Time to Face Facts on Gun Control By Fareed Zakaria http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/27/time-to-face-facts-on-gun-control/?hpt=hp_bn2 It has now been just over a week since a lone gunman opened fire on moviegoers in Aurora, Colorado. The airwaves have been dominated by soul searching. Most of the pundits have concluded that the main cause of this calamity is the dark, strange behavior of the gunman. Talking about anything else, they say, is silly. The New York Times’ usually extremely wise columnist, David Brooks, explains that this is a problem of psychology, not sociology. At one level, this makes sense, of course, as the proximate cause. But really, it’s questionable analysis. Think about this: are there more lonely people in America compared with other countries? Are there, say, fewer depressed people in Asia and Europe? So why do they all have so much less gun violence than we do? The United States stands out from the rest of the world not because it has more nutcases – I think we can assume that those people are sprinkled throughout every society equally –but because it has more guns. Look at the map below. It shows the average number of firearms per 100 people. Most of the world is shaded light green – those are the countries where there are between zero and 10 guns per 100 citizens. In dark brown, you have the countries with more than 70 guns per 100 people. The U.S. is the only country in that category. In fact, the last global Small Arms Survey showed there are 88 guns for every 100 Americans. Yemen is second at 54. Serbia and Iraq are among the other countries in the top 10. We have 5 percent of the world's population and 50 percent of the guns. But the sheer number of guns isn’t an isolated statistic. The data shows we compare badly on fatalities, too. *The U.S has three gun homicides per 100,000 people. That’s four times as many as Switzerland, ten times as many as India, 20 times as many as Australia and England. Whatever you think of gun rights and gun control, the numbers don’t flatter America. I saw an interesting graph in The Atlantic magazine recently. A spectrum shows the number of gun-related deaths by state. Now if you add one more piece of data – gun control restrictions – you see that the states with at least one firearm law (such as an assault weapons ban or trigger locks) tend to be the states with fewer gun-related deaths. Conclusion? Well, there are lots of factors involved, but there is at least a correlation between tighter laws and fewer gun-related deaths. I've shown you data comparing countries, and comparing states. Now consider the U.S. over time. Americans tend to think the U.S. is getting more violent. In a recent Gallup survey, 68 percent said there’s more crime in the U.S. than there was a year ago. Well, here’s what I found surprising: the U.S. is actually getting safer. In the decade since the year 2000, violent crime rates fell by 20 percent; aggravated assault by 22 percent; motor vehicle theft by 42 percent; murder – by all weapons – by 13 percent. But guns are the exception. Gun homicide rates haven’t improved at all. They were at roughly the same levels in 2009 as they were in 2000. Meanwhile, serious but non-fatal gun injuries caused during assault have actually increased in the last decade by 20 percent, as guns laws have gotten looser and getting automatic weapons has become easier. We are the world’s most heavily-armed civilian population. One out of every three Americans knows someone who has been shot. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but not to his or her own facts. Saying that this is all a matter of psychology is a recipe for doing nothing. We cannot change the tortured psychology of madmen like James Holmes. What we can do is change our gun laws. Should U.S. gun laws be tougher? What would you change?
Kind of shoots all kinds of holes in your whole it's the crazy people and not the guns argument. You're welcome.
Not really. If you have one guy who is a collector and owns 20 guns, it kind of skews the entire per capita number.
Saying gun control or gun ban will not reduce gun related crimes just defies simple logic. If the debate turns on whether banning gun ownership will reduce violence in this country, private ownership of guns should be outlawed tomorrow. The real debate is the 2nd amendment, written in the constitution. It's a shame that politicians wont's go there.
do majority of other countries have violent massacres, outside of countries we consider as "terrorists" like iraq and afghanistan? something to consider. what do we need a ak47 to protect ourselves from? wild bear attacks?
