.

[The_Gabe]

Anyone ever thinks that similar problems in similar nations often cannot be solved with the same solution?

[nine naked men]

Anyone ever thinks that similar problems in similar nations often cannot be solved with the same solution?

Well, yeah. The methods countries like Australia and the UK took to control guns won't work for America for a whole bunch of reasons.

[Z_Berenice]

Anyone ever thinks that similar problems in similar nations often cannot be solved with the same solution?

Well, yeah. The methods countries like Australia and the UK took to control guns won't work for America for a whole bunch of reasons.

You mean because it didn't work for them to start with?

I can't recall Australia's case right now, I remember working their stadistics a year ago, it was somewhat similar to the UK, just not sure about the exact %.

 

Also, crime rates are actually decreasing in the U.S. (overall), however, they're rising on certain states... guess which?

[Ginger_Warrior]

Violent crime in England and Wales as recorded by the British Crime Survey has dropped by 39% from 1997 (the year that the Firearms Act was introduced) to 2010/11.[1] There were 3,593,000 cases of violent crime in 1997, and 2,203,000 cases in 2010/11.[2] Firearms offences in the ten years between 2000/01 to 2010/11 have fallen from 17,698 offences to 11,227, a drop of 36.5%.[3]

 

Your attempt to link a supposed increase in violent crime and firearms offences to the banning of gun ownership is false.

[Z_Berenice]

Violent crime in England and Wales as recorded by the British Crime Survey has dropped by 39% from 1997 (the year that the Firearms Act was introduced) to 2010/11.[1] There were 3,593,000 cases of violent crime in 1997, and 2,203,000 cases in 2010/11.[2]

 

Your attempt to link a supposed increase in violent crime to the banning of gun ownership is false.

Too bad the definition of violent crime changes drastically between sources :roll:

I guess I better leave my profession out of the question and enjoy the incoming wave of semantics :roll:

[Omar]

Correlation isn't causation, ditch the empirical evidence or argue with John Lott's model (if you're pro-control) or Black and Nagin's (if you're anti).

[Ginger_Warrior]

Violent crime in England and Wales as recorded by the British Crime Survey has dropped by 39% from 1997 (the year that the Firearms Act was introduced) to 2010/11.[1] There were 3,593,000 cases of violent crime in 1997, and 2,203,000 cases in 2010/11.[2]

 

Your attempt to link a supposed increase in violent crime to the banning of gun ownership is false.

Too bad the definition of violent crime changes drastically between sources :roll:

I guess I better leave my profession out of the question and enjoy the incoming wave of semantics :roll:

Could changing definitions of crime not also have applied to you when you posted a massive gif with the words "MYTH" and "FACT" written on it?

 

(Some of the facts which I've subsequently proven to be wrong, or at the very least, outdated)

[Z_Berenice]

Violent crime in England and Wales as recorded by the British Crime Survey has dropped by 39% from 1997 (the year that the Firearms Act was introduced) to 2010/11.[1] There were 3,593,000 cases of violent crime in 1997, and 2,203,000 cases in 2010/11.[2]

 

Your attempt to link a supposed increase in violent crime to the banning of gun ownership is false.

Too bad the definition of violent crime changes drastically between sources :roll:

I guess I better leave my profession out of the question and enjoy the incoming wave of semantics :roll:

Could that not also have applied to you when you posted a massive gif with the word "MYTH" written on it?

Could what be applied to...? I'm having some trouble to follow a conv with you, given how you automatically assume and impose your own point of view compared to the point the poster was trying to make. So I brought stadistics showing how fast crime rates went up right after the ban (given how the point of it was the correlation between the two), it still happened... As for yours, the supposed decrease on crime rate in the UK (this will make up for another 100 pages of discussion, so let's not touch that subject) is usually countered by someone's else own stadistics... This is where idiocyncrasy comes into place, let's compare violence in mexico after gun ban for example, and see what we can get... Do you see where I'm going to?

 

I'm not sure if you're just having fun tyring to disprove people or if you're actually contributing to the topic... Again, this doesn't have to be x vs y, this can easily be people talking about a subject some agree with and some don't.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Stop accusing me of deliberately refusing to agree with you. When you post 'facts' here, expect people to view them critically.

So I brought stadistics showing how fast crime rates went up right after the ban (given how the point of it was the correlation between the two), it still happened...

You said this was your profession before, but you appear to have missed a very important caveat from the very source you used (Home Office, 2000). Bolded the important parts for clarity.

3.3 There was a change in the counting rules for recorded crime on 1 April 1998 in which both the methods of counting and the coverage for recorded crime were revised. Resulting from this, the offences covered by this chapter from that time have increased in number. It was not possible to accurately assess the effect of this change on firearm offences. However, in some offence groups there is likely to be little effect on numbers of firearm offences recorded, including homicide, violence against the person endangering life, robbery, and burglary.

