Mandatory gun ownership works in reducing crime

[alwynsw]

What's your take? Here's what happened in Kennesaw, GA: The ordinance was passed as a slap at the Downer's Grove, IL mandatory ban on all firearms within the city limits.

<snip>

The city's population grew from around 5,000 in 1980 to 13,000 by 1996. In 1982, Kennesaw Georgia passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in their home, exempting those with criminal records or religious objections. Yet, after the law went into effect in 1982, there have been only three murders: two with knives (1984 and 1987) and one with a firearm (1997).Seven months after it took effect, the residential burglary rate dropped 89%, vs. 10.4% statewide. Crime against persons plummeted 74 percent compared to 1981, and fell another 45 percent in 1983 compared to 1982. And it has stayed impressively low.

In addition to nearly non-existent homicide, the annual number of armed robberies, residential burglaries, commercial burglaries, and rapes have averaged, respectively, 1.69, 31.63, 19.75, and 2.00 through 1998.

http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/kennesaw.html
http://www.mcsm.org/kennesaw.html

Anyone with stats on the comparative crime rates for Downers Grove and Kennesaw, jump on in. I'm still looking for data.

[Don Claybrook]

1. My response: fuck that noise

Sorry for the crude language, but it's my best, concise, gut-level reaction to the notion of mandatory gun ownership.

[Wcross]

5. That is how I feel about gun bans.

I wouldn't think of forcing someone to own a gun nor would I expect some fool to tell me what type of guns I can own.

[alwynsw]

12. I agree completely on both points.

FYI: Kennesaw does NOT enforce the ordinance. I called the Kennesaw PD and asked.

[CO Liberal]

19. And Since the Kennesaw PD Does Not Enforce The Ordinance......

...it cannot be considered as a determining factor on the crime rate.

[Wcross]

20. You are correct

But why the high rate of gun homicides in "gun free" cities? Any way you look at it, it seems that the availability of guns is not really the cause of gun violence. Why are there so many school shooting rampages but so few at gun shows? Why don't we hear of a military shooting spree?

Try taking a look at the person that pulls the trigger.

[CO Liberal]

21. Other Factors Come to Bear

Things like unemployment, ethnic/racial composition of the general population (presence of factions that tend to fight with each other), drug trafficking, gang activity, etc, etc, etc.......

[alwynsw]

24. Drug trafficking, gangs, etc.

These groups plus the aligned "etc." are already operating outside of the law. I sincerely doubt that breaking firearms control laws will matter much to their ilk.

Insofar as the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic status of the folks in question is concerned, money - or the lack thereof - may be a weak reason to commit crimes, but it is no excuse: violent crime because of race or ethnicity is simple bigotry on the part of the perpetrators. If we check a little gang history, Louisville Sluggers and knives were once the weapons of choice.

FYI PWT (my traditional background) tend to kill one another off as fast or faster than do diverse ethnic/racial groups. Intolerance, in the words of my not-so-bright about most things brother, "Sucks". (But then, it also sucks when his pizza toppings are not as ordered.)

[alwynsw]

13. About the same as my thoughts on both

mandatory ownership and ownership bans.

[bowens43]

2. Let's see some evidence of cause and effect.

My guess is that there isn't any or yu would have posted a link to it.

[Disandra]

3. I don't have stats...

...but as someone who lives here I can tell you:

1) The police actually live by the motto "to protect and serve." They do not harass citizens and have a good reputation for helping citizens when needed. IOW--the people trust them because they don't have a stick up their ass because they have a badge.

2) Jobs are available here. I pretty much guarantee you that if you live here and want a job, you can find one.

3) The cost of living isn't high at all.

4) It is a small community, but we are pretty diverse. We have a major (for GA, anyway) university (Kennesaw State) and a major mall (Town Center). Believe it or not, there isn't that much racial tension and if there is, people here pretty much look down their nose at it.

I could go on and on, but I don't think that the law mandating that every household have a gun (which, by the way, I don't own) has anything to do with the low crime rate. I think it has more to do with the police acting like human beings, work being available, cost of living not being too high and the diverse people and ideas (thanks to the college).

My 2 cents....

[alwynsw]

7. Thanks for an unemotional post

My main purpose in posting this thread is to see the type responses I'd get.

A couple have been reasoned in whole or in part. Some are hilarious.

I particularly like the attack posts aimed at me. I guess it all depends on how you approach the issue, huh?

on edit: welcome to DU

[iverglas]

4. and prayer works in curing cancer

And rainmakers make it rain. Sometimes it's just a matter of perception, ain't it?

A *law* requiring firearms ownership can't likely hurt ... it's the firearms ownership itself that might be problematic.

Hell, if those average joes wouldn't obey laws prohibiting them from owning guns (as I'm repeatedly told they wouldn't), what makes us think that they have all been obeying a law compelling them to own guns??

.

[CO Liberal]

16. And Pretzelboy Is a Good Christian

:puke:

[iverglas]

6. http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/

Has this website been a blessing for you?

Share your joy and Recommend this Site to someone you know.

Request our Bible Study Material!

If you are moved to help support our ministry, please Click Here.

My cheque is in the mail.

If it weren't for you, I might never have known of the existence of this obviously important, worthwhile, truth-telling website.

What is even more interesting about Kennesaw is that the city's crime rate decreased with the simple knowledge that the entire community was armed.

No, no -- what's *really* interesting is how the bad guys ... let alone ecclesia.org ... knew that the entire community was armed. (Who was asking about mind-reading recently? Maybe x-ray vision, in this case?) I'd never been aware that one could conclude from the fact that a law requires people to do something that the rate of compliance with the law is 100%.


They're really handy with numbers, these folks.

http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/australia.html

In the state of Victoria, homicides with firearms are up 300 percent.

http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/australiaguns.html

Claim Three:
In the state of Victoria homicides with firearms are up 300%
Response:
Victoria recorded 7 firearm-related homicides in 1996, and 19 firearm-related homicides in 1997. That number has now fallen.
1996 - 7
1997 - 19 (171.4% increase from 1996 to 1997)
1998 - 17 (10.5% decrease from 1997 to 1998).
1999 - 14 (17.6% decrease from 1998 to 1999).

... My favorite claim in the letter is that gun-related homicides in Victoria are up 300%. An increase from 7 to 14 is only 100% and is hardly compelling. Population increase alone could account for the higher number. Regardless, in the United States - where most major cities have 7-14 homicides in a month - we would kill (pun intended) for crime rates that low.

The author of this chain letter was a crafty wordsmith who manipulated the statistics to make precisely the point he wanted to. The thing about statistics is that they only show rate of incident - they don't show cause and effect. That interpretation is done by the author based on his own biases and beliefs. Another author might easily have used the same stats to show that the law has been a stunning success. Frankly, the stats aren't convincing on their own and the author's claim that they are a result of the law is questionable at best. Break this chain.

Damn. Couldn't have said it better.

And I'm just afraid that I won't be relying on ecclesia.org, or anything it plagiarizes, for my facts and figures, let alone my analysis of 'em.

.

[alwynsw]

9. FYI

I neither comdemn or condone the website I linked to. It was simply the first one that popped up with a story about Kennesaw, GA.

I was not concerned about the messengers, but merely looking for a hook to get some honest debate and hopefully some stats on both Downers Grove and Kennesaw.

I'm still looking and still waiting.

[alwynsw]

8. The repiles are interesting to say the least.

There is no attempt to deceive or warp the information available. It's just darned difficult to find stats for individual communities this small.


I'm hoping that someone will actually find the stats to either prove or disprove the stories linked to in my original post.

If you'd rather continue attacking me instead of either proving your point or disporving the writers', that's fine. We'll all just keep ranting emotionally until we wear out.

edited for typo

[iverglas]

14. well we might just think

"It's just darned difficult to find stats for
individual communities this small."

... that it's going to be even darned difficulter to find significant statistics -- let alone draw any conclusion about anything at all from those statistics alone -- for a place with a population that seems to have peaked at 13,000, so far.

Cripes.

I can think of some other numbers you might want to be crunching.

For example (apparently Kennesaw is in Cobb County) ...

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/saipe/estimate/cty/cty13067.htm
(you'll have to ask google to find a cached version for that url; it wasn't good)

Model-Based Income and Poverty Estimates for Cobb County, Georgia in 1997

Median household income - $52,924

My my. Relatively prosperous little place, is it? Looks that way, from what I can tell from here: http://www.census.gov/housing/saipe/estmod00/est00_GA.dat
Maybe not too many unemployed riffraff in residence in Kennesaw, lying in wait to hold up or burglarize or kill the good burghers of this little burg?

Now, it seems that Kennesaw is not the wealthiest bit of Cobb County, but still ...
http://www.kennesaw.ga.us/Demographics_Income.aspx

Per capita income in Kennesaw has usually been a little higher than Georgia's average except for the late 1970's to the mid 1980's. Probable reasons for the resurgence of Kennesaw's per capita income in the mid-1980's include its growing function as a bedroom community to Fulton County, which has the highest wages in the region, and job growth in Cobb extending all the way up to the Kennesaw area. When Town Center Mall opened in 1986 the area became a job center in its own right.

