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Gun Laws do Not Reduce Criminal Violence According to New Study

by Gary Mauser Saturday, Nov. 29, 2003 at 12:07 PM

Fire Arms in the possession of Free Citizens are a threat to Tyrants and Criminals only. Gun Control is nothing more than a Stalking Horse for disarming the American Public to make them easier to subdue.

Gun Laws do Not Reduce Criminal Violence According to New Study
Contact(s):
   Gary Mauser, Professor
   Simon Fraser University, Tel (604) 291-3652
   Email: Gary_Mauser@sfu.ca
 
Related Publication
 
Release Date: November 27, 2003
 
Vancouver, BC - Restrictive firearm legislation has failed to reduce gun violence in Australia, Canada, or Great Britain. The policy of confiscating guns has been an expensive failure, according to a new paper The Failed Experiment: Gun Control and Public Safety in Canada, Australia, England and Wales, released today by The Fraser Institute.

“What makes gun control so compelling for many is the belief that violent crime is driven by the availability of guns, and more importantly, that criminal violence in general may be reduced by limiting access to firearms,” says Gary Mauser, author of the paper and professor of business at Simon Fraser University.

This new study examines crime trends in Commonwealth countries that have recently introduced firearm regulations. Mauser notes that the widely ignored key to evaluating firearm regulations is to examine trends in total violent crime, not just firearm crime.

The United States provides a valuable point of comparison for assessing crime rates as that country has witnessed a dramatic drop in criminal violence over the past decade – for example, the homicide rate in the US has fallen 42 percent since 1991. This is particularly significant when compared with the rest of the world – in 18 of the 25 countries surveyed by the British Home Office, violent crime increased during the 1990s.

The justice system in the U.S. differs in many ways from those in the Commonwealth but perhaps the most striking difference is that qualified citizens in the United States can carry concealed handguns for self-defence. During the past few decades, more than 25 states in the U.S. have passed laws allowing responsible citizens to carry concealed handguns. In 2003, there are 35 states where citizens can get such a permit.

Disarming the public has not reduced criminal violence in any country examined in this study. In all these cases, disarming the public has been ineffective, expensive, and often counter productive. In all cases, the effort meant setting up expensive bureaucracies that produce no noticeable improvement to public safety or have made the situation worse. Mauser points to these trends in the countries he examined:

England and Wales

Both Conservative and Labour governments have introduced restrictive firearms laws over the past 20 years; all handguns were banned in 1997.

Yet in the 1990s alone, the homicide rate jumped 50 percent, going from 10 per million in 1990 to 15 per million in 2000. While not yet as high as the US, in 2002 gun crime in England and Wales increased by 35 percent. This is the fourth consecutive year that gun crime has increased.

Police statistics show that violent crime in general has increased since the late 1980s and since 1996 has been more serious than in the United States.

Australia

The Australian government made sweeping changes to the firearms legislation in 1997. However, the total homicide rate, after having remained basically flat from 1995 to 2001, has now begun climbing again. While violent crime is decreasing in the United States, it is increasing in Australia. Over the past six years, the overall rate of violent crime in Australia has been on the rise – for example, armed robberies have jumped 166 percent nationwide.

The confiscation and destruction of legally owned firearms has cost Australian taxpayers at least $500 million. The cost of the police services bureaucracy, including the costly infrastructure of the gun registration system, has increased by $200 million since 1997.

“And for what?” asks Mauser. “There has been no visible impact on violent crime. It is impossible to justify such a massive amount of the taxpayers’ money for no decrease in crime. For that kind of tax money, the police could have had more patrol cars, shorter shifts, or better equipment.”

Canada

The contrast between the criminal violence rates in the United States and in Canada is dramatic. Over the past decade, the rate of violent crime in Canada has increased while in the United States the violent crime rate has plummeted. The homicide rate is dropping faster in the US than in Canada.

The Canadian experiment with firearm registration is becoming a farce says Mauser. The effort to register all firearms, which was originally claimed to cost only $2 million, has now been estimated by the Auditor General to top $1 billion. The final costs are unknown but, if the costs of enforcement are included, the total could easily reach $3 billion.

“It is an illusion that gun bans protect the public. No law, no matter how restrictive, can protect us from people who decide to commit violent crimes. Maybe we should crack down on criminals rather than hunters and target shooters?” says Mauser.
- 30 -
 
Established in 1974, The Fraser Institute is an independent public policy
organization based in Vancouver, with offices in Calgary and Toronto.
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violence causes death

by more rational Sunday, Nov. 30, 2003 at 1:55 AM

The above statistics are deceptive. America is the western world headquarters for gun violence and gun death.

Likewise, we export death, in the form of war, every ten years or so. We're terribly efficient at it, and always have great kill ratios. I am guessing that for every American death you hear about in Iraq, we're killing 30 Iraqis (counting children, women, and other civilians, of course).

We're America, and we like to kill people. We like to watch people kill each other in the movies. We like to hear about murderous people, especially nonwhite murderers, in our entertainment. We love gore on the news too.

Even "pro-life" activists like to fantasize about killing doctors who perform abortions. They're really into "playing god" with people they think have sinned. Likewise, we love bombing the hell out of "evildoers" in other countries. We liken war to exterminating rats and mice from our homes, and trot out other old racist imagery when it comes time to execute some "foreign policy" against another nation.

I'm all for the second amendment, but, I'd like to suggest something. How about, in order to qualify for a concealed handgun permit, you have to participate in a duel. If you win, you get the permit. If you lose, well, you don't get the permit, and you may die. (In the event of a "tie" where both are shot, or both miss, a rematch is arranged.)
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peoples R morbid

by ant Sunday, Nov. 30, 2003 at 7:38 PM

know who the safest ones are(with guns)?
Of course__the hunters...the ones with years of familiarity in gun handling, firing and most importantly respect of the power they possess. Give a handgun to a frightened yuppie, intent on protecting his porsche, condo or irish-wolfhound is like giving tnt to a kid
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