US Gun Laws Europe gun control
courtesy wsj.com
Previous Post
Next Post

“It is true that Europe has a much lower homicide rate than the U.S. And, it is definitely worth having a discussion to figure out the exact reason. Most likely, it is due to harsher punishments for murders. Or, it could be due to cultural differences. However, when you look at the actual data, assuming that it is due to the fact that they have gun control laws just does not add up.

“So, the long answer to your question ‘What is stopping us from ‘protecting’ our public by instituting gun bans’ is the simple fact that gun bans do very little to actually protect the public. But, they do have a very real effect on the public’s ability to protect themselves.” – Randal Brown in What keeps America from following the European example of protecting their subjects (in this case, citizens) by banning guns? [via quora.com]

Previous Post
Next Post

45 COMMENTS

  1. But it’s working so well for the gun controlled paradise of Mexico… so well that we’re even seeing the spillover benefits in the U.S. border states.

  2. The murder rate as a result of effective elimination of firearms in the hands of a civilian population will show a measurable decrease in homicides with firearms. I’ve yet seen this not to be true; however, the reduction of firearms in the hands of the population doesn’t really seem to affect the general impulse of individuals to attempt to kill one another for a variety of reasons with other alternatives such as sharp pointy things, clubs, fists and feet and superior numbers; it just makes the bad guy work harder for his intended results. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize you can’t shoot somebody without a gun but, by the same token, you can’t run over a person while intoxicated if you don’t have a car to drive. No cars, no alcohol…just think of all the lives that could be saved.

    • Banning of firearms also prevents the weak members of society from protecting themselves.

      A gun in the hands of my 82 year old father makes him a equal to a 20 year old street thug. If only armed with a knife or a can of mace, he doesn’t stand a chance.

      Gun control people are misguide at the least, downright evil at the worst. And those of us who support the rights of THE PEOPLE, should start calling them out on that.

  3. Maybe if you don’t count stabbing, gas, trucks and all the other ways people get killed in Europe it is safe.

    As I’ve mentioned here before my favourite question for people arguing against gun ownership in Australia is what are the second or third biggest mass killings? No one ever knows.

    They are the Childers backpackers and Wiskey A Go Go night club fires.

    • RCC,

      Here are two “fun” facts that utterly and totally destroy claims that violent crime will be lower if firearms are outlawed:
      (1) The murder rate in the United States is still notably higher than the murder rate in most/all western European countries even if you eliminate all murders where a firearm was the murder weapon.
      (2) The murder rate in the the state of Vermont is on par with the murder rate in all western European countries IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT THERE ARE VIRTUALLY NO FIREARM RESTRICTIONS IN VERMONT.

      That second point is extremely important. Anyone age 16 or older (who has no felony convictions) can legally carry a concealed or openly visible handgun, shotgun, or rifle pretty much anywhere in the state of Vermont without any vetting, license, or permit. Anyone (who has no felony convictions) can legally purchase firearms in private transactions without any vetting, permitting, or licensing. And anyone (who has no felony convictions) can legally purchase firearms from firearm dealers after passing a simple criminal background check — without any further vetting and without requiring any permit or license. Clearly, having super easy access to firearms does not cause a higher violent crime rate than would happen if firearms were totally (for all intents-and-purposes) illegal as in much of western Europe.

  4. Lower crime rates in other countries have nothing to do with gun control laws. It has everything to do with the size of the country, the cultural makeup and history, population density, and government power. All the countries typically listed with low gun crime rates are always homogenous (that is changing, in some, and future crime will reflect this), small, share borders with like minded countries, have only a couple large cities, and the government is centralized and powerful, and the police have much more authority. Many of these countries also artificially lower their crime rates. They also have cultures in which the population is submissive to state power. The United States on the other hand, is a country full of rebels, culture clashing, a history of several different culture conflicts, it’s huge, with several very large cities, and shares over 1,000 miles of border with a state on the verge of anarchy. A border which isn’t properly patrolled. Comparing the US to Europe or Japan is an apples to oranges comparison. The US has far more in common with countries like Brazil, Mexico, China, and Russia, in terms of geography, cities, and culture conflict. When you compare the US that way, the US is by far the better place to live.

