Gun control is one of those things that can't just be written off as, "Get rid of the guns, and lower homicides!", because statistically, outlawing firearms in various countries has done little to curb violent crime, and in some cases, increased it. Australia, for instance, still has pretty high homicide numbers for a country that has an almost total ban on firearms, and the UK has a higher homicide rate than Canada, which has pretty prolific firearm ownership (going off of what Wikipedia has, anyways:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate). The thing is, most people who own firearms aren't and won't ever be criminals, and the vast majority of firearms owners keep their weapons secure and locked up in the event of a break in while they aren't home.
From the Statistics Canada webpage,
75% of violent crime in Canada is committed without a weapon, and firearms are rarely used in violent crime.
This page breaks down how violent crime is actually decreasing, and of all firearms used in crimes, 57% are handguns and only 16% are rifles and shotguns.
It also says that about 46% of firearms related homicide is done by gang members, and a good chunk of those guns I can promise you were illegally obtained.
And that's just Canada, but check this out:
This Times article stating that violent crime is at its lowest numbers since 1978.
But that can't be right, can it? I mean, where were all these mass shootings that suddenly popped up the past few years? Isn't that a sign of a gun problem?
Not really. The thing is, overall, violent crime and guns being used illegally is on a decline, and the news is a sensational, emotional thing that will keep covering a story about a shooting until damn well everyone on the planet knows about it. Being constantly exposed to stories of people getting shot and these mass shootings makes it really easy to skew the public's perception that Sandy Hook and the Aurora, Colorado shootings are a dime a dozen atrocities that are on the rise. They aren't. Go back and take a look at mass shootings and you'll notice that for the most part, their instances are pretty steady, and one thing we absolutely must not lose sight of is that those atrocities are committed by lone individuals, and they went into those situations knowing they were going to die. They were sick in the head and prone to violence. While in many cases the firearms used in those crimes were obtained legally, I would argue that that's a failure on the government's part to properly screen those individuals, and in a lot of cases, there were warning signs well before they went out and committed their crimes. Gun control wouldn't have made a difference in those cases; reporting troubling behaviour and taking note of some of the fucked up shit they post online would have been more effective. Problem is, nothing's foolproof, and all the measures in the world short of Minority Report won't stop everything from slipping through the crack. Hell, Timothy McVeigh didn't shoot anybody outside of war; he figured out how to make homemade bombs and killed hundreds of people. Where there's a will to do harm, people will use whatever they can get their hands on. Yes, firearms do make murder easier for people, but once again, you don't necessarily need a gun
to commit a mass homicide. 33 people were stabbed to death in a 2014 knife attack in China from one man.
Now, why is the United States such a disproportionally massive location of homicide and violent crime? I'm hardly a sociology or cultural expert, but a part of it, I think, is the US idolizes gun culture and has this unhealthy obsession with self-defense to the point of fantasizing about shooting a criminal breaking into your home, and the fact that different states have wildly differing gun laws. California and New York, for instance, are notorious for having such strict gun laws that even up here in Canada we think that they're excessive and fucked up. A huge problem down there is things like those big gun shows where you can bet vendors aren't checking licenses and anybody can come along, plop down 300 dollars on a new Glock and walk away, no documentation required. You could go from a restrictive state to a non-restrictive one, pick up some gun that's illegal in your state, and nobody's going to stop you. Hell, almost all of the guns the Mexican cartels have come from the US, and there's an obscene amount of gun shops near the border. The problem isn't gun control, it's regulation and licensing and making sure that the people obtaining firearms are legally allowed to, mentally sound, and for the government to keep a better eye on mass transactions as well as regulating the gunshows better. Telling Bubba Joe that he's not allowed to buy an AR-15 and buy
the ammunition for it isn't going to lower crime rates. Hell, there's an effective argument that the knowledge that a lot of people have guns keeps crime lower because nobody's going to break into a home and risk getting shot unless they're stupid, desperate, or know nobody's home.
Last year, the RCMP banned Swiss Arms Classic Green rifles and CZ 858 rifles overnight with absolutely no third party discussion, expert review, or even telling the government. I own one of the CZ 858 rifles and I bought it legally; it is no different than any other semi-automatic rifle. It's pinned to 5 rounds per magazine, only fires semi-auto and can't be converted to an automatic, and meets the 18.5 inch barrel length requirement for a non-restricted rifle. Yes, it superficially resembles an AK-47, which is a huge reason why the RCMP reclassified it as prohibited. Now, I am a law abiding citizen with a clean criminal record and military service under my belt, I have my firearms license after applying for it and being checked out by the RCMP, and these rifles had been imported without issue for 12 years after the RCMP initially approved them. I technically became a criminal overnight because I owned something I had bought legally two years before the reclassification, and all of the RCMP's justifications for banning it (the very few times they publicly stated why, seriously, shady on the low bullshit) have long since been debunked. I would like to remind you that of all firearms crime in Canada (which is on a steady decline), only 16% are committed with rifles and shotguns. I can only recall one incident where the CZ 858 was used in a crime in 12 years (the shooters opened fire at a Parti Quebecois election party, killing one person before being stopped), meanwhile, the terrorist who killed a Canadian soldier at a war memorial in Ottawa before storming Parliament Hill
couldn't legally own firearms and was using a lever-action .30-30 rifle, which fires slower than a semi-auto and can't be reloaded quickly.
Point is, guns themselves aren't the problem and nobody in the right mind who's buying an expensive military-style firearm is ever going to use it in a crime because that's an expensive investment to risk losing (my TAR-21 cost me $2500, for instance, and that's on the higher end of things) and we collect them for the same reason people collect cars, swords, coins, stamps, whatever. They have historical value and they're fun to shoot. You can argue until you're blue in the face about how dangerous firearms are, but there's no national campaign to ban alcohol, which is responsible for far more deaths each year than firearms by a landslide, and dangerous irresponsible drivers are also amongst the highest manslaughter rates anywhere. You don't look at the guy roaring down the street in his Mustang like he's going to kill somebody; I assure you, the guy down the street with the AK is less of a threat to you and your neighbourhood than that deer that shits all over your lawn. At least the guy with the AK isn't going to jump out in front of the guy with the Mustang.
