Cost of incarceration is a lot easier to figure than the cost of them out on the streets.Down side is expanding our incarceration numbers and costs in the short term, somtimes people are paroled just in attempts to cut costs. Thread for another day however.
Read the books "On Killing" and "On Combat" by david Grossman and you will really see what the biggest cause of violence is in ALL Western societies. Firearms are a tool. Taking them away would only treat the symptom not the problem. Media violence through television, movies, and violent video games has a far greater effect on violent behaviour than actually having firearms. It is the conditioned and learned behaviour that very young children see on their TV screens that leads to this becoming acceptable behavior when they are teens/adults. I'm not going to sit here and try to explain this because I will undoubtably mess it up. But, these books I mention have a lot of science and statistical data to back it up.
The problem with every single plan that has been proposed that would ban guns
In the days when a Colt 45 made everybody a man, the fact that there was a gun on most men's hip, meant that the criminal had to be very very circumspect trying to separate the civilian from his wealth. I realise there were shoot-outs between men .. however, they were very very rare.
The flaw in gun grabber thinking is obsesing over an object when objects don't commit crimes
, & the silly belief that if guns didn't exisit the crime wouldn't have happened. In fact, as esily available as guns are, only 10-12% of crimes involve guns. The high crime rate is more a product of revolving door justice, blame Society instead of the criminal & the welfare/I'm owed something by Society instead of having to work for it mentality. As far as "using your body" that might work for a fit 20-30 something male, but not for most of the population where the typical criminal is a 15-25 year old in good shape. Murder & other mayhem didn't start with the invention of guns & wouldn't end with confinscation. Crime has soared in the U.K. since the ban.
That's fine if your OK with the concept of the Govt allowing you to own guns.I still don't understand how all plans equal gun bans?
I look at New Zealand laws and they are very restrictive but as long as you are prepared to sit the licenses and meet the requirements (primarily criminal, mental and storage requirements) you can buy any weapon on the market.
Now I am not going to argue that crime in general is a societal problem and I completely agree that weak judicial systems, poor family values, lack of self responsibility/accountability and screwed up educational systems create the environment for crime and are areas that should be focused on.
I would be interested to see how a regulation plan would effect illegal weapons holders everywhere in the U.S. And attack the problem : Guns in criminals hands, or in access to person at a high risk of commiting a crime.
the problem is when one person does something (Dunblaine)& the Vulture Culture swoops in & gets Laws passed allowing confinscation of all those registered guns, or even w/o anything happening. New York City has all assault Weopans registered & then voted to ban them after the end of timelimit to register passed. many politicians just don't trust thier own people & look for any excuse to try to pull something. I believe it's pure fantasy to think that registration or confinscation would drop murders from 10,000 to 10.One of the problems in this argument is quantifying the effect of legislation, I think we can all agree that no regulation will affect illegal gun holders because these people don't care about the law however I tend to think that processes that make obtaining a gun illegally and reducing the amount of new weapons flowing into criminal hands more difficult and expensive would have positive benefits.
From a New Zealand point of view I have a number of firearms licenses but I can only sell to other license holders and because my weapons are registered should any of them turn up in criminal hands and I haven't registered them as stolen then I would be in a world of trouble, the aim of our system is to reduce the number of weapons going into criminal hands and the possession of those who shouldn't have them aka whacko's.
The primarily emphasis here is to "reduce" not to stop as there is no way in hell you can stop people committing crimes with firearms as long as you have firearms, it is simply a balancing act between giving people the ability to own weapons and the reduction of firearm related crime to an acceptable level.
I believe it's pure fantasy to think that registration or confinscation would drop murders from 10,000 to 10.
Thousands of people have been killed by Moslem extremeists in Algeria using swords. Somehow I don't think the relatives are feeling any relief that the victims were hacked to death instead of shot.Just for the record: I think this was not the question, there surely are more then 10 murders even in peaceful NZ, its about reducing gun related murders.
Rattler
Thousands of people have been killed by Moslem extremeists in Algeria using swords. Somehow I don't think the relatives are feeling any relief that the victims were hacked to death instead of shot.
My point was, does it really matter if the murders were by gun or something else. You're still falling into the false premis that if guns didn't exist, the murders wouldn't happen(not to mention crimes that don't happen because of fear of an armed potential target). A while back someone proposed a Law for additional penalty if a cop was murdered by someone using a gun. I could see the widow being told " Your husband is dead, but @ least he was stabbed to death instead of shot because of the new Law about shooting cops!"reducing GUN related murders.
Hmm aren't we all in that boat?
Lets face it if the US government decided tomorrow to ban guns there is nothing on earth you could do about it.
However if my choice is 10000 murders a year and no restrictions or 10 murders a year and some restrictions I will take option 2 thanks.
Benjamin Franklin said:They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Letter to Josiah Quincy, Sept. 11, 1773.
Thomas Jefferson said:Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
-- President Thomas Jefferson. 1743-1826
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