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The Shocking Revelation: More Guns Really Does Mean Less Crime!
It came as a surprise to Don B. Kates (LL.B., Yale, 1966), an American criminologist and constitutional lawyer associated with the Pacific Research Institute, San Francisco. It also came as a surprise to Gary Mauser (Ph.D., University of California, Irvine, 1970) a Canadian criminologist and university professor at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC Canada.
In Volume 30 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Kates and Mauser's review appeared: WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE MURDER AND SUICIDE? A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL AND SOME DOMESTIC EVIDENCE. A direct quote:
“Thus both sides of the gun prohibition debate are likely wrong in viewing the availability of guns as a major factor in the incidence of murder in any particular society. Though many people may still cling to that belief, the historical, geographic, and demographic evidence explored in this Article provides a clear admonishment. Whether gun availability is viewed as a cause or as a mere coincidence, the long term macrocosmic evidence is that gun ownership spread widely throughout societies consistently correlates with stable or declining murder rates. Whether causative or not, the consistent international pattern is that more guns equal less murder and other violent crime. Even if one is inclined to think that gun availability is an important factor, the available international data cannot be squared with the mantra that more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death. Rather, if firearms availability does matter, the data consistently show that the way it matters is that more guns equal less violent crime.” The lengthy discussion ends as follows:
“Over
a decade ago, Professor Brandon Centerwall of the University of Washington
undertook an extensive, statistically sophisticated study comparing areas
in the United States and Canada to
determine whether Canada’s more restrictive policies had better contained
criminal violence. When he published his results it was with the admonition:
If you are surprised by [our] finding[s], so [are we]. [We] did not begin
this research with any intent to “exonerate” handguns, but there
it is—a negative finding, to be sure, but a negative finding is nevertheless
a positive contribution. It directs us where not to aim public health
resources.”
Dr. Martin Fackler, ex-battlefield surgeon and the world's leading wounding ballistics expert, wrote in USA TODAY, an article entitled: Firearms in America: The Facts, Martin L. Fackler, MD, Monday, Dec. 25, 2000. Dr. Fackler noted that physicians caused more than 100,000 deaths per year and asked why society tolerated that. Dr. Fackler showed that the comparison between physicians and firearms was entirely analogous: both save far more lives than they cost.
Dr. Fackler wrote, “Firearms are entirely analogous. Although used in far fewer deaths - they are used to prevent about 75 crimes for each death. Firearms, like physicians, prevent far more deaths than they cause. (Gary Kleck, "Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America," Hawthorne, N.Y., Aldine de Gruyter Publisher, 1991) Consider the implications of the fact that firearms save many more lives than they take. That means decreasing the number of firearms would actually cause an increase in violent crime and deaths from firearms. This inverse relationship between the number of firearms in the hands of the public and the amount of violent crime has, in fact, been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. (John R. Lott Jr., "More Guns Less Crime," University of Chicago Press, 1998)
History supports the inverse firearm-crime relationship. In "Firearms Control -A Study of Armed Crime and Firearms Control" in England and Wales (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972, p. 243), Chief Inspector Colin Greenwood found that: No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort. . Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this class of weapons in crime than ever before.”
Does more guns really mean less crime? The inescapable answer is yes, it really, really does. This is at odds with President Obama's odd comment about meaningful action, which is not a real issue. Nor is gun control a viable issue. The issue is actually what can be done to lessen the exposure of innocent people to actions of the criminally insane. There are no repercussions to a murder-suicide, certainly not for the successful suicide attempt.
The 2nd Amendment has been stretched, taxed, rationed, and watered-down past the breaking point. Past the tolerance of the Supreme Court, anyway, whether it is was District of Columbia or Chicago. The Federal Appeals Court of Illinois finally spanked . . . the State of Illinois.
We do know that more guns in the hands of the right people reduces crime. While the more bombastic pundits grunt, 'the answer is not more guns' . . . they of course have no answer and further are quite incorrect in saying just less guns equates to anything. No one, anywhere, suggests that more guns in the hands of the criminally insane is a good idea. Or, those likely to commit crimes.
More guns in the right hands IS part of the solution. Not all of it, but clearly part of it. This should be self-explanatory. We use public funds to arm the FBI, the Secret Service, State Police, County Sheriffs, and city police. The taxpayer buys guns, buys ammunition, pays for training, and pays for full-time employment of armed law enforcement officials. Why? Why? Of course, the why is self-evident . . . we are putting more guns into the hands of what we feel are the right people.
Federal Agents do make mistakes. So do local cops, so does the FBI, so does the Secret Service. So do Federal Marshals. And so does the Armed Citizen. But the Armed Citizen can be where general law enforcement cannot be and just like the LE officials we arm, they save FAR more lives than they lose and prevent FAR more crimes than they commit by a huge, huge margin. The "Gun Free Zone" is a menace to society, but no barrier at all to the criminally insane. To those who would murder, the Gun Free Zone is a taxpayer enabled attractant. More guns in the hands of the right people, the law-abiding citizen, invariably reduces violent crime.
Copyright 2012 by Randy Wakeman. All Rights Reserved.
See also: http://randywakeman.com/ballltd63.htm for Dr. Martin Fackler's complete text..
The complete text of Kates and Mauser's review can be found here in PDF form: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf .
See also: http://www.garymauser.net/papers.html .
Published at: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-907777 .
