this is kinda silly... The world is full of examples of indiginous peoples fighting off extremely well equiped and modern armies...
Can you name one in modern times, that wasn't supported by outside military supplies? For example, the Soviets didn't lose in Afghanistan to men with Lee Enfields, or even Kalashnikovs. It was the anti aircraft weapons, portable artillery and anti tank missiles that turned the conflict against the Russians. The pre existing tribal weapons were largely abandoned in favour of the new toys the Americans were supplying.
All three of these authors are former anti gun guns. The getz and Kleck study shows that a minumum of 700,000 to 2 million crimes are prevented every year here with firearms... they estimate as high as 400,000 people a year are saved because of fiorearms.
You mean somewhere between half and 20% of all crimes would be a murder? And that the US murder rate, already several times Britains, would actually be 138 per 100,000 without guns? (more than double Colombia's, and nearly 3 times South Africa's?)
You never had a high homicide rate any time in the last century... your gun laws did nothing and at one time...you had a fairly high incidence of gun ownership...
Not last century we didn't. We had increasing restrictions on firearms ownership since very early in the 20th century.
We have not become more violent as we become better armed...our crime is falling rapidly.
It actually fell rapidly in the late 90s, it's stablised since.
and nashwan... you are correct our gun rights are being infringed... I am sure that makes you very happy
You mean am I very happy that Americans aren't allowed to freely keep and bear all possible arms? Yes. The thought of over the counter sales of chemical nuclear and biological weapons would worry me. So would unregulated sales of shoulder launched anti aircraft missiles. As for the rest, the handguns and rifles and machineguns, I couldn't care less what you buy and own.
Lazs, do you want the right for all citizens to keep and bear all arms? Would you support unregulated sales of portable anti aircraft missiles? What about chemical weapons (nerve gas etc)? What about nuclear weapons? Where do you draw the line?
The trick here, and this is deep, is not to give everyone a gun... thats stupid, but theres no reason a responsible US citizen shouldnt be able to carry a gun to protect themselves because the government is inept at doing so, and has NO legal obligation to do so
Yes, the ideal situation would be to allow the law abiding to have guns, whilst keeping them out of the hands of criminals. The only way to do that is with registration and licencing and safe storage laws, and even then the more guns in circulation, the easier it will be for criminals to get them.
The problem is that criminals break the law. Telling them they can't have guns, and having large numbers of guns in circulation, is rather like telling them they can't break in to houses, and relying on the law, rather than a door lock, stopping them.
Hand guns in the UK don't come from stolen sources and never have
No, because Britain has had restrictions on handguns since before they became popular.
Criminals have never used many in crimes, either, for the same reason.
As far as gun availabilty is concerned - shipping via major parcel companies or personal carry via the RO-RO ferries and Chunnel I would say is virtually risk free. I have been through Harwich in my car nearly 20 times and never been stopped let alone searched. Many times the customs hall is not even manned.
Where would you get a handgun in France, or Belgium, or Holland or Germany?
The fact that most of the "guns" recovered by police in the UK are converted replicas, which are almost as dangerous to the criminal as to the victim, suggests that real handguns are hard to get hold of.
the problem with smuggling is you first have to arrange supply outside the country. That usually costs money. Then you have to smuggle handguns in, average weight (with some ammo) about 1kg. Then you have to sell to distributors, then street dealers. All want a large markup. The end result is handguns costing a lot of money, and you still make only a small profit compared with smuggling drugs (and the risks are as high, or higher). You will of course have a market amongst mid and higher level drug dealers, who need protection from each other, but the guns are priced out of the reach of street criminals.
No. The career criminal usualy doesn`t do the stealing themselves. That is usualy the common, petty thief. They are the ones who usualy are dumb enough to get caught with a stolen, registered firearm.
That actually describes nearly all criminals. But it is of course the stupid, low ranking criminal who's more likely to kill his victim in a robbery or burglary, or carry out a drive by and kill innocent bystanders.
In Britain things are catching up pretty fast. Black market guns are and will continue to be shipped in just as they are in other countries. I think you will see this becoming more and more the case,.
Number of people murdered with a firearm in England and Wales:
2002 - 95
2003 - 80
2004 - 73
2005 - 51
Any time a government "outlaws" something it has the flashback effect of promoting illegal operations such as smuggling. Big money.
How much do you think a handgun will sell for on the street? £1000? (that's about $1800). At that price it's already out of the reach of low level criminals (junkies etc). Now, out of that £1000, the foreign supplier has to get paid. Assume it's really cheap, at £100. The importer, the distributor and the dealer all have to get paid. There just isn't enough money in it compared to drugs.
As an example, Jamacians are often paid to smuggle drugs in to the UK. They get several thousand pounds, and their airfare paid, and carry one or two kilos of drugs. With costs like that, it's just not cost effective smuggling guns.
Drugs, of course, are worth smuggling because they sell for so much more. Heroin has a street price of about £50 a gram in the UK, so a kilo of heroin nets £50,000, split up between all those involved. Even canabis, which doesn't carry very stiff penalties, generates about £3000 profit a kilo. If guns are priced that high, they are out of the reach of low level criminals, who would sooner sell a gun for their next hit than carry out a robbery with it, because they would make far more money from selling the gun (low level criminals are not noted for far sighted financial planning, or for investing in tools of the trade)
Nashwan you might want to check the Justice Departments statistics on crime instead of quoting a blatant anti-gun web site that provides biased statistics.
I have. They appear to support Brady's claim, but there's a lot of data to wade through. That's why I've looked for a counter amongst the pro gun lobby, but I haven't actually found one. In fact, the closest thing I've found used in rebuttal is that concealed carry states have lower crime, which is true, because they tend to be rural. But I haven't found any credible sources claiming that crime fell faster in concealed carry states than non concealed carry states.
I'll tell you what, though, if you can give me a list of states that you consider have relaxed concealed carry laws, and when they were implemented, I'll try and correlate with the FBI murder rate.
One thing I have noticed in these gun threads is the Brits tend to compare their crime rates to those in America w/o comparing their crime stats before and after their gun laws came into existence.
The problem is our strict gun laws started ust after WW1, and society was very different then.
Check in with Maverick or Marine.. they're both career cops with 20+ years on duty in big metro departments.. and I'm sure they'll tell yah that 'gun fights' involving street cops (not TRAINED swat ninjas) are very, VERY rare.
So are gun fights where citizens protect themselves. The problem is, lazs seems to have the impression that any encounter with a criminal will allow him to shoot first. The chances are, of course, the criminal will shoot first.
