# Do privately owned firearms make communities safer? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 31, 2007, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221 "2007-05-31T18:44:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/61 "2007-06-01T19:24:06Z")
[QUOTE=villa] But you haven’t provided a single piece of evidence that your argument is correct. You tried to compare places with high gun ownership and places with low gun ownership. That doesn’t prove anything. “Safety” is a result of multiple factors, and not least gun ownership might be high because people feel unsafe because of those other factors. If you can demonstrate that in a given society, as gun ownership increases, safety decreases, _ceteris paribus_, you might be making a valuable contribution. But you haven’t done that. Simply claiming there is no reasonable debate doesn’t make you right. [/QUOTE] How about the fact that guns are used to commit 2/3 of the murders in the US, according to one of the most openly [right wing](http://www.justfacts.com/issues.guncontrol.asp) political websites I’ve seen? Guns are used overwhelmingly to commit violent crime in the US. Arguing that gun ownership makes communities safer flies in the face of everything we know about crime. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/62 "2007-06-01T19:30:04Z")
[QUOTE=Huerta88] You may disagree with John Lott, but he brings statistics, he’s certainly well-credentialed, and I don’t think I’d call his thesis silly without having some counter-cites. [http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html](http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html) [/QUOTE] Lott says that higher incarceration rates reduce crime, too, but the USA has one of the [highest incarceration rates](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration#In_the_United_States) in the world (many magnitudes higher than any other Industrialized nation) and yet we still lead the industrialized world in homicides. We’re supposed to take that guy seriously? ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/63 "2007-06-01T19:31:47Z")
Do you understand what I am asking you? Heck, do you understand the concept of demonstrating causation? ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/64 "2007-06-01T19:43:59Z")
[QUOTE=villa] Do you understand what I am asking you? Heck, do you understand the concept of demonstrating causation? [/QUOTE] The only thing anyone can reasonably demonstrate in this argument is correlation. Gun advocates are making the claim, and therefore have the burden of proof for the statement “gun ownership makes communities safer”, NOT me for saying “no it doesn’t”. For what it’s worth, I don’t care about gun control at all. It’s not a political issue that I would even consider voting for a candidate on, but I can’t let the safer communities argument slide. Use a real argument for gun ownership, like individual liberty or constitutional precedent, ANYTHING but telling us, arguably the most violent-crime ridden modern nation, that “it makes communities safer”. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/65 "2007-06-01T19:51:51Z")
[QUOTE=Mosier] The only thing anyone can reasonably demonstrate in this argument is correlation. Gun advocates are making the claim, and therefore have the burden of proof for the statement “gun ownership makes communities safer”, NOT me for saying “no it doesn’t”. For what it’s worth, I don’t care about gun control at all. It’s not a political issue that I would even consider voting for a candidate on, but I can’t let the safer communities argument slide. Use a real argument for gun ownership, like individual liberty or constitutional precedent, ANYTHING but telling us, arguably the most violent-crime ridden modern nation, that “it makes communities safer”. [/QUOTE] Lott says that when CCW is introduced (leading to more legal guns on the street), violent crime falls. Are his numbers wrong? Or are you saying that the outcome is purely coincidental? ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/66 "2007-06-01T19:54:48Z")
[QUOTE=Mosier] The only thing anyone can reasonably demonstrate in this argument is correlation. Gun advocates are making the claim, and therefore have the burden of proof for the statement “gun ownership makes communities safer”, NOT me for saying “no it doesn’t” [/QUOTE] No, YOU made the claim, in post #57 above. Back it up. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/67 "2007-06-01T19:55:03Z")
Would you not say that evidence, as provided, that increased strictness of gun laws was not accompanied by a fall in violent crime might be an indication that there just might be a little problem with your theory? If the argument is that zero guns in a society make it safer, I could probably get on board with that. If the argument is that zero guns held legally by private citizens makes it safer, then I think that is probably bogus. However, I didn’t see people saying that there is absolute proof that guns make a society safer. I know I didn’t say that. I did however respond to arguments that a correlation between gun ownership by private individuals and high crime societies proves anything other than that there is a correlation between gun ownership by private individuals and high crime societies. And in particular the argument you make that there is no counter-argument to your viewpoint. (on preview, the post is a response to post #64) ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/68 "2007-06-01T19:57:01Z")
[QUOTE=Mosier] The only thing anyone can reasonably demonstrate in this argument is correlation. Gun advocates are making the claim, and therefore have the burden of proof for the statement “gun ownership makes communities safer”, NOT me for saying “no it doesn’t” [/QUOTE] No, YOU made the claim, in post #57 above. Huerta provided a cite arguing otherwise, which you have not rebutted. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/69 "2007-06-01T20:11:24Z")