    • New Continental Army…… Libs and other idiots protest and raise hell about how bad our country is but can never explain why if it is so bad, why does the rest of the worlds population want to come here. By the way, your comment was great. Notice the libs that said they were going to leave the U S if Trump got elected are still here. There should be a fund for all these dis satisfied idiots to have free air fare ( one way ) to go to any Utopia they choose and leave their citizenship behind.

      • Very true and a good point. If America is so terrible then why does everyone want to come here? Further, why do those that hate America never leave?

      • Perhaps free trebuchet rides over the border into Canada or Mexico for those that lied and said they would move? Would need a big one for Rosie though.

      • Yes, but I’m sure you’d also agree with me in that America can be made better than it currently is, right?

        Indeed, that’s what MAGA means, precisely.

        • America could definitely be made greater. Let us start by booting the Constitution hating communists from our midst like Joy Behar, Whoopi, Nancy Pelosi. Bernie, ALL Clinton’s and Bush’s too!!! That’s just for starters, next would be anti-queefas, BLM (they only matter if killed by white Hispanics), and any other fringe group, THEN let’s get really old school and boot the freaking muzzies!! A current Christian crusade, if you will!

          Oh dear me, I’ll be labeled a racist now… oh well! At least I’m not of the population that wants to take away your right to self defense, your right to worship, or not, and your daughter’s genitalia will be left intact.

    • The comparison of the US to Europe, Australian, and Japan is usually justified by noting these are all “developed” countries and places like Mexico or Brazil are not.

      Which of course begs the question of whether “development” is a proper measure of what makes countries comparable in terms of homicide. Superficially it might seem to make sense – homicide rates are much lower all “developed” countries than in the worst of the developing world. But long a little deeper, that falls apart. It turns out that countries in Europe that fall on the “developing” scale nevertheless enjoy low rates of homicide like their more advanced neighbors. Similarly, developing countries like China in east Asia enjoy low homicide rates despite having development levels on par with Mexico or Brazil. Other regional clusters emerge, like North African countries having relatively low homicide rates despite having development levels on par with Ecuador or Honduras.

      What emerges is a picture where homicide is primarily determined by culture, with actual wealth or development being only weakly related.

    • Exactly! I’ve read a good bit of “American Homicide” by Randolph Roth, considered to be one of the authoritative studies in this subject, and the US is just deadlier than countries in Europe. It’s not guns, it’s that something else (probably the giant, unruly, diverse nature of our country) is going on – people of all backgrounds who come here become more likely to commit homicide than people of the same background in their home country, and the same holds for a lot of other crimes. And the trend holds for a long time – well into the 19th century, before semi-automatics were invented (obviating the idiotic “it’s weapons of war!” argument). We live, for good and ill, in a diverse, unruly, rebellious society, and we have a much weaker government than most other “developed” states (the later for good, though the Federal gov’t has gotten far too powerful, IMHO). Guns and gun laws have ebbed and flowed, and had no impact on our being more homicidal than Europe, and the insistence that we just need gov’t and laws like Europe to change this is idiotic – we don’t have their culture, don’t want their culture, and thus will never look like them.

      • I don’t know about other European countries, but as for Czech Republic:

        – Sentences for murder are definitely NOT higher than in US. Twenty years in slammer is exceptional punishment, dealt out only for most heinous or multiple murders. Murder usually gets you up to 15. Sentences don’t add up to be served consecutively, so for example 145 years sentence is never seen there. No death penalty.

        – There is quite a lot of guns there among population, carry licenses are “shall issue”. Semi auto rifles like evil AR15s are perfectly legal to own.

