Well Finch, you asked where my usual fact filled side of the argument was, here it is. Please keep in mind i am aware that 67.5% of statistics are made up on the spot by someone with an agenda but i have done my best to accuratly portray the data. as much as possible ive tried to double check the data through several sources but unfortunatly for some of it i have been unable to do to few studies done in certain areas or my being unable to read the occational foriegn language or navigate another countries government type websites to locate my numbers. please also keep in mind that some of the larger fatality data is ball park at best. i fully realize they may be off some but in alreality i doubt those who perpetrated the genocides know for sure just how many were killed. i give these numbers as ball park figures only and do not stick by that they are perfectly accurate but i honestly believe they are close. if you want to argue about particular points thats fine but if your going to try and nit pick a 1/2 percent here because you found some other study by a professor in Timbuktoo or some such things as that they will be ignored. please read the whole thing before commenting
Why I View Gun Control As A Very Bad Thing
I hopefully will beable to convince more people via this well thought out argument as to why i have such a problem with any major and most minor forms of gun control.
The Second Amendment: Our Founding Fathers Intentions
The Second Amendment states "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." What exactly does this mean? Having been oppressed by a professional army, the founding fathers of the United States had no use for establishing one of their own. Instead, they decided that an armed citizenry makes the best army of all. General George Washington created regulation for the aforementioned "well-regulated militia," which would consist of every able-bodied man in the country. What you are reading is correct, our founding fathers had no intentions of the USA ever having a standing arm such as it currently has.
As for the founding fathers view Alexander Hamilton said in the Federalist Papers:
After James Madison's Bill of Rights was submitted to Congress, Tench Coxe published his "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution," in the Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 He asserts that it's the individuals with arms, who serve as the ultimate check on government:
As to other views of the Founding Fathers:
No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
---Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
---Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
---James Madison,The Federalist Papers, No. 46.
Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
---Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788
Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.
---Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).
It seems self evident to myself that it was most conclusively the Founding Fathers intentions that every able bodied man be armed for the express purpose of defending himself against his government.
The Second Amendmentas seen by the Supreme Court
The Second Amendment holds the distinction of being the only amendment to the Bill of Rights that essentially goes unenforced. The U.S. Supreme Court has never struck down any piece of legislation on Second Amendment grounds, in part becaue justices have disagreed on whether the amendment is intended to protect the right to bear arms as an individual right, or as a component of the "well-regulated militia."
The only Supreme Court ruling in U.S. history that has focused primarily on the issue of what the Second Amendment really means is U.S. v. Miller (1939), which is also the last time the Court examined the amendment in any serious way. In Miller, the Court affirmed a median interpretaton holding that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms, but only if the arms in question are those that would be useful as part of a citizen militia. Or maybe not; interpretations vary, partly because Miller is not an exceptionally well-written ruling.
In Parker v. District of Columbia (March 2007), the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban on grounds that it violates the Second Amendment's guarantee of an individual right to bear arms. The case is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which may soon address the meaning of the Second Amendment. Almost any standard would be an improvement over Miller.
Is the Second Amendment out of Date?
I often hear the argument that the Second Amendment is out of date. What applied in late 1700's cant apply to modern times. Does this mean the first amendment is only applicable to newspapers and letters? Our founding fathers never invisioned being able to send a message from Philidelpia to Hong Kong and back again and under a minute. Or that we could watch the war in Iraq in practically real time. They certainly never invisioned any individual being able to post a message that millions of ppl can see on the internet.
How can an average "militia man" compete against a helecopter? The Vietnam War demonstrated that a modern military power can be resisted by guerilla fighters bearing only small arms. In 1992, Colin Powell advised the Joint Chiefs to not get into the Bosnian conflict because the widespread ownership of arms in the former Yugoslav republic made even limited intervention "perilous and deadly."
In Chechnya more than 40,000 Russian soldiers were humbled as a few thousand urban guerrillas who mostly lived at home, fought in jeans, used outdated weapons and had no coherent battle plans nor organization. The Russian army had no real advantage in the streets of Chechnya
Genocide: The Future of the Unarmed, A lesson from History
In the 20th century 4 times more people were killed by their own governments than were killed in all the wars combined. Please see table posted at the end of this(actually next post, i actually exceeded the max charecters for a single post :grin: )
Australia: A Failed Study in Gun Control as a Means to Lower Crime Rates
On April 29th 1996 a psycopath shot 35 people in Port Arthur. The media went nuts screaming about the evils of "assult rifles". The populous was shocked, nothing like this had ever happened before In just 12 days the Government of Australia passed resolutions and the states enacted them into laws.
