I'm Joeverkill, and this is another Right-Wing Rant.
In light of the recent anti-gun posts by colleagues, I feel that I, as the blog's resident right-winger, have a responsibility to respond.
Guns control is not the answer to violent crime.
The arguments that gun bans decrease violent crime have been showed to be back by inconclusive data at best, and completely incorrect at worst. States with "shall-issue" concealed carry laws invariably saw a decrease in violent crime in the years immediately following the passage of these laws. Since Florida adopted shall-issue right-to-carry in 1987, its murder rate has decreased 51%.
The most recent first-world country to adopt gun bans was Australia. Following the passage of these bans, gun owners in Australia were forced by to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than
$500 million dollars. The results from the first 12 months after the bans:
Homicides increased 3.2%.
Assaults increase 8.6%.
Armed robberies increased 44%.
Liberals mock the argument that guns play a positive role in preventing oppression from the government. Let's take a quick look back at the 20th century, shall we?
- In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953,
about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded
up and exterminated.
million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
- Germany established gun bans in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a
total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend
themselves were rounded up and exterminated.
- China established gun bans in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million
political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
- Guatemala established gun bans in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000
Mayan Indians, unable to defend them selves , were rounded up and
exterminated.
- Uganda established gun bans in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000
Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
- Cambodia established gun bans in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one
million educated' people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up
and exterminated.
- Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century
because of gun control: 56 million.
So what's the deal, America? Have the soccer moms won? Has Rosie O'Donnell gotten into your heads so much that you can't think straight and read the statistics?
My fellow bloggers make reasonable arguments against concealed-carry on campus. In my opinion, this issue should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. However, I will say this: Seung-Hui Cho did not have a concealed carry permit. But I bet there are a lot of Virginia Tech students out there who wish someone was around on that day, who did. Steven Phillip Kazmeirczak did not have a concealed carry permit. But I bet there are plenty of Northern Illinois students who wish that there was someone around on that day, who did.
I'm Joeverkill, and this has been the Right-Wing Rant.
9 responses:
well-thought out post...good points were made for sure. i don't disagree with anything right off the bat.
but please cite your sources, especially with the sheer bulk of statistics you pulled out.
Yikes, good call... most of the stats were taken from "More Guns, Less Crime," by John Lott Jr.
It takes balls to come out and defend your viewpoints in this arena, where so many of us obviously disagree with you. I respect that.
I'd also like to say that I am not a gun control advocate. I only posted a graph that reflected what I felt was an interesting anomaly.
The graph I posted came to me in an email from the Economist today. It was simply a coincidence that the timing coincided with Mino's posts.
I would just as soon post a graph showcasing the number of prisoners in the U.S. (both total and per capita) against the rest of the world to bring to light a similar anomaly.
After reading your post, I was at first compelled to go through it point by point and tell you exactly where you make fact of conjecture and create causal relationships between events that are correlated at best and oversimplifications bordering on NRA propaganda at worst.
I decided not to do this, because I felt it would be patronizing and wouldn't prove my point. However, this hyperbole must at least be checked, same as Mino's.
While he is prone to using powerful anecdotal points to drive home and personalize issues about which he cares very deeply, you have leaned more toward using faulty and loaded statistics to prove an unprovable point - that guns are inherently save and having the ability to kill the person next to you creates a safer society.
As such, no offense, but Mino has made the much more powerful argument. People care more about the personal than the statistical, and furthermore I'm not sure all of your statistics bear out.
To some of your points:
There are many factors that go into a crime decrease. Violent crime across the country saw a decrease throughout the 90s into the new millennium. (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/cv2.htm)
I would pose to you the idea that a 51% decrease over the last 20 years cannot in Florida be attributed to one gun law.
Your attempts to draw a direct line from gun control to oppressive militant regimes is far-reaching and ignores basically the entirety of 21st-century Europe - a continent of people who seem to think that perhaps not allowing anyone to have guns except the police would help keep random people from killing other random people so quickly and easily.
I'm not saying they're right or wrong. I'm just saying they're thinking about these ideas and giving them weight, so don't glibly dismiss them as the liberal ranting of some commie kids who don't know any better.
And please don't insult the intelligence of the people who read this blog by trying to trick us into believing that only overbearing governments take away the weapons of their people, or you will be subjected to retorts such as this:
Why is it that the same gun-toting boogereaters who flippantly support a failed war and a corrupt executive branch, not to mention a secret service that wiretaps citizens - with the power to arrest on site, no less - at its discretion turn into tinfoil-hat-wearing schizophrenics when it comes to fucking guns? Seriously, if none of this shit matters to you AT ANY OTHER POINT, why does it matter when it comes to guns??? People don't care enough to show up and cast a vote, but they want me to believe they're going to take a handgun to a military with armored tanks and invisible planes and rail guns and futuristic weapons that can make you poo yourself?
I call bullshit.
Your arguement is thoroughly flawed and disingenuous. The banning of guns was not the reason that those people were murdered. Can you prove your causal link between the two? As one can clearly see, in all the cases you have shown, state repression was in full effect before the enforcement of gun bans. In other words the people were already under the thumb of the people in charge when they foreited their guns. Also can you show how many of the people who died in concentration camps and gulags owned guns in the first place? Where is the evidence that gun legislation directly led to whole sale slaughter?
In all those countries you mention, there was either a military government in power or a war was underway. The conditions for fascist repression and state wide paranoia were in place and they allowed for humans rights violations. Also, just because guns were banned, one cannot infer that there was no other way to procure guns or that these bans required people who already owned guns to give them up.
