Posted on 09/05/2012 5:20:29 PM PDT by PingPongChampion
Gun violence has invaded the US media in recent months. It all started with a theatre massacre in July and carried on to shootings in New York and Chicago. This has reignited a debate about gun control that neither side is winning, according to public opinion. One side is losing for a good reason. Most gun violence in the United States is actually committed by criminals carrying illegal guns that they obtained on the black market or through corrupt, licensed firearms dealers.
Most states have concealment laws and bans on assault weapons and military guns. This hasn't stopped criminals from selling and purchasing such weaponry from underground markets in the same way that drugs are bought and sold illegally.
It would be inaccurate and politically biased to make the claim that all states with the fewest gun control laws have the lowest rates of gun violence, as this is not true. The state of Louisiana has some of the fewest firearm regulations in the US and the highest rate of gun violence per capita in the country. The state does not require anyone owning a pistol, rifle, or shotgun to carry a permit, a license, or to register their firearms (but requires a permit for concealment in public). The state of Maryland has the second highest rate of gun violence, but requires citizens to register their handguns and have certified safety training for most regulated firearms. Both states have adequate regulations on the sale and distribution of firearms.
read more..
(Excerpt) Read more at poletical.com ...
Regulations or lack of regulation in a given state have no bearing on crime rates. It’s the number of criminally inclined residents that drive crime rates.
North Dakota and Wash DC have about the same population, one with very few gun control laws and the other, the most restrictive. DC is violent and ND is not. This is primarily because ND has so few criminals.
We have a criminal problem, not a gun problem.
Nice pile of lies you got posted there.
Can’t help noticing that both Chicago and New York - with the most stringent anti-gun laws in the nation - have the highest recurring levels of gun violence.
Could it be that when the citizens have the means to defend themselvs, violence actually decreases?
The simple fact is that criminals, by definition, do not obey laws they consider inconvenient — firearms laws, or laws against theft, etc., etc. Passing laws only inconveniences the law-abiding.
What is an assualt weapon? Is that a gun that jumps up and slaps you upside the head?
ANY article that spells defense as “defence” and center as “centre” is from England, where the Crown prosecutes people for defending themselves. Total drivel...Lock and load...We are NOT subjects of Her Majesty, but Freemen.
Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it harder for sober people to own cars.
Keep posting stuff like that, without a barf alert, and you are not long for the FR world, newb.
LOL.....got a limey writing about guns in America ....
That’s the ticket....
When you become citizens instead of subjects get back to us....
Well, we were. We lost most of our real freedom along the way.
I, for one, want it back...
Most gun violence in the United States is committed with illegal or unregistered firearms.
It is a little difficult to understand what the author meant by "unregistered" here - there is, by European standards, nearly no registration at all in the United States with the exception of Illinois, New York, etc. There is a very dark suspicion that the background check data that is supposed to be deleted by the federal government is not being deleted, rather stored until some legislative coup makes it legal for the government to possess illegally-kept data. It is a suspicion I share, but that is not registration in any useful sense.
A vast portion of guns in the US are sold and trafficked illegally.
Again, what is "a vast portion"? The huge majority of U.S. firearms purchases are perfectly legal even under laws that are widely resented by the purchasers. An undocumented private sale is legal. An undocumented private gift is legal. Let's be honest here - the vast majority of gun owners in the United States are scrupulous about obeying laws they despise. That may bite us someday but it's a fact.
Several illegal guns in the US are sold through “straw purchasing”. This is when a person without a criminal record buys a gun for someone who is a felon. Law enforcement officials often use limited gun trace data to track down the seller and the buyer.
A bit painful to read this one - the author clearly does not mean "several" and "straw purchasing" is simply the purchase of a firearm with intent to pass it to someone not authorized to purchase it - the most common reason is not felony, but age. Law enforcement officials have complained for years about their inability to use any information gathered - or more properly, not gathered - in tracing these transactions.
The far left side of the US political spectrum has gone as far as calling for a complete ban on handguns. The far right has gone as far as calling for less regulations and controls.
A bit of hyperbole here - yes, the Left has called for gun bans, those of them who are not advocating violent revolution. But it is not the "far right" that has called for less regulation, it is a political majority that has not only called for it but succeeded in getting such sea changes in gun policy as concealed carry reform and the end to a thoroughly silly "assault weapons" ban on a federal level. This isn't fringe versus fringe as the author is attempting to frame it, it is a ban-mad fringe versus the majority of lawful gun owners who have, at last, grown tired of being the fodder for social reform hysteria that would place their freedom in the keeping of power-mongers who hate them. The loud minority is losing across the board every time this hits the ballot, and must be content with advancing its program through legal fiction and executive diktat. In the United States, even that must place itself under the judgment of the voter sooner or later, and when it does so, it loses.
I applaud the author for attempting to be even-handed, but in fact, the middle ground in the matter is not an unknown territory to be explored by the well-meaning and ignorant. It is already occupied by the people who have looked at the gun control program and have said a resounding "NO!"
Excellent post, Bill! Better than I took the time to write!
IBTZ
Maryland is plagued worse with shootings than Chicago is? Someone never told me about that, and I came from Chicago to Maryland. In what you’d expect to the most gun friendly area, up here in hick dominated northwest Maryland where I’m camping out, it’s downright peaceful.
Well said.
It’s the environmnt, demographics and populace’s natural behavioral inclinations that dictate which ones will have a higher crime rate...: )
I was assaulted by a gun once... The first time I ever loaded an M-1 Garand. Google "M-1 Thumb."
Mark
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.