        – Intentional homicide rate in 2016 was 0.61 per 100,000 compared to USA’s 5.35 according to UNODC.

        Why 8.77 times less homicides? (I don’t use this example to gloat, it’s simply country where I spent large chunk of my life. And then decided to leave forever.)
        It’s not gun laws, it sure as hell is not harsher sentences. It’s not poverty, no short supply of poverty there either. Lack of Christian morals cannot be the difference, Czechs are world’s leading non believers with 75% of them self-proclaimed atheists.

        What then?
        We all know that major part of America’s murders is committed by a small, very sharply defined group of people. Almost all of them self-proclaimed Christians I may add.(About 50% of solved murders, but almost all unsolved ones. Chicago has about 15% homicide clearance rate this year. “Another gang drive-by shooting. Who gives a hoot?”

        This group in CR is conspicuous by its absence. Maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with it.

        • Are you trying to say the gang bangers, the most responsible for US shootings and homicides are Christians? Yea, they may have been born Christian, but no true Christian joins gangs and shoots people, and I’m not even a Christian. You remove the homicides from Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis and the US goes down to 49 in the homicide ratings in the world.

  5. The recent Small Arms survey showed that there are 400 million guns in the United States. If we lose our right to self-defense as well as our gun rights, it will be a bloodbath of epic proportions in United States.

  6. The stat that correlates closest to Homicide Rate by state in the US is Percentage of African American Population by state. Eight of the top ten for both categories are the same states plus D.C. Now correlation does not necessarily equal causation and higher levels of poverty are probably a major factor too.

    It might be more effective if all those gun control donors gave their money to poor black neighborhoods that eschew violence instead of wasting it on organizations full of well paid idiots.

    • The 1930s were a period of nationwide mass “poverty”. A significant increase in murder and other criminal activity was not cause by this and did not occur. Including in black communities.

      • In point of fact, the peak in the murder rate in this era coincided with alcohol Prohibition. The rate climbed year after year during Prohibition; and then, suddenly, in 1934, it plummeted, just after Prohibition ended. The hardest years of the Great Depression were continuing for several years; yet, murder rates continued falling.

        What gives? What did poverty really have to do with murder? Likely it had something to do with the murder rate, but exactly what that was seems elusive. What did a massive prohibition – alcohol Prohibition – have to do with murder? Perhaps it’s mere coincidence that the murder rate fell when Prohibition ended. Perhaps the War on Drugs and the murder rate in the last quarter of the 20’th Century and so far in the 21’st Century are unrelated.

        With correlations, causation is maddeningly difficult to confirm. Yet, intuitively, there seems to be something there when government tries do do what’s best for we the unwashed masses.

  7. “Most likely, it is due to harsher punishments for murders.”

    Where is this person getting this from?

    It varies from country to country and state to state. However, America’s punishment for murderers is on par with, or harsher than, that of most European countries.

    • Perhaps they mean harsher punishments for people like Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer who killed 77 people in a country with stiff gun control laws, who found himself only able to receive a maximum sentence of 21 years for his crimes.

      21 years, for murdering 77 people. That’s it. They had to get creative and keep him locked up with a loophole that allows them to imprison people who are deemed a threat to society.

      Anyone know if any European countries even have capital punishment?

      • Good question. . . made me look.

        Turns out, to be a member of the Yuroppean Union, one has to hitch their lederhosen to Protocol #6, which bans the use of capital (‘effective’) punishment.

        Russia still has it, but hasn’t used it. Belarus is the same. Other than Uzbekistan, which I’m not sure is even IN ‘Yurrop,’ that is it.

      • “21 years, for murdering 77 people. That’s it.”

        The way it will work for Breivik is, at the end of the 21 years he will come up for consideration of release. Where the victim’s families will have a say in if he gets released.

