Gun Confiscation in California

This is a political and controversial topic. Skip it if you cannot handle intellectual debate in a civil manner. – We are hearing from mainstream media that the right wingers’ fears of gun confiscation are unfounded. The mainstream media has for weeks said that could not and would not happen. The proof that gun confiscation is a real threat has come to California. The state legislature has submitted the bills. Read these articles:

There are some things the media is not telling people. Let’s take two of the basic tenants of gun laws. The idea of a 10 round magazine being unnecessary for self defense is common. What people do not consider is that most hand guns have magazines of 10 or more rounds. So, the law effectively makes most hand guns illegal.

The idea that less than 10 rounds should be enough to defend one’s self is bogus. Fernando Aguirre wrote Surviving the Economic Collapse about the 2001 collapse of the government in Argentina. This man has personally experienced the collapse of government along with its loss of law enforcement abilities. He writes about his personal experiences and the crime that has taken over Argentina. To this day Argentina has not recovered and crime is almost as bad there now as things are today in Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis. He believes he would probably not be alive today if he had not been armed with a handgun.

We are seeing city and state governments starting to collapse in America. Detroit is a leading example. The Wall Street Journal reported in October 2012 that 30 cities were likely to soon fail and 13 were failing. (reference) If you live there, you are in trouble. In July the Business Insider was listing cities in financial trouble, most of them in California. (reference) These are all places that will likely be reducing police and fire protection to attempt to balance the budget.

For some reason people think criminals act alone. The stats are they don’t. Especially in areas where law enforcement is overwhelmed. Criminals operate in gangs. It is safer for them. Mr. Aguirre writes on page 158:

May be a few decades ago you could still argue about it. Today, real-world gunfights dictate a new reality. It’s no longer just one or two shots fired. It can go up to fifty or a hundred rounds exchanged. A lot of lead ends up flying both ways these days during shootings.” A ten round limit is not for your protection.

Take a look at this picture of L.A. police shooting two innocent women.  Then think about who is supposedly protecting you. These women did not even fire back. Count the holes in the back of their truck.

No Commands, No Instructions and No Opportunity to Surrender

No Commands, No Instructions and No Opportunity to Surrender

These are trained professionals that fired those rounds. Does anyone think a criminal committing a crime is going to only fire 1 or 2 rounds? If you have to defend yourself, are you going to need more than 10 rounds? Absolutely, if you hope to live.

The L.A. Times is reporting that the L.A. officers gave the two women no commands, no instructions and no opportunity to surrender. (reference) Yikes!

All of these proposed gun laws are only going to affect the law abiding. They are not going to stop a shooting like Columbine or Sandy Hook. Sen. Feinstein’s assault weapons ban was in place before the Columbine shooting. It did not help. Disarming law abiding citizens does not help stop the bad or crazy guys.

The Cinemark Theater in Aurora, Colorado was the only one that banned customers from carrying their guns inside. The shooter passed a number of other theatres showing the Batman movie to get to it. The Virginia Tech campus had declared itself gun-free.

The media does not remind people of the shootings that were cut short by law abiding citizens carrying concealed weapons. Think: Clackamas Town Center  in Portland about which most mainstream  media does not mention Nick Meli. Or the high school shooting in Pearl, Miss. where principal Joel Myrick stopped the shooter. Or the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo. where Jeanne Assam, a volunteer security guard, took out the shooter. A good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. Since 1950 almost all mass shooting have been in gun free zones. But, the media is not pointing that out.

Another problem we have is the laws we have now are not being enforced and criminals and crazy people do NOT follow them. So, why does anyone think more laws will help?

Japan is often used as the best example of gun control. A gun or sword cannot be owned by a Japanese citizen. But, it is not so much gun control as it is how the police and culture work. Americans are not like the Japanese. Nor do we have the number of police officers that the Japanese support. The way they operate and the number of them gives the Japanese police an average response time of 5:45 minutes. While in Detroit the response time for a home invasion where you are outside is 4 hours. For a life and death case the response time is much better: 57 minutes, yes fifty-seven. (reference)

From the Detroit Daily: “Justifiable homicide in the city [Detroit] shot up 79 percent in 2011 from the previous year, as citizens in the long-suffering city armed themselves and took matters into their own hands. The local rate of self-defense killings now stands 2,200 percent above the national average. Residents, unable to rely on a dwindling police force to keep them safe, are fighting back against the criminal scourge on their own. And they’re offering no apologies.” (Reference: Detroit Vigilantes)

Another fallacy in crime reporting is the idea of response time.  In Detroit 9-1-1 calls are prioritized, when they are even answered. As the number of officers on duty shrinks due to budget cuts something had to be done, so calls are prioritized.  Priority 1 calls will involve emergency situations that are still in progress; where a perpetrator is on the scene; where emergency medical service is needed; and where the preservation of evidence is of an urgent nature.

