"Gun Control Equals Crime Control"

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Ok, my son's Civics class is at it again. Yesterday, the class was divided into "pro-gun" and "anti-gun" groups (decided by the students), which turned out to be 50/50, a figure I found surprising since I thought there would be more antis than pros. The exercise was for one side to debate the merit of their stance against the other side. It sounded like a good idea to me until my son pointed out what the student-teacher put on the board:

"Gun Control Equals Crime Control"

Well, we've all seen this before and know the fallacy of this statement, but many of the "pro-gun" students didn't have the factual data to refute this, so they left empty-handed. Last night, I gave my son plenty of information to fight back (mostly in terms that high schoolers can remember and phrased in the form of a question so that the antis would be forced to answer them). Some of these included:

1) If gun control equals crime control, then why do countries with such restrictive gun control laws like Russia and Mexico have such a high violent crime rate per capita? By this argument, wouldn't Russia and Mexico be some of the safest places in the world?

2) Conversely, why is it that Switzerland, which has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world, has one of the lowest violent crime rates? Shouldn't the opposite be true?

Anyway, I am sure that there will be more fireworks in today's class. More to report later... ;)
 
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You might add that London, England, with some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world, now has police officers armed with submachine guns patrolling the streets in certain parts of the city and there is now open debate as to whether the Metropolitan Police, for the first time in its history, should arm all of its sworn officers.

In addition, Washington, D.C., a city that virtually prohibited handgun ownership, had the highest murder rate per 100,000 people of any city in the U.S.
 
I guess I was lucky with the majority of my teachers. No teacher that I can remember ever gave their opinions if they felt that it would influence us.

A few years ago I took a short government class over the summer. Everytime the instructor would ask about the stance of the class on a particular subject he would always follow up with:

"I dont care what side your on, just pick one"

He would then cite sources to find information to base our decisions on.

Hopefully the questions, and teacher, will influence the students to research real information and make up their own minds.
 
Washington, D.C., a city that virtually prohibited handgun ownership, had the highest murder rate per 100,000 people of any city in the U.S.
Click to expand...

Yep, I mentioned that one, too. Ditto for Chicago.
 
For a school discussion, it might be worth mentioning the number of Chicago students killed by gunfire: 26 in one year. Over 70 in a three-year period. Most of the shooters were other students using stolen or black market guns.
 
For a school discussion, it might be worth mentioning the number of Chicago students killed by gunfire: 26 in one year. Over 70 in a three-year period. Most of the shooters were other students using stolen or black market guns.
Click to expand...

Bingo! Keep 'em coming. This debate is going to continue in his class all week, so I'll be sure to load him up every night before the next day's class.
 
It's less effective than the arguments you already have, but you might put forward these points.

Since cars are used in many more crimes than guns, does car control = crime control?

Since hate speech is a crime, does speech control = crime control?

Banning things, it seems, often has a more drastic negative effect.
 
Have him point out that our military overseas all have 'assault rifles' but you never hear about soldiers blasting each other down en masse. Also, point out the Fort Hood shooting. Fort Hood does not allow soldiers (or anyone else for that matter) to carry weapons on base unless it is in the course of their garrison duties (of which, only MPs and a handful of others fall in this category). Then have him point out how many died in the shooting that could have been prevented if the victims could have been armed. Point out the Pensacola, Fl school board meeting where a gunman could have caused serious harm, but was stopped by a man with a CCW (even though it was in the car).
Better yet, just print off a few dozens clips from the Armed Citizen, and then ask the anti's how many of these people would have been harmed by a criminal if they had not been armed.
 
Great ideas, thanks! I will Xerox a few "Armed Citizen" pages from my old copies of the Rifleman and give that to him as well.
 
Just make sure your son knows how to properly use this knowledge you are giving him. It is best to use this in a controlled argument rather than letting it get out of hand. A properly made argument will have his classmates understand the positives of gun ownership without feeling like they are being slapped in the face for what they previously believed.

Good luck and keep us posted!
 
