2nd Ammendment Rights

[Chuck41]

Originally Posted by OTB

DO your research.

Find out what happened to the crime stats in the UK when they confiscated all the guns.

Find out what happened to the crime stats in Australia when they confiscated the guns.

Look at DC.

Look at all the crime stats of the states that enacted liberal CCW laws as compared to those that did not.

Read the Lott report.

You don't want to own a gun; fine and dandy......just don't tell me the 2nd Amendment doesn't say what it says (looks like the Supremes will settle that one once and for all).

As an aside, my wife felt the same way as itgirl did when we were first married; I sold my guns to make her feel better......then we were robbed (no, not burglerized, ROBBED) one long night.

My wife became very proficient with her 4" S&W .357 and Mossburg pump gun, and providentially so, because she used the S&W to scare away another robber in the dark of night a year later......


Like I said....you do what want....just don't get in the way of me being able to defend MY family..........

Good call OTB, do your research.
But check your sources.
The UK has had strict gun control for over 100 years. there have been amendments to the act following Schoolyard shootings (It's interesting to note that the British press invariably call them "US-style" schoolyard shootings). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_pol...United_Kingdom
If you scroll down a bit, you get to this bit.

Homicide and firearms crime

In 2005/06 there were 766 offenses initially recorded as homicide by the police in England and Wales (including the 52 victims of the 7 July 2005 London bombings),[18] a rate of 1.4 per 100,000 of population. Only 50 (6.6%) were committed with firearms, one being with an air weapon.[19] The homicide rate for London was 2.4 per 100,000 in the same year (1.7 when excluding the 7 July bombings).[20] However, the definition of homicide varies between countries. In the US the FBI asks for all homicides to be listed as murder, while the police force in the UK follows the cases and changes the data as need. This has resulted in the appearance of a lower homicide rate in the UK.[21]

By comparison, 5.5 murders per 100,000 of population were reported by police in the United States in 2000, of which 70% involved the use of firearms.[22] New York City, with a population size similar to London (over 8 million residents), reported 6.9 murders per 100,000 people in 2004.[23]

The rise in UK gun crime is a long term trend that is apparently unaffected by the state of UK firearms legislation. [24] Before the 1997 ban, handguns were only held by 0.1% of the population,[25] and while the number of crimes involving firearms in England and Wales increased from 13,874 in 1998/99 to 24,070 in 2002/03, they remained relatively static at 24,094 in 2003/04, and have since fallen to 21,521 in 2005/06. The latter includes 3,275 crimes involving imitation firearms and 10,437 involving air weapons, compared to 566 and 8,665 respectively in 1998/99.[26] Only those "firearms" positively identified as being imitations or air weapons (e.g. by being recovered by the police or by being fired) are classed as such, so the actual numbers are likely to be significantly higher. In 2005/06, 8,978 of the total of 21,521 firearms crimes (42%) were for criminal damage.[27]

Since 1998, the number of people injured by firearms in England and Wales increased by 110%,[28] from 2,378 in 1998/99 to 5,001 in 2005/06. "Injury" in this context means by the use of the gun as a blunt instrument or as a threat, or by being shot. In 2005/06, 87% of such injuries were defined as "slight," which includes the use of firearms as a threat only. The number of homicides committed with firearms has remained between a range of 46 and 97 for the past decade, standing at 50 in 2005/06 (a fall from 75 the previous year). Between 1998/99 and 2005/06, there have been only two fatal shootings of police officers in England and Wales. Over the same period there were 107 non-fatal shootings of police officers - an average of just 9.7 per year.[29]
And this one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia



Historically, Australia has had relatively low levels of violent crime. Overall levels of homicide and suicide have remained relatively static for several decades, while the proportion of these crimes that involved firearms has consistently declined since the early 1980s. Between 1991 and 2001, the number of firearm related deaths in Australia declined 47%.[18] The Sporting Shooters Association of Australia argues that there is no evidence that in gun control restrictions in 1987, 1996 and 2002 had any impact on this already established trend.[19][20] An interpretation of the statistics by the head of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn,[21] noted that the level of legal gun ownership in New South Wales increased in recent years. In 2006, the lack of any measurable effect from the 1996 firearms legislation was confirmed using a statistical method (ARIMA), in a peer-reviewed article in the British Journal of Criminology by academics Dr Jeanine Baker (SSAA) and Dr Samara McPhedran (Women in Shooting and Hunting).[22] Prominent Australian criminologist Don Weatherburn described the Baker & McPhedran article as "reputable" and "well-conducted" and stated that the available data are insufficient to draw stronger conclusions.[23] Weatherburn noted the importance of policing illegal firearm possession and argued that it should not be necessarily concluded that relaxing restrictions would not affect the homicide rate.[24]

I've seen plenty of articles saying that Australias crime rate has gone through the roof since gun control was implemented after the Port Arthur Massacre (which by the way is still the highest death toll in a mass shooting incident. See, We do have to win everything!!). Most of these articles originate out of pro gun lobbys in the US.

The common factor in both of the above articles is that there was a small spike in gun related crime, followed by a steady decline.

Don't believe everything you read!