What did they enact? So called "assult rifles"? Not quite. They autlawed ALL semi-auto guns including such hunting oriented ones like the Browning A5 shotgun. They also outlawed pump shotguns. The law reads, and i quote "Any pump shotgun with a magazine capacity of 5 rounds or less". Thats right five rounds or LESS.
The Aussie government offered to buy back all of the listed firearms. How did they do this? By imposing a 1% tax increase to everyone. It sure worked to. Out of the estimated 7 million firearms suspected to be owned by the Aussies roughly 40% were now prohibited. This means roughly 2.8 million firearms should have been rounded up. They were a lil short. Roughly 640,000 were turned in. Which is about 25% of what the government estimated was out there.
The gun control politicians said as the laws were enacted that "it is probable that the crime rate will drop 20%". They missed that mark by just a lil bit aswell.
In 1997, just 12 months after the laws went into effect crimes across Aussieland jumped 3.2 percent. Armed robberies were up 44 percent, assults were up 8.6 percent and in the state of Victoria alone there was a 300% increase in homicides. Before the ban armed robberies with firearms had been steadily decreasing.
They didnt stop with firearms. In 1998 they started outlawing knives. If you were caught with a bowie knife the fine was to be up to $10,000 or 2 years in prison. Want hadcuffs? No dice fine of $11,000 or 14 years in prison.
In Australia all handguns are strictly controled Reasons must be given why anyone needs a license. The government lists only 10 reasons for owning a firearm-- protection of self and family is not considered a "reasonable" request!
Canada: A Failed Study in Gun Registration
By law as of Jan. 1, 2001 all firearms in Canada were supposed to be legally registered. In 1974 there were an estimated 10 million firearms in Canada. As of June 2003 6.4 million had been registered.
The estimated cost for this project was about $119 million to impliment. Atleast thats what the taxpayers were told. The new estimate is closer to $2 billion.
Recently several gun collectors have had thei collection stolen. They have insinuated that the gun registry had been hacked and become a shopping list for theives. The government says "street gangs" arent computer savy enough to hack the registry.
John Hicks, an Orillia-area computer consultant, and webmaster for the Canadian Firearms Centre, has said that anyone with a home computer could have easily accessed names, addresses and detailed shopping lists (including make, model and serial number) of registered guns belonging to licensed firearms owners. Hicks told the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH) that "During my tenure as the CFC webmaster I duly informed management that the website that interfaced to the firearms registry was flawed. It took some $15 million to develop and I broke it inside of about 30 minutes."
Switzerland: Why Hitler was Insane but Not Stupid
Hitler chose to avoid invading Switzerland during WWII. Why is that? Adolf Hitler had stated "all the rubbish of small nations still existing in Europe must be liquidated as fast as possible," and that if necessary he would become known as the "Butcher of the Swiss." Yet he never invaded.
Could it be if ever a nation had "a well-regulated militia," it is Switzerland. Every man in Switzerland had a rifle at home. Shooting was the national sport.
Shortly before WWI, the German Kaiser was the guest of the Swiss government to observe military maneuvers. The Kaiser asked a Swiss militiaman: "You are 500,000 and you shoot well, but if we attack with 1,000,000 men what will you do?" The soldier replied: "We will shoot twice and go home."
Today still, every Swiss male upon reaching 20 years old is required to attend recruit school where he is issued a rifle to keep at home.
The Swiss army sells a variety of machine guns, submachine guns, anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft guns, howitzers and cannons. Purchasers of these weapons require an easily obtained cantonal license, and the weapons are registered, In a nation of six million people, there are at least two million guns, including 600,00 fully automatic assault rifles, half a million pistols, and numerous machine guns. Virtually every home has a gun
Besides subsidised military surplus, the Swiss can buy other firearms easily too. While long guns require no special purchase procedures, handguns are sold only to those with a Waffenerwerbsschien (purchase certificate) issued by a cantonal authority. A certificate is issued to every applicant over 18 who is not a criminal or mentally infirm..
