Look up australia/britains gun laws and compare that to the number of mass shootings in those countries since those laws were put in place. Gun control works and if people keep using “but criminals will get around it” as an arguement, because guess what laws that make it hard or impossible to get physical items tend to work because it is very difficult to sneak something as bulky and obvious as a gun into a country.
First thing’s first let’s look at the U.S. before debunking the horrid myth that the GUN BANS in Australia and the U.K. work.
There’s No Correlation Between Gun Ownership, Mass Shootings, and Murder Rates And Mass shootings are very rare, accounting for only 0.2% of homicides every year and approximately 1% of homicide victims.
The vast majority of guns used by criminals were stolen or acquired on the black market. A recent analysis of firearms seized from criminals found that nearly 80% of them were obtained illegally. Legally obtained firearms accounted for only 14% of guns used during a crime. Another 4% were legally owned by the perpetrator, but were being illegally carried.
Congressional Study: Murder Rate Plummets as Gun Ownership Soars.
Australia
In 2011, there was a mass shooting in Hectorville. In 2014, one in Hunt, and again in 2014 one in Wedderburn, the Logan shooting in 2014 and the Monash shooting.
In 2002 — five years after enacting its gun ban — the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime.
A 2011 study published by the Justice Policy Journal examined the incidence of mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand over a 30 year time period. The results don’t provide any evidence in favor of the belief that banning guns reduces mass shootings.
First the buy back. Australia had far less guns per person and people in their country did not live in a society that was brought up respecting The 2nd Amendment. The culture of Australia is very different than that of the culture of America when it comes to gun ownership and self defense. Because of this, the Australian government was able to buy back 631,000 guns at the estimated price of about $500,000,000.[1] You read that correctly, 500 MILLION.
And even after all of that, it still did nothing to prevent violent crime and criminals in Australia still have access to illegal guns,[2] despite being an island country that isn’t bordered by other countries with high violent crime rates and rampant with illegal drug cartels. There are over 360,000,000 legally owned firearms in America. If we go by Australia’s numbers ($792.39 per gun), these guns would cost our government $285,261,489,698.89 to buy back. Almost 300 BILLION dollars, assuming that every gun owner voluntarily turns in their guns(which is a very slim to nothing chance)who’s going to pay for that? Gun control advocates?
At this point I should also probably point out that Australia’s gun laws have not even reduced gun ownership in Australia. In fact, gun ownership in Australia is actually higher now.[3] People die in Australia as a result of firearms violence at almost the same rate they did prior to the firearms act, and some sources state that more than a quarter million illicit firearms exist in Australia currently.[4] Many studies found declines in firearm‐related deaths ten years before the gun ban.[5][6][7]
Between July of 1997 and June of 1999, of all the gun homicides in Australia, only 9.4% were committed by registered citizens using legal firearms. The vast majority were committed by criminals who were legally ineligible to own firearms, using weapons that were not registered.[8]
The U.K.
As for the UK specifically, the banning of handguns has hurt more than it has helped. For example, take the case of the handgun ban in England and Wales in January 1997.[1] After the ban, there is only one year (2010) where the homicide rate is lower than it was in 1996. The immediate effect was about a 50 percent increase in homicide rates. The homicide rate only began falling when there was a large increase in the number of police officers during 2003 and 2004.
Despite the huge increase in the number of police, the murder rate still remained slightly higher than the immediate pre-ban rate.[2] This would lead any rational person to think, “well, gee, maybe guns aren’t the most common way people are killed.” In fact, the UK is actually considering banning knives because SO MANY PEOPLE ARE STABBED.[3]
In fact, can you guess what items saw huge surges in sales in the UK after their strict gun regulations went into place? Baseball bats, knives, and Cricket bats. Hmm. I guess once guns were taken away, everyone just became super interested in sports and the culinary arts?
Furthermore, the UK is absolutely more violent than in the US.[3][5]
According to the British Crime Survey, and the National Crime Victimization Survey, the UK is a much more violent place than the US in terms of assaults with serious injuries and completed rapes.[4][5]
Is correlation causation? Does the UK have higher rates because there are fewer guns? Nope. But this post is merely an illustration of how severely underreported rapes and assaults is in both countries. However, the discrepancy and gap seem to be much wider in the UK than it is in the US.
Comparing the overall murder rate of the US to the UK to argue that gun control reduces violent crime, murder, and gun violence rates is a bit silly. To prove that gun control measures effectively work to reduce these numbers, we would have to prove that these numbers were reduced in the UK after their strict gun control laws went into effect. That did not happen. In fact, murder rates were almost the exact same in 2011 as they were 15 years before in 1996 before strict gun control. Rates spiked sharply for five years after gun control, but at no point has the UK’s strict gun laws significantly reduced violence at all to date. Even now a gun crime in London has increased by 42%[6]
More sources than I could list in this rebuttal
Let’s look at other countries shall we?
Switzerland’s gun control laws are more lenient then the United States. Yet they are known for low crime rates and almost no mass shootings
The Czech Republic has lenient gun control laws but maintains a low violent crime rate. Almost all gun crime is committed with Illegal guns that the government admits it can’t stop criminals from getting. In 2016, following a number of terror attacks around Europe, the Czech president joined a number of other Czech politicians and security professionals in urging the 240,000 gun owners in the country with concealed carry licences to carry their firearms, in order to be able to contribute to the protection of soft targets.
Zeman’s wife also obtained a concealed carry license and a revolver. The Czech Republic has 246,715 out of some 303,936 legal gun owners have a concealed carry permit. The vast majority of Czech gun owners possess their firearms for protection, with hunting and sport shooting being less common. While a rise of gun ownership is still going on the Czech Republic is also seeing a decrease in homicides and a decrease of crimes being committed with legal firearms.
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Serbia has almost the same gun control as the USA and has a low crime rate.
Bulgaria has more lenient gun control than the US like no permit is needed to carry in public.
Moldova has lenient gun laws, especially on private gun sales. Moldova also has an incredibly low homicide rate.
I stg, our so called mass shootings are fbi plants
A well written and cited post
