Legal gun ownership and increased crime not related

[Lisa]

Take from here

As the ban-guns furor mounts after the Virginia Tech killings, another study was released which clearly indicates that there is no correlation between legal firearms ownership and the increase in crime.


The Second Amendment Foundation applauded a new report by two criminologists, Prof. Don Kates of the United States and Prof. Gary Mauser of Canada, which contends that the rate of firearms ownership is irrelevant to the homicide and violent crime rate. The report should be required reading, SAF founder Alan Gottlieb emphasized, "especially by reporters, editorial writers and elected representatives."

I am rather enjoying this article and thought I would share. Here is the link to download the complete paper.

 

[Tames D]

I always thought that was the case. Hopefully this report will help keep the "gun ban happy" people at bay.

 

[SFC JeffJ]

Thanks for this Lisa!

 

[Grenadier]

Those who lawfully own firearms are law-abiding because they don't break the laws. To buy a firearm from any gun store (and yes, even from almost any dealer at a gun show that is not simply there for selling privately-owned firearms), such a buyer must go through the ATF 4473 / NICS procedure. Thus, it's pretty much assured, that such a buyer who completes the check is not a felon.

The same thing holds true for those who obtain concealed carry permits. Over a decade ago (1996), the state of Florida had already issued over 300,000 permits, and at the time, only 5 had been revoked due to criminal activities. I would strongly suspect that the trend has continued.

Statistically speaking, in Dave Kopel's words, "this makes a permit-holding Floridian the cream of the crop of law-abiding citizens, 840 times less likely to commit a violent firearm crime than a randomly selected Floridian without a permit." - Los Angeles Times, Feb. 19, 1996

Thus, those who lawfully purchase and / or carry firearms, are not the problem.

Hopefully this report will help keep the "gun ban happy" people at bay.

Nope!

The anti-2nd Amendment people will always try to sway people using emotional issues, since they really don't have fact on their side.

 

[Grenadier]

On another note, they mention suicides, which brings up an important issue, that lawful gun ownership has no effect on suicides, either.

After all, look at Japan (firearms ownership forbidden), which has a much higher suicide rate than the US.