Gun Laws and Crime Reduction
 

I'm curious as to the reduction in crime if any, after England or Australia passed more stringent gun laws. For that matter, any place that's shown reduction in crime after such gun laws were passed.

Hi,

Gun laws have one major flaw. They regulate the possession of legal firearms, not that of illegal firearms. Most criminals don't buy their firearms at the local shops, thus removing legal firearms from the community only disarms those who stick to the law, leaving those without any respect for the law in an advantageous situation.

Thus firearms incidents like around domestic violence, accidental killings, etc.. will slightly drop, but firearms incidents involving illegal firearms and criminal activity will rise, strongly at first.

Short term policital thinking ('quick win') usually spawns these ideas. You get some nice media coverage ('look at all these guns we collected, the streets are safer now') in return and the politician is the local hero for a couple of weeks. Long term effects can be buried, twisted and generally ignored if (when) the effects are not those that were expected.

Focus on general gun safety around the house, counselling of families and persons with strong emotional problems, a firearms registration scheme and an emphasis on fighting illegal arms sale and trafficing makes more sense.

zeke,

The violent crime rate in BOTH the UK and Australia has increased since the passage of their disarmament laws. Tac can cite chapter and verse on what has happened in the UK over the years; in Australia, although a relatively recent happening compared to the UK, the results have been similar.

Tom A

I've heard that home invasion robberies in Australia have increased by 300% since their ban was inacted.

Ron

Zeke,

The increase in crime in both England and Australia is several hundred percent. You can do a Google search on these topics and get figures, search things like the countries, gun control, and the name John Lott. Perhaps our Canadian contingent will report in on the similar Canadian situation.

The disturbing thing about the statistic Ron notes is that much of the increase in Australia is in -occupied- home invasion robberies.

--Dwight

I live in a rough neighborhood with all sorts of crime. major Meth problem all over this town! For months we had a major meth production and distribution center right across the street. For some reason our PD wouldn't do a thing! We even gave them video of ongoing sales only to have it turn up lost or know one remembering ever getting it!

After several months of 15 to 20 cars an hour (24\7), noxious fumes and just general trashed out street We took matters into our own hands! Out of hiding came the cameras also after several attempts at intimidation out came our fire arms! (of course my wife carried my Luger! It was prettier!)

Do I recommend this NO!! We may have even been breaking a few laws! We had the support of a major portion of the neighbors, many sat with us on these watches many of whom have no fire arms at all. And it worked.

I credit this victory to my right to carry!

Tz,

While I empathize with youâ??re frustration concerning the police department lack of results, I think you must understand that it may take several months for the agency to conduct a lawful investigation. Knowing something illegal is going on, and being able to present evidence in a court of law are on opposites ends of the spectrum.

For the sake of conversation, letâ??s say your agency had resources immediately available to work on you situation the first day you notified them. It takes several months to conduct this type of investigation, in fact in may take several months for them to get someone into the house to make a buy so they can obtain a search warrant.

I donâ??t know about the agency you speak of, but most agencies have limited resources devoted to Vice and Narcotic investigations. I would also speculate that your agency was probably in the middle of a narcotic investigation the first day you notified them of the situation. Your agency like most, prioritize their workload based on a number of factors, including the likely hood of a successful conclusion.

I applaud you and your neighborâ??s efforts. You resolved your problem by displacing it. Now someone else in your community is calling the police department complaining about the same activity and the cycle starts again.

You donâ??t think the agency knew what you were doing and covertly supported your actions? Cops live in houses in neighborhoods with families as well and most try to prioritize quality of live issues.

Given a few more facts about the complex nature of this type of problem, I would think you could be a little less critical of your local men in blue

Jim

My question was prompted by recent comments, well for that matter comments in the past, concerning the handgun issue. Typically local news columns and "Letter To The Editor" opinions from the anti-gun people show the lack of knowledge on the subject and they challenge pro-gun folks to provide "facts". I've used googled and found some information. Just wanted to get some other points of view on how to gain more info. Try:
www.txchia.org
Click on stats. Then CHL Study. Very interesting!

Jim, Criticising the Police is like criticising the troops. The frustration is misdirected. BUT...There is some legitimate criticism of a system that lets these poisoners of our children distribute their junk for months even years before anything is done to stop this distribution.
The best way to deal with this is to call 911 and scream..I hear shots fired and I believe people are being killed at this address! From a pay phone of course. Illegal? Maybe...Effective? most likely. Jerry Burney

Jamese,

Month? try 18+ 5 assaults 6 bust off the property off people listing that as their address, 4 wanted felons either caught leaving the address (all in possession of a controlled substance)

I don't blame the PD! I blame the whole society! It was a case of the whole show being run by someone with several well placed politician types in his pocket and an inept city government!

What really burns me is that only two of the twenty ++ police officers we had on the block had the guts to tell us how it was! The rest just told us we were imagining things! what was worse were the ones that told us the ammonia smell was from a backed up sewer and the either smell was someone working on their car and using starter fluid!

Yes the PD did have a CI in there but she was just telling them about the competitions activities in exchange for being allowed to do buisness.

And yes we did get them to move elsewhere! We wished we could have shut them down completely but that was not in our power and PD wasn't going to do it. So we settled for the next best thing!

By the way they are now out of business their power broker was busted one county over, and most of the politicians are out of office.

Still it was our legal right to carry arms that made it work. Even if the arms were almost 100 years old (I carried my Broomhandle the druggies called it my stick)

Many months ago I heard, that in England, gun crime went down in the Metro areas but increased in the rural areas. Also that crimes involving knives went up drastically, and that they were considering restrictions on certain types of knives. Many one of our friends from th UK can let us know if there is any truth to this.

My Daughter manages a shoe store in a local mall. She told me last night that last week, a well dressed grandmother came in with her three small grandchildren to buy them shoes. She left her purse in the store, my daughter looked in it for some ID or a phone number. She found a small baggy containing a white substance, so she called the police. The officer said that it was meth.

We also have a business in town that specializes in the production of large industrial electric motors, transformers, etc. It is owned by the Myrmo family. Very wealthy and established here for generations. The eldest son, who was the CEO, and his wife, were busted for running a very large meth lab behind their million dollar home in the foot hills east of town.


It's unbelievable how this crap is permeating every level of society.

You can almost forgive frightened ignorant masses being duped into believing that stealing the guns from their neighbors will stop crime ("almost" being the operative word here). Politicians on the other hand know damned well this will not stop crime. They want guns taken away from honest people for two entirely different reasons:

1. It will get them votes from those same frightened, ignorant masses
2. They would rather the general populace not be armed when they discover what those same politicians have planned for them next

The founding fathers neglected one vital clause in the Constitution which should have read something like: "The act of proposing any kind of firearms legislation AT ALL is constructive proof of treason and the person making such a proposal shall be led immediately to the nearest gallows and hanged."

Tac. I don't know about your area. But around here it almost always finally comes out (after about 3months) that the motive was.
Drug dealer A killed
Drug dealer B.

"Can't use THEM on MY range'

Tac,

You could...,but probably only once.