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Does gun control reduce crime?

Gun grabbers would say yes - and couldn't be more wrong! Vermont has a high rate of gun ownership along with the least restrictive laws of any state and a crime rate that is the third lowest in the nation. This article shows more examples from several countries that prove the gun grabbers wrong. They might want to print this article and staple it to their foreheads...

Sara Marie Brenner writes at her Brenner Brief (thebrennerbrief.com):

Every time there is a tragic death in the United States, the elitists tell us we need to give up our guns. If only we did that, then the knives in our kitchen, scissors, our hands, baseball bats and other items that can kill would certainly never be considered and we would have kumbaya everywhere.

Do gun control laws really work?

Bureaucrats always like to compare one city to another, one country to another, one state or another, and so on. So, let’s use the bureaucrats’ preferred methodology against it.

Let’s start with Australia. Many Aussies are descendants of criminals, so you’re probably thinking their crime rates will be higher anyway, right? We apologize to the Aussies for the necessarily jab. From the National Center for Policy Analysis:

It is a common fantasy that gun bans make society safer.  In 2002 — five years after enacting its gun ban — the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime.  In fact, the percent of murders committed with a firearm was the highest it had ever been in 2006 (16.3 percent), says the D.C. Examiner.

Even Australia’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:

• In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
• Sexual assault — Australia’s equivalent term for rape — increased 29.9 percent.
• Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.

Moreover, Australia and the United States — where no gun-ban exists — both experienced similar decreases in murder rates:

• Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America’s rate dropped 31.7 percent.
• During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
• Sexual assault — Australia’s equivalent term for rape — increased 29.9 percent.
• Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
• At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.
• Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.

While this doesn’t prove that more guns would impact crime rates, it does prove that gun control is a flawed policy.  Furthermore, this highlights the most important point: gun banners promote failed policy regardless of the consequences to the people who must live with them, says the Examiner.

Well shoot (no pun intended), that doesn’t fit the liberal narrative.

Looking at other countries, such as England and Wales, we find that their strict anti-gun laws are not helping their violent crime. From The Gottlieb-Tartaro Report via FreeRepublic.com:

Reliable statistics on crime in other parts of the world have been released that show America to be safer than most countries with strict anti-gun laws.

The International Crime Victims Survey, conducted by Leiden University in Holland, shows that England has much higher levels of crime than the U.S.

Among industrialized nations, England and Wales rank second overall.

Twenty-six percent of British citizens have been victimized by violent crime.

Australia leads all industrialized nations with 30 percent of its population victimized.

Canada ranks fifth, with 24 percent of its citizens victimized.

What about the United States?  Not even in the top-10. In the U.S. 21 percent of the citizens have been victims of a violent crime.

Some more highlights:

Percent of population that suffered “contact crime”:

• England and Wales: 3.6 percent

• United States: 1.9 percent

• Japan: 0.4 percent

Rates of burglary with entry (breaking and entering):

• Australia: 3.9 percent

• Denmark:3.1 percent

• England and Wales: 2.8 percent

• United States: 2.6 percent

Important point: Australia leads industrialized nations in burglary rates.  Why? It’s illegal to own a firearm for self-defense in Australia. Predators know that the homes they break into will not likely be defended by a homeowner with a gun.

Denmark ranks second in burglaries, and the U.S. ranks eighth. England and Wales lead in-car thefts, followed by Australia and France. The U.S. didn’t rank in the top 10 in-car thefts.

As the G-T Report has frequently noted, both Great Britain and Australia have some of the harshest anti-gun laws in the world. Recall that the Australian government banned privately owned guns and confiscated thousands of firearms. In Britain, private ownership of handguns was banned after the Dunblane massacre in 1996. Violent crime in both countries has soared.

Citizens of Britain and Australia can’t fight back. Criminals can do as they wish without fear of consequences.

It is clear from this report that the law-abiding citizens suffer when there are anti-gun laws because the criminals still obtain the weapons when they want them.

In a 2009 column at HumanEvents.com, Rep. Cliff Stearns explains:

According to a study by criminologist Gary Kleck of Florida State University, “[R]obbery and assault victims who used a gun to resist were less likely to be attacked or to suffer an injury than those who used any other methods of self-protection or those who did not resist at all.” In approximately 2.5 million instances each year, someone uses a firearm, predominantly a handgun, for self-defense in this nation.

In research sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, in which almost 2,000 felons were interviewed, 34% of felons said they had been “scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim” and 40% of these criminals admitted that they had been deterred from committing a crime out of fear that the potential victim was armed.

Allowing law-abiding people to arm themselves offers more than piece of mind for those individuals — it pays off for everybody through lower crime rates.  Statistics from the FBI’s Uniformed Crime Report of 2007 show that states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate, 46% lower robbery, and 12% lower aggravated assault rate and a 22% lower overall violent crime rate than do states without such laws.  That is why more and more states have passed right-to-carry laws over the past decade.

… But since adopting a concealed carry law Florida’s total violent crime rate has dropped 32% and its homicide rate has dropped 58%. Floridians, except for criminals, are safer due to this law. And Florida is not alone. Texas’ violent crime rate has dropped 20% and homicide rate has dropped 31%, since enactment of its 1996 carry law.

It is quite clear from several examples that gun control does not work to reduce crime. In fact, it can have the opposite impact.

We all feel for Kansas City Chiefs star Jovan Belcher and his family. However, his not having a gun in his home would not have prevented the situation. For someone to shoot their girlfriend and then drive to the stadium to commit suicide in front of his coaches suggests other difficulties and challenges that his not owning a gun would not have curtailed.

Gun laws are not the issue. If we want to have a serious conversation about suicides and other erratic behavior, let’s instead turn to a discussion of mental health in this country and the stigma associated with seeking treatment before a situation like Belcher’s happens to someone else.