Vanguard of the Revolution http://www.theVanguard.org
FEWER GUNS = MORE CRIME
by
Rod D. Martin, 11 July 2000
Four years into the British and Australian gun bans, the verdict on gun
control is in: disaster.
Those who argue for the right of self-defense have always said that banning
guns would disarm the law-abiding while encouraging the criminals. Yet even
by the standards of most pro-gun arguments, the actual results of total gun
control have been startling, leaving anti-gunners and government officials
at a loss to explain the debacle.
Take Australia. Just over one year ago, the Australian government spent
more than $500 million to confiscate 640,381 privately-owned firearms, even
using deadly force. This followed a partial ban of over 60 percent of the
country1s private weapons in 1996. The promise: a dramatic reduction in
crime, in exchange for the right of common citizens to defend themselves.
The results: utter mayhem, showing yet again that, as in most things,
government cannot take care of you as well as you can.
In the first year of the ban, Australian homicides increased 3.2 percent,
and in the state of Victoria, gun homicides shot up 300 percent. Assaults
increased 8.6 percent. Armed robberies rose a whopping 44 percent, after
having dropped for 25 straight years before the ban. Since then, homicides
have jumped 29 percent, kidnappings have risen 38 percent, assaults have
increased 17 percent, and armed robberies have skyrocketed an additional 73
percent.
In Australia today, police can go house to house, enter your home without a
warrant, search for guns, copy your hard drive, seize your records, and take
you to jail. What they cannot do is protect you.
It1s worse in Britain, where virtually all guns were banned in 1996
following the Dunblane massacre. Americans tend to believe Britain a
peaceful place with little crime. Post-confiscation, quite the opposite
proves true: the crime rate in England and Wales is now 60 percent higher
than in the United States. Indeed, it is higher than in every one of the 50
states.
As in Australia, British police are incapable of stopping this growing
anarchy. Despite having more policemen per capita than the U.S., despite
installing more electronic surveillance equipment than any other Western
country, robbery and sex crimes have shot ahead of U.S. numbers, property
crime is now twice as high, and assaults and muggings are now between twice
and three times as high as in America.
Perhaps the most telling statistic is the "hot burglary" rate; i.e., those
burglaries which are committed while the homeowner is present. In the
United States, these burglaries account for just over 10 percent of the
total: criminals fear getting shot. In post-gun-ban Britain, however, "hot
burglaries" account for more than half of the total, meaning that vastly
more Britons face an armed intruder each year, with absolutely no way to
defend themselves either from the burglary itself or from whatever other
assaults, rapes or murders the criminal may choose to commit.
The contrast between this horror story and the American experience is vast.
The U.S. crime rate has fallen precipitously throughout the 1990s, largely
driven downward by those states which have enacted concealed-carry laws. And
in fact, gun ownership has been shown in survey after survey to be one of
the single most important factors in preventing violent crime.
Of particular note, Janet Reno1s Department of Justice commissioned a survey
in 1994 by the openly anti-gun Police Foundation. That exhaustive study,
"Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms,"
was completed in 1997, and its conclusion was clear: "Guns are used far more
often to defend against crime than to perpetrate crime."
In the year studied, 1.5 million Americans used guns to defend their homes,
families or property. In the words of the study, literally "millions of
attempted assaults, thefts and break-ins were foiled by armed citizens
during the 12-month period." And as the study itself admits, its conclusions
are "directly comparable" to other similar studies: the Police Foundation's
work was the fifteenth national survey to reach this same conclusion in the
past twenty-two years, every one of them having found results in the same
range.
The common sense of gun ownership is inescapable: a family, or a single
mother, alone at home, facing an armed intruder in the middle of the night,
does not have time to call 911. By the time the police arrive, no matter how
competent they are, no matter how quickly they respond, she and her children
will be dead. It's that simple. She can defend herself and her children, or
she can face her merciless predator, alone.
The fact is simple: guns save lives. Lots of lives. Every day. Criminals
would far rather prey on the weak than on someone who can fight back.
Private gun ownership means people can help protect their families and keep
the peace; it also makes certain that crime does not pay.
And if you don1t believe it, just visit our British and Australian cousins.
Copyright: Rod D. Martin, 11 July 2000.
-- Rod D. Martin is National Chairman of The Vanguard, an organization
dedicated to the promotion of conservative causes. He is a Fellow of the
Kuyper Institute for Political Studies, an elder of Covenant Baptist
Church, and an attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas.
