URGENT PLEASE READ !

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

I find it interesting that Gun Control proponants like to cite European crime rates as "proof" that gun control works. The statistics I've found don't bear this out. Luxemburg with nearly 0 gun ownership per 100,000 residents had a 9.01 murder rate in 2002. Switzerland on the other hand REQUIRES every male over the age of 18 to own a military style rifle and 1,000 rounds of ammunition, but in 2003 only had a murder rate of .99 per 100,000. 
Looks like gun control makes murder nearly 10 times as likely.

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/chart-graph/european-gun-ownership-and-murder-rates

I can't comment on ownership of military arms in Switzerland, but I do know that all reservists in Cyprus at least on the Greek side of the green line all have an issued G-3 rifle and their rucksack in their closet.  Meanwhile, only shotguns and air rifles can be legally owned. However, when we leave my wife's nephew's place to drive to the Airport, we pass a ridgeline with an MMG every 200 metres.  Loaded and manned, of course! The crime rate there is low except for organized crime who run the drugs and prostitution business.

I have seen studies, I think by Gary Mauser (I'll see if I can dig up a link) that compared gun laws and violent crime rates in a large number of nations.  Their is no correlation.  It seems that violence is a cultural characteristic independant of the legal regime.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Here is the intro; A more direct link might be the Harvard Law Review. Vol 30, No.2

Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International Evidence
Gary A. Mauser, Simon Fraser University
Don B. Kates, retired

Abstract:

The world abounds in instruments with which people can kill each other. Is the widespread availability of one of these instruments, firearms, a crucial determinant of the incidence of murder? Or do patterns of murder and/or violent crime reflect basic socio-economic and/or cultural factors to which the mere availability of one particular form of weaponry is irrelevant?

This article examines a broad range of international data that bear on two distinct but interrelated questions: first, whether widespread firearm access is an important contributing factor in murder and/or suicide, and second, whether the introduction of laws that restrict general access to firearms has been successful in reducing violent crime, homicide or suicide. Our conclusion from the available data is that suicide, murder and violent crime rates are determined by basic social, economic and/or cultural factors with the availability of any particular one of the world's myriad deadly instrument being irrelevant.

This paper is the penultimate version as a few minor editorial changes have been made in the final publication.

Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International Evidence.

•Harvard Law Review
•For more bepress legal papers, visit bepress Legal Repository

[1961MJS]

Hi

Whenever ANYBODY compares Americans to the citizens of other countries (especially Europeans), I can't help but remember this quote from the movie Stripes:

"We're not Watusi. We're not Spartans. We're Americans, with a capital 'A', huh? Do you know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts!"

And yes, in many cases, our forefathers WERE kicked out of every decent country of the World.  Yes, many of our ancestors left VOLUNTARILY, but I don't think Otto Von Bismark missed my great-Grandfather Berund Mueller a whole lot either. 

Just my $0.02. 

Mike
Norman OK

[PJ Hardtack]

Rights - shmights! Let's take off the rose coloured glasses and have a look at the real world.

Historically, people have the rights that their government says they do, regardless of what is written on any piece of paper. The 'rights' specified on these high sounding documents - Bills of rights, Constitutions, etc. - are easily circumvented and/or suspended by the stroke of a pen in moments of national crisis, real or imagined.

Ask the Americans and Canadians of Japanese descent about internment during WW II, along with other 'suspect' ethnic groups.

Canadians remember the invocation of the War Measures Act during the Quebec FLQ crisis that suspended all 'rights', allowing arrest without charges and indefinite incarceration.

Following '911', the US saw the passage of the Patriot Act and other Homeland Security measures. Airline passengers were regarded as 'terrorists  in waiting', subject to body scans and invasive 'pat downs'. Many wound up on "No Fly'' lists due to idiotic bureaucratic screw ups.
The Swiss are rethinking their gun laws in view of a recent tragic event. Years ago, a similar attempt to modify their system narrowly failed to pass by a 56% margin. If enough of the 10 Swiss cantons vote for it, things will change in Switzerland regarding home storage of military rifles and ammo.

The Democratic 'think tanks' in the US are looking at a total gun ban, doing it incrementally just as it was done in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. First the 'bad guns' (military semi-autos), then ALL semi-autos, high cap magazines, etc. New shooters will accept this as the way it is, the old timers (us) will die off, the memory of better times erased from history.

A proposed US Bill to outlaw "assault rifles" would prohibit Ruger 10/22s fitted with after market pistol grip stocks, 25/50 rd magazines, folding butt stocks, muzzle brakes and barrel shrouds. In a Fox News video of a female legislator supporting this bill, she admitted that she did not know what a "barrel shroud" was or why it should be on the  'no-no' list.

