Gun control advocate has me tied up, need help

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ConservativeMetalhead

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I'm arguing with this British gun control advocate, he has me tied up. Here's the statistics he gave:

"the US murder rate is "0.042802 per 1,000 people" and the UK's "0.0140633 per 1,000 people" and 65% of US murders are with guns and so no guns means a heck of a lot less murders."

He got this info from some site called nationmaster or something like that. I tried to look up UK crime rates for 2010 on Google but lord knows that didn't do crap. Some organization called, "Home Office" gave info as well, showing that crime is decreasing dramatically in the UK. I'm starting to get very worried that this argument will go to the gun control advocate. Please help.

When you give info PLEASE cite it.
 
That statistic shows a correlation, not a causation. That statistic doesn't prove that crime would be lower in the US if there were less guns. There are a lot of causes of violence beyond the tools available to commit that violence.

65% of US murders are with guns and so no guns means a heck of a lot less murders
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That means that he would insist that those murders in that 65% were only committed BECAUSE of a gun. I would bet that a lot of those murders would have occurred anyway, just with a different weapon. Does a murderer kill somebody because he has a gun? It's just their chosen method. If guns were banned, knife murders would spike. Then what? Ban knives? Then what?



Secondly, crime in the US has been going down while simultaneously, gun ownership is going up. Murder rates dropped all throughout the 90's during Clinton's strict gun control. They continued to drop throughout this past decade as well, as gun control was relaxed and gun ownership rates have increased.

There are also countries with very strict gun control that have higher murder rates than the US. There are far more factors to consider when evaluating those statistics than just gun control laws.
 
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Well look at the areas where most gun crimes occur in America I bet a majority are commited in Chicago, NYC, DC, LA and California in general; places with strict gun control measures.

The second part of your argument needs to be a statistic of legally owned guns used in crimes vs. illegal guns used in crimes. This will show how even when guns are banned criminals still end up with them.
 
That statistic shows a correlation, not a causation.
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Exactly, and it's a standard anti arguing point.

Here's another, with the real truth behind it.

When the Brady Bill was passed there was originally a waiting period to buy handguns. When this waiting period was in place the GUN suicide rate dropped dramatically. The Anti's were ecstatic.

Except for one small item they left out... the OVERALL suicide rate stayed exactly the same.

All that means is that people found a DIFFERENT way to kill themselves, the gun laws actually changed nothing.

You're being shown the same thing here.

The US has a higher violent crime rate than the UK, regardless of the tool used. That's just a difference between the 2 societies, has nothing to do with guns.

He doesn't really have an argument unless you let him. As mentioned, look at the crime trends.

The crime rate in the US is going down as gun ownership goes UP. If his argument had merit that wouldn't be possible would it?
 
TexasRifleman said:
Exactly, and it's a standard anti arguing point.

Here's another, with the real truth behind it.

When the Brady Bill was passed there was originally a waiting period to buy handguns. When this waiting period was in place the GUN suicide rate dropped dramatically. The Anti's were ecstatic.

Except for one small item they left out... the OVERALL suicide rate stayed exactly the same.

All that means is that people found a DIFFERENT way to kill themselves, the gun laws actually changed nothing.

You're being shown the same thing here.

The US has a higher violent crime rate than the UK, regardless of the tool used. That's just a difference between the 2 societies, has nothing to do with guns.

He doesn't really have an argument unless you let him. As mentioned, look at the crime trends.

The crime rate in the US is going down as gun ownership goes UP. If his argument had merit that wouldn't be possible would it?
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Can you give a reliable source proving that, in America, gun ownership is going up while crime is going down?
 
The FBI website has crime statistics and NICS statistics. Look around there. You will see that murder and violent crime are trending downward, while NICS checks (indicators of gun purchases) are going up.
 
In 1968 the estimated number of firearms in the U.S. was guestimated at around 200 million, maybe even 40 million more.

I don't know the rate of sales between 1968 and 1993, but BATFE records from 1993 to 2003 showed some five million per year. This continued on until around 2005, when the rate of sales increased. 2009 saw NICS calls at around ten million.

So from 1993 through 2009 the number of firearms increased by around eighty million or more.

But the homicide rate has declined and is still declining. Maybe more guns equals less crime?

Last I saw, firearms homicides were roughly one-third of all homicides. Around 11,000 via handgun; around 3,000 via long gun. Dept of Justice has the total numbers, as does the Center for Disease Control. (I haven't checked, lately.)
 
Dept of Justice has the total numbers, as does the Center for Disease Control.
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Here's a great page if you ever want to know what kills people in this country. You can filter by age, state, year, sex, race, cause of death, etc. Very useful for all sorts of stuff.

[noparse]http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html[/noparse]
 
It's a ridiculous comparison, you can't compare different countries with different populations, cultures, demographics etc. Britain doesn't exactly have the minority gang situation that we do, and what about the good riddance factor? (Criminals killing each other).