[QUOTE=furt] No, YOU made the claim, in post #57 above. Huerta provided a cite arguing otherwise, which you have not rebutted. [/QUOTE] He appealed to authority, and I rebutted the legitimacy of that authority. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/70 "2007-06-01T20:14:18Z")
Again in a fashion which indicates you have no clue as to the intricacies of this. For you it is enough to say that the US has a high incarceration rate and the US has a high murder rate therefore incarceration rates do not reduce murder rates. That’s not legitimate analysis. What would the murder rate have been without the high incarceration rate? You may be right - it may not work like it is suggested. But your argument is fundamentally flawed because, as throughout this thread, you ignore rates of change. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/71 "2007-06-01T20:21:34Z")
[QUOTE=villa] If the argument is that zero guns in a society make it safer, I could probably get on board with that. If the argument is that zero guns held legally by private citizens makes it safer, then I think that is probably bogus. [/QUOTE] Would you deny that virtually all of the guns held legally and illegally in the United States were at some point manufactured, transported, or sold legally? Would you further deny that strict control over the manufacture, transport, and sale of guns in the US would prevent most (all) guns from reaching the citizenry, legally or illegally? That’s another non-argument. Gun control laws can (and have been proven to be) successful in preventing almost all illegal gun ownership in countries where the government is strong enough to enforce it. How many private citizens in England own pistols? How often are guns used in crime there? When was the last time a private citizen was shot in England? Keep in mind that I’m not arguing for gun control. I’m arguing only against the statements on page one that gun ownership makes communities safer, and the arguments here that gun control doesn’t take guns from criminals. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/72 "2007-06-01T20:26:09Z")
[QUOTE=Mosier] Would you deny that virtually all of the guns held legally and illegally in the United States were at some point manufactured, transported, or sold legally? [/QUOTE] No. [QUOTE=Mosier] Would you further deny that strict control over the manufacture, transport, and sale of guns in the US would prevent most (all) guns from reaching the citizenry, legally or illegally? [/QUOTE] Absolutely I would. There are so many guns in circulation that all strict controls now would do is ensure that the criminals have a monopoly on firepower in many neighborhoods. Just like DC. [QUOTE=Mosier] That’s another non-argument. Gun control laws can (and have been proven to be) successful in preventing almost all illegal gun ownership in countries where the government is strong enough to enforce it. How many private citizens in England own pistols? How often are guns used in crime there? When was the last time a private citizen was shot in England? [/QUOTE] How many guns were in circulation in the UK before the laws were made stricter? How many illegal guns did it remove from the streets? Do you have any evidence that (a) illegal use of guns has dropped in the UK (it would help to remove terrorist offenses from this I would think) or that (b) it is safer in the UK now? [QUOTE=Mosier] Keep in mind that I’m not arguing for gun control. I’m arguing only against the statements on page one that gun ownership makes communities safer, and the arguments here that gun control doesn’t take guns from criminals. [/QUOTE] Cite to those statements, please. You seem to have been making the only sweeping statements here. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/73 "2007-06-01T20:36:53Z")
[QUOTE=villa] Again in a fashion which indicates you have no clue as to the intricacies of this. For you it is enough to say that the US has a high incarceration rate and the US has a high murder rate therefore incarceration rates do not reduce murder rates. That’s not legitimate analysis. What would the murder rate have been without the high incarceration rate? You may be right - it may not work like it is suggested. But your argument is fundamentally flawed because, as throughout this thread, you ignore rates of change. [/QUOTE] I did not assert that high incarceration rates lead to high murders rates. I asserted that the authority quoted was not valid. Why am I being held to a different standard than anyone else here quoting statistical correlations? The legitimate analysis you’re looking for is that there is no definitive proof for either argument, and that statistics are all we have. On the side of the “guns make people safe” argument, we have rural communities with weak gun laws that show less murder than big cities with strong gun control laws. On my side, we have the fact that guns are used in 2/3 of the murders committed in America. Which of the two correlations seems stronger to you? I don’t need causal proof to insist that anyone claiming guns make communities safer is ignoring the bulk of available evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/74 "2007-06-01T20:43:35Z")