How cute! Expand gun control laws. Lemme print one out instead of buying to avoid gun laws. http://www.gizmag.com/first-3d-printed-firearm/23473/
I doubt you'd reduce violence. We'd just see more violence between illegal arms suppliers and the authorities. In that world, you wouldn't be taking guns out of the hands of criminals, you'd just be creating more criminals. If politicians really cared about reducing violent crimes, they'd be more concerned economic issues. I'd say unemployment and poverty are the drivers of criminality. People who are poor and out of work look at black markets and see opportunity. I'd say they should quick creating black markets, and creating more scarcity by restricting people's non-violent behaviors.
feel free to post them in an actual thread instead of starting your own for some stupid blog post with no commentary on your part, basso.
Why??? You are saying banning guns would create more criminals. For any controled substance, there are going to be illegal market for that substance. Shall we legalize all the drugs because the crimes between gangs fighting for their turfs to sell drugs just created more violence? If any thing, I don't mind gangs killing each other. There are violence amongster violence, which I don't care, and violence against the innocent, which I care. Perverted pro-gun lobbists have been saying such illogical things for years, and I guess there are people really bought into it. It's like saying black is white and white is black. Listen, the point is not about more or less criminals. Anti-gun folks never aruged about that at all, which is a strawman set up by the pro-gun lobbists. The point is access to guns. It's the same argument against drug being legalized. Easy access to guns has evidenced enough harm to the society at large so it should be tightly, I will say banned, restricted, just like drugs. Sure, criminals will find guns one way another just like drug addicts find their drugs. But it will be a lot harder for them to get the guns and amo, say, than from walmart or online dealers. Because of the horrenduc gun control or lack thereof in the US, there are too many guns already out there, so banning forward-going gun ownership is not enought. That is indeed a problem. But that problem ain't going away if we dont start at some point. First step ban all the guns going forward, next step impose criminal liability for turning up already owned guns, next next steps really come down hard on those refusing to turn up their guns. We need to get it started.
Again you fail to comment on the facts in the piece. Feel free to comment on this piece in whatever thread suits you. I'm waiting.
Good strategy I guess. Have all of your weak ass arguments and ideas from this thread get shot down? http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=223926 Start a new one, lol sore loser
It's not as black and white as that though. It's not as simple as comparing the US with other countries. (But actually, there was a pretty MAJOR massacre last year outside of the US, I'm sure you remember. There have been several actually the past decade.) You can't say, "Well in Switzerland, everyone has guns and look at how little problems they have!" Well yeah, but Switzerland does not have an army, but an encouraged militia. Oh and it also has a population less than New York City. And conversely, you can't compare other countries with strict laws to the US either. Japan has strict laws, but an ENITRELY different culture. Mexico has very strict gun laws, yet I'd venture to say it's worked just a tad better in Japan. Point is, the US is obviously a unique country. No country has as many cultures jumbled into one larger culture. No country has the combination of access to firearms, population, political and personal freedoms, or government structure. Should guns be banned? Come on now. Be smart. That would be a decision worse than Prohibition. Are people advocating that? Some, maybe, but I'd say the majority aren't. Should a background check be done when purchasing a firearm? Absolutely. Should people with a history of mental health issues be allowed to purchase firearms? I suppose it depends, but probably not for the best. Should former criminals be allowed to purchase firearms? I'd say mostly not, but I'm sure some sort of licensing/testing/reviews/etc could be devised for the truly rehabilitated. Does all of this make it more difficult to buy firearms? Yes. Would a law-abiding, able-minded citizen be affected? Not at all. What about licenses for something like an AK-47? Do I think people should be able to own one? Sure, why not? But I also believe that even myself, as an inexperienced, unlicensed citizen with no history of firearms should probably not own an AK-47 without some sort of license. Plus, they already do a background check for fully-auto weapons. Do I think any of this will happen? Eh, probably not.
oh yay another "more guns" argument with not logical basis. Facts without structure and thought put into them are nothing.
After reading this poorly written article I am more convinced that the second amendment must be protected at any cost.
I will say this. The NRA and the right wing have been spectacularly successful in selling the notion the any form of gun control = prohibition. You can't even have a debate anymore without it spilling into some fantasy about guns being taken away from Americans. We also are a country that accepts gun violence pretty easily. It's normal here and its part of our history. People will argue about this for a while, the NRA will stonewall, and we'll forget about it in a week.