There have been dozens other war zones where guns are not regulated and millions of people have died there too. Did guns protect people in Somalia or Darfur or in South Africa or Chile?
Take another case,that of Northern Ireland since the ceasefire and the surrender of arms. Now this was a country similar to the other ones you mentioned. A withdrawal of guns from the table has almost eradicated a century old conflict that killed thousands. Again, I must point out that in this case a political consensus preceded the drop in violence. Common sense and a desire for peace does eradicate in a large measure the will to commit an act of crime. However with the guns gone, the peace process works so much better.
Gun violence in America is on a scale that is unprecedented. There is no comparision between the post industrialised war zone that is urban America and the lands of the peasants of Russia and China who were rounded up. People get shot over words in a bar or a dice game on the streets gone wrong. The culture of impulsive violence has been bred over the course of America's history and it is now coming to head
Does the patriotic American so distrust the apparatus of his own state that he feels the need for the admittedly paltry protection of a handgun? What can a glock do against an ATF task force anyway? Against tanks, planes and fully trained and equiped soldiers. How many times have guns been used against state oppression since the War of Independence or even the civil war?
When they were used as in the cases of the Weathermen or the Black Panthers the results were clear for all too see. They were brutally and systematically repressed and eventually considered to be radicals and terrorists. The state does not need to disarm you to put you in the hole. Today all it needs to do is label you a terrorist or a radical. The media is far stronger tool of state manipulation than any hand gun law or restriction.
As for your point about Australia -I cannot argue against the statistics, especially the third one. However I must point out that it has only been a year since the ban went into effect. The people who have surrendered their weapons are the law abiding one, granted. But as arrests pile up and criminals are forced to surrender their weapons and go to jail, I predict that a marked decrease will be seen in violence. Can you on the other hand suggest that you see a genocide in the near future in Australia? I don't think so. A secular democracy is already in place where people's views are heard. I applaud them for choosing the non violent, logical and forward thinking path.
In response to Minotauro's and Mr. Murder's comments:
I apologize if I implied that gun bans led directly to those genocides. The "caused by gun control" line was more tongue-in-cheek than anything. My point was that a hallmark of oppressive governments is that they usually take away the peoples' guns. Obviously, civilians armed with small arms are no match for a modern military. However, just as citizens must be wary of restrictions on free speech and rights to privacy, so should they be wary of laws that restrict their rights to defend themselves. That's my opinion.
I agree with the statement that gun violence is out of control in the United States. Mr. Murder states that flooding the market with more guns is not the answer. I agree with that -- my point is that placing blanket bans on firearms leaves people defenseless against those who disobey the bans. Look at Washington, D.C.: it's the one city in America with a complete handguns ban, and yet they have one of the highest rates of gun violence in the country.
For the record, I think it should damned hard to get a firearm. Every time I've been in a gun shop, I've looked around at the other customers there and thought to myself, "Good lord it should be illegal for these asshats to own firearms."
My point is not that guns are a cureall for creating a safer society. My point is that it is dangerous and irresponsible not to allow law-abiding citizens to protect themselves from violent criminals.
For the record, crime decreased by 33% nationwide during the period I mentioned regarding Florida's right-to-carry law.
Minotauro states that gun violence is at unprecedented levels in this country. He, too, is guilty of a bit of oversimplification there. I would argue that much of America's violent crime can be attributed to the growing socioeconomic differential between rich and poor. Countries with high income inequality tend to suffer from high levels of violent crime. Compare these numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality
with these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate
You guys make good cases for gun control. However, I think if you look into the statistical efficacy of gun bans, you will find that they are largely ineffective in preventing violent crime. I personally believe that a man should have a right to defend himself and his property, and if the government does not allow responsible citizens to own guns, it is denying them that right.
I don't favor gun control, myself. To be honest, if things continue down the path we're on now, I'm going to start favoring a violent coup more and more.
However, one must remain realistic. First off, as I see it right now, a nationwide ban of firearms is not possible in the United States. It's too heavily ingrained into our culture that this is one of our "inalienable rights."
This may change at some point, but for now, this is the reality of the situation in America.
My point was more that I feel the arguments for gun control are generally hyperbole meant to stir the emotions of the fearful, and that is never productive.
People should own guns if they feel they are unsafe in their own homes, as far as I'm concerned. There are many people who live far different lives from my own. Who am I to judge their daily struggles?
However, the idea that the American citizenry needs guns to protect its collective self from the government and military is laughable. Yet oftentimes, this is the crux of the argument for gun-rights advocates.
While I understand this issue is complicated, I will always have a personal problem with men who I feel would question my patriotism for my distrust of our government and then turn around and again question my patriotism for being some kind of gun-shy pacifist who would allow his government to turn into an oppressive Orwellian nightmare (which already happened, btw, I guess while all the NRA members were busy cleaning their guns).
That is forked-tongue anti-logic, and I'll point it out any time I see it from anyone.
The mass Australian genocide should be coming any minute now... unless 600,000 million Aussies can find a stick with a bend in the middle.
I agree with you, Mr. Murder. There are a lot of people on both sides of the issue who haven't really thought things through (the guy Minotauro mentioned who is selling guns at cost is a good example; Rosie O'Donnell is another).
I appreciate your comments on my posts. They've promoted a thoughtful and fair dialogue about a matter which I feel is very important.
I myself own a handgun. The two chief reasons I purchased it were:
A) I think it is very possible that there may come a time in the near future in which the police of my city are overwhelmed and cannot maintain order. A long blackout, riots, or food shortages could cause massive unrest, and I just don't think the police are equipped to deal with it. If that happens, I want to be able to defend myself.
and B) I enjoy target shooting.
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