ANSWERS: 26
  • If law abiding citizens lose their guns then of course only the criminals would own them because they couldn't care less about laws. Crime rate would definately INCREASE. I've always thought this was the craziest argument.
  • I would say that if weapons are banned in the market the crime rate would DECREASE, of course criminals would have weapons illigaly and that might cause a problem, but eventually those weapons would be out dated ammo would be scarce and the police would take any weapons in the streets and in the end there woont be any weapons at all.
  • Crime rate might decrease but there is no guarantee that all guns will be taken away. There will still be lots of people with who will possess guns illegally, usually those who love their guns and refuse to give them up. There are also the criminals who don't care and won't follow the law who will keep their guns and use them illegally. I personally think it's unconstitutional to ask a person to give up their gun, I mean; we have all have the right to bare arms. It won’t make that big of a difference, violent people will use their guns or other means to harm people.
  • An honest citizen defending him/herself with a firearm probably doesn't happen every day. You'd get some emboldened criminals, but I don't think that it'd be a major spike in crime rates. But what do I know.
  • Definitely increase. Look at the places in the US where guns are restricted: New York, Detroit, Washington, etc. The crime rates there are unbelieveable. I have friends in Australia who tell me the crime rate skyrocketed when guns were outlawed.
  • The Gov will not take our guns away, they know we would have a civil war if they tried. What is happening in Illinois is what will probably happen all over the US. That is in order to keeps guns in your house you must have a one million dollar insurance policy, this will cost about $850 a month. IF you can get it. So you can pay, get rid of your weapons or go under ground. But know this to keep your guns without the insurance will be a felony with a minimum of 5 years in prison.
    • Hardcore Conservative
      You are NOT required to have insurance to have a gun, anywhere in the US.
  • There are two assumptions here that may or may not be true. The first is that guns are en effective defence against such people. Generally, the intruder/attacker has the advantage of surprise and has his gun ready. If he thinks you have a gun, or are going for a gun, he will fire first. Even if you have a gun, if you don't have the jump on him (the normal case) you would be well advised not to go for it. Secondly, while it is undoubtedly true that making guns illegal will not stop hardened criminals owning them, having many less guns around and having serious penalties for owning them means that the addled junkies and drinks, who are responsible for a huge amount of petty crime, will not have them. Gang members will have them - but they mostly kill other gang members and their associates. Not good, but not a threat to most citizens. But zonked idiots trying to get the cost of the next fix will not have them - and they are the ones who threaten you and me. It is wrong to think that things change in isolation. When you change one factor, other things change in response. A guns owning culture is also a shoot-first culture. In cultures with fewer guns, even those with guns are likely to be more reluctant to fire. Shoot-outs, and the killing of passers by are much much rarer. The US has approximately the same per-capita rate of accidental deaths of children from guns as Europe has of gun deaths of all types - accidents, criminals, defenders, police and passers-by. Of course, neither of those figures is a happy one. But if you own a gun, it is much more likely to kill someone in your family than it is to kill a thief.
  • If our guns were taken away from us (not to mention our American right would be taken with them), I believe crime would skyrocket. Criminals would have nothing to fear as they broke into endless homes and businesses. Lets pray that day never comes...
  • When you say OUR guns you are obviously talking about the USA. I don't think you need worry about guns ever being removed from your culture because they are too heavily ingrained a part of your national identity for that to ever happen. Consequently any discussion of how removal of guns would affect crime is purely hypothetical.
  • Let's assume the Magic Wand worked and all firearms disappeared from US civilian ownership, both criminals and good folks alike. Here is how I think it would roll: - Death and injury due to firearms would drop to zero. - Suicides would drop temporarily until alternate methods were found (based on past studies of the early years of the Brady Bill's impact on suicides in senior citizens and Canada's experiences following increases in their firearm control laws). - Crime rates would drop briefly as criminals try out new weapons and then increase as they figure out the best way to make them work for them. - Hot burglaries (burglary of an occupied residence) and home invasions would lead an increase in crime rates as aggressive criminals no longer need to fear a firearm-wielding homeowner. I also think an increase in multiple assailant attacks would follow as the criminals figure out that superior numbers make up for lack of superior firepower.
  • First, I have yet to speak with a pro-gun advocate who has stopped, prevented or solved a crime with a firearm. I am certain it has happened, but I am equally certain the number of crimes prevented or stopped by gun carrying citizens is minuscule compared with the number of guns carried in America. Second, the need for firearms at the time of the drafting of the Constitution was entirely different from the need for firearms today. It may be the biggest threat to overthrow today's United States Government comes from those who depend on that very government to allow them possession and ownership of firearms. I cite Timothy McVey, et al, as an example of that mindset. Third, Canada has a higher per capita proliferation of firearms than the United States, yet an infinitely smaller number of deaths by firearm. I believe that statistic alone disproves the firearm/criminality correlation because of the inexplainable vast difference in the number of firearm deaths. It is a small minority of United States citizens who feel the need to carry a firearm to go to the store for milk.
  • I will never give up my weapons. I would hide them like many others and probably join an secret military formed group to keep the right of the Constitution. without weapons the US would be overthrown by immigrants that agree with the Taliban quicker than a blink of the eye. wake up the only reason they want to take our weapons away is to overthrow us. they are planted here through immigrations and that is the facts.
  • I hope they never take away the right to bear arms. Guns are not the problem, the government is the problem. They allow the illegal ones to be moved around in here. (And don't start with that "no they don't' crap!) Nothign wrong with guns, I've alsway liekd them, found them mechanically fascinating and well, they are just nice, necessary and FOR RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE ONLY. Watch the Halloween episode of Simpsons where guns are taken and destroyed after they declare peace and then they get invaded by the big green glob monsters....then where will we be when we can't defend ourselves against space aliens, huh? How is anti-gun BS gonna help us then, huh, huh, huh?
  • This is something of an moot question, because it's never going to happen (Right wing screeds about "dem liberals want our guns" to the contrary). Furthermore, one of the things I took away from Michael Moore's film "Bowling for Columbine" is that it's not the guns, it's the violence. We need to figure out why Canada has per-capita gun ownership rates about 1/3 of the US, but gun violence rates that are about 1/6 of the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gun_ownership http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence . . .
  • I do not think gun ownership has much of an impact on deterring crime as a statisitic. Economic and social conditions changing I think have more of an impact in both directions. Owning a gun does not ensure no one will try to rob you. It is a false security in my opinion. Sure you hear of the occasional save by a gun owner, but the overall advantage still remains with the attacker. That said, I find it silly to even worry about the government taking our guns. The estimates range from 230 million to over 280 million guns in this country. No law without brutal enforcement will ever make much of a dent. If it came to that, we would have way more problems than worrying about crime. Maybe a better question to ask yourself might be ,"Would I give up my guns if they were made illegal?"
  • Hello Princesscountrygirl and Welcome to AB.. The words "cold dead fingers" come to mind. I should say this first, they are not getting them.!!! As of this time in history I have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Should it ever come come to the Gov. removing this right, the little punk gang banger will be the least of our problems..We will be facing an enemy much more powerful, a tyrannical government..Most governments that have moved to communism or totalitarianism have first disarmed their citizenry, Hitler, Castro... Oh to answer your question...We would not!!!
  • Crime would do more than increase! It would shoot off the charts! If you look at where most shootings happen you will notice a trend. Shootings happen in "gun-free" zones. If you allowed people to move freely like our Founding Fathers intended we would not have these problems today! We would be armed in our schools and other places. I would not have a problem at all with my childrens teachers carrying a pistol in the classroom!
  • In all countries where guns were taken away, It is a fact that crime had gone up by a great amount. Most everyone misses the 2nd amendment meaning of a right to bare arms. We have a right to bare arms to fight against our own gov'nt take over of we the people. We the people run this country. Not the gov'nt. If our gov tries to take our 2nd amendment right away we have a right to form a militia with our guns! Besides guns don't kill people. People kill people! A gun does'nt go outside and shoot someone. The person pulls the trigger.
  • The crime rate is not likely to go anywhere. It's rare when owning a gun actually thwarts a robbery. It is even rare when a gun owner stops an entire gang by himself except in the movies. In fact, your gun is statistically more likely to either end up in the hands of a criminal or used in a domestic dispute than it is to actually stop a crime. BTW, I'm not anti-gun. I'm just not fanatical about them to the point where I worry about losing them.
  • First of all the act of taking away weapons from American citizens is itself a crime. So crime would immediately increase. Secondly, there are more than a few who would not willingly give up their weapons, they will shoot the police for their attempted crime against them, and when the police shoot back, that is yet another increase in crime. Third, if it were a success to eliminate gun ownership (you know this already) criminals could not be effectively stopped from committing crimes and thus an even greater increase. Crime prevention by means of gun control is a total fantasy, I (and so many others) have decreed it so by virtue of the fact that I (we) will not be disarmed except by means of death. For those who want this to happen I ask you, do you really want a serious deadly shootout to occur right next door to you between your neighbor and the police? Then please by all means do not live next door to me.
  • One thing I will not do is to surrender my guns to anyone, including the government. If they try to use force to take my guns, then they will have a major problem on their hands. If we lose our guns, then we will lose all of our freedoms.
  • The guarantee of unarmed pray will cause crime to skyrocket. It will also make people unable to resist their government in the New World Order. An unarmed populace is helpless against an armed military. The U.S. is the Titanic. Obama was the iceberg.
  • Probably increase it a little, at least until I got my internet Attack Wolverine Breeding business going.
  • Good question. The only solution I have is not to live in areas with crime. Too simplistic? I live in an area with no crime and as far as I know, no one needs a gun.
  • This says it fairly well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngsKzdKNAmo Having a gun is no garuantee of safety but I'd rather take my chances. I work with and know plenty of street cops and I have met only one that did not support citizens being armed as the street guys know the reality behind things (a much different mindset tends to prevail with the deskjockeys and bureaucrats that never have to see reality). A two minute response time sounds fast until one considers that someone with a knife, bat, or even bare hands needs only seconds to kill their victim. You would see a great uptick in crime in the USA as the reality is the predators already have the required frame of mind to committ acts (murder, rape, robbery, etc.) that most of us would not consider, they do not care if they are breaking the law by having a firearm as their intent is to violate the law and the rights of their fellow man on a larger scale anyways. Even if the criminal does not have a firearm, he is psychologically ready and willing to do harm to his victim which gives him a leg up with an unarmed victim. The armed citizen at least has the chance of being on an equal or better footing. I take my right and responsibility seriously and regularly do real world, practical shooting practice as well as blade and unarmed defense. Self-defense is not about having the tools, its about having the mindset, firearms are merely the best available tool and like any other tool the more proficient you are with it the better it will work. A gun is not a magic talisman to ward off evil, though often merely presenting it is sufficient to defuse the threat, you had best be prepared to actually use it should it come to that.
  • i think it would be the same, they would just use something else

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