Despite all the guns, the murder rate is a small fraction of the American rate, and is less than the rate in Canada or England, which strictly control guns, or in Japan, which virtually prohibits them. The gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept.
History of Gun Control in the USA
Fully Automatic Firearms
It has been illegal since 1934 to own a fully auto firearm without the special permission of the US Treasury department. They must get a $200 tax stamp. They must also undergo a intense FBI background check for any criminal history or violent tendancies. You also need to submit 2 sets of finger prints, a current photo, a sworn affidavit that the possesion of the weapon would be "consistant with public safety" as well as the signature of a chief law enforcement officer within the jurisdiction of the applicants residence.
Since May of 1986, it is illegal for a civilian to own a newly manufactured machine gun. So civilians must buy machine guns manufactured before May of 1986
Half of the states have no other restrictions other than federal law, the other half have additional rules which may include outright refusal that a civilian may have one.
In 1995 there were over 240,000 machine guns registered with the BATF. About split 50/50 with police departments and private citizens.
Since 1934, there appear to have been at least two homicides committed with legally owned automatic weapons. One was a murder committed by a law enforcement officer (as opposed to a civilian). On September 15th, 1988, a 13-year veteran of the Dayton, Ohio police department, Patrolman Roger Waller, then 32, used his fully automatic MAC-11 .380 caliber submachine gun to kill a police informant, 52-year-old Lawrence Hileman. Patrolman Waller pleaded guilty in 1990, and he and an accomplice were sentenced to 18 years in prison. The 1986 'ban' on sales of new machine guns does not apply to purchases by law enforcement or government agencies.
In Targeting Guns, Kleck cites the director of BATF testifying before Congress that he knew of less than ten crimes that were committed with legally owned machine guns (no time period was specified). Kleck says these crimes could have been nothing more than violations of gun regulations such as failure to notify BATF after moving a registered gun between states.
Again in Targeting Guns, Kleck writes, four police officers were killed in the line of duty by machine guns from 1983 to 1992. (713 law enforcement officers were killed during that period, 651 with guns.)
In 1980, when Miami's homicide rate was at an all-time high, less than 1% of all homicides involved machine guns. (Miami was supposedly a "machine gun Mecca" and drug trafficking capital of the U.S.)
Out of 420 weapons, 375 of which were guns, siezed during drug warrents in Chicago by the Narcotics squad in Chicago from 1980-1989, none were machine guns.
16 of the 2,359 guns siezed in Detroit in 1991-92 connected in the "trafficing of narcotics" were machine guns
Assult Weapons
A genuine assault weapon, as opposed to a legal definition, is a hand-held, selective fire weapon, which means it's capable of firing in either an automatic or a semiautomatic mode depending on the position of a selector switch. These kinds of weapons are heavily regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and are further regulated in some states.
However, current "assault weapon" legislation defines certain semi-automatic weapons as "assault weapons." A semi-automatic weapon is one that fires a round with each pull of the trigger, versus an automatic weapon which continues to shoot until the trigger is released or the ammunition supply is exhausted. These kinds of "assault weapons" are sometimes referred to as military-style semi-automatic weapons.
Assault weapons are not the weapons of choice among drug dealers, gang members or criminals in general. Assault weapons are used in about one-fifth of one percent (.2%) of all violent crimes and about one percent in gun crimes. It is estimated that from one to seven percent of all homicides are committed with assault weapons (rifles of any type are involved in 3-4% of all homicides). However a higher percentage are used in police homicides, roughly 10%. (There has been no consistent trend in this rate from 1978 through 1996.) Between 1992 and 1996 less than 4% of mass murders, committed with guns, involved assault weapons. (Our deadliest mass murders have either involved arson or bombs.)
There are close to 4 million assault weapons in the U.S., which amounts to roughly 1.7% of the total gun stock.
If assault weapons are so rarely used in crime, why all the hoopla when certain military-style-semi-automatic weapons were banned by the Crime Control Act of 1994? A Washington Post editorial (September 15, 1994) summed it up best:
Here are some national statistics from before teh 1994 "assult weapons" ban:
# California. In 1990, "assault weapons" comprised thirty-six of the 963 firearms involved in homicide or aggravated assault and analyzed by police crime laboratories, according to a report prepared by the California Department of Justice, and based on data from police firearms laboratories throughout the state. The report concluded that "assault weapons play a very small role in assault and homicide firearm cases." Of the 1,979 guns seized from California narcotics dealers in 1990, fifty-eight were "assault weapons."
