The solution to gun violence is clear
What we should be trying to understand is not one single event but why we have so many of them. The number of deaths by firearms in the United States was 32,000 last year. Around 11,000 were gun homicides. …
The data in social science are rarely this clear. They strongly suggest that we have so much more gun violence than other countries because we have far more permissive laws than others regarding the sale and possession of guns. With 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States has 50 percent of the guns.
There is clear evidence that tightening laws — even in highly individualistic countries with long traditions of gun ownership — can reduce gun violence. In Australia, after a 1996 ban on all automatic and semiautomatic weapons — a real ban, not like the one we enacted in 1994 with 600-plus exceptions — gun-related homicides dropped 59 percent over the next decade. The rate of suicide by firearm plummeted 65 percent. (Almost 20,000 Americans die each year using guns to commit suicide — a method that is much more successful than other forms of suicide.)
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So, we take away guns and suicides will go down? Yah, right.
boomer on December 20, 2012 at 7:03 PM
Once again the US leads in squandering world resources.
roy_batty on December 20, 2012 at 7:04 PM
I heard it was about 9600 out of a pop. of 325,000. That’s low.
Blake on December 20, 2012 at 7:04 PM
Now how much did gun violence drop in the US during that period?
JohnGalt23 on December 20, 2012 at 7:05 PM
You know I could swaer I read this somewhere else – oh Fareed Zakaria.
Should have known.
LincolntheHun on December 20, 2012 at 7:05 PM
Who is this we, Muslim Boy?
Go back to India.
Dack Thrombosis on December 20, 2012 at 7:05 PM
Yeah dude … get lost.
Most of those gun homicides are urban crimes. Clean up your own mess. Washington DC has super strict gun laws yet people get shot daily it seems.
You know, if you write a piece about hundreds of thousands of babies that get their skulls stuck with scissors every year maybe we’ll talk.
darwin on December 20, 2012 at 7:06 PM
Throughout the article, he’s talking about gun violence rates. Is there something preferable about being stabbed, beaten, or strangled to death compared to being shot?
Socratease on December 20, 2012 at 7:06 PM
The Left likes to talk about how overpopulated the world is…wouldn’t high levels of gun violence work to reduce the surplus population?
Gaia demands that for Her sake, we allow the human race to steadily shoot itself out of existence.
Amiright or amiright?
JimLennon on December 20, 2012 at 7:07 PM
Have Thomas Sowell and or John Lott on your show and try to make that claim.
ConservativeLA on December 20, 2012 at 7:07 PM
These stupid liberals don’t understand the reason for the 2nd Amendment is to protect us from them.
One more time liberals. We’re sick of you regulating everything. Sick. Leave us the hell alone.
darwin on December 20, 2012 at 7:09 PM
2010 Homicide stats for Chicago, Population: 2,695,598, homicides 432 under very strict gun laws
2010 Homicide stats for Arizona, Population:
chemman on December 20, 2012 at 7:11 PM
oops, bad hands hit the wrong button
2010 Homicide stats for Arizona, Population 6,392,018, homicides 409 under very lenient gun controls laws.
Arizona or Chicago. I choose Arizona where we can conceal carry w/o a permit. It isn’t the wild west like Chicago.
chemman on December 20, 2012 at 7:13 PM
Miss Cleo.
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on December 20, 2012 at 7:18 PM
The idiot ignores countries like Switzerland and Israel, where gun ownership is every bit as high as the U.S., but not NEAR the crime problem. He also ignore the increases of OTHER crime (like armed robbery and home invasions) in countries like Great Britain after a gun ban. Criminals feel safer.
michaelo on December 20, 2012 at 7:19 PM
A guy named Fareed Zakaria is who would go to on how America should control it’s firearm laws.
Rio Linda Refugee on December 20, 2012 at 7:19 PM
Murder is illegal. Every state has a law against Murder.
Yet it still keeps happening.
Why is that?
portlandon on December 20, 2012 at 7:19 PM
And, now, for a few words from an Indian actually worthy of your consideration:
Gandhi: What a militaristic, right-wing, fringy, Tea Partying loon!
Resist We Much on December 20, 2012 at 7:22 PM
Fluke this plagiarizing alien moron.
The Count on December 20, 2012 at 7:23 PM
So,
Debunked as this meme constantly has being rehashed again.
By this fool.
Why are we bothering? Just shoot him.
ProfShadow on December 20, 2012 at 7:23 PM
The worst places for gun deaths are in blue cities…hmmmmm. I have some ideas.
CW on December 20, 2012 at 7:25 PM
Explain Switzerland and Israel, you dolt, more guns per capita in those nations.
How about this, we have more gun crimes because our justice system is a joke and a farce.
Bishop on December 20, 2012 at 7:28 PM
Isn’t this still a great country!
cozmo on December 20, 2012 at 7:28 PM
I love it when muslims (especially foreign-born muslims) preach about reducing violence in the U.S. – LOL. Let’s all be “peaceful” … KABOOM!
Seriously though, if Fareed Zakaria does not approve of the United States Constitution and the God-Given rights that it enshrines, he is welcome to renounce his U.S. citizenship and move back to Bombay, but, I wonder if he and his family would feel safer and more free in India than they do living in NYC (?) – I doubt it.
Pork-Chop on December 20, 2012 at 7:28 PM
Racist Luddite.
cozmo on December 20, 2012 at 7:29 PM
Mental masturbation.
We have the Second Amendment so any solution you come up with is going to have to deal with that.
The other alternative is to do what the Founders cleverly provided for, repeal the Second. Fairly straightforward process:
a) get the repeal process running in Congress and get it passed then b) send it to the several states for ratification and when 2/3 of the states ratify it, done deal.
If that’s out of reach, then get the repeal amendment started with some states, and forward it to the others for ratification. When 2/3 of the states ratify it, done deal.
Oh, and good luck with either approach. At the end of the day the message is STFU and stop assuming you have the authority to deprive me of my rights just because you don’t like it.
Don’t like guns Fareed? Then don’t own one. I don’t like your writing but it would never occur to me to try to stop you, why can’t you pay me the same courtesy? Oh, that’s right I forgot you are one of the liberal elites and have the Gaia-given (no God for you guys) right to tell everyone how to live.
Liberals. Meh.
clippermiami on December 20, 2012 at 7:34 PM
Isn’t is ironic that the HOMICIDE RATE IS AT THE LOWEST IT HAS BEEN SINCE THE 1960s and 49 states now have CCW laws enabling citizens to carry the means to protect themselves (soon all 50 will given Illinois’ law has been held unconstitutional by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals) and, yet, the Assault Weapons Ban a/k/a The Prohibition On Certain Guns With Cosmetic Changes That Make Them Look Skeery And Are Painted Skeery (And Racist!) Black Act EXPIRED EIGHT YEARS AGO?
Remember the “holocaust” that Dianne Feinstein predicted would occur if the AWB was allowed to happen?
Yeah, me neither.
Resist We Much on December 20, 2012 at 7:35 PM
Shorter Fareed Zakaria: Fascism. Who wants some?
Robert_Paulson on December 20, 2012 at 7:37 PM
“Fareed”? That not Irish I take it?
MikeA on December 20, 2012 at 7:37 PM
Yet a holocaust has occurred. There is an epidemic of head injuries to faint-hearted liberals due to their constant tipping over in fright at the thought of people being armed in public.
Get your facts right, homophobe.
Bishop on December 20, 2012 at 7:38 PM
My comment was deleted?
BKeyser on December 20, 2012 at 7:39 PM
Nevermind. Somehow, it ended up on the other FZ thread.
BKeyser on December 20, 2012 at 7:41 PM
Nice cherry picking of stats Fareed. Here’s some others:
RadClown on December 20, 2012 at 7:43 PM
Somehow? Put the bottle down.
CW on December 20, 2012 at 7:44 PM
Let’s be clear on this statistic. The CDC, where this number likely originates (the numbers are comparable), does not differentiate between criminal homicide and justifiable homicide. So what you are looking at the sum of killings of innocent victims and innocent victims legally defending themselves or others by killing violent criminals with guns.
I hadn’t realized this until I went through all the catgories and saw that the legal interventions category amounted to 606 which seemed extremely low, so I looked up their definitions. Legal interventions only counts actions by police officers, etc.
LAME and willfully misleading.
Dusty on December 20, 2012 at 7:49 PM
I’ve debunked much of Fareed’s faerie tale about the UK here:
Gun Bans: Mad Dogs & Englishmen
Resist We Much on December 20, 2012 at 7:51 PM
Why do they always want to combine the states when doing stats. North Dakota probably has a lower murder rate than any country on earth and everyone there has multiple guns. Of course, there aren’t too many Fareed-looking people there. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it.
Buddahpundit on December 20, 2012 at 7:58 PM
+1
Knott Buyinit on December 20, 2012 at 8:00 PM
Damn straight coz!
roy_batty on December 20, 2012 at 8:26 PM
Another just to be clear, Australia did not put a ban on all automatic and semiautomatic weapons in 1996. The automatic weapons were banned in the in the 1930′s (except for Tasmania) and semiautomatic weapons can be acquired by license for many genuine reasons, except self defense.
Considering the stats Radclown provides [December 20, 2012 at 7:43 PM] what the Australian government did was effective ban self-defense for the weak and vulnerable of society. It’s no wonder their violent crime rates have skyrocketed.
Dusty on December 20, 2012 at 8:27 PM
If guns scare the Fareeds of the world, LEAVE! Take the bleeding heart, AGW idiots with you too. Those of us that believe in what the Founders setup here have no where else to go – so we may not just peacfully walk that plank into Euroturdstan.
rgranger on December 20, 2012 at 9:24 PM
We don’t have a Gun problem. The White rate for gun homicides is the same as Switzerland. However, in Diverse locals we have terrible rates of gun homocides.
As Johnathan Capehart of the Washington Post on the color of crime in The Big Apple:
“In short, 95.1 percent of all murder victims and 95.9 percent of all shooting victims in New York City are black or Hispanic. And 90.2 percent of those arrested for murder and 96.7 percent of those arrested for shooting someone are black and Hispanic. I don’t even know where to begin to describe the horror I still feel looking at those numbers. But the word “hunted” comes to mind.”
Liberals know where the gun crime is coming from, but their little minds go “Tilt!” when forced to confront the truth. We have a black gun crime problem.
Bulletchaser on December 20, 2012 at 9:42 PM
By the way, don’t you guys at HotAir think that trying to load 42 trackers onto everyone’s computer (according to “Ghostery”) is way more than necessary? It is so many that my computer actually slows down blocking them all. Thank the Lord for Firefox blocking software.
Bulletchaser on December 20, 2012 at 9:45 PM