<p>Actually, the murder rate did go down ever year from 1995 to 2000 then remained around the same level.</p>
<p>From 8.2 to 5.5</p>
<p>Not bad bob, not bad. I am not one you can fool with these statistics. Lets go pre ban and see if the trend starts there?</p>
<p>The murder rate has dropped since 1991 when it was 9.8
91 9.8
92 9.3
93 9.5
94 9.0
95 8.2
96 7.4
97 6.8
98 6.3
99 5.7
00 5.5
01 5.6
02 5.6
03 5.7
04 5.5</p>
<p>The 1994 AWB and the guns they targeted..and how frequently they were used in crimes</p>
<p>California. In 1990, "assault weapons" comprised thirty-six of the 963 firearms involved in homicide or aggravated assault and analyzed by police crime laboratories, according to a report prepared by the California Department of Justice, and based on data from police firearms laboratories throughout the state. The report concluded that "assault weapons play a very small role in assault and homicide firearm cases." Of the 1,979 guns seized from California narcotics dealers in 1990, fifty-eight were "assault weapons." </p>
<p>Chicago. From 1985 through 1989, only one homicide was perpetrated with a military caliber rifle. Of the 17,144 guns seized by the Chicago police in 1989, 175 were "military style weapons." </p>
<p>Florida. Florida Department of Law Enforcement Uniform Crime Reports for 1989 indicate that rifles of all types accounted for 2.6% of the weapons used in Florida homicides. The Florida Assault Weapons Commission found that "assault weapons" were used in 17 of 7,500 gun crimes for the years 1986-1989. </p>
<p>Los Angeles. Of the more than 4,000 guns seized by police during one year, only about 3% were "assault weapons."</p>
<p>Maryland. In 1989-90, there was only one death involving a "semiautomatic assault rifle" in all twenty-four counties of the State of Maryland. </p>
<p>Massachusetts. Of 161 fatal shootings in Massachusetts in 1988, three involved "semiautomatic assault rifles." From 1985 to 1991, the guns were involved in 0.7% of all shootings. </p>
<p>Miami. The Miami police seized 18,702 firearms from January 1, 1989 to December 31, 1993. Of these, 3.13% were "assault weapons." </p>
<p>New Jersey. According to the Deputy Chief Joseph Constance of the Trenton New Jersey Police Department, in 1989, there was not a single murder involving any rifle, much less a "semiautomatic assault rifle," in the State of New Jersey. No person in New Jersey was killed with an "assault weapon" in 1988. Nevertheless, in 1990 the New Jersey legislature enacted an "assault weapon" ban that included low-power .22 rifles, and even BB guns. Based on the legislature's broad definition of "assault weapons," in 1991, such guns were used in five of 410 murders in New Jersey; in forty-seven of 22,728 armed robberies; and in twenty-three of 23,720 aggravated assaults committed in New Jersey.</p>
<p>New York City. Of 12,138 crime guns seized by New York City police in 1988, eighty were "assault-type" firearms.
New York State. Semiautomatic "assault rifles" were used in twenty of the 2,394 murders in New York State in 1992. </p>
<p>San Diego. Of the 3,000 firearms seized by the San Diego police in 1988-90, nine were "assault weapons" under the California definition. </p>
<p>San Francisco. Only 2.2% of the firearms confiscated in 1988 were military-style semiautomatics. </p>
<p>Virginia. Of the 1,171 weapons analyzed in state forensics laboratories in 1992, 3.3% were "assault weapons." </p>
<p>National statistics. Less than four percent of all homicides in the United States involve any type of rifle. No more than .8% of homicides are perpetrated with rifles using military calibers. (And not all rifles using such calibers are usually considered "assault weapons.") Overall, the number of persons killed with rifles of any type in 1990 was lower than the number in any year in the 1980s. </p>
<p>Yet this idiotic Assault Weapons Ban rule has no sunset clause in the great communist states of New York and Communifornia.</p>
<p>True True.</p>
<p>Keep in mind though that the AWB did not address how one gets a gun, just the guns that one can get. Im not talking about addressing WHAT guns people can have, Im talking about HOW people can get the guns.</p>
<p>Sigh</p>
<p>It won't matter</p>
<p>Criminals will always find a way</p>
<p>You cannot stop them with legislation</p>
<p>Only way to deter criminals is to arm citizens</p>
<p>I am spacing my sentences out for better comprehension</p>
<p>Not only that, it makes a cool pyramid like shape.</p>
<p>I agree that criminals will find a way.</p>
<p>However, if you make it more difficult to get weapons AND control gun trafficking, I think it would make it MUCH more difficult for those criminals to get the weapons. It is a difficult thing, but it has to be tried. If we stopped this retarded war on marijuana, we would be able to allocate A TON of resources to this.</p>
<p>Nowadays, criminals have the ability to go to states that have lax gun controls and then transport them to other states.</p>
<p>Lets examine what happened during the Prohibition and this War on Drugs. Did restricting their trafficking stop anything? Substitute guns for drugs or alcohol. There you go.</p>
<p>Ok...so lets not even try! Lets just accept it and let 8,000 die per year due to firearms eventhough resources can be allocated without increasing the budget!</p>
<p>I think it would be very interesting if all of the other nations that have lower firearm violence were studied in order to attempt to find a variable that is similar in them.</p>
<p>Its an insanely tough issue but I think it should be addressed.</p>
<p>Do you realize that its not even that hard to make your own gun?</p>
<p>I think that you are addressing it in the entirely wrong way.</p>
<p>Make gun access free to everyone, and criminals will be less apt to commit violent crimes. By restricting access more, all you are ensuring is that John Kerry, Teddy, and Clinton will all have guns and heavily armed bodyguards, yet the poor black women who is afraid of a stalker or whatever will not be able to defend herself.</p>
<p>How would you possibly reduce trafficking?</p>
<p>Trying to convince an anti gun chap that guns don't have a life of their own and its the bad guy that causes the crime is like trying to convince a creationist to believe in evolution. Same irrationality.</p>
<p>The problem with most gun statistics on both sides is that it's almost invariably hard to separate correlation from causation when working with many confounding variables. Though I'm largely libertarian in worldview, I'm not sure that the pro-gun lobby in the US presents as airtight a case as they claim. They usually point to cities with high crime rates and accompanying guns laws, and proudly proclaim to have found the source of crime. These proclamations of causative factors usually ignore the long-term reasons for the laws and the crime, instead focusing on easy emotional appeals (regulate guns, and grandma will be robbed by thugs!).</p>
