RE: Congress bans the CDC from doing study on gun violence
October 5, 2015 at 6:07 pm
(This post was last modified: October 5, 2015 at 6:10 pm by Thumpalumpacus.)
(October 5, 2015 at 5:54 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:(October 5, 2015 at 12:49 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: The problem is that there are 300 million guns in America, many of them owned by criminals. You can write a law banning guns, but a man intent on robbing someone to get his fix isn't going to care about the fact that his gun is illegal. He's worried about his next fix. Gangstas warring over drug-sale turf aren't going to disarm in the face of a rival gang simply because there's a law requiring it.
Criminals break laws.
From a study commissioned by the CDC (amongst others):
Source: http://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3#15, p.15
Even the VPC, which supports strong gun restrictions, acknowledges roughly 47,000 defensive gun uses annually.
Don't bet too much.
Okey doke. 300 000 000 guns. Let's use Kleck's figure of 3 million defensive use (I want to be as generous as possible). This means that 99% of the guns in the US are NEVER used defensively. Worst case scenario: If all guns were banned (and banned effectively) violent crime would tick up - at most - by 1% The actual increase would be far lower, as fewer criminal would have guns.
Bet's on.
Boru
I dunno, going by that most generous estimate, as you prefer, that means that for every crime committed, one was thwarted with a gun.
I wouldn't call 3 million "insignificantly small".
