A partial quote from a doctor concerning sensible gun laws. The rest can be found here:
http://www.dsgl.org/Articles/Ackermann.htm
\"There is a huge wealth of reliable, peer reviewed, and supported primary research and review literature by well reputed members of the medical, criminological, legal, and sociological professions that clearly shows the complete failure of Draconian gun control laws such as Canada's, both historically and geographically as instruments of public safety or as means of reducing violent crime.
The recent Australian and British experiences with gun control shows that prohibiting or excessively controlling the lawful and harmless recreational and defensive uses of firearms by the ordinary citizen not only does nothing to reduce violent crime or suicide, but it in fact significantly increases the death toll due to criminal violence. These laws actually kill people. For example, in London, England, following the Dunblane gun ban firearms murders have risen by 90%. In Australia following the confiscation and destruction of some 665,000 legally owned firearms the murder rate went up over the entire country, with the worst increase seen in Victoria - a rise of 300 percent!
In every one of the USA's concealed carry states, the rates of all violence, and most especially firearms violence, dropped significantly following the institution of 'shall issue' laws that permit ordinary law-abiding citizens to become trained and then engage in defensive concealed carry of firearms. It may sound radical, but those are the facts, readily verified by anyone who chooses to do a bit of literature review.
The reasons for these phenomena are complex, but part of it is that only the law-abiding will obey firearms laws, now matter how strict. In fact the more severe the law, the more law-abiding those who obey it. The Responsible Firearms Community are not the ones committing violent crimes in the first place, and so wasting vast sums of money interfering with their harmless pastimes simply squanders scarce resources that could be better used to fight real criminals.
As mentioned above, in 1994 the US Department of Justice released a
report on urban delinquency that looked into the issue of gun ownership by inner city youth. It turns out that when these youth are given proper firearms safety and handling training and are encouraged to practice with lawfully acquired firearms under the guidance of adult coaches, their involvement with violent crime is zero. Not just a lower percentage, but ZERO. It would appear that exposure to appropriate firearms training, as opposed to the media's and the gangs' violent versions of 'gun culture' when coupled with the attention of adult mentors is highly protective against involvement in violence.
There you have it: Draconian gun laws increase both violence and firearm death tolls while appropriate laws that respect the right of ordinary citizens to learn about and use firearms safely reduces both violence and firearm death.
Despite this, the Canadian Safety Council (CFC), via its mouthpiece Mr. Emile Therien, clings obsessively to the idea that if we can just punish the law abiding enough we can reduce the criminal's use of firearms. In addition most medical organizations across the country have jumped on the 'Costs-Only Analysis' band wagon without even the pretense of taking an evidence based approach.
They use misleading and partial statistics and inflammatory emotional rhetoric to make their case, all the while ignoring the facts. For example as mentioned 100 times as many American people of all ages and 500 times as many children below 4 years of age die of drowning in backyard pools as die by gunfire. The Canadian figures are similar.
Should we then launch a campaign to register and then ban backyard pools and water itself? Or would a better approach not be to teach homeowners how to safely install pools and children how to safely swim?
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I was just responding to the article. I know you care.