# Chicago. From 1985 through 1989, only one homicide was perpetrated with a military caliber rifle. Of the 17,144 guns seized by the Chicago police in 1989, 175 were "military style weapons."
# Florida. Florida Department of Law Enforcement Uniform Crime Reports for 1989 indicate that rifles of all types accounted for 2.6% of the weapons used in Florida homicides. The Florida Assault Weapons Commission found that "assault weapons" were used in 17 of 7,500 gun crimes for the years 1986-1989.
# Los Angeles. Of the more than 4,000 guns seized by police during one year, only about 3% were "assault weapons."
# Maryland. In 1989-90, there was only one death involving a "semiautomatic assault rifle" in all twenty-four counties of the State of Maryland.
# Massachusetts. Of 161 fatal shootings in Massachusetts in 1988, three involved "semiautomatic assault rifles." From 1985 to 1991, the guns were involved in 0.7% of all shootings.
# Miami. The Miami police seized 18,702 firearms from January 1, 1989 to December 31, 1993. Of these, 3.13% were "assault weapons."
# New Jersey. According to the Deputy Chief Joseph Constance of the Trenton New Jersey Police Department, in 1989, there was not a single murder involving any rifle, much less a "semiautomatic assault rifle," in the State of New Jersey. No person in New Jersey was killed with an "assault weapon" in 1988. Nevertheless, in 1990 the New Jersey legislature enacted an "assault weapon" ban that included low-power .22 rifles, and even BB guns. Based on the legislature's broad definition of "assault weapons," in 1991, such guns were used in five of 410 murders in New Jersey; in forty-seven of 22,728 armed robberies; and in twenty-three of 23,720 aggravated assaults committed in New Jersey.
# New York City. Of 12,138 crime guns seized by New York City police in 1988, eighty were "assault-type" firearms.
# New York State. Semiautomatic "assault rifles" were used in twenty of the 2,394 murders in New York State in 1992.
# San Diego. Of the 3,000 firearms seized by the San Diego police in 1988-90, nine were "assault weapons" under the California definition.
# San Francisco. Only 2.2% of the firearms confiscated in 1988 were military-style semiautomatics.
# Virginia. Of the 1,171 weapons analyzed in state forensics laboratories in 1992, 3.3% were "assault weapons."
# National statistics. Less than four percent of all homicides in the United States involve any type of rifle. No more than .8% of homicides are perpetrated with rifles using military calibers. (And not all rifles using such calibers are usually considered "assault weapons.") Overall, the number of persons killed with rifles of any type in 1990 was lower than the number in any year in the 1980s.
So i really dont get it.......they want to outlaw 2% of the rifles in the USA which are only responsiple for 1-7% of all gun homicides(depending on which study you use). Well maybe they were killing alot of police officers, yeah maybe thats it..............nope From 1982 to 1993, of the 687 officers who were killed by firearms other than their own guns, more were killed by .38 caliber revolvers than by any other firearm. Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Guns Used in Crime, July 1995.
A recent study has shown that the 1994 assult weapons ban didnt really have much of an affect on crime rates......given the above data i wonder why?
Florida: What a Few Armed Citizens do for Crime Rates
In 1987 Florida became a "shall issue" state. This means any law abiding citizen could get a concealed carry licence for a firearm. The press made a big deal of this widely publisizing that it would become easy for Joe Blow to get a concealed carry permit homicide rates were going to go through the roof. After the new law was enacted the purchase of concealed carry permits rose a couple of percent. However the homicide rate began falling faster than the national average. Why is that? Is it perhaps the fact that the criminals no longer knew who was "packing" and had to assume all their potential victems were?
In 2005 Floridas murder rate was 13% lower than the rest of the states. In 2005 Floridas murder rate was 58% lower than in 1986, the last year before the shall issue laws came into effect.
Conclusion
I think i have made a very good case againt gun control. Historically its got the potential to have helped the death of more people than all the worlds wars over the last 100 years. I also believe i have shown that gun control laws dont work, infact the opposite seems to be true. Washington D.C. Has the strictest anti gun laws in the country and it has a 6 times higher murder rate. Florida, on the other hand has some of the loosest firearms laws and its murder rate is plumiting faster than anywhere else in the US.
