Does gun control even work?

[mindstalk]

http://reason.com/archives/2012/12/22/gun-restrictions-have-always-bred-defian/print argues not. Or rather, that black markets in guns are thriving, and compliance with registration laws or bans is very very low -- even in Europe.

Comments

Why gun control works

[fpb]

Because there is a difference between a country where there is one gun every twenty or thirty citizens, never mind how many of those are in illegal hands, and a country where there is a gun and a bit for every man, woman and child alive - and restrictions are so impossible that every one of those guns might as well be held illegally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate - in the most recent comparable years, there were 14748 registered cases of intentional homicide in the USA, 529 in Italy, and 722 in the UK. The USA have about 300 million inhabitants; Britain and Italy, 60 million each. You do the maths. And this means only cases of intentional homicide; when we come to gun accidents, lawful self-defence, and so on, I am willing to bet that the difference will be even larger. Spread the ownership of murder implements among the population, and people will do murder with them. People are perverse that way - when they have opportunities to do things, they will do them, and not hold back just in order to prove the arguments of doctrinaires and addicts.