It is only those calls that are used for response time.  If your home was robbed in Detroit, you will probably never see an officer and that is NOT factored into response time. Also, expect to be hit again after the insurance replaces your belongings. DO NOT expect help from the police.

The serious fallacy in these numbers comes from the reality of whether you can even call the police. When a bad guy starts to come into your home you have to decide whether to reach for the phone or a gun… or just run and hope you’re not shot in the back. The result is you are most likely to call AFTER the event, so response time simply does not matter.

In prosperous cities that can afford good police protection response time may be 2 to 3 minutes. But, more likely 7 to 10 minutes. As more American cities basically go bankrupt police officers and equipment are cut to reduce the budget. In California we already release jailed criminals to meet court ordered population limits. So, the legal system in California is on the verge of complete overload. This is what happened in Detroit.

Disarming the law abiding citizen is stupid. (Harvard Gun Control Study) Consider. Virginia  handgun purchases increased 112% between 2006 and 2011, and violent crimes committed by people using handguns fell by 22%. In 2006 there were 23,431 violent crimes in Virginia, and that dropped to 18,196 in 2011. More guns in the hands of potential victims means less crime.

The Point of Gun Control

The Point of Gun Control

(Reference)

If you are looking for a good list of gun control facts get this document: Gun Control Fantasy and Facts.

In the US, the approximately 90 million legal owners of guns, owing 300 million firearms; murdered zero people last year (2012).

12 thoughts on “Gun Confiscation in California

  1. The UK has low levels of policing, low levels of gun ownership and low levels of murder or even crimes committed with a gun (with about 80% of all gun-related deaths being suicides). As most of the police are unarmed you would think that criminals would carry arms to give them a better chance but they don’t because they know that even carrying a gun will lead to a very long time in prison if they are caught. The only real use of guns is in inter-gang fights where they like to copy the American street culture.

    Intriguingly Australia’s experience shows that gun deaths were on the decline well before they put in more stringent gun laws following a massacre in 1996 – see http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/gun-deaths-in-rapid-decline-since-buyback/2006/12/13/1165685752421.html – though the drops have kept increasing.

    To me it seems that the the United States has more of a societal problem in that a willingness (and expectation) to use guns in a violent way is much more accepted than it is in any other Western nation – more akin to many Central and South American countries. The amount of gun control being proposed by the Obama administration is small compared to most other countries. I doubt it will make Americans feel safer or be safer – when a society has descended to the levels it has reached it will take a long time to bring it back and that seems unlikely to happen in the near future.

    • Hitomi, I think you make the mistake many make and compare only limited stats. A good article on the declining crime rates in the UK is in the Guardian: Crime statistics for England & Wales: what’s happening to each offence? (Jan 2013 – 2011-2012 data) An interesting point is the Guardian writer hints that the UK Police are padding the stats. If the writer is right, it’s padded by about 100%, which would make the following numbers twice as bad. But, for the sake of discussion we can stick with the official numbers.

      To move on… the Nation Master has an interesting collection of statistical comparisons between the UK and the USA. See: Crime stats: United Kingdom vs United States.

      The number of assaults in the UK is twice that of the USA. I am way less likely to be assaulted in the USA.

      Car thefts in the UK are down. For the UK that is one theft per 181.5 people. In the USA there is one theft per 2,500 people. So, one is less likely to have their car stolen in the USA.

      Murders are hard to compare. It is easier for me to give you the point there are less murders in the UK. BUT… in the US-murder-rate are self-defense killings, which I don’t consider murder, but that requires debating opinion. The Nation Master’s numbers are ambiguous too.

      15% more Americans feel safe then do Brits when walking at night. So, we feel better about our armed police than the Brits do about their unarmed police.

      There are more than twice as many rapes per capita in the UK than in the US. So, once again women suffer more when they cannot protect their self. Not a good thing for the UK women.

      In the UK there is one crime per 10± people. In the USA there is one crime per 262 people. You have to do the math. The Nation Master’s rankings don’t make sense to me. But again I am safer in the USA than in the UK.

      • I am not denying there some areas of crime where Britain has a worse record than the USA but the original article was about the effects of gun ownership and crimes like car theft (where most are from stolen keys or hot-wiring in the UK) are not affected by that.

        Looking at NationMaster’s own figures.

        The number of murders with firearms in the UK is 14 and in the USA is 9,639 (58 times more) – even if there were half of those being self-defense killings (and there are a few of those in the UK as well) that is an amazing difference.

        Looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate the homicide rate per 100,000 people is 3 times what it is in the UK in the USA, so undoubtedly people will use other forms of weapon to kill if they haven’t got a gun. The thing is if someone lashes out at you with their fists, a baseball bat or even a knife the chances of being killed are much less than if they are using a gun.

        • It is not just ‘some areas’ where Briton has worse crime rates then the US. It is most. My point in the first comment is I think you only look at the gun related crime as a comparison point. That hides the reality of what gun ownership does because of how gun numbers are reported.

          As to the likelihood that an attack by gun is more deadly than by other weapons, that is opinion. Dig up the stats. There are people shot 18 times with 9mm that survive. I don’t know of one case where a person was stabbed 18 times and survived.

          I gave you the point on murder because the reported stats have been spun so much it hard to get factual numbers. Just as the Guardian ran into numerical anomalies that indicated general numbers on crime were being cooked, the same anomalies are true of most of the gun crimes reported anywhere. The media is definitely biased. This creates perceptual problems for people. If you read the article linked to on Japan, you may have realized that the perception of less competent police in Japan is most probably an illusion of news reporting in Japan.

          One has to sort out the different classifications of gun deaths and how they are reported in each country both by the government and media; self-defense (326 Wall Str Journal 2010 and 1,527 non-government sources which is a huge divergence), suicide (38k 2011 Nation Master), and accidental or unintentional (606 2010). Then one has to cross check and normalize the numbers before attempting a comparison.

          How do we have 9k gun deaths and 38k suicides with about 80% by gun? How did each country count gun deaths inflicted by police? In some cases only reported crimes are counted which messes up everything.

          If guns are the only criteria, how is it gunless Japan has a higher suicide rate then the US? Japan 30,000 – 2011. USA 38,364 – 2010. Or 1 per 4,260 in Japan and 1 per 8,119 in USA, about half. I think this reflects the problem with vehicle thefts. How many are violent crimes and how many are a simple key or hotwire theft unknown to the owner at the time? It is hard to dig out stats. It is obvious decreasing guns is not necessarily going to reduce crime and Briton is pretty much proof of that.

          One has to dig into the gun statistics even deeper to realize that Americans have been buying guns at an ever increasing rate since 2005 (FBI Background check stats). Two years later, 2007, violent crime rates began deceasing (FBI Crime Stats). (Reference article with data links) Violent crime is aggravated assault, murder, forcible rape, robbery, and we have a general violent crime category.

          Even worse for the USA numbers is the problem of state by state laws and city laws. Our gun laws are not uniform. Detroit and DC both with the most restrictive gun laws in the nation drive up our crime numbers. We have cities, counties, and states that promote gun ownership. In those places crime goes down and is generally 70% less than areas that are gun free.

          If you compare the rate of decrease in crimes, US crime is decreasing faster than in the UK as gun sales increase.

          In California about half of all handgun purchases are made by women. In the US 200k women per year use guns to stop sexual abuse. Armed citizens protecting their self and families shoot more bad guys than the police. Removing guns makes all these law abiding people defenseless.

          Your points are, so far, unconvincing.

          • I could answer a lot of these points but one you may be aware of is that the USA figures on assault produced by the FBI and used in NationMaster only cover aggravated assault whereas I know that the UK figures are for all assaults – as the figures for simple assaults are 3 times as many in the UK I believe the figures are rather difficult to compare.

            Also what has the rate of suicides in Japan got to do with it? It is a cultural problem there with the common methods being jumping in front of trains (from my own experience this is becoming common), leaping off buildings, fumes in cars, hanging, or overdosing on medication, but hardly any are shootings. Undoubtedly some homicides are reported by police as suicides to improve their figures, so their homicide figures are not accurate – hardly anyone in Japan believes they really have a 96% homicide clear up rate.

  2. Agreed Hitomi.
    Americans would have a different viewpoint if they only lived outside the USA ;P

    We don’t even arm our Police here in New Zealand – although they have fairly quick access to sidearms on the rare occasion they’re needed.

    Considering it’s the most powerful nation in the world – Americans seem overly scared of their government and foreign invasion – yet it’s the “home of the brave”?

    I am just lucky to be born in a country without those concerns I guess.

    • JubJub, you have no way to know what Americans would think if they lived in New Zealand (NZ), that is opinion and as such is not even debatable.

      I assume you comment that the NZ police are normally unarmed suggests that an unarmed society is safer. So, let’s look at that.

      In NZ the rate of assaults is twice that of the USA.

      The NZ citizens are 11% less confident in the police than are Americans.

      One out of 189 people has their car stolen in NZ. One out of 2,500 people have their car stolen in the US.

      I’ll give you the point on murders in NZ being lower than in the US. But, I point you to my answer to Hitomi. These rates are hot political potatoes and I have a hard time finding well explained numbers. I did find out that gun ownership in NZ is considered high. About 29% of Americans own a registered firearm. About 5% of Kiwis, which doesn’t seem high to me.

      As for walking in the dark, only 62% of the Kiwis feel safe compared to 82% of us Yankees.

      In NZ one is three times more likely to get raped than in the US.

      One of 10 people experiences a reported crime in NZ. In the US only one in 262 people experience a crime.

      So, again the US is safer than another country.

      As to the fear of a government… here we get into opinion and perception making it hard to debate. Since you took a cheap shot on our bravery I point to the walking in the dark stat. I’ll also point you to: Prof. R.J. Rummel’s, Univ. of Hawaii, book Death by Government. He coined the term Democide.

      A bit of history: http://warriortimes.com/2011/04/24/what-happens-when-governments-disarm-their-citizens/

      It isn’t that you live in a country where these problems do not exist; you are just unaware of them.

      Hugo Chavez became dictator of Venezuela and last year disarmed the legal gun owners. His government cannot protect people and crime is sky rocketing. So, political leaders do come to power and repeat the atrocities of the past. One decides whether to be vulnerable or not.

      • How much of http://warriortimes.com/2011/04/24/what-happens-when-governments-disarm-their-citizens/ is fabricated? It was published in 2011 and it claims:
        “Australia has disarmed it’s citizens, and a year later the homicide rate in the largest province is up 300%. The burglaries of seniors is “dramatically” up.
        I guess the criminals did not turn their weapons in. Only the innocent law abiding citizens turned in weapons.”
        I cannot find the stats for NSW for 1996 and 1997 but here are the graphs for Australian homicides, gun-related and other – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704353/figure/fig1/ which show a clear decline, which has continued since 2005. Why did they not use more modern and complete stats as a basis for their comparisons?

      • Actually I have friends that born in USA and now lives in Europe.
        Here in Spain is the same. We dont use weapons, we dont need weapons. Americans are often too paranoid. And they fear their government? Then how can someone live in that way without trusting on its own government?

        For sure a gorvenment isnt perfect and 100% clean. But from that, to thinking such things… they often are overexagerating. Is a matter of culture and evolution. To look beyond the past and the wild west times. No one should be allowed to hand a gun if is not strictly necessary. They claim is for self defense, but if you count the cases that weapons worked as self defense vs the cases that made the things worse, this last one wins. And again, is not weapons faoult, is just that most people in USA arent ready or able to handle the responsability of having a weapon. Weapons are made to kill and nothing else. If you want a good defense, invest on security systems instead of weapons. Is cheaper and more efficiency.

        For me this new age without weapons in USA is a really good step forward into getting more cilized and give a better image to the rest of the world. Because, right now, USA are always those “dangerous and crazy” estates about weapons. And I think that is very sad.

        • You have no stats for the idea that law abiding citizens having guns has made it worse. The stats are the opposite in every country. One just has to dig into them and get past the media’s sound bits.

          Why would anyone trust their government? The largest massacres throughout all history have been by governments that first disarmed their citizens.

          Vehicle thefts are 1 theft per 350 people vs 1 per 2,500 people in the US or 7 times more thefts in Spain.

          General crimes are 1 per 50 people vs 1 per 262 people in the US or more then 5 times more likely in Spain.

          An interesting twist on rape in Spain is the Britons pointing out the rising incidence of British women being raped in Spain. Of course Brits cannot have handguns and certainly cannot bring them across the border into Spain. This makes them safe targets for violence. (UK Telegraph)

          Nation Master’s stats make no sense when compared to each countries raw stats. The only credible source for Spain’s data that I came across in a quick search was for 2005. In 2005 there was 1 rape per 1,541 people in Spain. In the USA it was 1 per 3,143 people in 2005 (bit less than half) and 1 per 3,735 in 2011. So, as we get more guns in the hands of law abiding citizens in the US our rape rates go down. In 2005 one was more than twice as likely to be raped in Spain.

          But, fortunately all those people did not need to defend their self from crime…

          Spain is far less safe than the USA. And if we compile stats state-by-state for those that have permissive and restrictive gun laws, the permissive states are far safer.

          EDIT—-
          As to trusting government and Spain’s statistics see: “Las estadísticas del Ministerio del Interior no son fiables ni propias de un país desarrollado” — which would indicate Spain is worse off than the numbers suggest.

  3. A little late here, but I would like to make a “brief” comment. I appreciate all you have said, Nalates. I was born and raised in a small town (12K) in the Bible belt of Texas. I was a conservative, evangelical Christian and staunch Republican for almost 50 years! And then I met Vanish in SL. We fell in love and I moved here to Germany to be with him and have lived here for the last 2 1/2 years. I know you want facts. I know that is what makes sense…and “facts don’t lie” and all that. All I can tell you…is that if you ever LIVE in a European country, your out look on life in general changes!

    I know that the small town that I grew up in Texas was terribly gang infested with dope rings everywhere you looked. There was prostitution, beatings, knifings and shootings on a regular basis. You could not walk the streets alone, your kids could not play unsupervised and you had better have your door locked at all times.

    I was an AVID gun supporter…and while I never owned a gun myself, I DID encourage many other to buy them and learn how to properly use them.

    After moving here and EXPERIENCING a different way of life, I have to admit that my outlook on gun control has changed. I can walk the streets freely at night (and yes, we live in a small village…about 9K… I am sure there would be SOME difference in a larger one, although I’m not sure it is quite like the States.) My step children walk home from school ALONE with NO fear of being kidnapped or flashed. I have not seen any gangs or gang related activity. It is almost as though it is like America was 65 years ago. IT IS SO NICE! Germany has had STRICT gun control throughout much of their recent history, including WWII. IF you are a hunter or have a certain job that is considered “dangerous”, you CAN get a gun, but it is MUCH harder to get and quite expensive with expensive upkeep and relicensing. I don’t know anyone that owns one. Including my husband, who HAS one of those aforementioned jobs and yet he CHOOSES not to carry one…would not even CONSIDER it.

    I DO know that in 2011 (I am assuming those are the last statistics they have?) the German police force only discharged 85 bullets FOR THE ENTIRE COUNTRY FOR THAT YEAR!!!! So it seems there is not much need for lots of shooting…even by the police force

    I don’t have answers…not here to fight….just here to humbly offer a different POV from someone that has lived in both places. I am not sure WHAT it will take for America to “turn around”, but I’m praying for the sake of my children and grandchildren that it does. All I know is that things are MUCH calmer and quieter here and I cannot help but wonder if some of that is due to the lack of guns? Most of the people who live here seem to think so. Just an opinion…:)) Thanks for letting me share. (Hope this made sense…I should be in bed right now…lol)

    • I appreciate your reply. Do remember that Germany disarmed their population under Hitler and killed 6+ million Jews.

      This site takes numbers from the Bundeskriminalmt and compares them to the FBI numbers. As with most European countries there are articles by reputable sources that question the accuracy of German crime reporting. Plus a number that dicuss the bias of German news reporting, but that is a problem everywhere.

      Getting 2011 data is sometimes a problem. So, during 2010 the overall crime rate for Germany (7,405 crimes per 100,000 population) was 2.25 times that of the United States. For Texas the overall crime rate is about the same as the US so, about half of Germany’s.

      Rape rates cannot be compared because of the differing definitions used in reporting.

      With robberies the definitions are again very different making 1 to 1 comparision way difficult. I suspect that is why Nation Master has so few comparisons for Germany.

      The FBI reported 751,131 “aggravated assault’s” for 2011, for a rate of 241.1 per 100,000. The BKA reported 515,853 assaults with grave or slight injury, for a rate of 643.8 per 100,000. That is about 3 times higher. For texas the rate is 265.0/100k, again lower than Germany.

      While you feel safer Germany, the stats do not backup your feelings as realistic. Just as the article points to stats and an article on Japan and why people there think that the police in Japan are less effective than Americans think. You may be more influenced by the media than the facts.

      Without having the location of your ‘small town’ I cannot check the facts. I do know that most small American towns do not have gang problems. But, that probably depends on what one calls small. I know that crime in Texas it also very much depends on the neighborhood. Counties and cities that have more permissive concealed carry permits have hugely lower crime rates. One really has to look at the stats and dig into what the media is pushing to get to the truth.

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