When Only Criminals Have Guns

I advise anyone who's convinced that gun control is a splendid idea to read this and think about it. Perhaps there is something after all to the old saying "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns"? As Fallujah's failed disarmament measures earlier in the year have shown, the only people who respond to such initiatives are those who never had any plans to engage in gun-related violence to begin with: no hoodlum has ever been stopped in his tracks by the thought that gun possession is against the law.

Comments

[Brian]

No (or no enforced) gun regulations indeed reduces crime. I'm sure the residents of Mogadishu would be happy to testify to this.

[Abiola Lapite]

Are you so sure Johannesburg's crime rate is any lower than Mogadishu's? Last I heard, Jo'burg, where gun control laws exist and are enforced, was the murder capital of the world.

[carib]

Of course, in the libertarian paradise Mogadishu, theres no one to COUNT the murders, so we don't know the answer. But it does seem that this is not the "polite society" that antigun control advocates have predicted.

[Abiola Lapite]

" in the libertarian paradise Mogadishu, theres no one to COUNT the murders,"

So there's no way to know whether it's any more dangerous than a lot of other places, is there?

"But it does seem that this is not the "polite society" that antigun control advocates have predicted."

And how exactly do we know that it isn't? That there are clans fighting each other doesn't mean that people aren't polite within their clans; La Cosa Nostra manages to combine exaggerated politeness within the group with extreme violence to rivals and outsiders. In fact, what exactly is a military but an organization that combines extreme internal politeness and deference with extreme violence directed externally?

[Abiola Lapite]

By the way, anyone who argues that widespread gun possession leads to high crime will have to come to terms with the fact that Switzerland, Israel and even good old Canada also have large numbers of gun owners, and yet they have nothing like the rate of gun violence the USA does. America's violence problem is very largely a cultural issue.

[Brian]

That's good because that's not my thesis. My thesis is that gun control has little influence on crime one way of the other. It's not a pancea, like advocates say, nor is it a crime enhancer, like opponents say. I'm inclined to be against gun control because if it doesn't help reduce crime, it's pointless. But I refrain from the argument that more guns are a great thing because they reduce crime; because I don't accept a direct causal link for that either. Like you said, both Jo'burg (tight gun control) and Mogadishu (no gun control) have high crime rates. Far more important than laws is the social mentality. Canada and the US have a comparable number of guns per capita. The former has a much lower crime rate. The difference is that Americans generally celebrate the cowboy mentality and Canadians generally don't.

[Shai]

" Canada and the US have a comparable number of guns per capita. The former has a much lower crime rate."

er, much lower homicide and robbery rate anyway. (looking at statcan, especially if it's ontario or quebec)

eugene volokh has more, but he doesn't try to disentangle assault 1-3, or sexual assault which is defined more broadly in Canadian law. And I don't know anything about the methodology of victim surveys. they might be horribly flawed, no idea.

[mike]

That the violence in America is largely cultural further strengthens the assertion that certain 'people' should not be in possession of fire arms. I think there is another distinction when u talk about Canada; most people own hunting guns (unlike their brethren across the border).