Why I View Gun Control As A Very Bad Thing
I hopefully will beable to convince more people via this well thought out argument as to why i have such a problem with any major and most minor forms of gun control.
The Second Amendment: Our Founding Fathers Intentions
The Second Amendment states "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." What exactly does this mean? Having been oppressed by a professional army, the founding fathers of the United States had no use for establishing one of their own. Instead, they decided that an armed citizenry makes the best army of all. General George Washington created regulation for the aforementioned "well-regulated militia," which would consist of every able-bodied man in the country. What you are reading is correct, our founding fathers had no intentions of the USA ever having a standing arm such as it currently has.
As for the founding fathers view Alexander Hamilton said in the Federalist Papers:
What plan for the regulation of the militia may be pursued by the national government is impossible to be foreseen...The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious if it were capable of being carried into execution... Little more can reasonably be aimed at with the respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped ; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.
After James Madison's Bill of Rights was submitted to Congress, Tench Coxe published his "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution," in the Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 He asserts that it's the individuals with arms, who serve as the ultimate check on government:
As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms
As to other views of the Founding Fathers:
No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
---Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
---Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
---James Madison,The Federalist Papers, No. 46.
Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
---Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788
Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.
---Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).
It seems self evident to myself that it was most conclusively the Founding Fathers intentions that every able bodied man be armed for the express purpose of defending himself against his government.
The Second Amendmentas seen by the Supreme Court
The Second Amendment holds the distinction of being the only amendment to the Bill of Rights that essentially goes unenforced. The U.S. Supreme Court has never struck down any piece of legislation on Second Amendment grounds, in part becaue justices have disagreed on whether the amendment is intended to protect the right to bear arms as an individual right, or as a component of the "well-regulated militia."
The only Supreme Court ruling in U.S. history that has focused primarily on the issue of what the Second Amendment really means is U.S. v. Miller (1939), which is also the last time the Court examined the amendment in any serious way. In Miller, the Court affirmed a median interpretaton holding that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms, but only if the arms in question are those that would be useful as part of a citizen militia. Or maybe not; interpretations vary, partly because Miller is not an exceptionally well-written ruling.
In Parker v. District of Columbia (March 2007), the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban on grounds that it violates the Second Amendment's guarantee of an individual right to bear arms. The case is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which may soon address the meaning of the Second Amendment. Almost any standard would be an improvement over Miller.
My excellent colleagues have forgotten these bitter lessons of history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.
Judge Alex Kozinski, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
Is the Second Amendment out of Date?
I often hear the argument that the Second Amendment is out of date. What applied in late 1700's cant apply to modern times. Does this mean the first amendment is only applicable to newspapers and letters? Our founding fathers never invisioned being able to send a message from Philidelpia to Hong Kong and back again and under a minute. Or that we could watch the war in Iraq in practically real time. They certainly never invisioned any individual being able to post a message that millions of ppl can see on the internet.
How can an average "militia man" compete against a helecopter? The Vietnam War demonstrated that a modern military power can be resisted by guerilla fighters bearing only small arms. In 1992, Colin Powell advised the Joint Chiefs to not get into the Bosnian conflict because the widespread ownership of arms in the former Yugoslav republic made even limited intervention "perilous and deadly."
In Chechnya more than 40,000 Russian soldiers were humbled as a few thousand urban guerrillas who mostly lived at home, fought in jeans, used outdated weapons and had no coherent battle plans nor organization. The Russian army had no real advantage in the streets of Chechnya
Genocide: The Future of the Unarmed, A lesson from History
In the 20th century 4 times more people were killed by their own governments than were killed in all the wars combined. Please see table posted at the end of this(actually next post, i actually exceeded the max charecters for a single post :grin: )
Australia: A Failed Study in Gun Control as a Means to Lower Crime Rates
On April 29th 1996 a psycopath shot 35 people in Port Arthur. The media went nuts screaming about the evils of "assult rifles". The populous was shocked, nothing like this had ever happened before In just 12 days the Government of Australia passed resolutions and the states enacted them into laws.
