Robert VerBruggen
Zakaria vs. guns, again
Clearly, the U.S. had a higher homicide rate than Australia long before Australia enacted such strict gun control. But more crucially, the U.S. and Australia saw a similar reduction in homicides during the 1990s, while Australia was curtailing gun rights and the U.S. was expanding them.
If these data have “blindingly obvious” implications for the gun-control debate — much less the gun-control debate in America, where the Second Amendment takes Australia-style measures off the table — I’m not seeing them.
Blowback
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Plagiarizing himself now, eh?
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on December 20, 2012 at 7:25 PM
Does he have no shame?
May ethics swallow him, alive.
Schadenfreude on December 20, 2012 at 7:26 PM
I don’t normally read Zakaria -partly because there’s a good chance I read it when it was written the first time… by someone else- but does he normally inject so many straw men while at the same time ignoring so much evidence that should be blatantly obvious?
Maybe Fareed should check with the Tokyo chapter of MS13 to see how they are able to effect their drug trade without so much gun violence. Or the Paris chapters of the Bloods and the Crypts. They might be able to teach the LA chapters how to hold down the violence.
Maybe he should look up how many illegal guns are involved in gun homicides vs legal guns by the legal gun owner. Or the illegal immigrant rate in the US vs that of Australia.
I wonder where he comes down on assisted suicide? Based on this piece, he must be against it since I’m pretty sure that a gunshot is not allowed even where the practice is.
And finally, if laws were the answer, there would be no murder. That’s already against the law, and I’m pretty sure every single person in this country in possession of -or has access to a gun, knows that.
BKeyser on December 20, 2012 at 7:29 PM
I just love listening to media personalities from other countries lecture me on my rights in my country from some percieved moral high ground.
There’s a reason my ancestors crossed an entire ocean to get away from you freaks. And I don’t think you were meant to follow.
Durka-Durka on December 20, 2012 at 7:48 PM
I need my gun myself!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsdZKCh6RsU
claudius on December 20, 2012 at 8:06 PM
So many straw men thrown up so quickly.
To listen to his show on CNN you could be forgiven for wondering why he became a naturalized American. One suspects he, like Barky, has the burning urge of the angry foreigner to join in a ‘fundamental transformation’ of the country. Much as the unhappy idiots from European countries fly to Pakistan to join the Taliban and fight infidels.
CorporatePiggy on December 20, 2012 at 8:32 PM
Zakaria and Piers Morgan need to STFU.
Piers Morgan is the single-most obtuse overbearing lefty to appear in a good while. His arrogance and roughshod treatment of civil guests will in the long run lose his already-weak arguments for him.
A belligerent and bellicose badger is Mr. Morgan. Anyone with an ounce of sense would avoid giving his fear-mongering, hate-mongering, neurotic, self-congratulatory, myopic, narcissistic little show any legitimacy by even appearing. God, what an annoying, yelping, prancing tool.
hillbillyjim on December 20, 2012 at 8:53 PM
Gun control advocates believe that if you just remove the gun through legislation, you can remove the gun crime. Simple, easy, no more gun crime. The reality of course is much different.
Cocaine has been removed through the use of legislation, so cocaine shouldn’t exist in this country and yet somehow it finds its way into the hands of those who seek it. Some have even argued recently that the USA’s war on drugs is lost. How can that be, when the law was passed banning it.
No amount of legislation alone will remove all guns from the hands of would be killers. Our borders are far too porous. We can’t even control the flow of people in this country. Of course law abiding citizens would obey the law banning weapons. This would create a lot of gun-free zones where would be killers could commit their crimes without fear of reprisal.
How about something quick and relatively cheap. After 9-11 we put armed marshals on airplanes and hardened the cockpit door. Schools could easily add a couple of armed police officers to every school or even supplement that with the occasional marshal disguised as a Janitor or other school worker. Access to classrooms could probably be hardened a bit with little to no expense as well.
lcchamp on December 20, 2012 at 8:59 PM
This is the obvious truth that the gun-grabbers and the ignorant (some overlap is there, of course) will choose not to acknowledge.
Disarming the law-abiding people will only embolden, and worse, empower the evil-doers of our society. A worse prescription is hard to envision.
hillbillyjim on December 20, 2012 at 9:25 PM