        Anders Breivik will never walk free. He will, however, have a comfortable private room in a very nice Norwegian ‘prison’ with TV and internet ‘privileges’…

  8. In CHIRAQ the rate was HIGHER with greater gun control. Despite the BS we hear less control less murder…

  9. To see how utopian a place like New Zealand actually is, Google:

    New Zealand Home Invasion
    New Zealand Dairy Robbery
    (a dairy is a convenience store, often run by hard-working immigrant families)

  10. When you take out the murders committed in Chicago, Detroit and St Louis, the US murder rate goes down to something like 49th. Simple solution, make it illegal for demonrats to lead city politics.

  11. I would say that the cultural differences of a country makes an undeniable difference in terms of crime and homicide.
    Japan is a perfect example of a country whose people, due to their upbringing, believe that any crime no matter how small brings shame to the entire family. No properly bred Japanese would ever think of shaming the family name. Violence is strictly forbidden but sex trafficking and suicide is okay.

  12. Mass shootings in New Zealand and Australia.
    “the incidence of mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand (a country that is socioeconomically similar to Australia, but with a different approach to firearms regulation) over a 30 year period. It does not find support for the hypothesis that Australia’s prohibition of certain types of firearms has prevented mass shootings, with New Zealand not experiencing a mass shooting since 1997 despite the availability in that country of firearms banned in Australia. “

    A couple of months ago I had a discussion with some Australians. When I suggested that Australia has had mass shootings, I was firmly told “No.”

    Things became interesting when I raise examples.

    Right off I was referred to a research paper that defined a mass shooting “The University of Sydney, in a 2016 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found Australia hadn’t experienced a fatal mass shooting — one in which five or more people are killed — since the 1996 shooting. In the 18 years prior, 1979-1996, there were 13 fatal mass shootings in Australia”
    Compare this to the United States accounting
    “The Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012, signed into law by Congress in January 2013, defines a “mass killing” as one resulting in at least 3 victims, excluding the perpetrator.[11][2][12][13] In 2015, the Congressional Research Service defined a mass shooting as “a multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered with firearms, within one event, and in one or more locations in close proximity”.[14] A broader definition, as used by the Gun Violence Archive, is that of “4 or more shot or killed, not including the shooter”.[15] This definition, of four people shot regardless of whether or not that results in injury or death, is often used by the press and non-profit organizations.”
    Using the Australian standard the number of US shootings quickly drops.

    When I raised the Hunt Family murders (5 killed) I was told it was a domestic case and not a mass shooting.
    When I raised the 2014 Sydney Hostage Crisis (3 killed, 1 wounded) I was told that the death of a hostage from police fire shouldn’t be counted.

    In short, How you measue Australia’s “success” depends on how you define things.

    In the United States various organization count in different ways.

    “Including injuries in the definition dramatically increases the number of so-called mass shootings. The Gun Violence Archive’s public data from September 2016 to February 2018 shows that no one died in 223 of the 500 incidents it counts as mass shootings.”

    “The narrower analysis from Everytown, which counts only shootings with four or more deaths, found that 54 percent of the cases from 2009 to 2016 were related to domestic or family violence.”

    “a tracker by Mother Jones counts only incidents that took place in public and were carried out by a lone shooter; it excludes situations such as armed robbery or gang violence. Under that definition, there have been 35 mass shootings since Sandy Hook.”

    Last is Everytowns claim of 200 school shootings in 2016. An audit found:
    “Everytown has claimed a grand total of 203 school shootings since Sandy Hook.

    Of those, 75 seem to meet a generous definition of that term, which includes on campus student housing (the “dorm rule”), even well after hours and on weekends and even when students aren’t involved).