[QUOTE=Mosier] That’s another non-argument. Gun control laws can (and have been proven to be) successful in preventing almost all illegal gun ownership in countries where the government is strong enough to enforce it. How many private citizens in England own pistols? How often are guns used in crime there? When was the last time a private citizen was shot in England? [/QUOTE] > **[BBC News | UK | Handgun crime 'up' despite ban](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1440764.stm)** > > The criminal use of handguns has risen since they were outlawed in 1997, according to research. [http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article340224.ece](http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article340224.ece) So there’s still plenty of violent crime. By the way – while I mentioned Lott’s credentials, what I relied upon was not his authority as an expert, but the statistics he cites. Do you believe the statistics are (a) fake; or (b) irrelevant, because the trend he identifies: > [@](#): > > There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate—as more people obtain permits there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent, and robberies by over 2 percent. can be waved away as DEFINITELY LACKING any causality? ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/75 "2007-06-01T20:47:28Z")
[QUOTE=villa] Cite to those statements, please. You seem to have been making the only sweeping statements here. [/QUOTE] Yourself in post 15. You moved the argument from “are guns unsafe” to the more proper “do guns make communities safer?” Earlier, Bricker stated that there was enough evidence in his opinion to compel people to think communities with high gun ownership are safer. Afterwards, he said that there was room for debate on both sides of the statement, which is what I refute. There is no room for an assertion that guns make communities safer, because there is no causal evidence that high gun ownership leads to safer communities. The best anyone can logically claim in that regard is “maybe,” and even that stands against a monument of statistics correlating (NOT PROVING CAUSE! JESUS, LEAVE ME ALONE!) gun ownership to suicide, murder, and violent crime. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/76 "2007-06-01T20:54:01Z")
[QUOTE=Huerta88] > **[BBC News | UK | Handgun crime 'up' despite ban](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1440764.stm)** > > The criminal use of handguns has risen since they were outlawed in 1997, according to research. [http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article340224.ece](http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article340224.ece) So there’s still plenty of violent crime. By the way – while I mentioned Lott’s credentials, what I relied upon was not his authority as an expert, but the statistics he cites. Do you believe the statistics are (a) fake; or (b) irrelevant, because the trend he identifies: can be waved away as DEFINITELY LACKING any causality? [/QUOTE] Since when has enacting a required license/permit for something been considered anything other than strengthening control? I’d say Florida’s requirement to license and permit people carrying firearms was a large step toward “stronger” gun control rather than “weaker”. Florida enacts a required carrying permit to gun owners, and crime goes down. Do we have any idea how many more/fewer firearms were actually carried after the license requirements than before it? All I’m seeing here is a correlation between licensing gun ownership/carrying and reduced crime, not a correlation between increasing gun ownership and reducing crime. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/77 "2007-06-01T20:58:15Z")
[QUOTE=Mosier] Since when has enacting a required license/permit for something been considered anything other than strengthening control? I’d say Florida’s requirement to license and permit people carrying firearms was a large step toward “stronger” gun control rather than “weaker”. Florida enacts a required carrying permit to gun owners, and crime goes down. Do we have any idea how many more/fewer firearms were actually carried after the license requirements than before it? All I’m seeing here is a correlation between licensing gun ownership/carrying and reduced crime, not a correlation between increasing gun ownership and reducing crime. [/QUOTE] You do understand that in most jurisdictions, before CCW permits were available, concealed carrying was by default illegal? ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/78 "2007-06-01T21:05:24Z")
[QUOTE=Huerta88] You do understand that in most jurisdictions, before CCW permits were available, concealed carrying was by default illegal? [/QUOTE] Yes. Do you understand that a concealed weapon licensing program is “gun control”, and that there’s no reason to believe said licensing program increases the number of handguns owned in a community? ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/79 "2007-06-01T21:19:57Z")
[QUOTE=Mosier] Yes. Do you understand that a concealed weapon licensing program is “gun control”, and that there’s no reason to believe said licensing program increases the number of handguns owned in a community? [/QUOTE] No - before CCW licensing program - no concealed carry allowed. After CCW licensing program - concealed carry allowed. Hard to sell that as a tightening of gun laws, as you did when you said: [QUOTE=Mosier] I’d say Florida’s requirement to license and permit people carrying firearms was a large step toward “stronger” gun control rather than “weaker”. Florida enacts a required carrying permit to gun owners, and crime goes down. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2007, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221/80 "2007-06-01T22:34:51Z")
[QUOTE=What Exit?] As far as small arms being effective against modern militaries… Aren’t we in a stalemate with a bunch of separate factions in Iraq that are relying on small arms and homemade incendiaries and explosives? [/QUOTE] Yes – but, IIRC, there was widespread ownership of firearms **during** Hussein’s rule, but no revolt ever succeeded. Hussein also had a long-established well-organized government including a secret police intelligence network and with deep social roots, especially among the Sunni ruling class. A foreign occupying force in an utterly disordered society has a much harder row to hoe. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-privately-owned-firearms-make-communities-safer/406221.md?page=5)