defend against said crimes, *Why would you think adding guns would increase crime rate?*

If you take a less stable population that participates in a lot more crime, and you give them guns, you will expect to see more guns used in crimes, necessarily, and more fatalities as a result. This starts an arms race, now to defend against a crime you need a gun, since people comitting crimes have guns widely available.

-Mach

Unfortunately, Mach, we DO have a population that commits crimes in America. As for your second paragraph I have quoted above, you claim that an arms race between criminals and people wanting to defend themselves will occur. Have you considered that, no matter what, criminals will continue to acquire weapons? We already have weapons widely available to criminals--many of them available by illegal means, which means that we DO need weapons to defend against their's. Your claim that there will be an arms race is false. In an arms race, like the one between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, was between two nations, both driven into fear for their safety if the other should become stronger than they are. Unfortunately for your argument, the criminals are not afraid of the civilians, and are not united into their own group. When a criminal wants to rob a house in a neighborhood, they do not think: "Hmm....maybe I should research the family to make sure they don't have a firearm" or "Maybe I shouldn't do this crime...they could have a gun and kill me". They have already decided their course of action, and do not believe that they are going to occur any problems.

In closing, ask yourself this: Is it better to leave gun control as is, allowing for the small chance that someone will use a legal gun to commit a crime; or, is it better to restrict guns further and leave more citizens without a firearm to defend themselves, and allow the criminals to acquire them by their own methods? We should be pressing to prevent these illegal weapons from being acquired, rather than restricting the sale of legal ones.

V4Vendetta · 03-20-08, 10:38 PM

Criminals are criminals. Drugs are drugs. Guns are guns. The world has tried to take away drugs from criminals. Did it work? I would like to see where a country has succesfully banned drugs and it has solved all its drug problems. So, all that are saying ban guns, lets do it. Lets take away every gun and firearm from responsible citizens and let every criminal find a way to get one. WOW, I feel much safer now knowing that someone breaking into my house has a weapon ready to kill me and my family while I site in my house with a baseball bat agianst a 9mm fully auto gun. Thank you gun control freeks for killing me and my family without giving me a chance to defend myself or my family. We are grateful.