Hello everyone, wow this thread has really gotten a lot of discussion going. Like another member said it’s good to talk about, even with differing sides. I would like to throw some things out there.
1) Forbes recently did an article about gun crime. The article talked about the dramatic increase in gun sales over the past two decades and how gun crime has actually one down at a similar rate. They used the FBI database for their sources. A government source, In fact almost every year for the past two decades we have seen gun crime going down, based only on the FBI Gun Crime stats. I believe over the past 20 years that homicides are down 39% and other gun crimes are down by 69%, when compared to population increase. Remember to be fair you need to look at it in a per 100,000 population study.
2) On the flip side, gun crime rose more dramatically when we started to regulate firearms. For most of the 50’s and early 60’s crime was static. (it’s a grey area in regards to these statistics as they didn’t have great records for 50’s, 60’s were much better and more accurate) Didn’t have any growth in crime, yet our population continued to grow. In 1968 we had some fairly significant gun control introduced and crime started to increase.
3) Let’s jump back to modern day. If you look at our crime statistics, specifically crime in the states, let’s narrow it down to major cities with significant gun control. Most of the crime statistics for the country can be narrowed down to these cities. Washington DC, Chicago, Detroit, and Oakland California to name a few. These cities have the countries strongest gun control; however they make a majority of the crime and gun crime in this country. Recently gun bans in Chicago and DC have been lifted by the court systems. Since those bans have been lifted Crime has been reduced by 15 percent in Chicago, and 34 percent in DC. That’s just in the first 6 months since the bans were lifted and law abiding citizens are now allowed to protect themselves.
4) I’m going to ignore the fact that our constitution states we have a right to own firearms, not a privilege. This right is for self-defense and to make sure government doesn’t get out of control. I’m going to ignore it because that’s a whole nothing can of worms. What I will say is this, it has been ruled in about 8 different court cases, mainly supreme court, that “You, and only you, are responsible for your security and the security of your family and loved ones.” The police have no legal duty to protect you, even if you have received death threats. So the right to self-defense is important and for some a gun is the way to go
5) For instance it’s reported every year that over 100,000 women use a gun to protect themselves from rape. And it was only 5% that they actually used the gun. Here’s a good one for you. 2% of shootings that are done by a law abiding citizen were in error, at someone that wasn’t a criminal. Yet the police have an error rate of 11%.
Ok I have tons more data, numbers mostly taking from the FBI crime statistics database and other GOVERNMENT sources. What’s strange is the main stream media don’t talk about these numbers or the lives that are saved because of firearms.
I’m not taking away from the senseless acts that occur. I’m not saying that we should have all gun laws torn up. I believe in some regulation, however, I don’t believe in politicians creating laws to give the appearance of being tough on crime that hurt the law abiding citizens. Recently we had a politician in California who is now being charged with weapons trafficking. We need to enforce our current laws. In Massachusetts only 10% of gun crimes are taking to court where mandatory minimum sentences would be used. Plea bargains the other 90% with less than a year of jail time at most. By the way all of which did not involve legal gun owners.