Since 1969 Kennesaw's median household income has been even higher than the per capita income in comparison to Georgia. The higher household income can in part be attributed to higher per capita incomes, but also significant is the larger household size and higher labor force participation rates for Kennesaw. The combined factors provide for more people in a house with more of them in the work force. Both of Kennesaw's income measures have traditionally been lower than Cobb County's, though due to Kennesaw's larger household size, household incomes have been closer to Cobb's level than the per capita income measure. The 2000 Census will more than likely show Kennesaw's income measures will be closer to Cobb County's than ever, though Kennesaw has quite a way to go to catch up. While the number of households in Kennesaw and Cobb making under $30,000 is about the same, 33% to 32% respectively, 28% of Cobb's households make over $60,000 compared to 16% of Kennesaw's.

All in all, a community with higher-than-average per capita and household incomes, a higher proportion of families (more people per household = fewer young single people) ... yeah, that's the kind of place I'd be expecting to see a murder a minute.

Cripes, again.

I really do hope that no one is asking me to conclude, from a few years of life in what appears to be a rich little bedroom community, and with no information about actual rates of firearm ownership to boot, that a law telling everybody to buy a gun will make all our cities and towns crime-free in short order.

.

[iverglas]

10. http://www.mcsm.org/

After the law went into effect in 1982, crime against persons plummeted 74 percent compared to 1981, and fell another 45 percent in 1983 compared to 1982. And it has stayed impressively low. In addition to nearly non-existent homicide (murders have averaged a mere 0.19 per year), the annual number of armed robberies, residential burglaries, commercial burglaries, and rapes have averaged, respectively, 1.69, 31.63, 19.75, and 2.00 through 1998."

Lemme see. Population: "5,000 in 1980 to 13,000 by 1996" ... let's take an average: 9,000.

0.19 per 9,000 = 2.1 per 100,000.

Hmm. The homicide rate in Canada is ... what, again?

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/020925/d020925b.htm

Police reported a total of 554 homicides in 2001, eight more than in 2000. The national homicide rate, which has generally been declining since the mid-1970s, was 1.78 homicides for every 100,000 individuals, similar to levels during the late 1960s.

How can that be? Why, fewer than half (I keep forgetting the current estimates, but I'm pretty sure it's fewer than half) of Cdn households own firearms. And yet the homicide rate is lower than the homicide rate in peaceful, perfect little Kennesaw??

How the hell many murders would someone *expect* to see in a dinky little place like this??

Comparisons are difficult for sexual offences ... Canada long ago abandoned the classification "rape" and now uses different levels of "sexual assault", any of which might qualify as "rape", or not, so we can't compare those figures.

How about "armed robbery"?

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/030724/d030724a.htm

The robbery rate declined 3% in 2002, continuing a downward trend. About half of the almost 27,000 robberies were committed with a weapon. The rate of robberies involving a firearm has dropped by two-thirds since 1992. Robberies committed with a firearm now account for one in every eight robberies.

Half of 27,000 = 13,500 "armed" robberies.
13,500 per 30,000,000 = 45 per 100,000.

1/8 of 27,000 = 3375 "firearms" robberies.
3375 per 30,000,000 = 11.25 per 100,000.

And Kennesaw?

1.69 "armed robberies" per 9,000 = 18.77 per 100,000.

We'd have to know how many of these "armed robberies" were "firearms robberies" in order to do a comparison ... but I'd have a sneaking suspicion that a whole lot of 'em were.

How can the rate of firearms robberies in Canada possibly be declining at the same time as restrictions on firearms possession have been tightening -- when the Kennesaw thang obviously proves that MORE guns = LESS crime??

I just get more and more confused ...

.

[alwynsw]

11. Who mentioned Canada?

Not me! I'm trying to talk apples and apples: two relatively small U.S. cities.

[iverglas]

15. not so fast, chum

If there is to be a conclusion to be drawn regarding the effect of firearms ownership on crime rates (which isn't even a conclusion that anyone could possibly draw from information about laws compelling or prohibiting firearms ownership), then the person attempting to assert that conclusion would be the one having to explain why Canada is an orange to Kennesaw's apple.

Either laws compelling/prohibiting firearms ownership (or, let's get real, high/low rates of firearms ownership) have an effect on crime rates or they don't, eh?

And if they allegedly do in one place but not in another, well, I'd just be needing an explanation for that one.

.

[alwynsw]

23. So now I'm shark bait?

National crime rates are just that - NATIONAL. We're referencing two smallish cities here. (Note COLiberal's post below concerning stats)

[CO Liberal]

17. Percentages Can Be Deceiving In a Small Town Like Kennesaw, GA

If there were five murders one year and seven the next, that would be a 40% increase in the murder rate. But the number of murders went up by two - a number that wouldn't even shift the decimal point in a big city like Atlanta.

You have to take statistics with a grain of salt - after all, assholes like John "Cook The Books" Lott have made small fortunes by using statistics in dishonest ways.

[CO Liberal]

18. From One Of Your Referenced Articles

http://www.mcsm.org/kennesaw.html

Underlining mine:

The city's population grew from around 5,000 in 1980 to 13,000 by 1996 (latest available estimate). Yet there have been only three murders: two with knives (1984 and 1987) and one with a firearm (1997).

"After the law went into effect in 1982, crime against persons plummeted 74 percent compared to 1981, and fell another 45 percent in 1983 compared to 1982. And it has stayed impressively low. In addition to nearly non-existent homicide (murders have averaged a mere 0.19 per year), the annual number of armed robberies, residential burglaries, commercial burglaries, and rapes have averaged, respectively, 1.69, 31.63, 19.75, and 2.00 through 1998."

So the crime rate appears to have always been very low in Kennesaw - both with and without the mandatory gun law. In other words, the sample size is too low to produce meaningful results. Other factors may be responsible for the low crime rates.

[alwynsw]

22. Agreed

But we did get the debate going a bit. That was the purpose of the thread.

[Damndifino]

25. I have a question

Why was the law compelling firearm ownership in this town proposed in the first place, and on what basis was it passed? We are told that it was "as a slap at the Downer's Grove, IL mandatory ban on all firearms within the city limits". Surely there has to be more to it than that. What were rates of firearm ownership like prior to the law? How do they compare with GA as a whole?

[CO Liberal]

26. I've Been Trying To Find Out

Basicaly, I've been trying to find out exactly when Downer's Grove enacted their law, and why. No luck yet, but I'm still searching.

[MrBenchley]

27. Quick, who is surprised?

Here's a sampling of the "scholarship" on one of these sources...

"The Bible mentions two dinosaurs by name and describes them in great detail. "Behemoth" (Job 40:15-24) and "Leviathan" (Job 41:1-34) From the description found in Job, scientists have attempted to identify these animals. They believe "Behemoth" is either a Hippo or an elephant, and "Leviathan" is a Crocodile or a whale. But these scientists limited their choices to non-extinct species and did not consider the possibility of dinosaurs because man and dinosaur never coexisted. Oh really? ...It is clear that man and dinosaur lived together and co-existed at the same time. With this, both science and the Bible agree! "

http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/dinosaurs.html

The other site links to right wing loonies Gary Aldrich, the American Conservative Union, and the Freepers...

Here's a bunch of racist nutcases discussing that group and its roster of "patriots"......

"LSM Founder Bill White has launched a fight for leadership of the Montgomery County gun rights movement, and his coalition of gun rights "extremists", including members of the Tyranny Response Team, the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, the Reform and Constitution Parties, and radical groups such as Gun Owners of America and the Save A Patriot Fellowship, appear positioned to next month take the chairmanship of the County's largest gun rights group away from a coalition of the NRA, retired police officers, and the Libertarian Party which have mobilized to stop him.
Montgomery Citizens for a Safer Maryland ( http://www.mcsm.org ), which was founded five years ago by NRA members to lead the political fight in Montgomery County against gun control and for gun-rights, has become a center of political organizing for pro-gun candidates and causes in the area. It's membership is composed of the leaders of most gun-oriented groups in the area, from the NRA to GOA to the Libertarian, Constitution and Reform Parties, and served as an organizing point for recent Tyranny Response Team actions against the County's proposed gun show ban. During the last election cycle, it was addressed by the Republican nominee for Senate, Paul Sarbanes, representatives of the Bush campaign, and Constitution Party congressional candidate Brian Saunders, and has been headed since December 2000 by Republican Party Central Committee member Augustus Alzona. "

http://www.overthrow.com/lsn/news.asp?articleID=504

Are you surprised? I'm not.

[liberalhistorian]

28. Mandatory gun ownership is as

ridiculous and as much a violation of individual rights as a ban on gun ownership.