To those that haven't jumped on-board the evidence express a fact and a spurious relationship are the same beast
While I agree the original intent is largely irrelevant, I do disagree with the last bit. A very small percentage of guns are involved in the commission or prevention of crime. Less than 1% of all the guns in the US are used for either. Of those numbers, far more are used for prevention than commission. In light of reality, to say guns cause more harm than good makes very little sense.
Do the research yourself, you won't find a correlation between guns and crime. You will however find that poverty is a big factor.
Aah, but does that mean that poverty leads to criminal behavior or that criminal behavior leads to poverty?
I have done the research and therefore know that we cannot refer to simple correlations. We have to refer to multiple regression methods and its but a matter of fact to note that the majority of the research does not reject the 'more guns=more crime' hypothesis.
There are multiple studies, using appropriate econometric methods, that demonstrate the 'more guns=more crime' hypothesis cannot be rejected. You may not have perused it, but that's just matter of fact
Wolverene you are respected and talented as a poster here ,could you do me a favor & get some Divorce Rates for Lesbian Married Couples since 2005 in the United States, You have Gravitas and your Links and stats would not be questioned as mine always are (If I provided them)...
Gun control is a silly notion. Unregistered guns probably number in the millions. If you think they can be rounded-up...good luck to ya. That horse left the barn thousands of years ago. Any low-life criminal-type with a gun will have ultimate power over an unarmed person. Where I live, criminal miscreants that think they can take what is not theirs or do harm to a neighbor and get shot & killed will disappear. We all have guns and there are a lot of back-hoes.
There's no such thing as a perfect policy. There is, however, an optimal policy. That, without doubt, refers to gun control
In the oft-quoted words of Benjamin Franklin - "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
You need to get your facts straight. While in the days of the Articles of Confederation our standing army was quite weak, this duration was short-lived, and by 1791 we indeed had a national army. You're joking right? Different countries have different populations, laws, gang cultures, punishment for crimes, poverty rates, etc. Hence, it makes little sense to compare the US with Canada. Otherwise, I could bring up that the Swiss, whose gun control laws mimic the United States' more than Europe's, have violent crime rates lower than most of their European counterparts. It would be much more logical to compare the United States against itself. Mainly, you should look at areas with strict gun control, like New Jersey, California, and Massachusetts, with areas of laxer gun control, like Utah, Texas, and Virginia. By doing this, you will find absolutely no correlation between lax gun control and increased violent crime rates. This is a non sequitur answer and has nothing to do with our intial argument. Again, there is absolutely ZERO data that links increased gun control with a decrease in violent crime. Hence, the hypothesis that "more gun control equals less violent crime" most certainly can be rejected by anyone that favors the scientific method.
That is not good and individuals need an effective means of SELF CONTROL...which they no longer have. That is another difference between out time and that of the founding fathers...Your last paragraph proves my point...you have to go back to the Revolotion if you want to prove the necessity of average citizens being armed.
It has nothing to do with liberty and everything to do with common sense. Having guns only makes the citizens freer to kill each other and themselves. What good is liberty if you're dead?
Ayuh,.... Obviously, Self control is lacking in many areas of the country,... Untill Self control can be taught to these folks,... The Rest of Us, demand the right to Self Preservation... What do you have against folks being able to protect themselves,..??
I would hardly call this much of a national army: After the war, though, the Continental Army was quickly disbanded as part of the American distrust of standing armies, and irregular state militias became the new nation's sole ground army, with the exception of a regiment to guard the Western Frontier and one battery of artillery guarding West Point's arsenal. However, because of continuing conflict with Native Americans, it was soon realized that it was necessary to field a trained standing army. The first of these, the Legion of the United States, was established in 1791 and disbanded in 1796. Source: Wikipedia (I know it's not always authoritative, but still)
Even Franklin would agree that in order for a society to function, the people need to agree on a few common basic tenets in order for the society to function, otherwise there is anarchy. The fact that the people beleive in these does not make them less free, as they have freely decided to agree on them. You could argue that giving up guns would make Americans less free, but not if they decided freely that the presence of guns in the general population makes them less safe.