with your hands on your head or on the trigger of a gun
The latest shooting spree in the US is invariably going to turn into a debate about guns (it must be gun week on this blog), so here are some relevant statistics to assist in wading through the emotional and political non-sequiturs:
Murders with firearms per capita, by country.
Firearm-related deaths per capita, by country.
Australia’s rate of gun-related homicides appears to have dropped significantly since gun laws were tightened after the Port Arthur massacre. In the 10 years up to the massacre there were 11 mass shootings in Australia killing 112 people. In the 10 years since there have been no mass shootings in Australia.
It is very difficult to find reliable statistics on gun ownership per-capita on a nation-by-nation basis. The United States certainly has a very high rate of gun ownership for a developed nation, with around 40% of US households owning at least one firearm (see for example the figures in this UN report on page 18) but then so do certain other nations with far lower rates of gun-related deaths, such as Switzerland. This UN study suggests that is a direct correlation between rates of gun ownership and homicide rates, although interestingly it removes the US as an ‘outlier’ from most of its statistical analysis.
Perhaps contrary to what the above statistics suggest though, there may also be an inverse correlation between the right of private citizens to carry concealed weapons and the rate of public shooting and multiple murders, as discussed in this paper from the University of Chicago Law School.
As you may have seen, a law allowing students at Virginia Tech to carry concealed weapons was rejected about a year ago.
Another view, from a UK/Dunblane massacre perspective, is here.
And wouldn’t you hate to be this guy…
….and if only one person in the classroom where the killings occured had been carrying a legal gun?
For those who haven’t read the Chicago study cited in the article above, go back and read it. Keep in mind that Lott was an anti-gun professor when he did the study.
That is a pretty circular argument – let’s stop crazy people shooting each other by ensuring that every one can shoot each other.
But apparently, others share this view John Velleco from the group Gun Owners of America is quoted in ABC News Australia as saying “If there were more guns on the campus, students might have stopped the gunman sooner.”
(http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1900601.htm)
Okay, so we defend such a position on the basis of what argument? The “well he hit [shot] me first” defence?
Hmmm….
The real problem with the “if they had guns” argument seems to me to be, well, ok, you are a student and you have a gun. So you hear shots, pull out your gun, head into the corridoor, where you see another student with a gun drawn…
…and what happens next? Who is the loony? Who shoots and who gets shot?
Or what if the police rock up when shots are heard, and their snipers see a student running between buildings with a pistol drawn – what do you think they’re going to do?
At the same time, that University of Chicago paper makes very interesting reading, and does seem to suggest that armed civilians are a deterrent. But that doesn’t neccessarily invalidate the argument that much stricter controls on access to weapons for everyone might also reduce the problem of gun violence.
Great post. I agree with you, Paul – as I have said in my own post, who is going to carry a gun to a German tute? And then have the presence of mind to use it? It seems better to me to restrict everyone, even if that means limiting the freedom of all.
I’m not sure it’s even necessary to frame it in these terms. As someone pointed out elsewhere, people may kill people rather than guns killing people, but guns make it a hell of a lot more efficient.
So what I want to know from pro-gun types is this: if guns are ok, are rocket launchers? Grenades? Silencers? Nuclear weapons?
I’m sure the majority of sane people would say that (to take the extreme) private individuals should not have access to nuclear weapons or rocket launchers. But why is this different to a pistol? Ideologically I suggest it is not, and that an arbitrary line is being drawn by even gun advocates somewhere between “pistol” and “100 megaton nuclear warhead”.
So – that is really what this debate is about. Some of us would prefer that that line was drawn between “pointed stick” and “flintlock pistol”, rather than above “Glock”.
Pete, you’re the only voice of reason here on this God-forgotten self-loving blog.
The rest of you should be deported.
“The sites also suggested a recent break-up, quoting maudlin love songs by Justin Timberlake and Katie Melua”. that was the funniest bit from that article
Ban Justin Timberlake immediately…
I’m so proud that this qualifies as a
If only all people involved had carried guns, this could have ended peacefully.
Yeah I saw that – I mean, that’s the whole problem with guns, really: people. And people getting angry. And people getting angry with easy and immediate access to guns.
I wonder what game they were playing? We should ban it.
So you are saying guns don’t kill people, people do. I have a different belief, and that belief is: If you have a gun you will use it. The Aforesaid student who caused the massacre walked into the building with a large armament. I think it makes a statement that no security officials stopped him when he walked into a university with such a heavy armament. clearly the solution here is better security officials or measure to prevent such freak a occurance happening again. Also i must note many arguments here have proposed allowing students to carry guns. Why that is madness you don’t want to have to carry a Magnum to engineering. you are at uni to learn and adequate security should keep it that way, not adequate arming of the students.