What did they enact? So called "assult rifles"? Not quite. They autlawed ALL semi-auto guns including such hunting oriented ones like the Browning A5 shotgun. They also outlawed pump shotguns. The law reads, and i quote "Any pump shotgun with a magazine capacity of 5 rounds or less". Thats right five rounds or LESS.
The Aussie government offered to buy back all of the listed firearms. How did they do this? By imposing a 1% tax increase to everyone. It sure worked to. Out of the estimated 7 million firearms suspected to be owned by the Aussies roughly 40% were now prohibited. This means roughly 2.8 million firearms should have been rounded up. They were a lil short. Roughly 640,000 were turned in. Which is about 25% of what the government estimated was out there.
The gun control politicians said as the laws were enacted that "it is probable that the crime rate will drop 20%". They missed that mark by just a lil bit aswell.
In 1997, just 12 months after the laws went into effect crimes across Aussieland jumped 3.2 percent. Armed robberies were up 44 percent, assults were up 8.6 percent and in the state of Victoria alone there was a 300% increase in homicides. Before the ban armed robberies with firearms had been steadily decreasing.
They didnt stop with firearms. In 1998 they started outlawing knives. If you were caught with a bowie knife the fine was to be up to $10,000 or 2 years in prison. Want hadcuffs? No dice fine of $11,000 or 14 years in prison.
In Australia all handguns are strictly controled Reasons must be given why anyone needs a license. The government lists only 10 reasons for owning a firearm-- protection of self and family is not considered a "reasonable" request!
Canada: A Failed Study in Gun Registration
By law as of Jan. 1, 2001 all firearms in Canada were supposed to be legally registered. In 1974 there were an estimated 10 million firearms in Canada. As of June 2003 6.4 million had been registered.
The estimated cost for this project was about $119 million to impliment. Atleast thats what the taxpayers were told. The new estimate is closer to $2 billion.
Recently several gun collectors have had thei collection stolen. They have insinuated that the gun registry had been hacked and become a shopping list for theives. The government says "street gangs" arent computer savy enough to hack the registry.
John Hicks, an Orillia-area computer consultant, and webmaster for the Canadian Firearms Centre, has said that anyone with a home computer could have easily accessed names, addresses and detailed shopping lists (including make, model and serial number) of registered guns belonging to licensed firearms owners. Hicks told the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH) that "During my tenure as the CFC webmaster I duly informed management that the website that interfaced to the firearms registry was flawed. It took some $15 million to develop and I broke it inside of about 30 minutes."
Switzerland: Why Hitler was Insane but Not Stupid
Hitler chose to avoid invading Switzerland during WWII. Why is that? Adolf Hitler had stated "all the rubbish of small nations still existing in Europe must be liquidated as fast as possible," and that if necessary he would become known as the "Butcher of the Swiss." Yet he never invaded.
Could it be if ever a nation had "a well-regulated militia," it is Switzerland. Every man in Switzerland had a rifle at home. Shooting was the national sport.
Shortly before WWI, the German Kaiser was the guest of the Swiss government to observe military maneuvers. The Kaiser asked a Swiss militiaman: "You are 500,000 and you shoot well, but if we attack with 1,000,000 men what will you do?" The soldier replied: "We will shoot twice and go home."
Today still, every Swiss male upon reaching 20 years old is required to attend recruit school where he is issued a rifle to keep at home.
The Swiss army sells a variety of machine guns, submachine guns, anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft guns, howitzers and cannons. Purchasers of these weapons require an easily obtained cantonal license, and the weapons are registered, In a nation of six million people, there are at least two million guns, including 600,00 fully automatic assault rifles, half a million pistols, and numerous machine guns. Virtually every home has a gun
Besides subsidised military surplus, the Swiss can buy other firearms easily too. While long guns require no special purchase procedures, handguns are sold only to those with a Waffenerwerbsschien (purchase certificate) issued by a cantonal authority. A certificate is issued to every applicant over 18 who is not a criminal or mentally infirm..
Despite all the guns, the murder rate is a small fraction of the American rate, and is less than the rate in Canada or England, which strictly control guns, or in Japan, which virtually prohibits them. The gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept.