A stock 10/22 would be OK! Following the dictum - "Divide and Conquer", by defining and segregating 'good guns' from 'bad guns', the anti-gunners take one step closer to civil disarmament. Make no mistake about it - this is the way things are headed. The US and Canada are signatory nations to the UN initiative to regulate and control small arms and ammunition.

I already have had conversation with trap shooters who think all is rosy as long as they can bust clays with their Berettas, Brownings and Perazzis. They couldn't care less about the guns used in IPSC, CAS and other shooting sports. They don't see the need or use for semi-auto rifles for hunting either. Ask them.

The legion of "omnipotent moral busybodies" is immune to arguments of logic, reason and common sense, and utterly disregarding of the lessons of history.

"Those who beat their guns into plowshares will plow for those who didn't." anonymous

"All political power comes out of the barrel of a gun."  Mao Tse Tung

If you find this sort of conversation to be upsetting, you are living in la-la land and are part of the problem. Big government/Big Brother is NOT your friend. They have the money (YOUR money), the guns and make the laws, especially the 'Golden Rule' - them with the guns makes the rules.

[Gen. Jackson]

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I already have had conversation with trap shooters who think all is rosy as long as they can bust clays with their Berettas, Brownings and Perazzis. They couldn't care less about the guns used in IPSC, CAS and other shooting sports. They don't see the need or use for semi-auto rifles for hunting either. Ask them.

Well I shoot sporting clays and have never heard anyone say that about semi-auto rifles. That may be true up North where the Yankees live, but that is not what is said here in the South.

Down here we go by a different set of rules.

[PJ Hardtack]

Well, Gen'ral, that's nice. Glad to hear it. And we don't have many Yankees this side of the line, save for the aging draft dodgers we admitted during the Viet Nam war.

I'm one of the guys that fought hard to get IPC shooting established in Canada and I well remember the trap/skeet shooters, the Shooting Federation of Canada (SFC - governing body of Olympic shooting) and the gentlemen target shooters of the Dominion of Canada Rifle Association (DCRA) offering us NO support, willing to throw us to the wolves as long as THEIR guns and shooting sport were OK.
Same for the feathers & leathers crowd who were shocked when all but their flintlock rifles required registration, deemed exempt for some unknown bureaucratic reason. Percussion rifles must be more deadly, I guess. Bureaucrats never heard of the American Revolutionary War perhaps.

[Gen. Jackson]

Well, Gen'ral, that's nice. Glad to hear it. And we don't have many Yankees this side of the line, save for the aging draft dodgers we admitted during the Viet Nam war.

I see. I did not realize you are in Canada.

Well from what I see and hear down here in Florida ( lots of snowbirds this time of year ), everyone seems concerned about the recent and unfortunate happenings - irregardless of their particular sport. I think there is a sense of more "we're in this together" opinion in the States.

As an aside... I talk with quite a few Canadians via ham radio. Not much talk of guns and such, but rather friendly none-the-less. By the way, the Calgary Stampede is perhaps the best rodeo in the world. Never been to it, but I do watch it on cable every chance I get. I did visit Windsor however when I crossed under the Windsor tunnel from God aweful Detroit.

Nice place Windsor. But the tobacco prices were astronomical !

Regards.

[PJ Hardtack]

Glad to hear that you enjoy visiting our country. But be aware - that border crossing is one of the main ports of entry for smuggled guns.

Just don't try to bring in a handgun or you'll see our famous Canadian courtesy evaporate PDQ! If you ever forget you have one, be sure to declare it. You'll still be treated like a criminal, but most likely allowed to re-enter the US and store it in bond. You will be entered into the data bank as a 'person of interest' for future visits.

Then you'll have to deal with YOUR people and face the possibility of charges for attempting to export a gun without a permit and have to fight to get your gun back.

Welcome to the New World Order.

[Gen. Jackson]

Glad to hear that you enjoy visiting our country. But be aware - that border crossing is one of the main ports of entry for smuggled guns.

Just don't try to bring in a handgun or you'll see our famous Canadian courtesy evaporate PDQ! If you ever forget you have one, be sure to declare it. You'll still be treated like a criminal, but most likely allowed to re-enter the US and store it in bond. You will be entered into the data bank as a 'person of interest' for future visits.

Then you'll have to deal with YOUR people and face the possibility of charges for attempting to export a gun without a permit and have to fight to get your gun back.

Welcome to the New World Order.

Holy cow. Well thanks for the heads up, but I would never intend to bring a gun into Canada. Yes, Canada is quite beautiful in many places. I very much liked the look of the Canadian Mounties and the crown "logo' on almost every street sign. But the pipe tobacco, any tobacco, was unbelievably expensive.

I will not plan crossing into Canada via Detroit ever again. Detroit is the worst cesspool I have ever seen. And it was very bizzare for this old fashioned Southern boy.