We have a habit of getting lost in all the noise about Constitutionality, Judicial review, "cop-killer" bullets, and political expediency. All of these issues are moot if we can't establish that gun control actually works.
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A chuckle-worthy exchange from the comment section:
Gun control advocate:
Pre-sale ballistic fingerprinting -- Proven to be effective at catching criminals who use guns (not 100% effective but more effective than not doing it).
My response:
Supporting evidence? To the best of my knowledge, pre-sale ballistic fingerprinting has never led to the conviction of even one offender.
Gun control advocate:
of course it's never led to a conviction, because it's never been done.
Apparently "proven" has some definition I wasn't previously aware of.
Anywho, on to the entry...
I would like to see someone from the gun control side provide some facts for us. Before I ask for these specific facts, let me explain why I think they are important.
- In light of the massacre at V-Tech, the gun control enthusiasts have claimed that we either need more gun control or a ban on handguns to prevent this sort of tragedy in the future.
- Some gun control enthusiasts seem convinced that we need gun registration to reduce our violent crime rates.
- Some gun control enthusiasts seem convinced that a ban on handguns is essential in reducing violent crime in the US.
- Some gun control enthusiasts compare us to Canada and the UK in their attempt to demonstrate that our violent crime problem is directly tied to guns.
Ok, so here's the data I'd like to see to back up those claims.
- In the UK, handguns had to be legally registered way back in the 30's.
a. I'd like to see the graph showing how their violent crime rates went down within a reasonable amount of time, lets say after two years and continued to decline or flattened out up until they enacted a handgun ban in the middle to late 90's.
b. If handgun registration was so effective, why did they then need to go further with an all out ban?
- In the UK, after about 60 years of handgun registration, there was a horrific mass murder where a gunman opened fire on a bunch of school children. So the UK went all the way and banned all handguns for civilian possession. I'd like to see the graph showing how their violent crime rates went down starting two years after this ban was enacted in 1997.
- The UK has banned "self defense" weapons from being carried on the street, as those weapons can also be used for offensive criminal attacks, according to the government officials there. This includes pocket knives, sticks, and other "weapons". I would like to see the graph showing how violent crime has been reduced as a result of this approach to crime, starting two years after the law was enacted.
- Canada has had much stricter handgun controls than the US, including registration of handguns since 1934. In 1998, because of a rise in violent crimes, Canada decided to register ALL guns in Canada.
a. I would like to see the graph showing the reduction in violent crime starting two years after the handgun registration was put in place in 1934.
b. I would like to see the graph showing the reduction in violent crimes starting two years after the firearm registration was put in place in 1998.
c. If this has helped reduce violent crime, why has the mayor of Toronto demanded that Canada ban handguns all together because of the rise in violent crime in Canada's major cities?
d. If handgun registration was so effective, why did violent crime continue to increase so that they had to register "all guns"?
- Washington, D.C. made it virtually impossible for it's residents to have handguns and any other guns (shotguns and rifles) had to be stored in a taken down condition, meaning you couldn't immediately use them. I want to see how this law made crime drop in Washington, D.C. starting two years after the ban was put in place in 1976.
- If violent crime is directly attributable to the availability of firearms:
a. Why do Canada (a country with strict gun control) and Israel (a country where there's an UZI in every closet) have nearly identical gun related death rates?
b. Why does Switzerland (a country that mandates posession of military firearms in the home) have less firearm related deaths per capita than Canada?
c. Why do both of these countries have much lower firearm related death rates than the U.S.?
Feel free to kick any/ all of these around.