0.042802 per 1,000 vs 0.0140633 per 1,000 people? Are we really arguing over such minor numbers?

Counter with this statistic:

In the 20th century, about 20 million people were killed by common criminals. 262 million were killed by governments (that doesn't even include people killed in warfare). Even if gun laws did reduce the crime rate, unless common criminals start killing about 13 times as many people, it still makes sense for us to be armed so we can defend ourselves from our governments.

Don't get sucked into these stupid arguments over non-issues, focus on the big picture, democide.
 
Even if the stats are 100% correct, it does not matter one bit. The RKBA is about having a 4th check against tyranny. Freedom, as many have stated, does not necessarily make one more safe. Placing that requirement on the RKBA is a red herring. Stay with the constitution on this one. I read NOTHING in the Bill of Rights regarding the lowering of crime statistics being tied to my fundamental right to own firearms.
 
Alex45ACP said:
It's a ridiculous comparison, you can't compare different countries with different populations, cultures, demographics etc. Britain doesn't exactly have the minority gang situation that we do, and what about the good riddance factor? (Criminals killing each other).

0.042802 per 1,000 vs 0.0140633 per 1,000 people? Are we really arguing over such minor numbers?

Counter with this statistic:

In the 20th century, about 20 million people were killed by common criminals. 262 million were killed by governments (that doesn't even include people killed in warfare). Even if gun laws did reduce the crime rate, unless common criminals start killing about 13 times as many people, it still makes sense for us to be armed so we can defend ourselves from our governments.

Don't get sucked into these stupid arguments over non-issues, focus on the big picture, democide.
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"you can't compare different countries with different populations, cultures, demographics etc. Britain doesn't exactly have the minority gang situation that we do, and what about the good riddance factor?"

So, you're saying gun control, for some countries, actually works?
 
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman has the correct numbers; purchase his book on tape called "The Bullet Proof Mind" and you'll be better off PLUS win THAT debate for sure!!

"Murder rate" is inconclusive as Med. Tech. saves more and more lives as we advance into better techniques and education. IIRC, the attempted murder rate in the US has quadrupled since 1964 and has the same increases in the UK. It's a measure of violence and societal lack of respect for things living, rather than the actual death rate.

Arm thyself with Grossman's knowledge and attend his seminars when you can!

Details may be found here...

http://www.killology.com/bio.htm
 
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If the only reason our murder rate is higher than GB's is because of easy access to firearms here compared to over there then it would stand to reason that the non-firearm related rate of murder here would be about the same as over there. It isn't. Our non-firearm related murder rate is also higher than their non-firearm related murder rate.

According to the OP's first post the murder rate in GB is aprox 1.4 per 100,000. Using the statistics from the FBI's uniform crime index for 2009 I calculate that the non-firearm related murder rate here in the U.S is aprox 1.65 per 100,000. That is greater than the total murder rate in GB for all types of weapons, not just firearms. ( Please note that in some murders reported to the FBI the weapon was unknown and a few of them were probably firearms. I don't think this skews the numbers significantly )

Things are not as rosy over there as some people would like to think:

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/busting-the-gun-control-equals-less-crime-myth

Have him read this essay:

http://www.actionamerica.org/guns/guns1.shtml

Good luck.
 
Here is another thing. In GB all places have the same gun conrol laws, not here in the US. We have 50 states plus Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and other assorted odds and ends. Each have their own gun laws. Show him this link, it shows how the Brady Campaign rated each state about their gun control laws. High score meant strict gun control laws, low score meant lenient gun control laws.

http://www.bradycampaign.org/stategunlaws/scorecard

Then have him go to:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_05.html

and compare the rate of violent crime in each state compared to their Brady Score.

He will find that there is a very good match between the Brady Score for each state and the violent crime rate for each state such that states with low Brady Scores tend to have lower rates of violent crime, like murder, than states with high Brady Scores. Not a perfect match but very good.
 
Next have him read this about Gary Kleck:

http://www.guncite.com/gcwhoGK.html

It tells how Kleck, a flaming liberal if there ever was one, discovered that guns, especially handguns, are very useful for lawful self defense. About two million uses each year in this country.

If all this won't sway his opinion then nothing will.
 
Here's another page from Guncite - http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

Some countries with draconian gun control (like Taiwan) have higher murder rates than the U.S.
But I wouldn't waste my time arguing with him. You might just explain that when we kicked the British out of our country, we adopted a Constitution with a Second Amendment.... much better than anything the Brits had to offer!
 
I was sent to China on a business trip in 1998, and a couple of the locals in Beijing tried to lecture me on the dangers of gun ownership in the U.S...

"It's very simple", I told them...

"My country was born from a revolution, just like your country was born from a revolution....

However, in my country, the revolutionaries made a guarantee that future generations of Americans could keep their guns, just in case another revolution was ever required".


You could have heard a pin drop. They were stunned.
 
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