Project Gunrunner

There are two relevant issues to this;
1) New guns in this country are predominantly sold legally in their first sale, and a criminal's access to guns are predominantly in the secondary illegal market after these guns are either stolen or sold illegally to the criminal market.

2) The US tends to lead the civilized world in homicides and suicides.


=========

Thus, given the available evidence that shows a relationship of guns and homicides/suicides in that guns do not have a perfect substitute that inevitably affects the results of these acts, we see that all new legal gun purchases should bear the true financial costs of the negative consequences that arise from this initial innocent and legal purchase. Does this make better sense to you now?

 

Yeah, they saw that in DC & Chicago, didn't they?

Reality is where you fell off the boat.

Like what, genius?

 

If you want to present an empirical study that supports your argument then be my guest. Spurious spew is so tiresome. Those interested in reality know that

 

Many of the guns sold illegally are due to the BATFE, and their covert operations.

Do you think that gun control will prevent criminals from getting them? After all, if gun control is the law of the land, then criminals should follow the law right?

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita

=========

Absolutely not. Why punish those that follow the law? Once again, you have the typical liberal (Obama) attitude. Punish the law-abiding for the acts of the non law-abiding.

 

Gun control doesn't reduce crime, violence, say studies

National Academy of Sciences, Justice Dept. reports
find no benefits to restricting ownership of firearms

WASHINGTON – While it is an article of faith among gun-control proponents that government restrictions on firearms reduces violence and crime, two new U.S. studies could find no evidence to support such a conclusion.

The National Academy of Sciences issued a 328-page report based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, a survey of 80 different gun-control laws and some of its own independent study. In short, the panel could find no link between restrictions on gun ownership and lower rates of crime, firearms violence or even accidents with guns.


The panel was established during the Clinton administration and all but one of its members were known to favor gun control.

"Policy questions related to gun ownership and proposals for gun control touch on some of the most contentious issues in American politics: Should regulations restrict who may possess firearms? Should there be restrictions on the number or types of guns that can be purchased? Should safety locks be required? These and many related policy questions cannot be answered definitively because of large gaps in the existing science base," said Charles F. Wellford, professor in the department of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Maryland and chairman of the committee that wrote the report.

However, the National Research Council decided even more thorough research on the topic is needed.

Many studies linking guns to suicide and criminal violence produce conflicting conclusions, have statistical flaws and often do not show whether gun ownership results in certain outcomes, the report said.

A serious limit in such analyses is the lack of good data on who owns firearms and on individual encounters with violence, according to the study.

The report noted that many schools have programs intended to prevent gun violence. However, it added, some studies suggest that children's curiosity and teenagers' attraction to risk make them resistant to the programs or that the projects actually increase the appeal of guns.

Few of these programs, the report concludes, have been adequately evaluated.

The report calls for the development of a National Violent Death Reporting System and a National Incident-Based Reporting System to begin collecting data.

The study by the Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Science, was sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Joyce Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

"While more research is always helpful, the notion that we have learned nothing flies in the face of common sense," said John Lott, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a critic of gun-control laws. "The NAS panel should have concluded as the existing research has: Gun control doesn't help."

Meanwhile, a study released by the Justice Department suggesting background checks at gun shows would do little to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals.

The study noted the number of criminals who obtained guns from retail outlets was dwarfed by the number of those who picked up their arms through means other than legal purchases. The report was the result of interviews with more than 18,000 state and federal inmates conducted nationwide. It found that nearly 80 percent of those interviewed got their guns from friends or family members, or on the street through illegal purchases.

Less than 9 percent were bought at retail outlets and only seven-tenths of 1 percent came from gun shows.

The Justice Department's interviews also showed so-called "assault weapons" are not a major cause of gun violence. Only about 8 percent of the inmates used one of the models covered in the now-expired assault weapons ban, signed into law by the Clinton administration in 1994.

Source: http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=28253

 

Gun control measures don't stop violence

Against the horrific backdrop of the Tucson, Arizona, tragedy, new gun control proposals are on the way. Some of our legislators will be tempted to apply Rahm Emanuel's aphorism, "Never let a good crisis go to waste."

For example, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-New York, wants to outlaw magazines with more than 10 rounds -- even those already in circulation. She hasn't explained how a ban on previously sold magazines would deter anyone but law-abiding citizens.

Still, the Supreme Court has suggested that sensible gun regulations may be constitutionally permissible. Sensible is not, however, what we have in Washington, Chicago, New York and other cities, where you can probably get a pizza delivery before a response from a 911 call. Police cannot be everywhere.

Selected proposals may nonetheless be constructive, with three important qualifications. First, government has the burden to show that a regulation will not unduly impede the use of firearms for self-defense. Second, ostensibly modest steps down a slippery slope must not compromise core Second Amendment rights. Third, a regulation must be effective in promoting public safety, when weighed against reliable evidence that past restrictions have not lessened the incidence of gun-related crimes.

