Mexico Wants US Gun Control...
... The real question is, why?
Why, for that matter, are our elected officials trying to ram gun control down our throats at this time? To combat growing rates of violent crime?
There's just one problem with that theory: Violent crime has been decreasing over the past twenty years, not increasing. Last year saw fewer murders per capita in the US than in any other year since we started keeping records.
Weapons are proliferating in this country... Americans own more hand guns and rifles per capita than anyone else in the world, and we've continued to add to our gun collections for the last four years at an unprecedented rate... yet still the per capita rate of violent crime in the US is decreasing overall.
Our national murder rate, which peaked at 10.2 murders per 100,000 people in 1980 is now down to 4.7 -- less than half of what it was in the "kinder, gentler" times we all think we remember. In fact, even after the ban on semi-automatic rifles expired in 2004, there was no significant increase in the murder rate -- and it has continued to drop in the eight years since then.
So, if our society is actually becoming LESS violent, even while our gun rights have been some of the most permissive in the world, why is gun control being pushed on us NOW?
Who is trying to convince all of us that we are violent, uncontrollable animals, instead of responsible, law-abiding citizens who can be trusted to wisely exercise our Constitutional right own firearms?
Which US states are the most violent, and why? Does that have anything to do with gun control? Who is it, exactly, that's p***ing in everybody's pool?
This map shows a state-by-state breakdown of murders per 100,000 people in 2009.
This map shows a state-by-state breakdown of murders per 100,000 people in 2010.
... And this map shows a state-by-state breakdown of murders per 100,000 people in 2011.
Notice the green states? Washington and Oregon are "shall issue", open-carry states where you can legally own a semi-automatic firearm, and carry it in the open while walking down the street. Yet they have low murder rates.
Now, notice that California and Texas have nearly equal rates of murder per capita? Yet their gun laws are very different: Texas is very gun-friendly, while California has such extremely strict gun control, it's already lost battles in the Supreme Court over it.
One more thing I'd like you to notice: Canada is mint green, while Mexico is red-red-RED, and getting redder every day. The murder rate in Mexico has climbed from 14 per 100,000 to an astounding 24+ per 100,000 in just three years!
Yet, Canada and Mexico BOTH have extremely restrictive gun-control laws.
It's evident that violence isn't directly related to guns or the lack thereof, but to geographic location -- specifically, which states are most heavily influenced by our neighbor to the south.
With Mexican cartels in the news on a daily basis, you may not have realized that guns are severely restricted in Mexico. For an ordinary citizen, options are limited: the largest weapons in Mexico’s single gun store — including semiautomatic rifles — can be bought only by members of the police or the military. Handgun permits for home protection allow only for the purchase of calibers no greater than .38; the paperwork is extensive, takes months to process, and although legally any citizen may apply, in practice permits tend to be granted only the the wealthy or politically-connected.
Mexico is, in fact, a model of what gun-control advocates would like to see here in the US -- and the Mexican government is also in favor of US gun control legislation. They'd like us to be completely disarmed. Their argument is that most of the guns in Mexico are coming out of the US, so they believe there would be less gun violence in their nation if the US confiscated all our citizens' firearms.
But according to the article Mexico Jumps Into Gun Control Debate, the cartels can and do obtain firearms from a multitude of sources besides the US:
So, is the problem that US firearms are being imported into Mexico?
Or is Mexican violence being imported into the US?
.
.
.
.
.
There are an estimated 15 million firearms in Mexico, only 5 million of which are legally registered. Our military personnel number less than 1.5 million... so there are ten times as many guns in Mexico as we have armed forces to defend against them.
Personally, I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea that Americans should be unarmed in the face of violent and heavily-armed criminal cartels just over our border. I am uncomfortable with the idea of an "assault-weapons ban" that would restrict American citizens to owning small-caliber handguns and bolt-action rifles, when the criminals to the south are well-armed with automatic and semi-automatic rifles.
I find it very disturbing that the Mexican government wants US citizens to disarm... and that our elected officials appear poised to accede to their demands.
-- Paravani
... The real question is, why?
Why, for that matter, are our elected officials trying to ram gun control down our throats at this time? To combat growing rates of violent crime?
There's just one problem with that theory: Violent crime has been decreasing over the past twenty years, not increasing. Last year saw fewer murders per capita in the US than in any other year since we started keeping records.
Weapons are proliferating in this country... Americans own more hand guns and rifles per capita than anyone else in the world, and we've continued to add to our gun collections for the last four years at an unprecedented rate... yet still the per capita rate of violent crime in the US is decreasing overall.
Our national murder rate, which peaked at 10.2 murders per 100,000 people in 1980 is now down to 4.7 -- less than half of what it was in the "kinder, gentler" times we all think we remember. In fact, even after the ban on semi-automatic rifles expired in 2004, there was no significant increase in the murder rate -- and it has continued to drop in the eight years since then.
So, if our society is actually becoming LESS violent, even while our gun rights have been some of the most permissive in the world, why is gun control being pushed on us NOW?
Who is trying to convince all of us that we are violent, uncontrollable animals, instead of responsible, law-abiding citizens who can be trusted to wisely exercise our Constitutional right own firearms?
Which US states are the most violent, and why? Does that have anything to do with gun control? Who is it, exactly, that's p***ing in everybody's pool?
This map shows a state-by-state breakdown of murders per 100,000 people in 2009.
This map shows a state-by-state breakdown of murders per 100,000 people in 2010.
... And this map shows a state-by-state breakdown of murders per 100,000 people in 2011.
Notice the green states? Washington and Oregon are "shall issue", open-carry states where you can legally own a semi-automatic firearm, and carry it in the open while walking down the street. Yet they have low murder rates.
Now, notice that California and Texas have nearly equal rates of murder per capita? Yet their gun laws are very different: Texas is very gun-friendly, while California has such extremely strict gun control, it's already lost battles in the Supreme Court over it.
One more thing I'd like you to notice: Canada is mint green, while Mexico is red-red-RED, and getting redder every day. The murder rate in Mexico has climbed from 14 per 100,000 to an astounding 24+ per 100,000 in just three years!
Yet, Canada and Mexico BOTH have extremely restrictive gun-control laws.
It's evident that violence isn't directly related to guns or the lack thereof, but to geographic location -- specifically, which states are most heavily influenced by our neighbor to the south.
With Mexican cartels in the news on a daily basis, you may not have realized that guns are severely restricted in Mexico. For an ordinary citizen, options are limited: the largest weapons in Mexico’s single gun store — including semiautomatic rifles — can be bought only by members of the police or the military. Handgun permits for home protection allow only for the purchase of calibers no greater than .38; the paperwork is extensive, takes months to process, and although legally any citizen may apply, in practice permits tend to be granted only the the wealthy or politically-connected.
Mexico is, in fact, a model of what gun-control advocates would like to see here in the US -- and the Mexican government is also in favor of US gun control legislation. They'd like us to be completely disarmed. Their argument is that most of the guns in Mexico are coming out of the US, so they believe there would be less gun violence in their nation if the US confiscated all our citizens' firearms.
But according to the article Mexico Jumps Into Gun Control Debate, the cartels can and do obtain firearms from a multitude of sources besides the US:
So, is the problem that US firearms are being imported into Mexico?
Or is Mexican violence being imported into the US?
.
.
.
.
.
There are an estimated 15 million firearms in Mexico, only 5 million of which are legally registered. Our military personnel number less than 1.5 million... so there are ten times as many guns in Mexico as we have armed forces to defend against them.
Personally, I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea that Americans should be unarmed in the face of violent and heavily-armed criminal cartels just over our border. I am uncomfortable with the idea of an "assault-weapons ban" that would restrict American citizens to owning small-caliber handguns and bolt-action rifles, when the criminals to the south are well-armed with automatic and semi-automatic rifles.
I find it very disturbing that the Mexican government wants US citizens to disarm... and that our elected officials appear poised to accede to their demands.
-- Paravani
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