 

3.4 The figures may have been more affected for more minor violence and criminal damage. In violence against the person offences, the new counting rules have greatly expanded the coverage of less serious violence. Criminal damage figures from 1998/99 no longer exclude offences where the value of the criminal damage is under £20, and this will have an impact on the number of air weapon offences. Also, as offences under the Firearms Act are now included in notifiable offences (see Appendix 3), this will increase the number of offences recorded under ‘other offences’

I put it to you that there was no increase in violent crime or firearms offences from 1997 and the years immediately after the Firearms Act, only that the Firearms Act expanded the definition of violent crime at the same time as effectively banning public ownership of firearms, leading to the perception of increased rates. Meanwhile, the BCS shows a non-significant difference in violent crime rates at a year-by-year basis, but nevertheless a consistent and gradual decline in violent crime rates from the late 90s onwards.

[Z_Berenice]

So I brought stadistics showing how fast crime rates went up right after the ban (given how the point of it was the correlation between the two), it still happened...

You said this was your profession before, but you appear to have missed a very important caveat from the very reference you used (Home Office, 2000). Bolded the important parts for clarity.

See what I mean? You're assuming this is my profession just because I mentioned "I better not say it". Dude, I'm a lawyer... And yes, it is meant to show the year 2000, because the point it was to show how far it went up RIGHT AFTER (meaning the 3 subsequent years) the ban, given the same correlation used to make those stadistics to start with...

 

I put it to you that there was no increase in violent crime or firearms offences from 1997 and the years immediately after the Firearms Act, only that the Firearms Act expanded the definition of violent crime, leading to the perception of increased rates.

Again, idiocyncrasy... let's look at Mexico...

 

P.S. If you haven't noticed by now, I was backing up the statment The_Gabe made, was I sarcastic? yes... You're branching this off yet again just to disprove the method, be my guest if that's the case and makes you happy for whatever twisted reason.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Agreed. I mentioned before that the issue was far too complex to reduce it to "country Y vs country X" (the same also applies for "state X vs state Y" comparisons). Public gun ownership in the UK was never that high to begin with, as your source shows. That is clearly not the case in the US, and there would be massive logistical and legal complications with an outright ban. Frankly, I'm left-wing, I'm vehemently pro-gun control, and yet I don't expect to see a ban in the US, certainly not in my lifetime, if not ever.

 

However, it's an intellectual scandal to imply that banning firearms in the UK lead to a dramatic rise in violent crime. It did not. I'm not saying that banning firearms reduced violent crime either, but it simply did not cause an increase in violent crime, as I've demonstrated quite forcefully on this page.

[Omar]

as I've demonstrated

No, you haven't. You haven't controlled for other factors and you can't prove the decrease in gun crime wouldn't have been steeper hadn't it been for this law.

[Z_Berenice]

Agreed. I mentioned before that the issue was far too complex to reduce it to "country Y vs country X" (the same also applies for "state X vs state Y" comparisons). Public gun ownership in the UK was never that high to begin with, as your source shows. That is clearly not the case in the US, and there would be massive logistical and legal complications with an outright ban. Frankly, I'm left-wing, I'm vehemently pro-gun control, and yet I don't expect to see a ban in the US, certainly not in my lifetime, if not ever.

 

However, it's an intellectual scandal to imply that banning firearms in the UK lead to a dramatic rise in violent crime. It did not. I'm not saying that banning firearms reduced violent crime either, but it simply did not cause an increase in violent crime, as I've demonstrated quite forcefully on this page.

Glad to see we've finally found an "in-between" point. I wasn't implying that the ban made the country more violent, I was implying that the response to the ban basically didn't stop the violent crime from rising in the upcoming years, however, as opposed to countries like Mexico, UK did have other factors (unrelated to gun control) that affected such stadistics, which is why I didn't bother to show a graphic past 2000 where such factors took place. Again, the idiocyncrasy of such country plays a role, look at countries like switzerland (where basically everyone knows how to use a gun) where more people commit suicide via their own guns than actual crimes compared to countries like Mexico (a country with a nation-wide gun ban) where people simply don't care about gun laws + they have a drug war on top of that....

[Ginger_Warrior]

as I've demonstrated

No, you haven't. You haven't controlled for other factors and you can't prove the decrease in gun crime wouldn't have been steeper hadn't it been for this law.

Neither did Berenice. Why are you applying this to one side of the argument only, and not the other? If we go by what you say, then we should just skip the last two pages and stop the thread now because technically, none of it has been absolutely and categorically proven to true. We could also assume good faith for argument's sake.

 

Agreed. I mentioned before that the issue was far too complex to reduce it to "country Y vs country X" (the same also applies for "state X vs state Y" comparisons). Public gun ownership in the UK was never that high to begin with, as your source shows. That is clearly not the case in the US, and there would be massive logistical and legal complications with an outright ban. Frankly, I'm left-wing, I'm vehemently pro-gun control, and yet I don't expect to see a ban in the US, certainly not in my lifetime, if not ever.

 

However, it's an intellectual scandal to imply that banning firearms in the UK lead to a dramatic rise in violent crime. It did not. I'm not saying that banning firearms reduced violent crime either, but it simply did not cause an increase in violent crime, as I've demonstrated quite forcefully on this page.