Recall that Washington banned handguns for 33 years; during some of those years the city was known as the nation's murder capital. Killers not deterred by laws against murder were not deterred by laws against owning guns. Moreover, anti-gun regulations did not address the deep-rooted causes of violent crime -- illegitimacy, drugs, alcohol abuse and dysfunctional schools -- much less mental instability.

In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed 253 journal articles, 99 books and 43 government publications evaluating 80 gun-control measures. Researchers could not identify a single regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents. A year earlier, the Centers for Disease Control reported on ammunition bans, restrictions on acquisition, waiting periods, registration, licensing, child access prevention and zero tolerance laws. CDC's conclusion: There was no conclusive evidence that the laws reduced gun violence.

Source:http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-18/opinion/levy.anti.gun.control_1_gun-control-gun-regulations-gun-related-crimes?_s=PM:OPINION

 

By "many", do you mean five, twenty or 'most'? "many" can be a vague term used primarily to muddy the waters of a debate. I'm sure that you are smarter and more honorable than that, so I'm sure that you realize that I DID state how guns are "predominantly" sold in this country. THAT is the relevant issue here, and not whether you feel the ATF is involved in a conspiracy or not.

So, now that you understand how new guns in this country sometimes find their way into the illegal gun market, you can now understand how both the illegal AND the legal gun markets are inextricably linked, and will honorably note this fact.

Don't disappoint me now.

This question is naive and irrelevant. Given the link that the legal and illegal gun markets share as to the criminal access to guns (as was already patiently explained to you), any attempt to constitutionally address the crossover from legal to illegal markets should be encouraged, no?

Your purpose?

Then I'm afraid there might be little hope for you beyond your small band of narrow thinkers.

Amazing. You act as if this is somehow a radical and new concept. We currently do precisely what Reiver offered earlier when it comes to alcohol and cigarette sales. We tax them to compensate for the costs these legal activities have on society. We do the same thing with highway tolls and car license fees. I don't hear people making the same argument you have as it relates to those activities. Why don't you simply admit that your ONLY opposition to this is fueled by ideology and not reason?

 

I can refer directly to studies that conclude gun control has significantly positive effects on crime rates. You cannot. Why is that?

 

Ayuh,... I don't ever remember reading about Those in the Constitution....

 

It amuses me that you fellows think the constitution demands coercive relationships and celebrates an anti-individualist result.

 

You stated how YOU thought guns get into the wrong hands. You word means nothing to me. Where's your evidence?

The question is valid - now answer it.

To show you that we do not lead the world in homicides.

You only need to look in the mirror my friend.

Have cigarette sales dropped? Have alcohol sales dropped? NO.

 

Show me then.

 

Harvard Study: Gun Control Is Counterproductive

I've just learned that Washington, D.C.'s petition for a rehearing of the Parker case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was denied today. This is good news. Readers will recall in this case that the D.C. Circuit overturned the decades-long ban on gun ownership in the nation's capitol on Second Amendment grounds.

However, as my colleague Peter Ferrara explained in his National Review Online article following the initial decision in March, it looks very likely that the United States Supreme Court will take the case on appeal. When it does so - beyond seriously considering the clear original intent of the Second Amendment to protect an individual's right to armed self-defense - the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court would be wise to take into account the findings of a recent study out of Harvard.

The study, which just appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, set out to answer the question in its title: "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence." Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-gun counterparts across the pond, the answer is "no." And not just no, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but an emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases.

The findings of two criminologists - Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser - in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling:

Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).

For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland's murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns. As the study's authors write in the report:

If the mantra "more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death" were true, broad cross-national comparisons should show that nations with higher gun ownership per capita consistently have more death. Nations with higher gun ownership rates, however, do not have higher murder or suicide rates than those with lower gun ownership. Indeed many high gun ownership nations have much lower murder rates.

Finally, and as if to prove the bumper sticker correct - that "gun don't kill people, people do" - the study also shows that Russia's murder rate is four times higher than the U.S. and more than 20 times higher than Norway. This, in a country that practically eradicated private gun ownership over the course of decades of totalitarian rule and police state methods of suppression. Needless to say, very few Russian murders involve guns.

The important thing to keep in mind is not the rate of deaths by gun - a statistic that anti-gun advocates are quick to recite - but the overall murder rate, regardless of means. The criminologists explain:

Per capita murder overall is only half as frequent in the United States as in several other nations where gun murder is rarer, but murder by strangling, stabbing, or beating is much more frequent. It is important to note here that Profs. Kates and Mauser are not pro-gun zealots. In fact, they go out of their way to stress that their study neither proves that gun control causes higher murder rates nor that increased gun ownership necessarily leads to lower murder rates. (Though, in my view, Prof. John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime does indeed prove the latter.) But what is clear, and what they do say, is that gun control is ineffectual at preventing murder, and apparently counterproductive.

