Gun Control

In five years of researching this issue, I've yet to find a single objective study or statistical analysis indicating that gun control laws have a significant effect in reducing violent crime. In fact, the opposite often obtains. The Liberals, for ideological reasons, chose to ignore overwhelming evidence that gun-control is an ineffective crime preventative. For those interested in facts, rather than propaganda and disinformation, here are a few interesting ones:

	In 1988, Britain imposed rigourous firearms control, reducing the number of legal gun owners by 22.4 per cent over five years. In that same five-year period, violent crime rose by 30.6 per cent; robbery by 80.6 per cent; and robbery WITH A FIREARM by 117 per cent. [British Home Office statistics, 1988-93] A resident of Britain today is significantly MORE likely to be a victim of crime than a resident of the supposedly gun-plagued U.S. Scotland has a higher homicide rate than the U.S.
	In contrast to crime-benighted places like California and New York whose laws make it virtually impossible for ordinary citizens obtain a handgun carry permit, Israel licenses trained, responsible adults so that armed civilians are ready and able to defend themselves (and others) in public places. According to Israeli criminologist Abraham Tennenbaum, "The homicide rate in Israel has always been very low despite the routine availability of guns to law-abiding civilians.''
	Mr. Rock and Ms. McLellan tell us that gun registration will help police fight crime. However, in testimony before a House of Commons committee, RCMP Commissioner Phil Murray could not cite a single crime solved because of handgun registration during the 64 years it has been mandatory in Canada.
	31 U.S. states allow responsible adults to carry guns. Statistics from 3,054 U.S. counties since 1977 evaluated by the University of Chicago's John Lott and David Mustard, indicate that in states that issue carry-permits, thousands of murders, rapes, and robberies were averted.
	Seven of the 10 lowest-crime U.S. states issue handgun carry-permits without the applicant showing need. In another of the ten, Vermont, you don't need a permit to carry a handgun. When Florida relaxed its restrictions on carry permits, 188,106 were issued over a six-year period. Only 17 (less than 1/100th of 1 percent) had to be revoked for a firearm crime. Prior to Florida's carry-permit reform, the state's murder rate was 36 percent higher than the national average. Five years later, it had fallen to four percent below the national average.
	Professor Gary Mauser of B.C.'s Simon Fraser University calculates that firearms are used more than 62,000 times each year in Canada to defend people or property from criminals or animals, if just one in 300 such defensive incidents saves a life, more lives would be saved annually than are lost in all types of firearm deaths. Assault victims who defend themselves with guns are injured in 12 percent of cases, versus 27 percent of those who offer no resistance and 52 percent of those who use non-gun methods of resistance.
	According to Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck there are some 2.5 million incidents annually where law-abiding, responsible Americans use handguns to stop crimes. Handgun Control Inc. tells prospective victims never to resist rape or robbery in any way, that "The best defense against injury is to put up no defense - give them what they want or run.'' But Professor Kleck says victims who use firearms to repel criminals are only half as likely to be injured as victims who submit - and much less likely to be raped or robbed.

Ordinary law-abiding people commit murder extremely rarely. Those statistically likely to murder -- convicted criminals, drug addicts, juvenile offenders, and the deranged -- are already prohibited from owning guns, but manage to kill anyway. Firearms control laws do not -- and CANNOT -- take unregistered firearms out of the hands of violent criminals, and anyone believing otherwise is either ideologically blinded or deceived by ignorant, hysterical superstition.

Extract from
GUN REGISTRATION IS ABOUT IDEOLOGY, NOT CRIME PREVENTION
By Charles W. Moore