Glad to see we've finally found an "in-between" point. I wasn't implying that the ban made the country more violent, I was implying that the response to the ban basically didn't stop the violent crime from rising in the upcoming years, however, as opposed to countries like Mexico, UK did have other factors (unrelated to gun control) that affected such stadistics, which is why I didn't bother to show a graphic past 2000 where such factors took place. Again, the idiocyncrasy of such country plays a role, look at countries like switzerland (where basically everyone knows how to use a gun) where more people commit suicide via their own guns than actual crimes compared to countries like Mexico (a country with a nation-wide gun ban) where people simply don't care about gun laws + they have a drung war on top of that....

Agreed. Another factor is that the UK doesn't have a land border which makes the control of misappropriated firearms into the country a lot easier. But looking back at the point I made, from where this all started from; my main point wasn't that firearms are banned in the UK, the UK violent crime rate dropped, therefore banning firearms reduces the rate of violent crime... it was that a gun isn't generally regarded in my country as a necessary means of self-defence.

 

Even where killing sprees do occur here, such as the shootings by Derrick Bird in 2010, there isn't any significant desire for the ban on firearms to be reversed, or any sentiments of "If I'd have had a gun, I'd have popped him before he killed anyone else". It is true that people's perceptions towards crime has changed in the past few years, and this has been due to an increase in violent crime over the last three or four years, so most people feel as though their neighbourhoods are now less safe than they used to be, but the factors behind this rise aren't anything to do with gun control and possessing a gun would do very little to make people feel safer.

 

Let's look at the reasons people turn to violent crime in the first place.

[Omar]

as I've demonstrated

No, you haven't. You haven't controlled for other factors and you can't prove the decrease in gun crime wouldn't have been steeper hadn't it been for this law.

Neither did Berenice. Why are you applying this to one side of the argument only, and not the other? If we go by what you say, then we should just skip the last two pages and stop the thread now because technically, none of it has been absolutely and categorically proven to true. We could also assume good faith for argument's sake.

I specifically told both of you to ditch the empirical evidence unless you wanted to dig into econometric studies on the matter earlier.

[Estonian dude]

Oh my freaking god. This thread is about gun control in USA.

 

And can I assume that everyone thinks that USA needs federal and stricter laws about firearms? That way this thread could be locked and this flame war ended.

[nine naked men]

Obviously not, otherwise there wouldn't be 6 pages of discussion about the topic. What a pointlessly awful post.

[Alg]

And can I assume that everyone thinks that USA needs federal and stricter laws about firearms? That way this thread could be locked and this flame war ended.

You could, but if that was the case we wouldn't be having this discussion (It's not a flame war yet, this is surprisingly civil).

 

Even then, you can't have the discussion at all without going over many related issues, such as how similar countries have handled the issue, what restrictions we'd actually be able to use, and general gun facts since a lot of these arguments are made by people that don't actually know what they're banning.

[Giordano]

Oh my freaking god. This thread is about gun control in USA.

 

And can I assume that everyone thinks that USA needs federal and stricter laws about firearms? That way this thread could be locked and this flame war ended.

You weren't here in TIF's Golden Years, I see. In those days every other thread was a debate or discussion in some form, 'flame wars' everywhere. 8-)

 

I think only the Today thread surpassed the "Does God exist" thread in number of pages.

[sees_all1]

And can I assume that everyone thinks that USA needs federal and stricter laws about firearms? That way this thread could be locked and this flame war ended.

 

Maybe you should read the discussion we've been having before making grand assumptions about what "everyone thinks."

[Ginger_Warrior]

Oh my freaking god. This thread is about gun control in USA.

 

And can I assume that everyone thinks that USA needs federal and stricter laws about firearms? That way this thread could be locked and this flame war ended.

You weren't here in TIF's Golden Years, I see. In those days every other thread was a debate or discussion in some form, 'flame wars' everywhere. 8-)

 

I think only the Today thread surpassed the "Does God exist" thread in number of pages.

Relationship thread, if you count its first iteration with its current form, surely.

[Estonian dude]

Ok, I was quite liberal with everyone, but at least Ginger and Berenice have both mentioned that US laws on the issue are lacking. And they are the main discussers here, or at least they bring out the longest walls of texts with most facts.

 

And I have read this thread from the very beginning, practically every post.

 

And Gio, I was around TIF then and I sometimes got lost to the OT aswell. I was just lurking, not posting then. I have been lurking these forums for years before I made my account.

[Omar]

How do you regulate guns made with 3D printers? I doubt the political sphere will catch on nearly quick enough (too much focus on the short term).

[Edit] I'm an anarchist and I'm still a bit chilled by the video. It's like a cyberpunk film, except it's not a fiction.

 

 

[Ember]

.

[Omar]

It's certainly not there yet. That being said, the printing technology is getting better rapidly. This isn't coming out tomorrow, but can you see this happening in say, 20 years?