<p>Of course, the gun-control lobby is usually guilty of the same thing; they even go so far as to say that the same thing will happen! </p>
<p>
[quote]
Trying to convince an anti gun chap that guns don't have a life of their own and its the bad guy that causes the crime is like trying to convince a creationist to believe in evolution. Same irrationality.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Again, before I'm labeled "pro-control," keep in mind that I find many, if not most, of the laws used to regulate firearms unnecessary and unwise. Nonetheless, the idea that guns are not capable of free will, so they shouldn't be regulated, is a bit silly. We regulate plenty of things in society, from cars to medicine, and even food, because we see a potential "bad" when they go wrong. Guns, like the meat that the butcher sells, can cause harm-- just because the vast majority of cases don't show this, it's fairly clear that it's true.</p>
<p>Now, this doesn't mean that I'm for most of the laws that have been enacted. Far from it. But it's far from irrational-- especially when using rational in its academic form-- to say that there's a public interest in regulating firearms.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Make gun access free to everyone, and criminals will be less apt to commit violent crimes.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Are you sure of this? I'm not. It may be that crime changes to meet the new operating environment.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How would you possibly reduce trafficking?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Reduce the economic incentive to do so in the first place.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Only way to deter criminals is to arm citizens
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ah, the folly of the more mops method. Instead of arming yourself with more mops, it's usually best to turn off the spigot, wouldn't you agree?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Instead of arming yourself with more mops, it's usually best to turn off the spigot, wouldn't you agree?
[/quote]
Stricter prison terms? Capital punishment for murderers who may murder again while on furlough, or when they escape? I am all for it.</p>
<p>Its not really a folly. Would you rather face a mugger or a rapist clean shaven with a grin on your chevy chase or a gun?</p>
<p>iloveagoodbrew,</p>
<p>Again, more mops. I hope yours are extra-absorbent. ;)</p>
<p>Turn off the spigot. Reduce the incentive to commit crimes in the first place.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Would you rather face a mugger or a rapist clean shaven with a grin on your chevy chase or a gun?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I would rather live in a society that focuses on reducing the numbers of muggers or rapists in the first place. I'd rather feel safe walking at night without a gun, and the paranoia that the criminal might pull his first. What good is packing heat if you can't pull it out first on your assailant?</p>
<p>Besides, who rapes hairy Jewish men? :p</p>
<p>
[quote]
I would rather live in a society that focuses on reducing the numbers of muggers or rapists in the first place. I'd rather feel safe walking at night without a gun, and the paranoia that the criminal might pull his first. What good is packing heat if you can't pull it out first on your assailant?</p>
<p>Besides, who rapes hairy Jewish men?
[/quote]
Rapists or murderers would be a bit more wary if they realized their would be victims are packing heat. It would be nice to feel safe without carrying a gun. But we don't live in an ideal society.</p>
<p>Muggers might like your fat wallet :/</p>
<p>iloveagoodbrew,</p>
<p>We have two problems in America, as far as the "ideal society" goes. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>We have a society where many people feel that crime "pays." I'm not saying that it does per se, but people, being generally rational, will only commit crimes if they believe that the crime will benefit them in the short or long run. Like anything else, people will usually choose the path that they believe offers them the greatest returns on their investment of time. </p></li>
<li><p>We live in fear. Most cities, even the most "dangerous" ones, are far less dangerous than people like to believe. It's interesting that despite serious drops in most types of crimes, people report that they are more afraid. This suggests to me that we need to work on making people feel less paranoid, more than anything. Telling everyone that there are rapists and muggers everywhere (so pack heat) isn't exactly going to help reduce this paranoia, now is it?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>As far as murderers go, I don't know that most murders are commited with the randomness that you suggest. Just based on what little I've read from the criminology statistics, most murders are crimes of passion or emotional outbursts, leaving the other person little time to really defend himself. It's very rare that someone will be walking on the street and be shot in the back, unaware.</p>
<p>This brings me to another point. When making policies, society must constantly weight the costs, benefits, and externalities. Gun control comes with a serious cost: the reduction of liberties. The benefits, at best, are the reduction of gun crimes.</p>
<p>The problem, however, is that we can't say for certain that gun control laws actually stop crimes. Then again, we can't say that repealing them stops crimes either. The only definite in this whole mess is the reduction of liberty. This, for many, is enough.</p>
<p>Still, societies constantly take courses that lead to self-repression, so I suppose this isn't terribly odd.</p>
<p>
[quote]
This brings me to another point. When making policies, society must constantly weight the costs, benefits, and externalities. Gun control comes with a serious cost: the reduction of liberties. The benefits, at best, are the reduction of gun crimes.
[/quote]
Yes, I like that you said at best. People assume that if you get rid of guns, gun crimes will decrease. But I fail to see data that supports this.</p>
<p>My head is not in the sand. I know too that crime rates are the lowest in 30 years, including kidnappings, murders, etc etc. But as for most people, it is easy to see why everyone lives in fear. The media, obviously.</p>