History of Gun Control in the USA
Fully Automatic Firearms
It has been illegal since 1934 to own a fully auto firearm without the special permission of the US Treasury department. They must get a $200 tax stamp. They must also undergo a intense FBI background check for any criminal history or violent tendancies. You also need to submit 2 sets of finger prints, a current photo, a sworn affidavit that the possesion of the weapon would be "consistant with public safety" as well as the signature of a chief law enforcement officer within the jurisdiction of the applicants residence.
Since May of 1986, it is illegal for a civilian to own a newly manufactured machine gun. So civilians must buy machine guns manufactured before May of 1986
Half of the states have no other restrictions other than federal law, the other half have additional rules which may include outright refusal that a civilian may have one.
In 1995 there were over 240,000 machine guns registered with the BATF. About split 50/50 with police departments and private citizens.
Since 1934, there appear to have been at least two homicides committed with legally owned automatic weapons. One was a murder committed by a law enforcement officer (as opposed to a civilian). On September 15th, 1988, a 13-year veteran of the Dayton, Ohio police department, Patrolman Roger Waller, then 32, used his fully automatic MAC-11 .380 caliber submachine gun to kill a police informant, 52-year-old Lawrence Hileman. Patrolman Waller pleaded guilty in 1990, and he and an accomplice were sentenced to 18 years in prison. The 1986 'ban' on sales of new machine guns does not apply to purchases by law enforcement or government agencies.
In Targeting Guns, Kleck cites the director of BATF testifying before Congress that he knew of less than ten crimes that were committed with legally owned machine guns (no time period was specified). Kleck says these crimes could have been nothing more than violations of gun regulations such as failure to notify BATF after moving a registered gun between states.
Again in Targeting Guns, Kleck writes, four police officers were killed in the line of duty by machine guns from 1983 to 1992. (713 law enforcement officers were killed during that period, 651 with guns.)
In 1980, when Miami's homicide rate was at an all-time high, less than 1% of all homicides involved machine guns. (Miami was supposedly a "machine gun Mecca" and drug trafficking capital of the U.S.)
Out of 420 weapons, 375 of which were guns, siezed during drug warrents in Chicago by the Narcotics squad in Chicago from 1980-1989, none were machine guns.
16 of the 2,359 guns siezed in Detroit in 1991-92 connected in the "trafficing of narcotics" were machine guns
Assult Weapons
A genuine assault weapon, as opposed to a legal definition, is a hand-held, selective fire weapon, which means it's capable of firing in either an automatic or a semiautomatic mode depending on the position of a selector switch. These kinds of weapons are heavily regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and are further regulated in some states.
However, current "assault weapon" legislation defines certain semi-automatic weapons as "assault weapons." A semi-automatic weapon is one that fires a round with each pull of the trigger, versus an automatic weapon which continues to shoot until the trigger is released or the ammunition supply is exhausted. These kinds of "assault weapons" are sometimes referred to as military-style semi-automatic weapons.
Assault weapons are not the weapons of choice among drug dealers, gang members or criminals in general. Assault weapons are used in about one-fifth of one percent (.2%) of all violent crimes and about one percent in gun crimes. It is estimated that from one to seven percent of all homicides are committed with assault weapons (rifles of any type are involved in 3-4% of all homicides). However a higher percentage are used in police homicides, roughly 10%. (There has been no consistent trend in this rate from 1978 through 1996.) Between 1992 and 1996 less than 4% of mass murders, committed with guns, involved assault weapons. (Our deadliest mass murders have either involved arson or bombs.)
There are close to 4 million assault weapons in the U.S., which amounts to roughly 1.7% of the total gun stock.
If assault weapons are so rarely used in crime, why all the hoopla when certain military-style-semi-automatic weapons were banned by the Crime Control Act of 1994? A Washington Post editorial (September 15, 1994) summed it up best:
No one should have any illusions about what was accomplished (by the ban). Assault weapons play a part in only a small percentage of crime. The provision is mainly symbolic; its virtue will be if it turns out to be, as hoped, a stepping stone to broader gun control.
Here are some national statistics from before teh 1994 "assult weapons" ban:
# California. In 1990, "assault weapons" comprised thirty-six of the 963 firearms involved in homicide or aggravated assault and analyzed by police crime laboratories, according to a report prepared by the California Department of Justice, and based on data from police firearms laboratories throughout the state. The report concluded that "assault weapons play a very small role in assault and homicide firearm cases." Of the 1,979 guns seized from California narcotics dealers in 1990, fifty-eight were "assault weapons."
