I’m sorry have I deprived you of your daily spoonful of bull shit? Well fear not because here it is! Via the “fair and balanced” Washington Post we get to learn the “facts” about gun control “myths.” And boy are there some real winners. The first one, guns don’t kill people, people kill people:
But in a groundbreaking and often-replicated look at the details of criminal attacks in Chicago in the 1960s, University of California at Berkeley law professor Franklin Zimring found that the circumstances of gun and knife assaults are quite similar: They’re typically unplanned and with no clear intention to kill. Offenders use whatever weapon is at hand, and having a gun available makes it more likely that the victim will die. This helps explain why, even though the United States has overall rates of violent crime in line with rates in other developed nations, our homicide rate is, relatively speaking, off the charts.
Funny because according to another researcher holding a Ph. D more guns leads to less crime. Of course we can’t trust somebody like John Lott because he refuses to write a book on the subject… oh wait. Also I love this stupid quote:
As Ozzy Osbourne once said in an interview with the New York Times: “I keep hearing this [expletive] thing that guns don’t kill people, but people kill people. If that’s the case, why do we give people guns when they go to war? Why not just send the people?”
Why not just send the guns? Funny enough if you send the people without guns there are still going to be deaths, if you send the guns without people there won’t be any deaths. What part of the equation leads to death then?
Next up is the “myth” that gun laws only affect law-abiding citizens:
The ban on felons buying guns, part of the 1968 Gun Control Act, doesn’t stop them entirely, of course. In fact, most homicides involve someone with a criminal record carrying a gun in public. Data from 2008 in Chicago show that 81 percent of homicides were committed with guns and that 91 percent of homicide offenders had a prior arrest record.
Here’s a hint when debating something, don’t support the opponents argument by making it for them. And in classic anti-gunner lack of ability to use basic logic:
But the gun laws provide police with a tool to keep these high-risk people from carrying guns; without these laws, the number of people with prior records who commit homicides could be even higher.
So according to this article convicted felons are still obtaining guns but these laws prevent convicted felons from obtaining guns? I’m sorry but it’s either one or the other. “Myth” number three is when more households have guns for self-defense, crime goes down:
The key question is whether the self-defense benefits of owning a gun outweigh the costs of having more guns in circulation. And the costs can be high: more and cheaper guns available to criminals in the “secondary market” — including gun shows and online sales — which is almost totally unregulated under federal laws, and increased risk of a child or a spouse misusing a gun at home.
Almost totally unregulated? Really? Seriously? Go to a gun show some time. That’s what Matt Snyder did when he found out gun shows are not an unregulated source of firearms. Likewise try buying a gun on GunBroker and see if the seller will ship the gun to your home. Guess what? They won’t, it has to be sent to an FFL holder in your state and transferred to you (which includes the NICS check and you having to fill out ATF Form 4473). Unregulated my ass. Also I love this dribble:
Our research suggests that as many as 500,000 guns are stolen each year in the United States, going directly into the hands of people who are, by definition, criminals.
So what you’re saying is gun laws only affect law-abiding citizens since criminals will just steal them from said law-abiding citizens? Nice you once again countered your own so-called argument. Also since when have we punished law-abiding citizens (the gun owners in this case) because of what criminals do (the gun thieves)? Well I guess for a while now but that shit has to stop. Let’s move onto their fourth “myth,” in high-crime urban neighborhoods, guns are as easy to get as fast food:
Our own study of the underground gun market in Chicago, with Columbia sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh and Harvard criminologist Anthony Braga, contradicts this claim. Handguns that can be bought legally for around $100 sell on the street in Chicago for $250 to $400. Surveys of people who have been arrested find that a majority of those who didn’t own a gun at the time of their arrest, but who would want one, say it would take more than a week to get one. Some people who can’t find a gun on the street hire a broker in the underground market to help them get one. It costs more and takes more time to get guns in the underground market — evidence that gun regulations do make some difference.
So according to your research over 500,000 guns are stolen every year in the United States. But now you’re saying guns are hard for criminals to get. Riiiiiiiiight. But I thought they could just walk into any gun show or buying guns on the Internet and not have to worry about an regulations preventing their criminal asses from obtaining guns. Make up your fucking mind. This isn’t an argument so much as a spastic tossing of random ideas on the wall hoping people reading will be dumb enough not to know how to use logic (an anti-gunner). Let’s move onto “myth” five which is, repealing Chicago’s handgun ban will dramatically increase gun crimes. Wait that is an actual myth. For fuck’s sake make up your mind!
Local officials from Dodge City to Chicago have understood that some regulation of firearms within city limits is in the public’s interest, and that regulation and law enforcement are important complements in the effort to reduce gun violence. Even before the repeal of D.C.’s handgun ban, the city’s police reestablished a gun-recovery unit and focused on seizing illegal firearms. The city’s homicide rate has been relatively flat the past several years. If the court decides that Chicago must follow D.C’s lead in getting rid of its handgun ban, we can only hope that it leaves the door open for sensible control measures.
So much double-speak it hurts. D.C.’s homicide rate has remained flat even with the repeal of their handgun ban. But only after said ban was lifted did the police actually work on recovering illegal firearms. Does that mean illegal firearms were available in D.C. only after the handgun ban was lifted? Seriously my head hurts from the lack of basic understanding of forming a logical argument.
And even though D.C.’s homicide rate has remained flat after the ban the author hopes if the ban falls in Chicago it leaves the door open to “sensible” control measures? Would you like to maybe, oh I don’t know, give an example of such a measure that was used in D.C. to keep the homicide rate flat? Because if you meant the reestablishment of the gun-recovery unit as being a “sensible” control it’s not a control at all, it’s enforcing laws already on the books at a federal level. That’s not further regulation or additional “sensible” controls.
What a dip shit. Seriously this is why we win, the anti-gunners can’t form a coherent argument.