[Janq]

Report claims that firearms ownership is irrelevant to the homicide and violent crime

As reported via The Battle Creek Enquirer:

Report claims that firearms ownership is irrelevant to the homicide and violent crime rate
From the Second Amendment Foundation

The Second Amendment Foundation today said a new report by criminologists Prof. Don Kates of the United States and Prof. Gary Mauser of Canada that shows the rate of firearms ownership is irrelevant to the homicide and violent crime rate should be required reading, especially for reporters, editorial writers and elected representatives.

Appearing in the current issue of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pages 649-694), the Kates/Mauser report entitled “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International Evidence” is a detailed look at gun ownership and how it does not relate to the incidence of murder and violence. They conclude that “nations with very stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those which allow guns.”

“The Kates/Mauser research strips bare the claims by gun control proponents that America is more dangerous than other countries because of our right to keep and bear arms,” said SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb. “What these two seasoned researchers have revealed is that some of the most violent countries in Europe are those with the most stringent gun laws. It seems hardly a coincidence that here in America, the highest crime rates are in places with strict gun control policies, such as Chicago and Washington, D.C. However, in areas here and abroad with high rates of gun ownership violent crime rates are lower.

“The authors note an earlier study by Kates that showed a declining murder rate over the 25-year period from 1973 to 1997, while overall gun ownership increased 103 percent and handgun ownership went up 163 percent,” he continued. “Yet during that period, the murder rate dropped 27.7 percent.”

Gottlieb said the timing of this report’s release in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy is significant due to the renewal of the gun control debate following the recent events at Virginia Tech.

“Kates and Mauser make a solid factual case against all the emotion-laden rhetoric from the gun control crowd,” Gottlieb stated. “While their research will obviously not close the debate, they’ve made a strong case against the traditional anti-gun mantra. Gun ownership is not the problem, and this new report proves it.”

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nations oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.

The article can be found at; http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070429/NEWS01/70427005

Below is the actual paper as referenced...

Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International Evidence

Don B. Kates, Pacific Research Institute
Gary A. Mauser, Simon Fraser University
Download the Paper | Tell a Colleague | Printing Tips
Abstract

The world abounds in instruments with which people can kill each other. Is the widespread availability of one of these instruments, firearms, a crucial determinant of the incidence of murder? Or do patterns of murder and/or violent crime reflect basic socio-economic and/or cultural factors to which the mere availability of one particular form of weaponry is irrelevant?

This article examines a broad range of international data that bear on two distinct but interrelated questions: first, whether widespread firearm access is an important contributing factor in murder and/or suicide, and second, whether the introduction of laws that restrict general access to firearms has been successful in reducing violent crime, homicide or suicide. Our conclusion from the available data is that suicide, murder and violent crime rates are determined by basic social, economic and/or cultural factors with the availability of any particular one of the world’s myriad deadly instrument being irrelevant.
Recommended Citation

Don B. Kates and Gary A. Mauser, "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International Evidence" (June 6, 2006). ExpressO Preprint Series. Working Paper 1413.
http://law.bepress.com/expresso/eps/1413

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Source - http://law.bepress.com/expresso/eps/1413/
Link to study - http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6426&context=expresso


- Janq

 

[Petrus]

Damn fine article. I'm absolutely thrilled to see some reasonable material on the subject come from academia, especially Harvard. Hopefully people will start waking up. I mean seriously, Harvard ;-) they're pretty clever after all.

Petrus

 

[Janq]

Keep in mind a distinction...the report is _not_ sourced from Harvard or Harvard University related persons.
The paper itself along with it's findings are in specific featured as noted in the 'Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy'.

What is most important about this though is not the Harvard connection.
It is that this scholarly and ivory tower originated study effectively proves and substantiates what we folk have been saying for an age...firearms are not the cause for violence, crime, or criminal activity in our society or for that matter any society. Remove/ban guns and people will continue to rob, maim, and prey on each other for fun and kill regardless of the tool at hand.
Further the arguement that firearms allow a predator to more easily hurt another and/or to harm multiples of person in a relatively short amount of time with relative ease of effort is also shown to be bogus.
Poisons, knives, machetes, swords, bows & arrows, and trained attack animals amongst other tools of war and/or crime have been used since the dawn of man and are still in play worldwide whether or not firearms are available or even preferred. Practical and modern demonstration of this have been the literal genocide of millions of human beings within just a few weeks time by a much smaller force. This smaller criminal force had desire, intent, and hands filled with crudely manufactured single edge machetes. Yes, a machete...like what you normally use to chop down tall grass, bamboo, and small trees. Tell a victim of Darfur that guns are the scourge of earth and they very likely would argue with you with vigor.

A great many people have been and are operating on incorrect assumptions as well as hopes that for some odd reason people would suddenly become inhuman upon the removal of firearms in specific from their community/society/nation and would there after have little if any future criminal intent or desire toward their fellow man.

As much is a fairy tale belief that could have been written by Hans Christian Anderson himself.
In the real world criminals use everything and whatever and a citizenry that is disarmed provides them with a path of least resistance. Practical proof of this can be found by reviewing the criminalization stats toward Australia and England and the factual figures toward how much of their populations have been victimized by crime.

Citizen

Criminal

I wonder if a college educated anti can identify the difference between these two pictures aside from the obvious that one operator is white and the other not so much.

"City gangs turning to machetes, police say"
By Christine MacDonald, Globe Correspondent | August 16, 2004
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/08/16/city_gangs_turning_to_machetes_police_say/

The 'Zebra Killers' of 1973 San Francisco
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/zebra_murders/index.html

- Janq

P.S. - When I get into the mood and mindset to write my father inlaw a reply to his anti gun e-mail I will be including this study amongst many other independent and factual sources of information counter to his own opinions, assumption, and that crap ass politicaly clouded source he referenced.

 

[Nose Nuggets]

A great many people have been and are operating on incorrect assumptions as well as hopes that for some odd reason people would suddenly become inhuman upon the removal of firearms in specific from their community/society/nation and would there after have little if any future criminal intent or desire toward their fellow man.

i think this is the single craziest aspect to the whole anti gun ordeal. that, and if everyone where allowed to carry, even minor altercations between individuals would result in a shootout.

 

[Petrus]

Not sourced, of course, but the name does carry quite a lot of cachet and the fact that they ran it in one of their publications is saying quite a lot imo. Hopefully it will have an effect on those ivory tower folks that forget what the real world looks like.

Petrus

 

[Janq]

Agreed...although I bet it'll be forgotten about inside of a week and never be featured as a story or point of discussion by any major news outlet nor by Rosie on The View. :\

- Janq

 

[Petrus]

I'll never understand how people can continue ignoring facts and spouting things they have been shown are just plain wrong. I guess it really does take "a man" to own up to his mistakes.

Petrus

PS: Of which I do not think most antis are in the first place... "real men/women".

 

[MrMcCrackin]

i wonder how long additional papers such as this will need to be produced before it reaches the .gov?

i dont expect the general populous to even consider it until it hits the floor of the senate or house

 

[Janq]

Thats easy...forward the paper or a link to the above referenced site to your community representatives state and local.
Your local police chief, the mayor, your state police chief, your county manager, your district state rep, your states senator, and even the president(s) of your local colleges and other 'Gun Free Zones' such as at the mall and your employer.

These people are very much unlikely nation wide to know of and read this on their own. But if you and a bunch of his fellow constituents begin sending him e-mail, fax, and USPS mailings toward this item and others like it then well it might become pretty difficult to not be aware of as much muchless ignore it.

We the people are the reason why things are as they are in our community, local, state, and nationwide.

- Janq

 

[Mach5]

Wow good thread!

 

[Petrus]

Thats easy...forward the paper or a link to the above referenced site to your community representatives state and local.
Your local police chief, the mayor, your state police chief, your county manager, your district state rep, your states senator, and even the president(s) of your local colleges and other 'Gun Free Zones' such as at the mall and your employer.

These people are very much unlikely nation wide to know of and read this on their own. But if you and a bunch of his fellow constituents begin sending him e-mail, fax, and USPS mailings toward this item and others like it then well it might become pretty difficult to not be aware of as much muchless ignore it.

We the people are the reason why things are as they are in our community, local, state, and nationwide.

- Janq

Looks like I've got an email campaign to run this weekend ;-).

Petrus