FEWER GUNS = MORE CRIME
by
Rod D. Martin, 11 July 2000
Four years into the British and Australian gun bans, the verdict on gun
control is in: disaster.
Those who argue for the right of self-defense have always said that banning
guns would disarm the law-abiding while encouraging the criminals. Yet even
by the standards of most pro-gun arguments, the actual results of total gun
control have been startling, leaving anti-gunners and government officials
at a loss to explain the debacle.
Take Australia. Just over one year ago, the Australian government spent
more than $500 million to confiscate 640,381 privately-owned firearms, even
using deadly force. This followed a partial ban of over 60 percent of the
country1s private weapons in 1996. The promise: a dramatic reduction in
crime, in exchange for the right of common citizens to defend themselves.
The results: utter mayhem, showing yet again that, as in most things,
government cannot take care of you as well as you can.
In the first year of the ban, Australian homicides increased 3.2 percent,
and in the state of Victoria, gun homicides shot up 300 percent. Assaults
increased 8.6 percent. Armed robberies rose a whopping 44 percent, after
having dropped for 25 straight years before the ban. Since then, homicides
have jumped 29 percent, kidnappings have risen 38 percent, assaults have
increased 17 percent, and armed robberies have skyrocketed an additional 73
percent.
In Australia today, police can go house to house, enter your home without a
warrant, search for guns, copy your hard drive, seize your records, and take
you to jail. What they cannot do is protect you.
It1s worse in Britain, where virtually all guns were banned in 1996
following the Dunblane massacre. Americans tend to believe Britain a
peaceful place with little crime. Post-confiscation, quite the opposite
proves true: the crime rate in England and Wales is now 60 percent higher
than in the United States. Indeed, it is higher than in every one of the 50
states.
As in Australia, British police are incapable of stopping this growing
anarchy. Despite having more policemen per capita than the U.S., despite
installing more electronic surveillance equipment than any other Western
country, robbery and sex crimes have shot ahead of U.S. numbers, property
crime is now twice as high, and assaults and muggings are now between twice
and three times as high as in America.
Perhaps the most telling statistic is the "hot burglary" rate; i.e., those
burglaries which are committed while the homeowner is present. In the
United States, these burglaries account for just over 10 percent of the
total: criminals fear getting shot. In post-gun-ban Britain, however, "hot
burglaries" account for more than half of the total, meaning that vastly
more Britons face an armed intruder each year, with absolutely no way to
defend themselves either from the burglary itself or from whatever other
assaults, rapes or murders the criminal may choose to commit.
The contrast between this horror story and the American experience is vast.
The U.S. crime rate has fallen precipitously throughout the 1990s, largely
driven downward by those states which have enacted concealed-carry laws. And
in fact, gun ownership has been shown in survey after survey to be one of
the single most important factors in preventing violent crime.
Of particular note, Janet Reno1s Department of Justice commissioned a survey
in 1994 by the openly anti-gun Police Foundation. That exhaustive study,
"Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms,"
was completed in 1997, and its conclusion was clear: "Guns are used far more
often to defend against crime than to perpetrate crime."
In the year studied, 1.5 million Americans used guns to defend their homes,
families or property. In the words of the study, literally "millions of
attempted assaults, thefts and break-ins were foiled by armed citizens
during the 12-month period." And as the study itself admits, its conclusions
are "directly comparable" to other similar studies: the Police Foundation's
work was the fifteenth national survey to reach this same conclusion in the
past twenty-two years, every one of them having found results in the same
range.
The common sense of gun ownership is inescapable: a family, or a single
mother, alone at home, facing an armed intruder in the middle of the night,
does not have time to call 911. By the time the police arrive, no matter how
competent they are, no matter how quickly they respond, she and her children
will be dead. It's that simple. She can defend herself and her children, or
she can face her merciless predator, alone.
The fact is simple: guns save lives. Lots of lives. Every day. Criminals
would far rather prey on the weak than on someone who can fight back.
Private gun ownership means people can help protect their families and keep
the peace; it also makes certain that crime does not pay.
And if you don1t believe it, just visit our British and Australian cousins.
Copyright: Rod D. Martin, 11 July 2000.
-- Rod D. Martin is National Chairman of The Vanguard, an organization
dedicated to the promotion of conservative causes. He is a Fellow of the
Kuyper Institute for Political Studies, an elder of Covenant Baptist
Church, and an attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas.