|
|
Subscribe to RSS
A World without Guns
Monday, January 04, 2010
Comments: 8
Comments: 8
"A world without guns is a world without violence", cry the gun-control advocates.
What is the evidence? The world before the invention of guns was not without violence and those places where firearms are restricted are not without violence either.
Giving up guns today does not translate into a non-violent world and those guns removed or confiscated can be replaced in short time by theft from the state, illegal imports or even home made. It is obvious that inanimate objects do not induce anyone to commit violence and removing one (assuming it could actually be done) simply means there are literally hundreds of other objects to take its place.
What will not have been removed are the factors causing crime and violence in the first place. In fact, a great deal of time, effort and money will have been wasted on removing guns and absolutely nothing will have been done about the social problems that are the root cause of crime and violence that the removal of firearms from law abiding citizens was promised to cure. Money and effort that could have been expended on the actual causes of crime that at least has a chance of working to reduce crime is being wasted with the only result possible of decreased citizens safety.
Britain, Jamaica, Brazil, Canada and Australia, recent attempts by governments to reduce crime and illegal use of guns by criminals and the deranged by confiscation or restriction have produced what can be expected - an imbalance of power between citizens and criminals. An imbalance that criminals are most grateful for and very keen to exploit by acquiring guns to induce fear and compliance in their victims and protect their profits from crime. There is little risk in crime when victims come with a government-backed guarantee of being unarmed and defenceless. Unfortunately, Government has chosen to ignore crime and instead put needed money and huge effort into ensuring law-abiding citizens who neither aid nor commit crime as the focus of attention.
There are many problems with gun control. Perhaps the foremost of these is the simple fact that, to achieve an objective by control, there must be a relationship between the two. Yet, nobody has shown or demonstrated a causal relationship between levels of gun ownership and crime. Guns do not cause crime. Therefore, law abiding firearm owners present no danger to the public and in fact reduce crime by being an unidentified hard target and risk to criminals.
Control of one (guns) is patently not control of the other (crime). This however does not mean that there is not an inverse relationship if guns are removed from society i.e. crime will remain unchanged. The empirical evidence that is ignored by government and gun control advocates is that levels of crime will often increase as shown by every attempt to control crime or the supply of guns to criminals since the invention of the gun. The explosive crime rate increases of Britain, Jamaica and Brazil are not just accidents, unexplained or the exception to the rule, they are the consequences and result of deliberately ignoring known dangers and sound research.
Government and gun control advocates tout the Firearms Control Act as a measure to control crime and reduce the supply of guns to criminals. The preamble of the Act states this as the reason for the Act. This statement is a complete and utter fabrication that has no basis of truth in any research anywhere in the world. Should the SAPS, Ministers or the ANC government disagree, let them present their evidence to the world and rightfully claim honour and prestige for South Africa for what would be a world first. That they have not done so already is an indication of deceit regarding the intentions of the Firearms Control Act. An Act government is determined without valid reason, to enforce on an unsuspecting and trusting public, while the crime rate continues to increase despite this Act.
South Africa, with a crime rate near the highest in the world and a depleted, under-trained and over-worked police force, simply cannot afford the complete waste or crime increase enforcing gun control legislation is creating. Nor should the R2.18 billion (admitted) and huge resources of work force and equipment be wasted on implementation or upkeep. This concentration of fruitless effort and waste will not place one criminal behind bars or deny criminals guns. Much needed police members must not be taken off the beat, crime investigation or other vital duties as they are now, to the detriment of crime control. As is their duty and purpose, the police should instead be attending to crime and the safety of citizens. While violence and criminality continue to increase due to this wasted effort, citizens suffer unnecessarily from murder, rape, robbery, hi-jacking, assault, mugging, theft and house breaking due to an uncaring, unconcerned irresponsible government and thankful criminals taking advantage of the relaxed pressure on crime.
A world without guns will never be a world without crime or violence because guns cause neither.
Criminals by their own choice are predators who will feast on easy prey such as defenceless victims and low risk of punishment. It would be incredibly naive to suggest that making the criminal's workplace safer by giving criminals a government backed guarantee that victims are not armed will reduce crime and violence or that criminals would not take advantage of unarmed victims. Believing that criminals will be deprived of guns obtained from a single source flies in the face of all common sense and evidence that even complete bans are useless. Suggesting that criminals will reciprocate and throw their guns away is simply foolish beyond belief. Yet, this is exactly what government and the SAPS are claiming, promoting and enforcing instead of investigating crime, arresting criminals and ensuring criminals face swift certain punishment.
Until citizens demand that government takes their safety and lives seriously by revising both the policy of blaming guns and the practice of gun control rather than crime control, criminals will continue to reap the benefits of much reduced risk in their violent aggressive criminal activities and very small chance of ever being punished.
BGOASA Research
Http://www.bgoasa.co.za/
What is the evidence? The world before the invention of guns was not without violence and those places where firearms are restricted are not without violence either.
Giving up guns today does not translate into a non-violent world and those guns removed or confiscated can be replaced in short time by theft from the state, illegal imports or even home made. It is obvious that inanimate objects do not induce anyone to commit violence and removing one (assuming it could actually be done) simply means there are literally hundreds of other objects to take its place.
What will not have been removed are the factors causing crime and violence in the first place. In fact, a great deal of time, effort and money will have been wasted on removing guns and absolutely nothing will have been done about the social problems that are the root cause of crime and violence that the removal of firearms from law abiding citizens was promised to cure. Money and effort that could have been expended on the actual causes of crime that at least has a chance of working to reduce crime is being wasted with the only result possible of decreased citizens safety.
Britain, Jamaica, Brazil, Canada and Australia, recent attempts by governments to reduce crime and illegal use of guns by criminals and the deranged by confiscation or restriction have produced what can be expected - an imbalance of power between citizens and criminals. An imbalance that criminals are most grateful for and very keen to exploit by acquiring guns to induce fear and compliance in their victims and protect their profits from crime. There is little risk in crime when victims come with a government-backed guarantee of being unarmed and defenceless. Unfortunately, Government has chosen to ignore crime and instead put needed money and huge effort into ensuring law-abiding citizens who neither aid nor commit crime as the focus of attention.
There are many problems with gun control. Perhaps the foremost of these is the simple fact that, to achieve an objective by control, there must be a relationship between the two. Yet, nobody has shown or demonstrated a causal relationship between levels of gun ownership and crime. Guns do not cause crime. Therefore, law abiding firearm owners present no danger to the public and in fact reduce crime by being an unidentified hard target and risk to criminals.
Control of one (guns) is patently not control of the other (crime). This however does not mean that there is not an inverse relationship if guns are removed from society i.e. crime will remain unchanged. The empirical evidence that is ignored by government and gun control advocates is that levels of crime will often increase as shown by every attempt to control crime or the supply of guns to criminals since the invention of the gun. The explosive crime rate increases of Britain, Jamaica and Brazil are not just accidents, unexplained or the exception to the rule, they are the consequences and result of deliberately ignoring known dangers and sound research.
Government and gun control advocates tout the Firearms Control Act as a measure to control crime and reduce the supply of guns to criminals. The preamble of the Act states this as the reason for the Act. This statement is a complete and utter fabrication that has no basis of truth in any research anywhere in the world. Should the SAPS, Ministers or the ANC government disagree, let them present their evidence to the world and rightfully claim honour and prestige for South Africa for what would be a world first. That they have not done so already is an indication of deceit regarding the intentions of the Firearms Control Act. An Act government is determined without valid reason, to enforce on an unsuspecting and trusting public, while the crime rate continues to increase despite this Act.
South Africa, with a crime rate near the highest in the world and a depleted, under-trained and over-worked police force, simply cannot afford the complete waste or crime increase enforcing gun control legislation is creating. Nor should the R2.18 billion (admitted) and huge resources of work force and equipment be wasted on implementation or upkeep. This concentration of fruitless effort and waste will not place one criminal behind bars or deny criminals guns. Much needed police members must not be taken off the beat, crime investigation or other vital duties as they are now, to the detriment of crime control. As is their duty and purpose, the police should instead be attending to crime and the safety of citizens. While violence and criminality continue to increase due to this wasted effort, citizens suffer unnecessarily from murder, rape, robbery, hi-jacking, assault, mugging, theft and house breaking due to an uncaring, unconcerned irresponsible government and thankful criminals taking advantage of the relaxed pressure on crime.
A world without guns will never be a world without crime or violence because guns cause neither.
Criminals by their own choice are predators who will feast on easy prey such as defenceless victims and low risk of punishment. It would be incredibly naive to suggest that making the criminal's workplace safer by giving criminals a government backed guarantee that victims are not armed will reduce crime and violence or that criminals would not take advantage of unarmed victims. Believing that criminals will be deprived of guns obtained from a single source flies in the face of all common sense and evidence that even complete bans are useless. Suggesting that criminals will reciprocate and throw their guns away is simply foolish beyond belief. Yet, this is exactly what government and the SAPS are claiming, promoting and enforcing instead of investigating crime, arresting criminals and ensuring criminals face swift certain punishment.
Until citizens demand that government takes their safety and lives seriously by revising both the policy of blaming guns and the practice of gun control rather than crime control, criminals will continue to reap the benefits of much reduced risk in their violent aggressive criminal activities and very small chance of ever being punished.
BGOASA Research
Http://www.bgoasa.co.za/
5607 Peter Moss
[ Saturday, January 23, 2010 | 2:00:59 PM ]
Destruction of evidence has always been a favourite method. It's quick easy and leaves not trace.
Unfortunately no firearms organisation thought it worth the bother to do anything about including those with the greatest interest. Both of these were informed and knew about the destruction and the fact that these firearms served as evidence and the only collateral the owners had.
The police can now deny selling and otherwise removing from those handed in firearms as many as they like and claim any firearm not accounted for was "legally" destroyed.
I would love to know what constitutes "30% illegal" because I'll bet good money that figure is inflated by some dubious allocation or administrative definition of legitimate firearms to this "illegal" status.
In any event it is window dressing and promotion of government propaganda because there is no relationship between guns destroyed and what criminals will possess now or in the future. Anyone who thinks every gun destroyed is a criminal deprived or rehabilitated is living in a dream world. Criminals ship in drugs by the TON, why can't they ship in Guns by the TON?
Unfortunately no firearms organisation thought it worth the bother to do anything about including those with the greatest interest. Both of these were informed and knew about the destruction and the fact that these firearms served as evidence and the only collateral the owners had.
The police can now deny selling and otherwise removing from those handed in firearms as many as they like and claim any firearm not accounted for was "legally" destroyed.
I would love to know what constitutes "30% illegal" because I'll bet good money that figure is inflated by some dubious allocation or administrative definition of legitimate firearms to this "illegal" status.
In any event it is window dressing and promotion of government propaganda because there is no relationship between guns destroyed and what criminals will possess now or in the future. Anyone who thinks every gun destroyed is a criminal deprived or rehabilitated is living in a dream world. Criminals ship in drugs by the TON, why can't they ship in Guns by the TON?
5496 Lyndall Beddy
[ Saturday, January 16, 2010 | 3:08:13 PM ]
The police showed a nice bonfire of supposedly 80,000 guns, 30% illegal (which would mean that 70% were legal and reclaimable)
The police did NOT do this legally - the gun registration numbers were never gazetted as their own law requires.
I don't believe that they had these legal guns any more anyhow, and this was a massive cover up.
The police did NOT do this legally - the gun registration numbers were never gazetted as their own law requires.
I don't believe that they had these legal guns any more anyhow, and this was a massive cover up.
5492 Peter Moss
[ Friday, January 15, 2010 | 8:14:16 AM ]
Rev Dob said So, here is my proposal – get all concerned gun owners to urge the government to (1) separate the crime and gun control (2) re-assign the responsibility of [all] gun control to the military and (3) re-view the laws governing SAPS with a view to equalise them to the rest of the population and not keep them above.//
Prior to the first draft of this legislation SAGA South African Gun owners Association approached the Minister of Safety and Security Mr. Azhar Cachalia and both representatives were thrown out his office with the words - "we know what you want to say and are not interested". That attitude has not changed.
All reasonable submissions and suggestions have been deliberately ignored. Firearm owners are treated with contempt and even court orders are not complied with.
Firearm owners seem unable to grasp that their only solution is to remove the public support for gun control from government that legitimises both its ability to persecute a section of the public and forward its political ambitions.
Prior to the first draft of this legislation SAGA South African Gun owners Association approached the Minister of Safety and Security Mr. Azhar Cachalia and both representatives were thrown out his office with the words - "we know what you want to say and are not interested". That attitude has not changed.
All reasonable submissions and suggestions have been deliberately ignored. Firearm owners are treated with contempt and even court orders are not complied with.
Firearm owners seem unable to grasp that their only solution is to remove the public support for gun control from government that legitimises both its ability to persecute a section of the public and forward its political ambitions.
5491 Peter Moss
[ Friday, January 15, 2010 | 8:01:14 AM ]
Rev Dob
Thanks for your most valued comments and you do indeed propose a compelling alternative.
The problem with gun control is that is is not about guns it is about control. Therefore the real solution is to remove any regulation entirely from the hands and influence of any government official or department. Gun control to government is just a tools to power or more power. Given any route to influence that process and government will at some point in time. Even a constitution prohibition from doing that will not stop government as is the case in the USA.
Gun control is well aware that the real power exists in the "people" and that is why currently gun control is the largest propaganda campaign in the world.
Thanks for your most valued comments and you do indeed propose a compelling alternative.
The problem with gun control is that is is not about guns it is about control. Therefore the real solution is to remove any regulation entirely from the hands and influence of any government official or department. Gun control to government is just a tools to power or more power. Given any route to influence that process and government will at some point in time. Even a constitution prohibition from doing that will not stop government as is the case in the USA.
Gun control is well aware that the real power exists in the "people" and that is why currently gun control is the largest propaganda campaign in the world.
5480 Rev Dob
[ Wednesday, January 13, 2010 | 9:58:00 AM ]
Great efforts, but I see that you are missing something. Let me share with you my thoughts, you can use them as weapons.
Being Easter European, I am puzzled to see the ANC Gov ignoring to see how the Eastern Europe solved the issue of crime. Interestingly, they have taken different approaches to many social aspects, and most of those actually worked (economy and politics failed). But the education (100% literacy rate), healthcare (free, highest standards), mass-housing (buildings they erected 50 years ago still look new), crime (there was virtually no violent crime), gun control (people had guns), policing (Dept Home Affairs division with limited mandate) etc.
But they never mixed the issue of crime and gun control.
The gun control was mandated to the only competent institution in the country – the Dept of Defence. The military, being the most competent in handling arms, was trusted to be the most suitable to control them. Also, unlike the police, military did not have inherent conflict of interests with the people – on contrary, gun ownership by eligible and competent civilians was seen as a good thing, adding to the defence capability of the country.
So, here is my proposal – get all concerned gun owners to urge the government to (1) separate the crime and gun control (2) re-assign the responsibility of [all] gun control to the military and (3) re-view the laws governing SAPS with a view to equalise them to the rest of the population and not keep them above.
Being Easter European, I am puzzled to see the ANC Gov ignoring to see how the Eastern Europe solved the issue of crime. Interestingly, they have taken different approaches to many social aspects, and most of those actually worked (economy and politics failed). But the education (100% literacy rate), healthcare (free, highest standards), mass-housing (buildings they erected 50 years ago still look new), crime (there was virtually no violent crime), gun control (people had guns), policing (Dept Home Affairs division with limited mandate) etc.
But they never mixed the issue of crime and gun control.
The gun control was mandated to the only competent institution in the country – the Dept of Defence. The military, being the most competent in handling arms, was trusted to be the most suitable to control them. Also, unlike the police, military did not have inherent conflict of interests with the people – on contrary, gun ownership by eligible and competent civilians was seen as a good thing, adding to the defence capability of the country.
So, here is my proposal – get all concerned gun owners to urge the government to (1) separate the crime and gun control (2) re-assign the responsibility of [all] gun control to the military and (3) re-view the laws governing SAPS with a view to equalise them to the rest of the population and not keep them above.
5422 Stewart Wood
[ Tuesday, January 05, 2010 | 10:36:47 AM ]
Peter - you will no doubt have seen yesterday's news of the neighbour who saved (with one well-placed round to the head) an Alberton family from almost certain torture and rape and possibly death at the hands of three criminals, one armed with a gun.
I call that a classic example of the absolute need for guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens.
Nothing illustrates more powerfully how a resolute armed citizen can protect his neighbours and community far more effectively than the police ever could (when seconds count the cops are only minutes away!).
And the reaction of the cops? Nice of them, was it not, to say that they would very kindly not prosecute the shooter! Then they went on to say that people should not do such things as protect their community in this way, but rather call the SAPS.
Regrettably the SAPS today is a force possibly more politicised than it ever was under the Nats. The entire FCA fiasco is a prime example of the lie of public safety being served by taking guns from those who do not commit crime, whilst having no intention or capability to take guns from those who do.
I call that a classic example of the absolute need for guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens.
Nothing illustrates more powerfully how a resolute armed citizen can protect his neighbours and community far more effectively than the police ever could (when seconds count the cops are only minutes away!).
And the reaction of the cops? Nice of them, was it not, to say that they would very kindly not prosecute the shooter! Then they went on to say that people should not do such things as protect their community in this way, but rather call the SAPS.
Regrettably the SAPS today is a force possibly more politicised than it ever was under the Nats. The entire FCA fiasco is a prime example of the lie of public safety being served by taking guns from those who do not commit crime, whilst having no intention or capability to take guns from those who do.
5412 Lyndall Beddy
[ Monday, January 04, 2010 | 1:31:12 PM ]
If you have been onn holiday you may have missed that the AC are sneakig in a gazette notice (with only 2 weeks waring) that police can destroy guns.
I suspect it is because they are not there to destroy but "lost" (sold or stolen).
This could be to get around the courts who ordered that people are entitled to their guns back.
People have little time to ask for them back!
I suspect it is because they are not there to destroy but "lost" (sold or stolen).
This could be to get around the courts who ordered that people are entitled to their guns back.
People have little time to ask for them back!
5413 Peter Moss
[ Monday, January 04, 2010 | 1:27:30 PM ]
Lyndall your comments are absolutely spot on.
People have to make the effort to do what they themselves can. Complain about what can only be termed as daylight robbery while they are on holiday of the only collateral they have in a compensation issue or theft depending on your point of view that despite two court judgements the SAPS defy with utter contempt for citizens and the constitution.
The rule of law and humanity no longer exists in South Africa because people do not stand up and say no.
Criminals are more valuable to the SAPS and government than allowing citizens to defend themselves from what they have failed to control. Crime and criminals so violent and unmerciful that it defies belief by the rest of the world.
How on earth anyone can think crime will be reduced by chasing guns instead of criminals is a complete mystery. Do they accept governments lies that 500..1000 police members do nothing every day but chase guns which they have yet to prove to anyone will be a danger to the pubic or more a danger than criminals who have no fear of arrest or punishment?
People have to make the effort to do what they themselves can. Complain about what can only be termed as daylight robbery while they are on holiday of the only collateral they have in a compensation issue or theft depending on your point of view that despite two court judgements the SAPS defy with utter contempt for citizens and the constitution.
The rule of law and humanity no longer exists in South Africa because people do not stand up and say no.
Criminals are more valuable to the SAPS and government than allowing citizens to defend themselves from what they have failed to control. Crime and criminals so violent and unmerciful that it defies belief by the rest of the world.
How on earth anyone can think crime will be reduced by chasing guns instead of criminals is a complete mystery. Do they accept governments lies that 500..1000 police members do nothing every day but chase guns which they have yet to prove to anyone will be a danger to the pubic or more a danger than criminals who have no fear of arrest or punishment?
| Previous Articles |