# More guns, more murders **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 23, 2006, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-guns-more-murders/365743 "2006-07-23T20:46:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-guns-more-murders/365743/121 "2006-07-31T00:49:31Z")
[QUOTE=Common Tater] It’s well established case law or precedent that no one is afforded police protection as such. Leaving the reams of statistical data and politics aside for a moment, let’s ask the rhetorical question of how one is practically supposed to protect themselves/family/property? [/QUOTE] Or defend themselves against a man armed with a piece of fruit? 😃 I’ll get my coat… ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-guns-more-murders/365743/122 "2006-07-31T01:36:25Z")
If you went anywhere else in the world and said that gun ownership by the general population didn’t increase the murder rate, people would look at you funny. It is true that in countries that have very restrictive gun laws, the criminals tend to carry around knives (and swords and hatchets and pipes and chains), there is still crime but the murder rate is much lower. It is also true that there tends to be less “innocent bystander” fatalities; robberies are replaced by extortion; crime is almost necessarily more organized; and cops don’t really worry about chasing down criminals (many of these places do not even allow beat cops to carry guns). Sure some criminals get their hands on guns from time to time but it is rare and it is dealt with pretty harshly. I keep hearing people talk about how we are disarming the law-abiding citizen. The way I see it, you either give everyone a gun and live in a wild west environment (people would probably be a lot more polite to each other on a day to day basis but do you really want to live in a country where everyone had a gun?) or you totally disarm the populace. I would be a lot more skeptical of disarming the general population if we need to violently overthrow the government from time to time but the American people just haven’t risen up in bloody revolution often enough in the last couple of centuries for me to think that it is a serious concern. Of course the question is how do you disarm 300 million people? [QUOTE=silenus] The only ones I have seen are overseas. They show, IIRC, that people just reach for knives instead. The data on places like DC are misleading, because they don’t reflect socio-economic factors. Otherwise, they would show that restricting guns leads to increased violence., which is foolishness. The guns come in from Virginia, etc. That is why “correlation does not equal causality.” There are just too many factors involved, and it is really hard to do research on people over the long-term. The costs are too high. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-guns-more-murders/365743/123 "2006-07-31T03:38:19Z")
Nobody answered the question yet… ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-guns-more-murders/365743/124 "2006-07-31T03:41:31Z")
[QUOTE=col\_10022] do you really want to live in a country where everyone had a gun?) [/QUOTE] Almost everybody does have a gun. Statistically per capita anyway. Estimates range as high as 250 million guns in America. Compare that to the 8200 firearm murders and the chances for any one gun to be used in a murder is so minute’ it almost non-existent. [QUOTE=col\_10022] how do you disarm 300 million people? [/QUOTE] Sounds like a great epitaph for someone who tried to confiscate firearms from otherwise law abiding citizens.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2006, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-guns-more-murders/365743/125 "2006-08-03T14:00:33Z")
[QUOTE=ITR champion] This grows out of the [fact](http://crookedtimber.org/2005/03/24/violent-societies/#more-3035) that the gun-friendly USA has, by an enormous margin, the highest murder rate among industrialized nations. Most of the others are far less gun-friendly. It also grows from the [fact](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...ad.php?t=182318) that I proved a couple years back: that gun-friendly areas of the USA (as determined by concealed-carry laws) have much higher murder rates than other areas. [/QUOTE] Sigh. > [@](#): > > Major crime fell dramatically in states which have legalized the carrying of concealed handguns, according to a comprehensive new study at the University of Chicago. > > For the first time, researchers analyzed crime statistics for all 3,054 counties in the United Sates between 1977 and 1992, according to one of the authors of the unpublished study, Professor John Lott. After adjusting for a general fall in crime rates, the study found that: > > In the 31 states that now have “concealed right to carry” laws, murders were down, on average, by 8.5 percent. > > Rapes were down 5 percent and serious assaults by 7 percent. > > In cities with populations of more than 250,000, murder rates dropped after the passage of such laws by an average of 13.5 percent. [http://www.ncpa.org/~ncpa/pi/crime/pdcrm/pdcrm20.htm](http://www.ncpa.org/~ncpa/pi/crime/pdcrm/pdcrm20.htm) > [@](#): > > Six years ago the state passed a measure making it easier for residents to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons. State Senator Virgil Goode’s bill required circuit court judges to issue such permits unless the appli- cant had been convicted of a felony, was a foreign national, or had been involuntarily committed. At the time, critics predicted blood would flow like a river. > > - “This bill will make our streets infinitely more dangerous. This bill will imperil our police officers. This bill is scary,” said Delegate Kenneth Melvin. > > - “This means the carnage we’ve seen over the past decade will continue,” predicted State Senator Henry Marsh. > > - The bill would put guns in the hands of “every nutcake in Virginia,” warned State Senator Richard Saslaw. > > - “You pass this bill and you’ll let a whole bunch of Rambos feel self-important and wander around back home with concealed weapons,” said State Senator Madison Marye. > > SO WHAT happened? Crime decreased. Violent offenses across the state fell to 316 per 100,000 residents in 1998 - the lowest rate in 10 years - from a peak of 380. In Richmond, the homicide rate declined 42 percent from 1995 (the year after the city set a new record for murder), to the lowest level in 20 years. Overall crime in the state declined 24 percent from 1991, to the lowest level since 1975. > **[Error](https://freerepublic.com/forum/a3ab8c70657d2.htm)** > [@](#): > > In 1987, when Florida enacted such legislation, critics warned that the “Sunshine State” would become the “Gunshine State.” Contrary to their predictions, homicide rates dropped faster than the national average. Further, through 1997, only one permit holder out of the over 350,000 permits issued, was convicted of homicide. (Source: Kleck, Gary Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, p 370. Walter de Gruyter, Inc., New York, 1997.) If the rest of the country behaved as Florida’s permit holders did, the U.S. would have the lowest homicide rate in the world. [http://www.guncite.com/gun\_control\_gcdgcon.html](http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgcon.html) The obvious solution: arm all adults with clean records. I don’t remember who said “An armed society is a polite society”, but there’s something to be considered there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-guns-more-murders/365743.md?page=6)