Piers Morgan when he is not crushing dreams of contestant hopefuls is now hosting his own Cable TV show and recently he interviewed Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America.
Larry Pratt went on to point out that the UK is not all rosy as Piers Morgan leads us to believe and reminded him that in areas where guns are welcome, the violent crime rate is far lower than that of the UK.
However, Larry Pratt comes at a disadvantage when the host of the show interrups him any time he attempts to make a valid point. As such he was not able to give sources to his claims so I have done so for my readers.
Point 1.
While many go on about how many are killed each year by guns, nobody ever talks about how many lives are SAVED because of guns. According to the CATO institute the answer is over a million. Read the full report HERE.
Point 2.
Should teachers be armed. Well you could always ask Joel Myrick who at the time was Assistant Principal of a school during a shooting. Basically when his school became a gun free zone, he could no longer carry on campus so he kept his gun in his vehicle and parked 1000 feet away. When the shooting began he ran for his gun but not before the killing was underway. Sadly all he was able to do was subdue the student as he was trying to leave. Read more about it HERE. If we had more teachers armed think of how many lives could be saved. Gun free zones are to blame not the guns.
Point 3.
This one was a bit harder to prove as the claim is that UK has a higher murder rate than areas in United States where guns are welcome. Here is the raw data. The US has a murder rate of 4.2 while the UK has a murder rate of 1.2 and that these numbers are based on per 100,000. I don't like quoting from Wikipedia but their article is based on a report from the United Nations. HERE is the article.
However it should be noted that according to the FBI statistics New York City has about 6.4, and Washington DC has 21.9. These are two cities where citizens are most likely to be unarmed. Now lets take a look at Phoenix, AZ. Arizona has one of the most gun friendly laws in the state. We even take our guns to hear the President speak. For 2011 the murder rate was 6.2. It should be noted how close we are to Mexico and the drug war going on. When you go outside of the large cities that is where you find more gun ownership and lower violent crime. You can read the FBI report HERE. One thing you will learn is that violent crime is going down. As the economy improves so does the murder rates and other violent crimes.
America's War on Drugs is another factor. Criminals have guns. With drugs being illegal, only criminals will have drugs to buy and sell. Legalize drugs and take the industry out of the hands of criminals and you will find crime rate going down. We did that with Alcohol and we should do the same with drugs. You can long for a paradise without guns all you want, but in America criminals have guns and always will.
Point 4.
Assault weapons ban did not work. According to Christopher Koper from the University of Pennsylvania who did a report for the Department of Justice, see his full report HERE. The Assault weapons ban did not work for several reasons. Primarily because assault weapons were generally not used to commit crimes. 2-8 percent of gun crimes included assault weapons and most of those were assault pistols rather than assault riffles. Logic comes into play here. Violent crimes are things such as robbery, home invasion, rape, and murder. Small weapons that can easily be concealed are the weapon of choice. Costs of assault weapons is another factor.
The assault weapons ban also didn't work because of how few guns it actually banned. While guns such as the AR15 would have been banned guns like the Colt Match Target Riffle would not be. The difference is what specific features each gun had. Another provision is it limited the amount of ammo you could have in a magazine. Simple enough to get around, when you run out of ammo, you drop one clip and pop in another.
The report does go on to list the sunset clause as one of the factors as it was indicated had the ban gone on longer than 10 years better data could have been gathered. I personally disagree with that conclusion. One big loophole that the 1994 ban had was that it was perfectly legal to own or even sell an assault weapon that was made prior to the law going into effect. As such collectors began buying these guns up as they were the ones with the money. The criminals simply opted for cheaper guns. When attacking an unarmed civilian any gun will do.
Point 5.
Violent Crime rate and mass shootings in the UK. Larry Pratt brings up the fact that mass shootings have happened in UK and Piers Morgan goes postal. A simple Google search can confirm this, while not as frequent as in America it still happens. However Larry Pratt then brings up violent crime statistics.
386.3 offenses per 100,00 for US while in the UK it is over 2000. Read the FBI report HERE. Sadly I can not find stats for 2011 anywhere but this article from 2009 shows UK violent crime at 2000 while the US had 466 per 100,000. Read the UK article HERE. I was able to find several years from 2009 and earlier and the trend is constant, violent crime is 4 times more common in the UK than it is here at home. This goes back to my main point. How many lives are SAVED because of guns. In the UK in 2011 there were over 32,000 attacks with a knife. That is from the Home Office Report page 63. Read that HERE. The same report on page 72 shows this graft which includes assault and rape for 2009 2010 and 2011.
So yes, while the chances of you being shot with a gun is unlikely, you are 4 times as likely to be the victim of a violent crime. It should also be noted that according to Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, Walter de Gruyter, Inc., New York, 1997 that Hot Burglaries (where the occupant is home) is more common in the UK than in the US. 45% to 13% respectively. Could it be that criminals in the US fear getting shot?
Point 6.
Like all those who support gun rights Larry Pratt is unbelievably stupid. That was the response Piers Morgan gave to Larry Pratt after he correctly said that gun violence usually happens in large cites and places where gun ownership is restricted. Look for 4:36 into the video. It should be noted that this was a common theme in the comments on my recent video where I said I was getting a gun. People commented that they thought I was smarter than that. After all, it is a well known fact that only stupid people own guns. I agree. I am equally as stupid as Larry Pratt is and I am proud of it.
Point 7.
Adam Lanza's mother. She was a gun owner who was killed by her own son. We are still learning the facts on this one however it does appear that the child did have issues. As such the mother paid the price. The mistake was not her owning guns, rather it was keeping her son away from them. People who want to kill will find a way to do so. Take away the guns and people will use knives, or even learn how to build bombs which can be done by gathering materials from your local hardware store. Even a can of gasoline can be used as a bomb and anyone can buy a rag, a gallon of gas, and a match.
Adam Lanza brought 3 guns to school. One was his primary weapon the AR15 which many are calling to be placed back on the assault weapons ban. However like 1994 this ban would not work. The reason is because Adam Lanza brought 3 guns to school. Two of them were handguns, a 10mm Glock and a 9mm Sig Sauer. Had the AR15 not been available the shooting would have still taken place, with the handguns or possibly another hunting riffle. Assault Weapons Ban did not work in 1994 and it will not work with Senator Feinestein's attempt to revive it. According to the Senator's own words 900 guns would be exempt from her law and it would only ban new guns not the ones people already own. Read the full transcript HERE.
The only way to get a gun ban to work is to ban all guns. That is shut the factories down world wide. Then you would need to confiscate the guns and to do that you would need to invade every home in the world. Guns if banned fully would be no different than drugs or like it used to be with Alcohol. Even if you shut down every single factory in the world, too many people know how to make their own. My grandfather was actually murdered in his sleep with the gun he made with his own hands. The mistake he made was not in owning a gun, rather it was letting some drug crazed family member live with him. He could have easily been killed with a baseball bat, it was just that the gun was more convenient. Simply confiscating the guns won't solve the problem either as only citizens bother to register guns. The criminals know better. Thus you would need to raid every home not only in America but every home in the world. That is logistically impossible. Furthermore in America we have this pesky thing called the 4th Amendment which tends to make raiding a home in search of something rather difficult. You need a warrant that lists what you are looking for and you need probable cause. Dang that bill of rights.
Point 8.
So you could argue why does someone need a AR15 why does someone need a gun at all. Well basically we don't have a bill of needs we have a bill of rights. One of those rights is to bear arms. One of the frequent talking points you will hear is that at the time of our nations founding we only had musket riffles that only fired one shot and took a while to reload. Our founding fathers would not want civilians to own guns that could fire so many rounds of ammunition. I strongly disagree. One of the reasons for the second Amendment is because they got done fighting a much stronger tyrant and his army. Washington and the other generals in the revolution would have welcomed any advantage they could get their hands on. To quote from Thomas Jefferson, "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"
The founding fathers feared that one day the citizens would need to protect themselves from the very government that they were creating, as such they gave the right of citizens to be armed. However, times have changed since then and one man standing up to the government in a gun battle is a futile effort. Look at Ruby Ridge and how they basically deployed an entire division to bring down one man and his family over a case of entrapment.
So is there a legit reason to have an assault weapon? Yes. In the case of riots or other SHTF scenarios where the rule of law breaks down the have's will need to defend themselves against a great number of have nots. We have seen people recently break out in riots over a black friday sale. While Hurricane Sandy was pretty successful in keeping looters at bay that is because of lessons learned from Katrina and other natural disasters. It should also be noted the differences in population for New York and other parts of the world where the Rule of Law has broken down. In the event of a natural disaster, riots, or other SHTF event, you can not count on the law to protect you. Without rule of law simply means the law enforcement is either unavailable or is overwhelmed as they would be in a situation such as a riot. When a crowd of looters come towards your home and loved ones you are going to need more than just 10 bullets. That is what Assault Weapons are for. Also it should be noted as mentioned above AW account for 2-8 percent of all gun violence. As such they are simply a tool that a responsible gun owner hopes to never have to use.
Final Point.
Arm the teachers, it worked for that Joel Myrick and had he been able to carry his gun on campus as he had been prior to the gun free zone law, he might have stopped the shooting from taking place. We simply don't see these mass shootings taking place where people are armed. When law abiding citizens are allowed to carry guns, the violent crime rate goes down.
Of course people thought I was smarter than this, but I am not. I am proud to be as stupid as Larry Pratt is.
