See, this is how it goes...
Me: Hi everyone. I'm Jay, and I'm a gun owner.
You: Hi Jay.
Good. Now that we're all set. :-)
Well, lemme tell you it's nice to be here. I'd like to start off tonight looking at the continuing revival of the idea that when guns go away, something else will take it's place. That is, there is resistance to the idea that some other form of crime will rise as "gun crime" falls because of some sort of "Gun Control" law. Well... Most folks can relate quite readily to things they themselves see with their own eyes. Now, two of my nephews are 5 and 7 years old. Folks that have any experience with small kids know for a fact that anything can become a weapon. Anything. The small legos, the toy truck, a plate of food, a shirt, even the stuffed plush bear is swung around like Babe Ruth pointing over left field when a small child is pissed off and losing control.
So, with millions and MILLIONS of such examples of improvised weapon use happening in and near our child-having homes year after year, decade after decade, why is it so hard to extend the concept of "Weapon Replacement" to the adult population?
The point, as I see it, is painfully simple: When someone wants to inflict injury, and they don't have a gun, there is something that they can use to fulfill that desire quite successfully.
Also, it's generally a good thing to learn from others' examples. That's something else we try to teach our young, isn't it? To watch and see the results of someone else eating the suspicious berries and thus learn to stay away. To see the results of when Tommy in school was a bad kid and got sent to the principal's office, and thus learn not to act out like that. To see the aftermath of when Tommy drank underage and crashed his car, and thus to see and learn not to do that.
So, is there some mental blockade in us Americans preventing us from looking around at other comparable societies and learning from their struggles with crime? Are we too headstrong to learn from others mistakes? I sure hope not. Oh, hey! Looky here, an article for law enforcement concerning worldwide knife crime increases... Even in the UK... Where supposedly the banning and confiscation and heavy regulation of all gun types has removed violence from the society... yeah right:
Robb Hamic had a recent article published in the International Association for Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor's (IALEFI) Magazine, the Firearms Instructor.
Austin, TX, August 23, 2010 -- Robb Hamic explains how worldwide knife crime is escalating at alarming rates. Stabbings in the United Kingdom have reached an all-time high of one every four minutes (130,000) per year in 2008. In fact, an actor set to play the next Harry Potter was recently attacked. American actor, Christian Slater, was attacked by a deranged man with a knife and was saved by his bodyguard in London. UK knife crime is being called epidemic and it was almost impossible to sort through all of the potential research as it dominates the Internet. Additionally, Japan saw a 40% increase in knife crime in 2007. Six Chinese police officers died in one knife attack in July 2008.
http://www.pr-inside.com/...
It's important to note that it says stabbings there. Don't let yourself be swayed by seemingly small numbers that quote knife homicides. Frankly, if you've had a knife jammed into your chest and live, I'm sure you wouldn't be fooled by someone quoting "knife homicide" numbers at you trying to pretend knife crime was not a problem. As if you not being killed kept you in the same statistical group as those who had never had the thought, "Hey, theres a bloody knife in my chest!". You might think that it would be unnecessary to point this out in the diary, but that sort of evasion does get attempted in the comment section. Really.
Anyway...
I wish I could provide a link to the full International Law Enforcement article itself, but it sits as a pdf behind a membership requirement. If you want to make a go of it, here: http://www.ialefi.com/...
Well, take away the guns, and be ready for Psycho to come along with a knife. But, all Brits admit guns are bad, right? Nope.
From an article earlier this month:
Why shouldn’t we have the right to pack heat?
After a summer in which not one but two armed men caused chaos in northern England, it would have been easy for the Lib-Con coalition to react to the media attention by announcing some new restriction on guns. Derrick Bird, the Cumbrian taxi driver who shot 12 people in a killing spree on 2 June, has long since slipped from the media’s attention. But Monday’s funeral of Raoul Moat, who in July shot three people and then went on the run for a week before shooting himself, was a big story in this week’s papers.
It's almost a stunner to read a Brit defending US rights to keep and bear arms, but hold yourself together for this bit:
There’s more. Of the top 70 most crime-ridden US cities, Miami also has one of the lowest per capita rates of rape. This may be simply a coincidence, or it may substantiate a saying popular around those parts: God made man and woman, but Samuel Colt made them equal. Figures from 50 freedom-of-information requests on the incidence of violent crime and numbers of concealed-carry permits for the biggest US cities reveal that, when unemployment rate, population density and public spending are accounted for, the crime rate stays more or less flat with increasing numbers of permits, suggesting a feedback between the two and a small deterrent effect.
http://www.spiked-online.com/...
So, let's learn from others, shall we? When the best example of a more-equal society with a better social safety net is having serious weapon problems after taking guns away from the public, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee. When citizens of that nation are forming websites http://britainneedsguns.co.uk/ trying to fight an even steeper climb than we in the states have, it's time to take notice.
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I'll end with just two final recent examples.
First, the Right To Keep Arms:
The incident happened around 2:30 pm. Sunday afternoon at an isolated house off of a rural road. The 19-year-old woman was alone in the house at the time and had just finished taking a shower. She was wrapped in a towel when she noticed a man peering into the bathroom window. She recognized the man as a door-to-door salesman who had been at the house earlier in the month selling sea food and steaks.
http://www.laureloutlook.com/...
Second, the Right To Bear Arms:
If anything highlights the need for Pennsylvanians to be able to legally defend themselves in the face of crime, it’s what happened in Harrisburg late Wednesday, gun rights advocates said. As he was being punched in the face and beaten with a glass bottle, a Chinese-food deliveryman grabbed his pistol and fired at the two robbers attacking him...
http://www.pennlive.com/...
Be safe folks, and take care. It's getting weird out there. Who knows what news stories will happen between now and next thursday, with Beck going to "Restore Honor" to the nation from Lincoln's steps in just two days, and who knows what that clown is going to say. Or instigate.