To expand on the DC gun ban issue

[leanings]

Has there ever been any study or evidence which shows that murder rates or other gun-related crime rates have DROPPED or at least slowed in their rate of increase after the application of a gun ban? Or that after a gun control law was repealed, crime rates went up? Is there any evidence that gun control works as an approach to controlling crime? It would seem that this question would be central to any discussion of gun control in general and to the DC gun ban in particular.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lcordero]

2. This does not appeal to me

Cops have guns
criminals have guns
law-abiding citizens don't have guns

That make law-abiding citizens into third-class citizens

[Withergyld]

3. crime rate data

I found this page, at the bottom it has links to data by state. The lower set of data on each page is per capita. I loaded the data for DC into excel created a graph but have no way to display it here. I wanted to see what happened to the crime rate in 1976 with the handgun ban and 1994 with the AWB. Most types of crime for DC seemed to have peaked before the handgun ban around and the AWB
US crime rates
I have not verified the data

[jody]

4. Here are some interesting stats.

Crime Index Tabulations - Table 16, “Rate: Number of Crimes per 100,000 Inhabitants1 by Population Group, 2001”
MURDER RATES PER 100,000
GROUP I; 69 cities;, 250,000 and over; Rate 13.5
GROUP II; 157 cities; 100,000 to 249,999; Rate 7.8
GROUP III; 353 cities; 50,000 to 99,999; Rate 4.3
GROUP IV; 636 cities; 25,000 to 49,999; Rate 3.2
GROUP V; 1,448 cities; 10,000 to 24,999; Rate 2.8
GROUP VI; 5,227 cities; under 10,000; Rate 2.9
SUBURBAN COUNTIES 1,121 agencies; Rate 3.8
RURAL COUNTIES; 6 2,117 agencies; Rate 3.6
SUBURBAN AREA7; 5,407 agencies; Rate 3.1

A study done for DoJ found that gun ownership per household was 67% for rural households and 29% for large city households. Table 9, “1999 National Gun Policy Survey”

DoJ says "A fifth of the victims defending themselves with a firearm suffered an injury, compared to almost half of those who defended themselves with weapons other than a firearm or who had no weapon." Guns and Crime: Handgun Victimization, Firearm Self-Defense, and Firearm Theft

In 2001, victims defended themselves in over 4 million crimes of violence. Only 6.8% said their efforts made the situation worst. Self-protective measures employed by victims

[leanings]

5. I sure would like someone to try and answer this

I'm aware that many people don't LIKE guns, and that those who's experience with firearms is limited to the news and Hollywood have different feelings on firearms ownership than those who live in a rural setting with guns all over and a low crime, or "harm", rate. But laws are just a codified reduction of civil liberties, and I don't like having my civil liberties reduced based on other people's feelings.

There's solid evidence that certain factors affect rates of violence; youth of population, Iverglas' Gini index (thanks for pointing that out by the way, very interesting stuff), population density, substance abuse rates, etc. Is there anything for guns? Gun availability, gun control laws, types of firearms available...anything? I've seen the oft-cited figure of 20k gun laws in the US; surely there must be SOMETHING to show for them, however flawed they may be. And if not, how do people argue for gun control without being able to produce a shred of evidence that it's effective? I'm not saying that data doesn't exist, just that I haven't seen it yet.

[Withergyld]

6. I would like to see this answered also n/t

.

[leanings]

7. Day Four dawns on this thread

and as yet, no offers of any evidence other than a link from Iverglas to a Canadian court case where one can order copies of affadavits from various Cannuck experts on the effectiveness of their gun registry. I'd be interested in seeing those, but don't intend to have them mailed to me.

Anybody? Would anyone like to dispute whether or not the question has merit?

[acerbic]

8. I sure like to

dispute whether or not the question has merit

So one state tries to control guns, neighboring gun nut states allow easy trafficking of guns and gun nuts everywhere blather and babble "See, gun control didn't work there!". So clever...
:boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring:

[leanings]

9. Go international, then.

And surely the laws in California, Chicago, NY, LA, DC; these aren't all TOTALLY circumvented by gun-runners, are they? I don't know that this argument has an end, anyway. I read an article on Brazilian gun control the other day where authorities were complaining about illegal guns coming in from Peru. One could argue that the willingness and apparent ability of criminals to circumvent gun laws would be evidence of their ineffectiveness, but I won't. Just sticking to the question at hand.

[Hielo]

10. How could it not?

We know the dangers of guns, they are an evil totem that truley posses the unlucky person who gets under their spell. The sense ofpower a gun gives a person intoxicates them, until they need to feel more powerful by using them.

How else can anyone explain innocent little kids picking up guns and shooting up their schools? Kids don't do that by themselves. The distilled hatered that a gun is overpowers their soul and forces them to wreak such carnage.

I would be willing to wager tha anywhere that guns are outlawed completely (praise gaia!) there is a sudden and drastic decrease in murders. People freed from the influence of guns will live a more joyous life.

It only makes sense.

[leanings]

11. Dude, the DATA.

I disagree completely with your characterization of firearms, and I think it's this attitude that's behind the entire gun control movement. The notion that crime will go down because gun laws are passed makes sense to people that don't like guns, but the data just isn't there (that I've seen) to back up that contention.

If you can find a study or anything to back this up, please add it to the discussion. Anywhere that I'm aware of that guns have been outlawed completely, or as nearly completely as feasible, has seen an INCREASE in murder rates, e.g. the UK. I'm not attributing that to gun control, it's obviously other factors. All I'm saying is show me where gun control has worked.

[malkia]

12. What are the spirits saying

about the clubs, knifes and stones?
Seems to me they have very bad vibrations too. Look what they forced them poor people in Rwanda to do to their neighbors! They were living together in peace, but then the evil stones took control over their minds and forced them to kill!
Do you REALLY believe this?