And what exactly was my fact free opinion piece. The only two opinions I offered were 1) that shootings in the us are no longer leading news items and 2) you guys have a hard road ahead whether you get more restrictive laws OR less restrictive laws.
Been out of town for a few days.
We'll, point 1 is not accurate. You don't even have to have a shooting for the gun angle to be played up. If a crime involves arson, a knife or fists it barely makes the local news. A similar crime (from a loss of life perspective) will make the national news for days). The media is on a crusade on this issue that is clearly (and easily documented) different from other forms of crime.
Point 2 - Firearm regulation has not been found to impact crime, and this in research by the CDC. In England where there is a full ban on firearm ownership (for all practical purposes) firearm crime is on the rise. The criminals simply smuggle in the guns like they smuggle in the drugs.
But you seemed to be reading something else into it? Perhaps you are insecure about the current state of things in the US?
Yes NZ has poverty, we have one of the largest polynesian populations in the Pacific. Yes we have drug problems, yes we have gangs, and yes we even have the occasional shooting. Yes we can own firearms, yes they are licensed, yes a lot of people in NZ participate in hunting (especially given rabbits, possums, wild goats, and deer are considered pests here).
My point is perhaps you guys should start looking beyond your borders to see what potentially can happen. I'm not saying you shouldn't own handguns, from what I read hear I wouldn't want to live in the US without from the stuff I read here. But maybe a long term plan on where your country wants to end up with guns would be a good idea.
The one thing that people who have not spent much time in the US fail to understand is that we do not have what could broadly be considered a "firearm" problem. I have lived here 42 years now and have yet to hear a firearm fired in a criminal manner or see one being used in a crime. This includes 5 years or so spent in an "average" neighborhood in Chicago.
Statistically, the vast majority 70-80 percent of both shooters and victims have extensive criminal records. Off the top of my head, about 90 percent of firearm homicides happen in about 5 counties (containing a major US city).
I just spent a few days in Eastern Tennessee in the suburbs of a mid-sized town (for the state) where legal gun ownership is far higher than Chicago or New York or LA (per capita and in total, I would believe). Where you could see the occasional sign peppered with shotgun pellets (cringed a bit on the whole "know your target and what lies beyond" thing). And yet, the doors were not locked of a day or night, people home or otherwise.
We have always had an urban crime problem. The US didn't spend 1000 years murdering and oppressing the diversity out of the local peasants so they knew their place in society. Even the slaves failed to accept their role during or after slavery. Poor minorities or immigrants simply did not accept they should have a limited place in society. You could always come to the US from Ireland, Italy, Latin America or as a Jew or former Slave and advance to the top class of society through Ca$h. You could take the long, time honored honest way like most, or a shortcut. Just look at Joe Kennedy. From rum runner to the pinnacle of polite, East Coast society. The roots can be seen in the "Gangs of New York" movie (though it is a lot of Hollywood as well.)
What is happening now in Europe though, is a change in this dynamic. US style street gangs are arriving, the eastern European mafia is arriving, and you even have the radical Muslim thing taking root. The traditional society thing is starting to match the US experience. Some places will likely never see that. A country like New Zealand or Iceland perhaps. Large urbanized industrial Westernized democracies will though. To the extent as the US? Population densities would suggest not. BUT, i have no doubt that the major urban areas will shortly be more similar than different compared to the US -- firearm regulation or not.
As far as your gang problems, can you, with a straight face, claim gang problems like this?
MS-13
In 2002 in the city of Tegucigalpa in the Honduras, MS-13 members boarded a public bus and immediately executed 28 people including 7 small children. Again, they left a message written on the front of the bus taunting government officials...
As a result of the poor conditions in El Salvador, many MS-13 members have illegally immigrated to our nation where our law enforcement efforts and prisons seem tame when compared to their homeland.
MS-13 members in our country are known to be involved in all aspects of criminal activity. Some law enforcement sources have reported that because of their ties to their former homeland, MS-13 members have access to sophisticated weapons thus making firearms trafficking one of their many criminal enterprises.
Despite their access to weaponry, there have been many high-profile murders and assaults in which MS-13 have used machetes to attack their victims.
The federal government has increased efforts to locate and deport illegal MS-13 members living in our nation but with the lack of cooperation from many cities whom support sanctuaries policies, has made the government’s job an uphill battle.
http://www.knowgangs.com/gang_resources/profiles/ms13/
Seems like more of an immigration and criminal justice enforcement problem than something that can be solved by further regulating legal firearm owners.
Charon
