[Azred]

Originally posted by Grojlach: quote: Originally posted by Azred: No, I think a sufficiently long period of time has elapsed to accurately measure the effect of bans or restrictions on guns. The net effect: bans/restrictions don't work, just like Prohibition didn't work and the War on Drugs didn't work.

That's a very bold statement that I would love to see you support with some evidence. While I agree with the Prohibition/War on Drugs example, and while I'm pretty sure a ban on guns in the US wouldn't work in a million years, I don't think you can hold that claim for other, less gun-fixated nations. In a similar fashion to taking cultural and social developments into account as I applied in my previous posts in this topic, I'm not going to claim that statistics are automatically conclusive; but if you look at for instance homicide rates, those are still significantly higher in the US than in Western Europe. I'm not going to make bold claims as to the effectiveness of gun restriction laws based on that figure, but I can't imagine you stating that it has no effect whatsoever in the face of this knowledge.

Also see
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb502.pdf [/QUOTE]I do not need to have "evidence" to back up my opinion. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

Bans on guns (or certain gun types) do nothing to deter crime rates because the criminals don't care about laws banning guns. Bans have an effect only on law-abiding citizens, who then wind up being defenseless in the face of gun-wielding criminals...or jack-booted governmental thugs. Decades of martial arts movies to the contrary, not even the most highly-trained artist would try to take on a punk with a pistol. In a face-to-face confrontation, the gun almost always wins.

Therefore, argue relative crime rates until you are blue in the face; I am a mathematician, so I know how statistics are meaningless because almost everyone misuses them. Argue about how allowing gun ownership makes a society violent, even though there have been plenty of "violent" societies that have existed without guns. Argue about how "my side" is better than "your side". Whatever. My opinion will remain the same: a fully-armed society in which anyone may own a gun (with a license) is a safer (or at least more polite) society. Why? Because some criminals won't pounce upon a person who just might be packing heat.