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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (891038)	10/1/2015 10:18:06 PM
From: TimF	3 Recommendations Recommended By Brumar89 Katelew one_less Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574070

Harvard Study: Gun Control Is Counterproductive I’ve just learned that Washington, D.C.’s petition for a rehearing of the Parker case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was denied today. This is good news. Readers will recall in this case that the D.C. Circuit overturned the decades-long ban on gun ownership in the nation’s capitol on Second Amendment grounds. However, as my colleague Peter Ferrara explained in his National Review Online article following the initial decision in March, it looks very likely that the United States Supreme Court will take the case on appeal. When it does so – beyond seriously considering the clear original intent of the Second Amendment to protect an individual’s right to armed self-defense – the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court would be wise to take into account the findings of a recent study out of Harvard. The study, which just appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy(pp. 649-694), set out to answer the question in its title: “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence.” Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-gun counterparts across the pond, the answer is “no.” And not just no, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but an emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases. The findings of two criminologists – Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser – in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling: Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not.The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population). For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland’s murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns. As the study’s authors write in the report: If the mantra “more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death” were true, broad cross-national comparisons should show that nations with higher gun ownership per capita consistently have more death. Nations with higher gun ownership rates, however, do not have higher murder or suicide rates than those with lower gun ownership. Indeed many high gun ownership nations have much lower murder rates. (p. 661) Finally, and as if to prove the bumper sticker correct – that “gun don’t kill people, people do” – the study also shows that Russia’s murder rate is four times higher than the U.S. and more than 20 times higher than Norway. This, in a country that practically eradicated private gun ownership over the course of decades of totalitarian rule and police state methods of suppression. Needless to say, very few Russian murders involve guns. The important thing to keep in mind is not the rate of deaths by gun – a statistic that anti-gun advocates are quick to recite – but the overall murder rate, regardless of means. The criminologists explain: [P]er capita murder overall is only half as frequent in the United States as in several other nations where gun murder is rarer, but murder by strangling, stabbing, or beating is much more frequent. (p. 663 – emphases in original) It is important to note here that Profs. Kates and Mauser are not pro-gun zealots. In fact, they go out of their way to stress that their study neither proves that gun control causes higher murder rates nor that increased gun ownership necessarily leads to lower murder rates. (Though, in my view, Prof. John Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime does indeed prove the latter.) But what is clear, and what they do say, is that gun control is ineffectual at preventing murder, and apparently counterproductive. Not only is the D.C. gun ban ill-conceived on constitutional grounds, it fails to live up to its purpose. If the astronomical murder rate in the nation’s capitol, in comparison to cities where gun ownership is permitted, didn’t already make that fact clear, this study out of Harvard should. theacru.org Link to study law.harvard.edu

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (891038)

10/1/2015 10:22:33 PM

From: TimF

Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1574070

+ Washington, DC

* In 1976, the Washington, D.C. City Council passed a law generally prohibiting residents from possessing handguns and requiring that all firearms in private homes be (1) kept unloaded and (2) rendered temporally inoperable via disassembly or installation of a trigger lock. The law became operative on Sept. 24, 1976. [33] [34]
* On June 26, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, struck down this law as unconstitutional. [35]

[36]
* During the years in which the D.C. handgun ban and trigger lock law was in effect, the Washington, D.C. murder rate averaged 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law, while the U.S. murder rate averaged 11% lower. [37]

+ Britain

* In 1920, Britain passed a law requiring civilians to obtain a certificate from their district police chief in order to purchase or possess any firearm except a shotgun. To obtain this certificate, the applicant had to pay a fee, and the chief of police had to be "satisfied" that the applicant had "good reason for requiring such a certificate" and did not pose a "danger to the public safety or to the peace." The certificate had to specify the types and quantities of firearms and ammunition that the applicant could purchase and keep. [38]

* In 1968, Britain made the 1920 law stricter by requiring civilians to obtain a certificate from their district police chief in order to purchase or possess a shotgun. This law also required that firearm certificates specify the identification numbers ("if known") of all firearms and shotguns owned by the applicant. [39]

* In 1997, Britain passed a law requiring civilians to surrender almost all privately owned handguns to the police. More than 162,000 handguns and 1.5 million pounds of ammunition were "compulsorily surrendered" by February 1998. Using "records of firearms held on firearms certificates," police accounted for all but fewer than eight of all legally owned handguns in England, Scotland, and Wales. [40]

* Years are calendar years prior to 1998 and fiscal years (April 1 - March 31) thereafter.
† Homicide data is published according to the years in which the police initially reported the offenses as homicides, which are not always the same years in which the incidents took place.

‡ Large anomalies unrelated to guns:

• 2000: 58 Chinese people suffocated to death in a shipping container en route to the UK

• 2002: 172 homicides reported when Dr. Harold Shipman was exposed for killing his patients

• 2003: 20 cockle pickers drowned resulting in manslaughter charges

• 2005: 52 people killed in the July 7th London subway/bus bombings

[41]

* Not counting the above-listed anomalies, the homicide rate in England and Wales has averaged 52% higher since the outset of the 1968 gun control law and 15% higher since the outset of the 1997 handgun ban. [42]

+ Chicago

* In 1982, the city of Chicago instituted a ban on handguns. This ban barred civilians from possessing handguns except for those registered with the city government prior to enactment of the law. The law also specified that such handguns had to be re-registered every two years or owners would forfeit their right to possess them. In 1994, the law was amended to require annual re-registration. [43] [44] [45]

* In the wake of Chicago's handgun ban, at least five suburbs surrounding Chicago instituted similar handgun bans. When the Supreme Court overturned the District of Columbia's handgun ban in June 2008, at least four of these suburbs repealed their bans. [46] [47] [48] [49] [50]

* In June 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5-4) that Chicago's ban is unconstitutional. [51]

[52]

* Since the outset of the Chicago handgun ban, the Chicago murder rate has averaged 17% lower than it was before the law took effect, while the U.S. murder rate has averaged 25% lower. [53]

[54]

* Since the outset of the Chicago handgun ban, the percentage of Chicago murders committed with handguns has averaged about 40% higher than it was before the law took effect. [55]

* In 2005, 96% of the firearm murder victims in Chicago were killed with handguns. [56]

justfacts.com

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (891038)	10/1/2015 10:24:13 PM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Recommended By Stock Puppy TideGlider Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574070

6. Lower murder rates in foreign countries prove that gun control works. False. This is one of the favorite arguments of gun control proponents, and yet the facts show that there is simply no correlation between gun control laws and murder or suicide rates across a wide spectrum of nations and cultures. In Israel and Switzerland, for example, a license to possess guns is available on demand to every law-abiding adult, and guns are easily obtainable in both nations. Both countries also allow widespread carrying of concealed firearms, and yet, admits Dr. Arthur Kellerman, one of the foremost medical advocates of gun control, Switzerland and Israel “have rates of homicide that are low despite rates of home firearm ownership that are at least as high as those in the United States.” A comparison of crime rates within Europe reveals no correlation between access to guns and crime. http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/gun-control-myths-realities

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (891038)	10/2/2015 7:37:13 PM
From: steve harris	Respond to of 1574070

sure, name a country you think we should follow....