# Chicago. From 1985 through 1989, only one homicide was perpetrated with a military caliber rifle. Of the 17,144 guns seized by the Chicago police in 1989, 175 were "military style weapons."
# Florida. Florida Department of Law Enforcement Uniform Crime Reports for 1989 indicate that rifles of all types accounted for 2.6% of the weapons used in Florida homicides. The Florida Assault Weapons Commission found that "assault weapons" were used in 17 of 7,500 gun crimes for the years 1986-1989.
# Los Angeles. Of the more than 4,000 guns seized by police during one year, only about 3% were "assault weapons."
# Maryland. In 1989-90, there was only one death involving a "semiautomatic assault rifle" in all twenty-four counties of the State of Maryland.
# Massachusetts. Of 161 fatal shootings in Massachusetts in 1988, three involved "semiautomatic assault rifles." From 1985 to 1991, the guns were involved in 0.7% of all shootings.
# Miami. The Miami police seized 18,702 firearms from January 1, 1989 to December 31, 1993. Of these, 3.13% were "assault weapons."
# New Jersey. According to the Deputy Chief Joseph Constance of the Trenton New Jersey Police Department, in 1989, there was not a single murder involving any rifle, much less a "semiautomatic assault rifle," in the State of New Jersey. No person in New Jersey was killed with an "assault weapon" in 1988. Nevertheless, in 1990 the New Jersey legislature enacted an "assault weapon" ban that included low-power .22 rifles, and even BB guns. Based on the legislature's broad definition of "assault weapons," in 1991, such guns were used in five of 410 murders in New Jersey; in forty-seven of 22,728 armed robberies; and in twenty-three of 23,720 aggravated assaults committed in New Jersey.
# New York City. Of 12,138 crime guns seized by New York City police in 1988, eighty were "assault-type" firearms.
# New York State. Semiautomatic "assault rifles" were used in twenty of the 2,394 murders in New York State in 1992.
# San Diego. Of the 3,000 firearms seized by the San Diego police in 1988-90, nine were "assault weapons" under the California definition.
# San Francisco. Only 2.2% of the firearms confiscated in 1988 were military-style semiautomatics.
# Virginia. Of the 1,171 weapons analyzed in state forensics laboratories in 1992, 3.3% were "assault weapons."
# National statistics. Less than four percent of all homicides in the United States involve any type of rifle. No more than .8% of homicides are perpetrated with rifles using military calibers. (And not all rifles using such calibers are usually considered "assault weapons.") Overall, the number of persons killed with rifles of any type in 1990 was lower than the number in any year in the 1980s.
So i really dont get it.......they want to outlaw 2% of the rifles in the USA which are only responsiple for 1-7% of all gun homicides(depending on which study you use). Well maybe they were killing alot of police officers, yeah maybe thats it..............nope From 1982 to 1993, of the 687 officers who were killed by firearms other than their own guns, more were killed by .38 caliber revolvers than by any other firearm. Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Guns Used in Crime, July 1995.
A recent study has shown that the 1994 assult weapons ban didnt really have much of an affect on crime rates......given the above data i wonder why?
Florida: What a Few Armed Citizens do for Crime Rates
In 1987 Florida became a "shall issue" state. This means any law abiding citizen could get a concealed carry licence for a firearm. The press made a big deal of this widely publisizing that it would become easy for Joe Blow to get a concealed carry permit homicide rates were going to go through the roof. After the new law was enacted the purchase of concealed carry permits rose a couple of percent. However the homicide rate began falling faster than the national average. Why is that? Is it perhaps the fact that the criminals no longer knew who was "packing" and had to assume all their potential victems were?
In 2005 Floridas murder rate was 13% lower than the rest of the states. In 2005 Floridas murder rate was 58% lower than in 1986, the last year before the shall issue laws came into effect.
Conclusion
I think i have made a very good case againt gun control. Historically its got the potential to have helped the death of more people than all the worlds wars over the last 100 years. I also believe i have shown that gun control laws dont work, infact the opposite seems to be true. Washington D.C. Has the strictest anti gun laws in the country and it has a 6 times higher murder rate. Florida, on the other hand has some of the loosest firearms laws and its murder rate is plumiting faster than anywhere else in the US.