STATISTICS ARE AN EFFECTIVE ARGUMENT AGAINST GUN CONTROL, BUT NEVER FORGET THE FIRST ONE | 2001-03-17
It happens, as Yale University Professor John Lott demonstrates in his book, "More Guns, Less Crime," that the private ownership of guns does reduce crime. Once again, even liberals can't argue that liberal policy -- in this case gun control -- actually WORKS. When the gun controllers were in a debate with John Lott on Public Television, they only tried to argue that private gun ownership did not actually DECREASE crime, not that it increased it. They still lost.
Police representatives there did point out this was an odd argument for those who wanted to outlaw guns to use, but there simply is no practical case for gun control. About the lowest crime rate on earth is in Switzerland, where people carry not only guns, but real automatic assault weapons (May 8, 1999 - ARMED SWITZERLAND AND THE COLORADO SHOOTINGS).
In Britain, where gun laws are really tight, forty- three percent of all burglaries are what the British police call "hot." That means that the criminals come right in the house when the family is AT HOME and rob them! See June 2, 2000 article, GUN CONTROL AND BUSING -- BOTH ARE MEANS TO TEACH CHILDREN THAT THEIR PARENTS ARE POWERLESS.
Just how safe would you feel if criminals felt as safe in America as they do in Britain?
Also, the general crime rate in Britain, once so low, is now higher than the American crime rate. This is not so in Switzerland.
Guns prevent crime, but that is not the FIRST reason I am against gun control. I believe that, if the state cannot guarantee your personal safety in all areas, you have the right to carry a gun if you choose.
Like all liberal policy, gun control doesn't WORK. But in any debate with liberals, we should make it clear that the right to defend oneself is not a matter of statistics, even though, as always, statistics are against the liberals.