@ txhoghunter -- Good advice and I will keep everyone in the loop as this unfolds.
@ DWC -- Many thanks! It helps to have great kids and I am truly blessed...they can make any dad look good. :)
 
Here are a couple more links for the win:
http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp
Some highlights:
* A 1994 survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Americans use guns to frighten away intruders who are breaking into their homes about 498,000 times per year.[20]

* A U.S. Justice Department study based on crime data from 1974-1985 found:
• 42% of Americans will be the victim of a completed violent crime (assault, robbery, rape) in the course of their lives

• 83% of Americans will be the victim of an attempted or completed violent crime

• 52% of Americans will be the victim of an attempted or completed violent crime more than once[24]

http://www.lizmichael.com/ninemyth.htm
"* Myth #4 "Guns cause violence"
For over twenty years it has been illegal for teens to buy guns and,
despite such gun control, the African-American teenage male homicide rate
in Washington, DC is 227 per 100,000 - 20 times the US average![5] The US
group for whom legal gun ownership has the highest prevalence,
middle-aged white men, has a homicide rate of less than 7 per 100,000 -
about half of the US average.[6]

If the "guns-cause-violence theory is correct why does Virginia, the
alleged "easy purchase source of all those illegal Washington, DC guns,
have a murder rate of 9.3 per 100,000, one-ninth of DC's overall homicide
rate of 80.6?[7 ]Why are homicide rates lowest in states with loose gun
control (North Dakota 1.1, Maine 1.2, South Dakota 1.7, Idaho 1.8, Iowa
2.0, Montana 2.6) and highest in states and the district with draconian
gun controls and bans (District of Columbia 80.6, New York 14.2,
California 12.7, Illinois 11.3, Maryland 11.7)?[7] The
"guns-cause-violence and "guns exacerbate violence theories founder.
Again, the causes of inner city violence are family disruption, media
violence, and abject poverty, not gun ownership."
 
Well if you mean good shot placement then yes, gun control equals crime control. But with any other definition then no it doesn't, and any one saying otherwise is criminally misinformed.
 
Two simple concepts:

1) Taking away a person's ability to defend himself makes him more vulnerable.

2) Creating a law against having a gun does little to prevent a person who does not obey laws from owning a gun.

Simple questions to pose:

Since people who dislike guns would tend to be in favor of gun control, is there not some risk that the gun control movement is based upon emotion rather than fact?

Is it reasonable to take away something useful to others because you don't like it?

Perhaps some simple logic and soul searching would add impact to the statistics.
 
If anyone tries to bring up the "assault weapons are the weapons of choice of criminals" BS, point them to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Table 20, Murder, by State and Type of Weapon:

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_20.html

If you download the Excel version from that page and sum the columns, you get the following figures:

Total murders...........................13,636.....100.00%
Handguns.................................6,452......47.32%
Firearms (type unknown)..................1,928......14.14%
Other weapons (non-firearm, non-edged)...1,864......13.67%
Edged weapons............................1,825......13.38%
Hands, feet, etc...........................801.......5.87%
Shotguns...................................418.......3.07%
Rifles.....................................348.......2.55%

And that's for all rifles combined. The 5-year trend in rifle homicide 2005-2009, again per the FBI Uniform Crime Reports:

2005: 442
2006: 436
2007: 450
2008: 375
2009: 348

Modern-looking rifles aren't a crime problem in the United States and never have been.
 
A properly made argument will have his classmates understand the positives of gun ownership without feeling like they are being slapped in the face for what they previously believed.
Click to expand...


I say slap them in the face with the data, but softly. Pointing out the fallacy that less guns equals less crime is pretty easily backed by facts from all over the world where the government has taken away the right of a citizen to protect one's person. I don't see any mention of Australia, but like England, I think the timing is close enough that it will also provide a lot of data to the con on antis stance. I truly like the DC and Chicago examples being they are within our borders and should provide easy access to data. Also, I see no mention of FBI data which should also empirically support a pro gun stance well.

hope this helps,

jeepmor
 
It's interesting to note that half of the class is pro-gun and the other half is...hmmmm...horribly misinformed. ;) These stats will be very welcomed by the pro-gun group and I think that they'll divide them up amongst themselves in their class debate with the anti's. I'm sure my son will be working the printer hard tonight to have enough to distribute to the others. Thanks!
 
I wonder if all of the other side's parents are doing research for them as well.

I hope you're not taking away from your child's learning and discovery experience by doing this. He should be researching this on his own.

One thing that he may want to research is the other side of the debate, the enemy camp. Figure out what their moves(arguments) will be and come prepared to squash them right away.
 
Another question is, how is it that as gun ownership goes up, crime goes down?

How is it that as more and more states adopt liberalized concealed carry laws, crime goes down?
 
Sorry, but playing the teachers game is a loosing bet

Directly attack it,
Ask HOW, make the opposition PROVE that there is any correlation.
state that DISARMING VICTIMS INCREASES CRIME, and make them defend their side, as what you are going to get is a bunch of emotional appeals (gun accidents at home, shoot shootings etc.) and NO numbers.

So don't bore them with detail, Just say NO IT DOESN'T, and make them PROVE IT.
 
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