Should we Ban Guns?

[the2real4mafol]

Kasz216 said:

the2real4mafol said:

Kasz216 said:

Your Murder rate went up... and is now exactly around the level it was before the gun ban.  In what way does that sound like it worked to you?   You can't point to the gun ban having any effect on UK homicides.

 

As for the US murder rate... lets compare it's shift compaired to the UK rate.

 

They're... also at early 1990's levels.  Weird that huh?  It's nearly the same trend... which means it's highly likely the handgun ban which the UK has and the US doesn't... has had zero effect.

Claiming the handgun ban works because you have less murders then the US does is like me Claiming that my all cheesecake and milkshake diet works because I was less then Seth Rogan.  He weight liked 100 pounds more then me before i started.

Your new graph compares the last 50 years rather than the last 20, which is a big difference. Other than that, the trend is similar, i agree. But don't you understand why governments act on arms and decide to limit them? In the UK, there was a major school shooting in 1996, comparable to the one in Connecticut last October and our government and the public didn't want an event like that again. A gun ban policy made sense and nearly worked, since there's been only one major massacre since then, which was in 2008 i think.

And i pointed out the crime rate ended up being the same after 20 years to show you that a gun ban only increases the crime rate in the short term and then drops off afterwards (it's still falling now, 10 per million in 2012). But surely if guns aren't readily available, then murder is at least given a 2nd though by the criminal, since most would have to kill with other weapons, instead, like a knife. 

And finally, the comparision between the US and UK was only possible because it was per 100,000 people. US murder rate is still 3x higher than the UK's at the end of it all, the American law must be missing something. Either that, or the economic system is the cause of the problem there. 

I understand WHY governments do it.  Fear and ignorance.  It's the same reasons governments try and ban drugs.

Though actually... my mistake on the graph just makes it worse for your arguement.  Since the US had nothing but a pure drop... vs the UK barely ending up even.

 

Simply put... statistically the arguement is completely against you.  At least in any way that anyone who uses statistics would use said stats.   Wanting to ban guns ins nothing but rank superstition and ignorance that at best is shown to accomplish nothing, and at worst is shown to be counterproductive.

Maybe it's because i live in a country against guns, which is why i'm against them. But i'm not convinced relaxing our laws would be good in this economic climate at least.

But my point always was that a gun ban policy didn't neccesarilly increase crime rate, which is what you always claimed. Even if it stayed the same, it proved my point, that a gun ban don't always increase crime in the long term. 

What may shock you, is that i support full drug legalisation and regulation of such drugs. Because, it makes money  for government in taxes, it saves them money as less people would be in jail, and crime rates would fall by a lot (like they have in Portugal and Holland). I don't see the danger in doing this, but i do for guns.