    Of those 203 “school shootings,” only 44 meet the common perception of a school shooting, where someone came to a school campus to shoot faculty, staff, or students.”

    https://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2016/12/16/audit-everytowns-200-school-shootings-since-sandy-hook/

    (PDF) Mass Shootings in Australia and New…. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256029491_Mass_Shootings_in_Australia_and_New_Zealand_A_Descriptive_Study_of_Incidence [accessed Jul 22 2018].
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States
    https://usat.ly/2o8Sp4n
    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2530362
    https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/02/20/fact-check-have-over-1600-mass-shootings-occurred-since-sandy-hook/
    https://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2016/12/16/audit-everytowns-200-school-shootings-since-sandy-hook/

    • Icabod, if you are talking about Simon Chapman of the coalition for gun control out of Sydney Uni and his adjunct gun control associate Philip Alpers you need to look at the “conclusion”. Quote ” but also a decline in total NON FIREARM suicide and homicide deaths of a GREATER magnitude. Because of this, it is not possible to determine whether the change in firearm deaths CAN BE ATTRIBUTED to the gun law reforms. Yep, even they cannot say with there own study that Australia’s gun laws reduced gun homicides or suicides. (Association between Gun Law Reforms and intentional firearm deaths in Australia 1979-2013, Chapman, Alpers, Jones). Now if you want to talk multiple killings and shootings in Australia check these ones out that were stopped with gun control laws.
      Oct. 1999, Wright St Bikie shooting 3 dead
      June 1997, Richmond Tasmania Knife attack 5 dead.
      June 2000, Childers Backpackers fire, Queensland 15 dead, Arson attack
      Oct. 2002, Monash University Melbourne, Victoria 2 shot dead 5 wounded.
      Feb. 2009, Churchill Fire Victoria Arson attack 10 dead, Arson.
      Feb. 2009, Victoria Fire, Victoria, Australia 135 people dead, Arson.
      May 2002 Cabramatta wedding shooting, 7 injured
      July 2009, Lin massacre, North Epping, New South Wales 5 dead, hammer.
      April 2011, Hectorville massacre, South Australia 3 shot dead, 3 wounded.
      Nov. 2011, Quakers Hill Nursing Home Sydney, NSW 11 dead, Arson.
      Nov. 2012, Canley vale wedding shooting 1 dead, 2 injured
      Sept. 2014, Rozelle NSW 3 dead 2 injured Arson.
      Sept. 2014, Hunt massacre Lockhart, New South Wales 5 people Murder-suicide shooting
      Oct. 2014, Wedderburn massacre, 3 people shot dead.
      Dec. 2014, Cairns Children Massacre, 8 children stabbed to death.
      Dec. 2014, Lindt Cafe Sydney, 3 dead 6 injured hostage shooting.
      Jan. 2016, Port Lincoln Wharf murder–suicide South Australia 3 dead.
      Oct. 2016, Sydney, New South Wales 4 dead by Gassing.
      Jan. 2017, Melbourne, Victoria 6 dead, 30 wounded Vehicle attack.
      May 2018 W.A. Osmington 7 dead murder-suicide shooting
      July 2018 NSW Pennant Hills, 3 shot dead murder-suicide
      July 2018 W.A. Ellenbrook, 3 dead stabbing, scissors.

  13. The largest metro area straddling an international border IN THE WORLD is El Paso, TX, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. The year before I left for the great white North, Juarez averaged 8 murders per DAY! El Paso had 7 that YEAR. In El Paso 2/3 of people carry guns, the other 1/3 are liars. Every year the list of “10 Safest Large Cities” in the US has El Paso on it if not in first place. Juarez, where guns are strictly outlawed, is listed among the most dangerous cities in the world! Draw your own conclusions.

    • My info says San Diego/Tijuana is twice as big, and Detroit/Windsor is even bigger unless you exclude it because they’re only connected by bridges and tunnels.

      • Anymouse, my guess is he didn’t consider San Diego because only a small portion of San Diego is actually connected to Tijuana. Between San Yisdro (south San Diego) and the main city, are two smaller cities, Chula Vista and National City.

  14. Blacks commit 50% of all murders in the US. Hispanics commit 25%. 30% of the US population commit 75% of all murders. That’s a big portion of the difference in American and European midterm rattes.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here