Question:
How would gun violence effect the worlds future if guns were available to everyone who wanted one?
bostonbabywithlove
2006-01-26 13:58:13 UTC
How would gun violence effect the worlds future if guns were available to everyone who wanted one?
Five answers:
jmwildenthal
2006-01-28 06:47:36 UTC
Well, we can look back in history to see what such things were like. I'll use the murder rate as the proxy for gun violence.



Prior to 1968 there were no federal controls on most firearms (excepting full auto, suppressed, short barreled, etc). They were advertised in comic books. Kids could buy them in many states. Most states had no background checks. What was the violence rate? We're just getting back down to the rates of the 1960s, and that was much higher than the 1950s.



Prior to 1938, there were no federal restrictions on purchasing any firearms. Even Sears sold full auto guns. Crime peaked during Prohibition, never to go down to pre-Prohibition levels again.



This pattern is true in other countries, too. Here's what a British "bobby" found out when he did some research:



"No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without restriction. Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this weapon in crime than ever before." - Inspector Colin Greenwood, _Firearms Control_, (Routledge and Keegan, London, 1972) p. 243



"At first glance it may seem odd or even perverse to suggest that statutory controls on the private ownership of firearms are irrelevant to the problem of armed crime, yet that is precisely what the evidence shows. Armed crime and violent crime are products of ethnic and social factors unrelated to the availability of a particular type of weapon. The numbers of firearms required to satisfy the 'crime' market is minute, and these are supplied no matter what controls are instituted. Controls have had serious effects on legitimate users of firearms, but there is no case, either in the history of this country or in the experience of other countries in which controls can be shown to have restricted the flow of weapons to criminals or in any way reduced armed crime." - Inspector Colin Greenwood, "Shooting Back," Police Review, 10 November 1978 page 1668



America's foremost researcher on gun violence also feels about the same:



"...Consequently, when medical journal authors report that there is little evidence on a given topic, it may often really mean only that they made no serious effort to find any or chose not to report what they found. For example, in an article published in 1996 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Douglas Weil (research director of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, affiliated with Handgun Control) and a colleague claimed that "there is little published research on the effectiveness of gun laws" (Weil and Knox 1996:60). In fact, there were, at the time this article was published, at least forty-five empirical studies of the impact of gun laws on violent crime, suicide, and gun accidents (Tables 8.4 and 11.1). Weil then proceeded to inaccurately claim that "with little dissent, these studies are generally supportive of the thesis that well-tailored gun laws can have a beneficial impact" (ibid.:60), when in fact the studies have generally indicated that gun laws, whether "well-tailored" or not, have no measurable impact on violence rates (Chapter 11; PB;Chapter 10)...." Page 42, Gary Kleck, _Targeting Guns_, (Aldine de Gruyter, NY, 1997)



Others have pointed out that the criminals are willing to break the law to further their criminal activities. Increasing legal availability isn't going to increase the "illegal" availability very much, if any.
drshorty
2006-01-26 22:15:46 UTC
I don't know if it would be all that different, because many people who intend to do crimes with guns already have access to them now. I mean, really, if a criminal wants to buy a gun, they're not going to go to a gun store most of the time; they'll get them off the street. Therefore, in general, the people who are hindered from owning guns by gun laws are the lawful people anyway.



The previous answerer did have a good point about the threat that people might shoot back at you.
jake
2006-01-26 22:05:04 UTC
Availability, and legally available are two different things. Guns are available by everyone, it's just some have to circumvent laws to do so. Personally I don't see the logic in making it so that only people who are willing to break the law can own guns.
xnemo2002
2006-01-27 08:30:58 UTC
gun violence and almost all violent crime would drop sharply. most of the woulds population is good and the good armed populace would keep the criminals in check. if you research now youll find that ares with liberal gun laws have less crime typically than ares with strict gun control ie d.c. ney york new jersey
theace0804
2006-01-26 22:04:47 UTC
I think you'd see a dramatic drop in gun violence, because if you acted out of line, say by shooting someone, theres a huge chance you'd be shot back by someone. Everybody would mind their p's and q's, to say the least.


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