Not only is the D.C. gun ban ill-conceived on constitutional grounds, it fails to live up to its purpose. If the astronomical murder rate in the nation's capitol, in comparison to cities where gun ownership is permitted, didn't already make that fact clear, this study out of Harvard should.

Source: http://www.theacru.org/acru/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/

 

Harvard Study: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

Reiver & Danct: Quit living in your liberal, anti-gun utopia, and realize that you are overwhelmingly WRONG on gun control...period.

 

This is a very poor source and only shows that you're blindly googling (without knowing the relevance of the content). The source is neither primary research (an econometric methodology would be required) or a reasonable review (as it covers very little of the analysis that is available)

Given I adopt an evidence-based approach based on understanding the coercion our preferences generate, references to utopianism makes no sense. Given I'm not a liberal, you're only advertising the severity of your dogmatic restrictions. Given I'm not in favour of gun bans, the anti-gun comment is simply ridiculous

 

While I agree with your analysis of the paper provided... the use of this particular phrase as, what one can only assume to be an attempt at ridicule, is rather silly, unless you are simply attempting to provoke some sort of response. Hardly fitting for someone arguing from an intellectual standpoint.

 

The fellow is presenting information without knowing its importance (or lack of importance). My reaction was apt. You might want to pander to drivel; I haven't got the heart for it

 

I have no issue with the reaction. I just find that phrase unhelpful. And I am rather fond of google.

 

But one only blindly googles when one isn't aware of what one is looking for. Just hope the fellow didn't get too many Daily Mail stories to wade through.

 

Oh, this IS disappointing, 'ona'. You seem to be having a hard time gaining a cogent position on this.

If your contention is that new guns are being sold directly to criminals, and is, in turn their predominate source of guns, then this would be news to me and I would be anxious to see your source. However, if this is NOT your contention, then you would obviously be agreeing with my original assessment that new guns are predominately sold legally initially, and then find their way from there (a percentage, of course) into the criminal illegal market.

This might require a certain amount of honesty for you to address adequately, but you might surprise me.

You asked a question of absolutes, which is both naive and irrelevant as it has nothing to do with the conversation. You could have just as easily asked if laws against murder prevents murder......or if laws against robbery prevents robberies. It's an exercise of inanity whose sole purpose is intended to detract from the reality that the legal and the illegal gun markets are linked and co-dependent.

Now then, I'm sure you be willing to now answer MY question that I previously asked you and which you ignored: "any attempt to constitutionally address the crossover from legal to illegal markets should be encouraged, no?"

Brilliant! ..........If only that were what I had contended.

Ha, you DO have a knack for the absurd. Whether or not cigarette and alcohol sales have dropped or risen is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. You have utterly and completely missed the genesis of the whole discussion. Congratulations!

The discussion is concentrating on who bears the social costs of these activities? We know that cigarettes and alcohol inflict an economic cost on society through fires and health issues for cigarettes, and accidents, violence and health issues for alcohol. Some of these economic costs are recouped by taxes levied at the point of purchase directly to the users themselves. This is ONLY what Reiver was proposing (I believe) in relation to gun sales or gun ownership.

Please give me some indication that I am not wasting my time talking to a wall, and acknowledge that this is not about somebody taking your gun (or whatever paranoid and irrational reasoning you might manufacture).

 

This is a false statement, at both ends.

We do NOT "lead the civilized world in homicides". Our rate is high, yes, but does not "lead the civilized world". We do, however, lead the civilized world in justifiable homicides.

We likewise do NOT "lead the civilized world" in suicides either. According to the figures I found the United States actually has a lower per-capita suicide rate than such gun control "paradises" as Canada, Cuba, New Zealand, Sweden, South Africa, France, and Japan. Our suicide rate is actually no more than average for the "civilized world".

 

Which developed countries have higher homicide rates?

 

This study is every bit valid and factual. You just don't like the results, as they go against your false ideology.

You obviously do NOT follow an evidence-based approach, since there is plenty of evidence that gun control does NOT work, yet you claim that it does.

 

First of all, quit with the condescending, cocky attitude. You are not an expert, and you are just as confusing as you claim me to be.

Of course some guns get into the wrong hands after they were sold legally at first. The precentage is small, however.

You'll have to explain yourself a bit more. Be more specific. Example?

I am not paranoid about the government taking my guns. I am just concerned with our current Administration's attack on our Second Amendment rights, and falsely blaming gun retailers and gun owners for Mexico's gun violence.

 

Click and scroll down: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita