As Concealed-Carry Permits Rise, Crime Rates in Chicago Plummet

[3Dprinter]

I don't know if CC effects the crime rates or not, but I know that one feels safer knowing that it isn't only bad guys who are armed. I don't personally carry a weapon, but I am in support of concealed carry (not open carry though)

I honestly value a robber's life less than an innocent person just going about their business(if it has to be one or the other, that is). I know that sounds crazy, but I would still support the law if the overall gun related deaths stayed the same, but less of them were victims and more were criminals who "picked the wrong guy"

Call me whatever you want, but that's how I feel about it.

[joes33431]

[QUOTE=3Dprinter;45813624]I don't know if CC effects the crime rates or not, but I know that one feels safer knowing that it isn't only bad guys who are armed. I don't personally carry a weapon, but I am in support of concealed carry (not open carry though)

I honestly value a robber's life less than an innocent person just going about their business(if it has to be one or the other, that is). I know that sounds crazy, but I would still support the law if the overall gun related deaths stayed the same, but less of them were victims and more were criminals who "picked the wrong guy"

Call me whatever you want, but that's how I feel about it.[/QUOTE]

how is it justified to murder someone over your TV or your wallet or some money in a register?

that seems really, really over the line.

[3Dprinter]

[QUOTE=joes33431;45813876]how is it justified to murder someone over your TV or your wallet or some money in a register?

that seems really, really over the line.[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't call someone walking up behind a robber and putting one in the back of his head justified, I meant when your life is in danger and you truly believe it's you or him.

Just because you hand over the money doesn't mean he isn't going to kill you. If I have a gun pointed at me I will assume the pointer aims to kill me.

[Blue Meanie]

Crime rates go up and down, they are just using this as an excuse to put in more gun laws.
Criminals generally use untraceable guns with the serial number scraped off, so this would have almost no effect.
Sorry if you disagree, but you need to look at the big picture, and the fact is, the US imports lots of illegal guns, it is all propaganda.
I've seen bullshit like this since like 2007, and they have always used "crime rate" as a gyp to get more people to agree with these bills.
Armed crime rate is lower in Europe because they have better security measures regarding the import of black market arms, it has nothing to do with the "legal gun laws".

[Riller]

[QUOTE=Blue Meanie;45833402]These reporters are blind, crime rates go up and down, they are just using this as an excuse to put in more gun laws.
Criminals generally use untraceable guns with the serial number scraped off, so this would have almost no effect.
Sorry if you disagree, but you need to look at the big picture, and the fact is, the US imports lots of illegal guns, it is all propaganda.
I've seen bullshit like this since like 2007, and they have always used "crime rate" as a gyp to get more people to agree with these bills.
Armed crime rate is lower in Europe because they have better security measures regarding the import of black market arms, it has nothing to do with the "legal gun laws".[/QUOTE]

But-... This article is [I]pro[/I]-gun.

[Blue Meanie]

[QUOTE=Riller;45833479]But-... This article is [I]pro[/I]-gun.[/QUOTE]
Fixed.

I just read it, and everything in my previous post still stands except for the bit in the very beginning.

[confinedUser]

[QUOTE=Riller;45833479]But-... This article is [I]pro[/I]-gun.[/QUOTE]

doesn't matter the fact still remains that even if we did get rid of guns, guess what now criminals fucking have control over shit you just effectively fucked the regular law abiding citizen because "OMG guns cause crimes"! and either the government is going to have to fix that shit or completely ignoring the fact. All i want is the views from those that don't understand how things run here to stop, it's so god damn annoying. To be real here what needs to be done is try to pinpoint what is causing so much crime which isn't really hard to find the reason but what can be done when our congress is shit and just sits on their asses all day and do jack shit.

[s0beit]

[QUOTE=Blue Meanie;45833402]Crime rates go up and down, they are just using this as an excuse to put in more gun laws.
Criminals generally use untraceable guns with the serial number scraped off, so this would have almost no effect.
Sorry if you disagree, but you need to look at the big picture, and the fact is, the US imports lots of illegal guns, it is all propaganda.
I've seen bullshit like this since like 2007, and they have always used "crime rate" as a gyp to get more people to agree with these bills.
Armed crime rate is lower in Europe because they have better security measures regarding the import of black market arms, it has nothing to do with the "legal gun laws".[/QUOTE]

I don't think the US imports a ton of illegal weaponry.
I am more "pro-gun" than most people on FP I'd imagine. I would like for there to be access to types of arms that are currently tightly controlled.

However, in the interest of sincerity I can't sit idly by while somebody claims guns that criminals use in the US do not come from the US. It's clear that they do.
I am willing to admit straw purchasing is an issue, and if it weren't for the transparent efforts of anti-gun groups I'd even say background checking at private sales isn't such a bad plan (although, I feel in the end they probably will do about as much good as background checking on point of sale, gun shops I mean. They've proven disastrously ineffective at preventing access since people will just violate the laws which prevent straw purchasing or transfers to prohibited persons)

Point is: What most people don't get in the gun control debate is that criminals simply utilize the path of least resistance to get what they want. If police weren't in the business of raiding farm lands in the US which grow marijuana, coca, etc. they'd grow it here. They do, so criminals can't really do that (I mean they do, but they get caught a lot) but that doesn't mean they will simply stop. Criminals... it is their day job to circumvent access control.

I mean think of it as a form of DRM for things that exist in real life, or think of the efforts to prevent access of firearms to criminals like the war on drugs. It just doesn't make a lot of sense, when you consider that people will utilize whatever means to achieve their end. Yeah they're using sales from gun shops now, and sometimes even private sales (though all the sources I've seen have put guns recovered from crime scenes, purchased from private sales way below gun shops) but it doesn't mean that removing those two options will just make the issue go away.

Europe doesn't have better security measures regarding the [i]import[/i] of black market arms. Frankly, if criminals from the US flew over to the EU and decided to setup the system we have over here, over there, I think they'd have a fucking ball.
Easy travel between nations, some places with strict control and others without, easy to flee to other countries that perhaps aren't looking for the people who broke laws in other jurisdictions in the EU, or perhaps nations that aren't even in the EU at all.

You could get stuff from Russia, Africa, middle eastern countries, China or just buy firearms legally in places where it's allowed, amass a collection, sell them all to a third party and skip town just like that. (CZ comes to mind)
Why [i]aren't[/i] people doing stuff like that? Everyone has their pet theories, but I think we can agree that the types of criminals that exist in the US and in Latin America simply do not exist for the most part in the EU.

That leads to a demand problem for the would-be gun trafficker.

People always try to pin gun violence on the supply of firearms and not the demand for them for nefarious purposes, and I think that's a huge, huge mistake. It is clearly a demand problem.
There is a lot of consumers of firearms in the US that "demand" firearms which they will then use in crimes. The amount of people who demand this service far exceed the amount in most EU countries. That's really all there is to it.
Where the market exists, legal or not, with sufficient demand somebody will exploit that to their own ends.

For example, let's say the UK were to spontaneously copy every gun policy that exists in the US tomorrow. Would they have the murder rate of the US? I sincerely doubt it.
Just looking at crime statistics for everything but murder we can discern that people in the UK seem far less likely to commit a wide array of crimes.

However, let's say the UK imports entire subsections of urban environments and all of the citizens that inhabit them from the US, let's just put them all in London for whatever reason.
Do I think the crime rate would rise? Oh hell yes. That would be disastrous.

Do I think they'd have gun problems in this scenario where they wouldn't have had them in the other? Yup. I think these people would demand firearms and they'd certainly get them one way or another.

I mean people in the US smuggle hard drugs into prison, fashion weapons, sometimes even smuggle guns [i]into prison[/i] (it's happened a couple times before).
How can you hope to protect thousands of miles of border from aspiring criminal enterprises this being the case?

I mean I'm no mastermind, but I'm sure there's at least a few ways to air drop weapons or drop weapons into the ocean for people to pick up or somehow conceal gun parts during transport into the EU from other places.
There is no ironclad security preventing criminals from owning guns in the EU, it just doesn't exist. If that were true, you guys would have trouble taking drugs too. Doesn't seem to be that much of an issue to obtain drugs in the UK or Aus.
Where is your ironclad unstoppable security there?

I can only conclude that criminals in the US simply desire to kill much more than their counterparts in the EU.

[Venezuelan]

Yeah the US isn't a gun importer, we're an exporter. Where do you think cartels get their guns? Red white and blue baby.

I personally don't believe gun control has any affect on the crime rate, positive or negative. Decades of unreliable and contradictory data and neither side is willing to admit it's a little more complicated.

[confinedUser]

[QUOTE=Venezuelan;45834815]Yeah the US isn't a gun importer, we're an exporter. Where do you think cartels get their guns? Red white and blue baby.

I personally don't believe gun control has any affect on the crime rate, positive or negative. Decades of unreliable and contradictory data and neither side is willing to admit it's a little more complicated.[/QUOTE]
this is off topic but thats a really cool looking flag you have there.

on topic, i don't mind concealed carry if anything i feel it would make someone think twice before open firing on someone for no reason.

[Blue Meanie]

[QUOTE=s0beit;45834559]I don't think the US imports a ton of illegal weaponry.
I am more "pro-gun" than most people on FP I'd imagine. I would like for there to be access to types of arms that are currently tightly controlled.

However, in the interest of sincerity I can't sit idly by while somebody claims guns that criminals use in the US do not come from the US. It's clear that they do.
I am willing to admit straw purchasing is an issue, and if it weren't for the transparent efforts of anti-gun groups I'd even say background checking at private sales isn't such a bad plan (although, I feel in the end they probably will do about as much good as background checking on point of sale, gun shops I mean. They've proven disastrously ineffective at preventing access since people will just violate the laws which prevent straw purchasing or transfers to prohibited persons)

Point is: What most people don't get in the gun control debate is that criminals simply utilize the path of least resistance to get what they want. If police weren't in the business of raiding farm lands in the US which grow marijuana, coca, etc. they'd grow it here. They do, so criminals can't really do that (I mean they do, but they get caught a lot) but that doesn't mean they will simply stop. Criminals... it is their day job to circumvent access control.

I mean think of it as a form of DRM for things that exist in real life, or think of the efforts to prevent access of firearms to criminals like the war on drugs. It just doesn't make a lot of sense, when you consider that people will utilize whatever means to achieve their end. Yeah they're using sales from gun shops now, and sometimes even private sales (though all the sources I've seen have put guns recovered from crime scenes, purchased from private sales way below gun shops) but it doesn't mean that removing those two options will just make the issue go away.

Europe doesn't have better security measures regarding the [i]import[/i] of black market arms. Frankly, if criminals from the US flew over to the EU and decided to setup the system we have over here, over there, I think they'd have a fucking ball.
Easy travel between nations, some places with strict control and others without, easy to flee to other countries that perhaps aren't looking for the people who broke laws in other jurisdictions in the EU, or perhaps nations that aren't even in the EU at all.

You could get stuff from Russia, Africa, middle eastern countries, China or just buy firearms legally in places where it's allowed, amass a collection, sell them all to a third party and skip town just like that. (CZ comes to mind)
Why [i]aren't[/i] people doing stuff like that? Everyone has their pet theories, but I think we can agree that the types of criminals that exist in the US and in Latin America simply do not exist for the most part in the EU.

That leads to a demand problem for the would-be gun trafficker.

People always try to pin gun violence on the supply of firearms and not the demand for them for nefarious purposes, and I think that's a huge, huge mistake. It is clearly a demand problem.
There is a lot of consumers of firearms in the US that "demand" firearms which they will then use in crimes. The amount of people who demand this service far exceed the amount in most EU countries. That's really all there is to it.
Where the market exists, legal or not, with sufficient demand somebody will exploit that to their own ends.

For example, let's say the UK were to spontaneously copy every gun policy that exists in the US tomorrow. Would they have the murder rate of the US? I sincerely doubt it.
Just looking at crime statistics for everything but murder we can discern that people in the UK seem far less likely to commit a wide array of crimes.

However, let's say the UK imports entire subsections of urban environments and all of the citizens that inhabit them from the US, let's just put them all in London for whatever reason.
Do I think the crime rate would rise? Oh hell yes. That would be disastrous.

Do I think they'd have gun problems in this scenario where they wouldn't have had them in the other? Yup. I think these people would demand firearms and they'd certainly get them one way or another.

I mean people in the US smuggle hard drugs into prison, fashion weapons, sometimes even smuggle guns [i]into prison[/i] (it's happened a couple times before).
How can you hope to protect thousands of miles of border from aspiring criminal enterprises this being the case?

I mean I'm no mastermind, but I'm sure there's at least a few ways to air drop weapons or drop weapons into the ocean for people to pick up or somehow conceal gun parts during transport into the EU from other places.
There is no ironclad security preventing criminals from owning guns in the EU, it just doesn't exist. If that were true, you guys would have trouble taking drugs too. Doesn't seem to be that much of an issue to obtain drugs in the UK or Aus.
Where is your ironclad unstoppable security there?

I can only conclude that criminals in the US simply desire to kill much more than their counterparts in the EU.[/QUOTE]

Look man, on the matter of the UK, I can partially agree with you, although I can't agree that US citizens would want to "kill more". The fact simply is, the UK is a smaller country with less options of illegal import, which in turn leads arms dealers to simply deal with other countries.

On the matter of black market arms in the US, it is a very real business here, and it has nothing to do with the government, if they knew about every operation then they would have them down.
I think that you should look into some of the recent police cases in major cities such as detroit, and other cities with a very low crime-clearance rate.
There are reports every day of obvious black market arms being discovered, and a lot are in huge stockpiles, mostly machine guns with no serial number nor a trace of one ever existing. How would a gangster with a possible criminal record purchase an FFA class automatic weapon anyways? I suppose they could buy a stolen one, but it would be a hell of a lot more expensive.

It is true that many arms used in crime are stolen, and do have the serial number filed off, but that doesn't account for the stockpiles of automatic weapons they have found in shitty cities all over the country.

To simply put it, many gangs haven't even changed since the mid-70s,
and they are still having illegal arms shipped into the US to this very day.

I can't say I know everything, and illegal arms importation in the US isn't as common as it once was,
but I do know for a fact that FFA class arms produced in other countries are still being shipped into the US, and they are in very big quantities.

The stolen guns also don't account for the handguns with no trace of a serial number which have been found in many crime scenes, usually with lots of dead victims, probably implying it has to do with something gang related.
That also leads me to believe that FFA class weapons are not sold to the general public, and mostly imported for gangs who have them specially imported.

I have one more thing to add, even with all black market operations shut down, there are trades for stealing FFA class weapons, and it's a very big trade.
To put it simply, gun control will never work, because no matter how many bills they pass, there will always be weapons readily available to illegally buy in the US.

If you really wanted to buy an unregistered uzi in the UK, you could do it, all you need are the right connections.

Here in the US, all it would take to get a dangerous military grade weapon would be a trip to Mexico. Those dogs can't detect automatic firearms, can they?

Personal import in the US is the biggest type of them all, since our country is right next to a third world country with many dealers. Stock import is harder, but they have their ways.
I really hope you took your time to read through this since I read through yours.

[s0beit]

[QUOTE=Blue Meanie;45836692]Look man, on the matter of the UK, I can partially agree with you, although I can't agree that US citizens would want to "kill more". The fact simply is, the UK is a smaller country with less options of illegal import, which in turn leads arms dealers to simply deal with other countries.[/quote]

If anything, if the demand was there the UK would look more lucrative.
Restricted supply = premium prices. It is basic economics.

Forget importation, look at the machine gun problem in Aus right now. It's not a [i]huge[/i] problem, but people have been making Luty SMGs and selling them to bikies for decades now with no end in sight.

Why is this a problem in Aus but less of a problem in the UK? I would argue the criminal element is more pervasive and entrenched in Aus compared to the UK.

So either way I have to disagree that importation controls have [i]anything[/i] to do with the UK's low rate of firearms ownership or usage by criminals. Criminals there just seem to not have that much to shoot people to death about, or crime as a means of livelihood looks less attractive to them than it does in the US.

Could be education, economic status, whatever. The point is, this is the main issue.
If you can freely obtain drugs in the UK, which you can - I know people, by the same mechanisms you can freely obtain firearms.

Either they are created in underground factories (grow ops/labs/whatever vs underground gunsmith) or they can be smuggled in from countries where it is easier to create those things.

[QUOTE=Blue Meanie;45836692]On the matter of black market arms in the US, it is a very real business here, and it has nothing to do with the government, if they knew about every operation then they would have them down.[/quote]

I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here. It is impossible to know about "every operation", criminals will buy guns legally and resell them illegally until they can't (ban on firearms), when that time comes if the demand is still there they'll import them.

Route of least resistance.

[QUOTE=Blue Meanie;45836692]I think that you should look into some of the recent police cases in major cities such as detroit, and other cities with a very low crime-clearance rate.
There are reports every day of obvious black market arms being discovered, and a lot are in huge stockpiles, mostly machine guns with no serial number nor a trace of one ever existing. How would a gangster with a possible criminal record purchase an FFA class automatic weapon anyways? I suppose they could buy a stolen one, but it would be a hell of a lot more expensive.

It is true that many arms used in crime are stolen, and do have the serial number filed off, but that doesn't account for the stockpiles of automatic weapons they have found in shitty cities all over the country.[/quote]

Even if that's true, they don't make up the majority and they certainly don't make up the majority of firearms used in crimes. Pistols are the primary choice.

[QUOTE=Blue Meanie;45836692]To simply put it, many gangs haven't even changed since the mid-70s,
and they are still having illegal arms shipped into the US to this very day.

I can't say I know everything, and illegal arms importation in the US isn't as common as it once was,
but I do know for a fact that FFA class arms produced in other countries are still being shipped into the US, and they are in very big quantities.[/quote]

You can't say it isn't as common as it once was. Illegally importing arms wasn't even really necessary for a long time, machine guns could be bought and sold nearly as cheaply as any other firearm (but for the tax stamp) until 1986. It wouldn't shock me if the straw purchasing dilemma existed back then.

Of course I'm sure they imported a bunch of weapons with the cocaine they were smuggling, because why not? Still, that doesn't mean that local sources couldn't have contributed.

[QUOTE=Blue Meanie;45836692]The stolen guns also don't account for the handguns with no trace of a serial number which have been found in many crime scenes, usually with lots of dead victims, probably implying it has to do with something gang related.
That also leads me to believe that FFA class weapons are not sold to the general public, and mostly imported for gangs who have them specially imported.

I have one more thing to add, even with all black market operations shut down, there are trades for stealing FFA class weapons, and it's a very big trade.[/quote]

Many guns aren't reported as stolen, and serial numbers can be destroyed with the right tools. If you mean they were created with no serial number, there is a number of ways to do that without importing them from other places.

Building the regulated part yourself for example.

In any case I'd like to see a source that says this is an epidemic.

[QUOTE=Blue Meanie;45836692]To put it simply, gun control will never work, because no matter how many bills they pass, there will always be weapons readily available to illegally buy in the US.[/quote]

Sure. I agree there. Even if no nation on earth sold firearms to your average criminal one way or another, people can still make firearms. It isn't even very difficult.

[QUOTE=Blue Meanie;45836692]If you really wanted to buy an unregistered uzi in the UK, you could do it, all you need are the right connections.

Here in the US, all it would take to get a dangerous military grade weapon would be a trip to Mexico. Those dogs can't detect automatic firearms, can they?

Personal import in the US is the biggest type of them all, since our country is right next to a third world country with many dealers. Stock import is harder, but they have their ways.
I really hope you took your time to read through this since I read through yours.[/QUOTE]

Do you have any sources for this? Because importation at least my in city is the vast minority of guns recovered.

[Flameon]

Ya'll are probably gonna call me an idiot, but thats because you don't actually LIVE in Chicago

Know why crime was so low? Because winter was long and fucking freezing last year. When its cold outside, criminals don't come out as often. To quote Chance the Rapper, "everybody dies in the summer."

I'm not saying CC can't produce positive results for reducing crime, but you are gonna need to wait a bit longer, and have a larger sample size before you make that conclusion.

I'm fine with Chicago being an experiment ground though! You gotta give it another year.

[Pantz Master]

The drop in crime is because cops have literally become special forces quality when it comes to gangs.

[joes33431]

[QUOTE=3Dprinter;45833299]I wouldn't call someone walking up behind a robber and putting one in the back of his head justified, I meant when your life is in danger and you truly believe it's you or him.[/quote]

the only time that it becomes "you or him" is when you pull a weapon on him, because then [I]he[/I] thinks that [I]you're[/I] going to hurt [I]him[/I] and thus that he needs to [I]defend[/I] himself against you.

[QUOTE=3Dprinter;45833299]Just because you hand over the money doesn't mean he isn't going to kill you. If I have a gun pointed at me I will assume the pointer aims to kill me.[/QUOTE]

why would you assume something like that

he doesn't want to kill you, he wants your money, that's the entire reason that he's robbing you.

[QUOTE=Venezuelan;45834815]Yeah the US isn't a gun importer, we're an exporter. Where do you think cartels get their guns? Red white and blue baby.

I personally don't believe gun control has any affect on the crime rate, positive or negative. Decades of unreliable and contradictory data and neither side is willing to admit it's a little more complicated.[/QUOTE]

the data is unreliable mostly because the NRA [URL="http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.aspx"]blocks funding towards research[/URL] on the subject.

unlike drugs, which can be made in the middle of nowhere with some commonly-available materials, guns need industrial manufacturing. you can't just grow guns from the ground like you can grow cannabis, poppy, or coca. whatever black market that might exist for firearms isn't going to last forever, because there will only be so many guns to sell.

[St. Burke]

[QUOTE=Psychokitten;45799412]The thing I like about the whole "gun-free zone" rule is that in most cases it's basically unenforceable. [/QUOTE]

well how does australia do it?

and im not asking in a snarky sort of way, im actually uninformed on their policies and would like to know.

[AlexConnor]

[QUOTE=s0beit;45834559]I mean I'm no mastermind, but I'm sure there's at least a few ways to air drop weapons or drop weapons into the ocean for people to pick up or somehow conceal gun parts during transport into the EU from other places.
There is no ironclad security preventing criminals from owning guns in the EU, it just doesn't exist. If that were true, you guys would have trouble taking drugs too. Doesn't seem to be that much of an issue to obtain drugs in the UK or Aus.
Where is your ironclad unstoppable security there?

I can only conclude that criminals in the US simply desire to kill much more than their counterparts in the EU.[/QUOTE]
It is certainly possible to obtain guns illegally in the UK, but gun crime (beyond the occasional murder with a hunting weapon) is only found in certain cities such as London and Glasgow. Such guns will mostly be imported from european countries with less strict gun control.

Most gangs/muggers etc will only have knifes or similar weapons, I'm assuming the thinking is that they are simply very unlikely to run into anyone carrying a gun (or even a knife outside of other gang members).

Where in the US there are simply so many guns around that both criminals and civilians have a reasonable-to-high chance of being armed, in turn making carrying a gun something of a necessity. And those guns aren't exactly going to vanish just because the law changes.

[joes33431]

i should probably disclaim that although i've been making some anti-gun arguments in the thread, gun control is generally one of those topics that i can't bring myself to have an opinion on, expressly because there's so little data on causal relationships between violent crime and guns, and so forth

[QUOTE=AlexConnor;45838966]Where in the US there are simply so many guns around that both criminals and civilians have a reasonable-to-high chance of being armed, in turn making carrying a gun something of a necessity. And those guns aren't exactly going to vanish just because the law changes.[/QUOTE]

most gun-control advocates don't expect guns to magically vanish from the law

rather they aim for scaledowns in production until they are gradually phased out

of course guns are still going to exist, but if most legal gun owners are honest and decent people capable of defending their own property, then there shouldn't be a reason to worry about the risks associated with grandfathered weapons.

[AlexConnor]

[QUOTE=joes33431;45839040]of course guns are still going to exist, but if most legal gun owners are honest and decent people capable of defending their own property, then there shouldn't be a reason to worry about the risks associated with grandfathered weapons.[/QUOTE]
Something of the problem can be illustrated here...

It is almost impossible to legally own a gun in NYC. Yet there are around 350 murders a year, with approx 2/3rds by shooting.

Guns last, there are 100+ year old Colt 1911s that mostly as effective as any handgun produced today, and there are millions of rounds of untraceable ammunition...

There is simply no effective way to get rid of the existing weapons, only the most law-abiding would turn them in and its not these people you need to worry about owning a gun.

[Bredirish123]

[QUOTE=confinedUser;45834045]doesn't matter the fact still remains that even if we did get rid of guns, guess what now criminals fucking have control over shit you just effectively fucked the regular law abiding citizen because "OMG guns cause crimes"! and either the government is going to have to fix that shit or completely ignoring the fact. All i want is the views from those that don't understand how things run here to stop, it's so god damn annoying. To be real here what needs to be done is try to pinpoint what is causing so much crime which isn't really hard to find the reason but what can be done when our congress is shit and just sits on their asses all day and do jack shit.[/QUOTE]

I hate that non-Americans automatically assume that us Americans in support of law abiding citizens carrying guns are redneck mouthbreathers that want any reason to swing a .357 around. That's definitely not the case at all.

I think you honestly need to live here to understand we're not an inherently dangerous or violent country. In fact, the places that are prone to such violence are like anywhere else in the world--they're areas of high poverty and high unemployment. It's not even that one ethnicity is more prone to violence over another. You just simply see places in which there is a high ethnic minority with high poverty tend to have higher violent crime.

East LA tends to have a lot of violent crimes among Latinos; where cities like Chicago and Detroit have a high rate of violent crime among African Americans.

People need to hop off the "GET RID OF GUNS" bandwagon and instead look toward how we are alienating minorities and what needs to be done to reduce poverty and unemployment in these areas.

[editline]29th August 2014[/editline]

[QUOTE=joes33431;45813876]how is it justified to murder someone over your TV or your wallet or some money in a register?

that seems really, really over the line.[/QUOTE]

It's not murder when someone has shoved a gun in your face and is demanding money. A lot of the time robberies go bad and result in the victim being murdered anyways. What I don't get is why are you taking the focus off of the asshole that is committing a crime that will most likely end violently?

You're more than welcome to lay down and take it if that's your prerogative; however, in the moment the last thing I'm going to think is, "This guy who has a gun in my face has probably fallen on hard times, maybe he needs the money for his family; or maybe he needs to get help; I shoul---"*BANG BANG Dead*

If someone points a gun in your direction it's safe to assume their intention is that they intend to kill you. That's what guns do, that is their primary task. Assuming they are just using it to scare you is going to get yourself murdered. I'd rather be reading their obituary than my family reading mine.

[dai]

[QUOTE=Flameon;45837507]Ya'll are probably gonna call me an idiot, but thats because you don't actually LIVE in Chicago

Know why crime was so low? Because winter was long and fucking freezing last year. When its cold outside, criminals don't come out as often. To quote Chance the Rapper, "everybody dies in the summer."

I'm not saying CC can't produce positive results for reducing crime, but you are gonna need to wait a bit longer, and have a larger sample size before you make that conclusion.

I'm fine with Chicago being an experiment ground though! You gotta give it another year.[/QUOTE]

it was a long and bitter winter, but I don't think [i]a 56 year low[/i] of homicide is exactly something to scoff at. I'd agree you need a longer sample but it's an interesting quip, we all know how much people love to jump at statistics to back up their side of heated arguments

how was winter down in san antonio by the by

[joes33431]

[QUOTE=Bredirish123;45839727]It's not murder when someone has shoved a gun in your face and is demanding money. A lot of the time robberies go bad and result in the victim being murdered anyways. What I don't get is why are you taking the focus off of the asshole that is committing a crime that will most likely end violently?

You're more than welcome to lay down and take it if that's your prerogative; however, in the moment the last thing I'm going to think is, "This guy who has a gun in my face has probably fallen on hard times, maybe he needs the money for his family; or maybe he needs to get help; I shoul---"*BANG BANG Dead*

If someone points a gun in your direction it's safe to assume their intention is that they intend to kill you. That's what guns do, that is their primary task. Assuming they are just using it to scare you is going to get yourself murdered. I'd rather be reading their obituary than my family reading mine.[/QUOTE]

what reason do you have to believe they're trying to kill you if they're trying to take your wallet

if they were trying to kill you, they'd just kill you when you try to whip out your piece anyways

they want your money. that's all they want.

you do realize that the majority of homicides are between people that know each other, right?

people don't just kill each other for no reason.

[s0beit]

[QUOTE=AlexConnor;45838966]It is certainly possible to obtain guns illegally in the UK, but gun crime (beyond the occasional murder with a hunting weapon) is only found in certain cities such as London and Glasgow. Such guns will mostly be imported from european countries with less strict gun control.

Most gangs/muggers etc will only have knifes or similar weapons, I'm assuming the thinking is that they are simply very unlikely to run into anyone carrying a gun (or even a knife outside of other gang members).

Where in the US there are simply so many guns around that both criminals and civilians have a reasonable-to-high chance of being armed, in turn making carrying a gun something of a necessity. And those guns aren't exactly going to vanish just because the law changes.[/QUOTE]

And here people don't care if you aren't armed. Gangsters here kill people who are unarmed on purpose, they kill people they've only just met moments ago, they kill people who throw up hand signs. They want to kill.

Yes it's true there's probably a lot of them who use guns to defend themselves from aggressors, but more often than not it's used for intimidation and murders of malice.

[QUOTE=joes33431;45838310]guns need industrial manufacturing. you can't just grow guns from the ground like you can grow cannabis, poppy, or coca. whatever black market that might exist for firearms isn't going to last forever, because there will only be so many guns to sell.[/QUOTE]

That is [b]completely[/b] false. Full-stop. At least do some research.

[editline]29th August 2014[/editline]

[QUOTE=joes33431;45839943]what reason do you have to believe they're trying to kill you if they're trying to take your wallet

if they were trying to kill you, they'd just kill you when you try to whip out your piece anyways

they want your money. that's all they want.

you do realize that the majority of homicides are between people that know each other, right?

people don't just kill each other for no reason.[/QUOTE]

I've had to address this stupid fucking point more times than I can count.
When you whip out a gun on somebody, you have forfeited your status as a neutral party in my life.

"they want your money. that's all they want." - except when you, a stranger, is pointing a gun on my head, there's no possible way for me to discern your true intentions.

You could be reluctantly using a gun to fund your child's daycare, not wishing to harm anyone, or you could be a fucking sick murderer who feels like fucking with people before shooting them in the face.

People have been shot and killed during armed robberies before, [b]a lot[/b]. Many of them following your advice.
Don't expect me to sympathize with the person who has a gun in my face, identify with his struggle and completely succumb to his mercy.

Whether you live or die, in the scenario you are proposing people accept is completely in the hands of the man who has the gun. He has already demonstrated that he does not deserve your trust, or you wouldn't have a [i]gun[/i] in your [i]face[/i].
You want me to trust that person with my life. Why?

[TornadoAP]

[QUOTE=Venezuelan;45805665]Saw a pickup truck with a bumper sticker that was an ad for his concealed carry training right next to a bumper sticker that said "WARNING: ARMED AND EASILY PISSED". Very polite.[/QUOTE]

That just proves my point.

[QUOTE=darunner;45806069]
Clearly that is why the streets run literally red with blood in the US. Because differences of opinion lead to mass murder.[/QUOTE]

Did I say anything about the US? Did I say anything about mass murder? All I said was that the more you arm people the more temper and feelings of control even if there is none that people have. It's been proven before, and if you force more people to be armed then it will happen again.

You know to be honest, I'd actually be fine with people being able to have guns, if they had to go through for example training to do it. I just feel like guns are too easy to get. It's currently easier to get a gun than it is to get a drivers license, which seems a bit odd considering that you can kill more people with a gun than a car.

Once again I'm not trying to limit your rights to own one, I just feel it would be better if it was harder to get one, because it separates those who actually want to own one from those who would be irresponsible with one.

[NoDachiUK]

[QUOTE=dai;45839828]it was a long and bitter winter, but I don't think [i]a 56 year low[/i] of homicide is exactly something to scoff at. I'd agree you need a longer sample but it's an interesting quip, we all know how much people love to jump at statistics to back up their side of heated arguments

how was winter down in san antonio by the by[/QUOTE]

Isn't it a 50 year low for most of the western world currently?

[Flameon]

[QUOTE=dai;45839828]it was a long and bitter winter, but I don't think [i]a 56 year low[/i] of homicide is exactly something to scoff at. I'd agree you need a longer sample but it's an interesting quip, we all know how much people love to jump at statistics to back up their side of heated arguments

how was winter down in san antonio by the by[/QUOTE]
Winter down here was cold also, thanks for asking! We even had some snow. The Polar Vortex hit everyone, my native city of Chicago included. Friends from home told me all about, but you can check the Weather reports about it too.

[url]http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-03-01/news/chi-chicago-snow-records-20140301_1_snowfall-total-inches-snowiest[/url]

[editline]30th August 2014[/editline]

[QUOTE=NoDachiUK;45841257]Isn't it a 50 year low for most of the western world currently?[/QUOTE]
This is also an interesting factoid which puts things into perspective.

[url]http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/28/istook-our-homicide-rate-lowest-1963-so-somebody-p/?page=all[/url]

[3Dprinter]

[QUOTE=joes33431;45839943]what reason do you have to believe they're trying to kill you if they're trying to take your wallet

if they were trying to kill you, they'd just kill you when you try to whip out your piece anyways

they want your money. that's all they want.

you do realize that the majority of homicides are between people that know each other, right?

people don't just kill each other for no reason.[/QUOTE]

I get what you are saying, and in some cases I would agree, just hand it over -- I have had to do so, twice. The point is that the [B]first[/B] thing you learn in gun training is that you don't point a gun at something you don't aim to kill, so it is reasonable to believe that anyone pointing a gun at you aims to kill you. In some cases, the best option is to hand it over and hope they don't kill you because you saw their face, or because they are just crazy, but other times when you have the element of surprise a gun of your own can be the difference between your family having a source of income or losing a husband and father.

I think you are mixing up people who have a fantasy about using their weapon against a criminal and people who just want to stay alive to take care of their families. I don't know what kind of life you have lived, but I've lived around gun violence first hand for most of my life, and I can tell you that people [B]do[/B] kill people for "no reason" or at least a reason which only makes sense to them, and even then only in that moment, or they simply don't care about your life in the least.

[Blue Meanie]

[QUOTE=s0beit;45837368]If anything, if the demand was there the UK would look more lucrative.
Restricted supply = premium prices. It is basic economics.

Forget importation, look at the machine gun problem in Aus right now. It's not a [i]huge[/i] problem, but people have been making Luty SMGs and selling them to bikies for decades now with no end in sight.

Why is this a problem in Aus but less of a problem in the UK? I would argue the criminal element is more pervasive and entrenched in Aus compared to the UK.

So either way I have to disagree that importation controls have [i]anything[/i] to do with the UK's low rate of firearms ownership or usage by criminals. Criminals there just seem to not have that much to shoot people to death about, or crime as a means of livelihood looks less attractive to them than it does in the US.

Could be education, economic status, whatever. The point is, this is the main issue.
If you can freely obtain drugs in the UK, which you can - I know people, by the same mechanisms you can freely obtain firearms.

Either they are created in underground factories (grow ops/labs/whatever vs underground gunsmith) or they can be smuggled in from countries where it is easier to create those things.

I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here. It is impossible to know about "every operation", criminals will buy guns legally and resell them illegally until they can't (ban on firearms), when that time comes if the demand is still there they'll import them.

Route of least resistance.

Even if that's true, they don't make up the majority and they certainly don't make up the majority of firearms used in crimes. Pistols are the primary choice.

You can't say it isn't as common as it once was. Illegally importing arms wasn't even really necessary for a long time, machine guns could be bought and sold nearly as cheaply as any other firearm (but for the tax stamp) until 1986. It wouldn't shock me if the straw purchasing dilemma existed back then.

Of course I'm sure they imported a bunch of weapons with the cocaine they were smuggling, because why not? Still, that doesn't mean that local sources couldn't have contributed.

Many guns aren't reported as stolen, and serial numbers can be destroyed with the right tools. If you mean they were created with no serial number, there is a number of ways to do that without importing them from other places.

Building the regulated part yourself for example.

In any case I'd like to see a source that says this is an epidemic.

Sure. I agree there. Even if no nation on earth sold firearms to your average criminal one way or another, people can still make firearms. It isn't even very difficult.

Do you have any sources for this? Because importation at least my in city is the vast minority of guns recovered.[/QUOTE]

I'm sorry, I'm reading your replies, and you obviously have very little knowledge about this subject. All of the information that you don't believe, you can go ahead and look it up. Making illegal guns is not popular in the US by the way, although it does happen, illegal mass produced arms are more common.

Regarding the serial numbers, you have no idea what you are talking about. Guns that had serial numbers can be easily proven to once have one, even if they use those so called "tools",
but for the sake of this conversation I am going to tell you that most thiefs who have stolen guns or bought them from someone who stole them, would not take the time to make the scratched off serial number look like it was never there. Some people might "build the regulated part", i've never heard of it, and I doubt it is common at all since many serials are on the receiver. I can also tell you right now that a criminal is not gonna build a part just to make it look like the serial number was never there.
If a weapon is found in someones house with no serial or one with the serial scraped off, they would get the same punishment, so it would make no sense to build a new part. Another reason why I believe you don't know what you are talking about.

If you really want to know how I know about the firearms business in mexico, it is real simple. Take a trip to mexico. In shittier places you literally have people selling mac-10s and uzis on the street.
In better places, you have people walking up and asking you if you want to buy a weapon from the trunk of their car.

I see you trying to make a lot of points here, but your original point was the the US does not have illegal weapons from other countries, or that they don't have many being brought in, and it simple isn't true whatsoever.

[Venezuelan]

The US exports more guns to Mexico than vice versa, I'd like to see what's making you think otherwise

[supernoob96]

Wow, who would've guessed it?! When people are reliably able to defend themselves, less people want to assault them and commit crimes where they might be.