From: PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal)
Subject: Re: reduction of availability
Organization: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 03:57:41 GMT

In article <1992Dec24.003958.4019@nas.nasa.gov>
proett@tailspin.nas.nasa.gov (Thomas M. Proett) writes:

>In article <1992Dec21.225051.7738@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>, andy@SAIL.Stanfor.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
>|> In article <MERRITT.92Dec21094400@macro.bu.edu> merritt@macro.bu.edu (Sean Mrritt) writes:
>|> >Armed camp society or reduction of availability. Take your pick.
>|>
>|> Note the assumption that reduction of availability will affect
>|> the right people.  Considering that it hasn't anywhere else ....
>> --
>
>This may be explained in a FAQ or something, but I have not seen it so...
>Why is it assumed that making guns less easy to obtain will not "affect
>the right people"?  Someone posted a transcription of a poster that
>gave statistics about the number of murders done in various countries
>where guns are not generally available and then showed the number for
>the US.  The US had a gigantic number in proportion to the rest.
>
>Doesn't this show some correlation to "more guns" ==> "more murder"?

        In the first place, current US conditions vs current {insert
gun control mecca of the week} conditions only isn't a good way to judge
the effect their gun control laws would have on the United States,
primarily because you haven't even got an indication of how *their*
gun control laws affected them.
        Now, while there are isolated instances which get bandied about
in this group by people far more adept at sounding like they know
statistics than I am (whether they actually are I have no idea) it
is a fairly consistant trend that either they was little significant
impact of gun control laws in other countries (violent death rates did
not *decline* with the implementation of those laws) as in Britain and
Canada and Japan, or the effect of the laws was shortlived, and current
rates are higher than previously, like in Jamaica, I think.
        Basically, low violent crime rates and highly restricted firearms
are only important when compared to the United States *if* the laws
themselves cause the drop in firearm homicides, not simply if they
correlate with each other.  Even among countries with more restrictive
laws (Canada, local gun control mecca, still has more lenient laws than
several places in the US) there is no concrete and consistant correlation.
That is, restricting the same weapons does not appear to produce the
same effect in every place as you would expect it to if weapon availabilty
was completely or primarily responsible for the low rates.
         Simply put, that England has low firearm homicide rates (though
increasing last I heard) and restrictive firearm laws does not indicate
that implementing those laws would in any way benefit the U.S., because
that alone does not address effect, only current conditions.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Veal     Division of Continuing Education Information Services Group
               University of Tennessee, Knoxville
               PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns