"When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." The underlying argument for gun control advocates seems to be that the availability of guns causes crime. This just isn't the case. Stricter gun laws will not lower crime.
It is a fact that countries or states with the strictest gun laws have much more crime than states that don't have strict gun laws. Take Australia for example. From the period of 1995, the year that guns were banned in that country, to the year 2001, armed robbery has went up 170%, kidnapping/abduction is up 144%, assault is up 130%, attempted murder is up 117%, and sexual assault is up 112%. And these figures come from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and the Australian Institution of Criminology. One might ask what was going on in Australia before the 1995 ban of firearms. It's quite fascinating. Firearm related homicides did drop 66%, and firearm related deaths (non homicide) had gone down 50%.
Another example is Vermont. It is one of the safest five states in the nation. In Vermont, citizens can carry a firearm without permission, without paying a fee, and without going through a waiting period that's implied by the government. For seven years in a row, it remains one of the safest states in the union and has twice received the "Safest State Award.".
In Kennesaw, Georgia, this suburb of Atlanta passed a law in 1982 requiring the heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate dropped 89% in Kennesaw. And now, 2003, 21 years later, crime rates in Kennesaw are still 72% lower than it had been in 1981, before the law was passed.
Concealed carry laws are dropping crime rates across the country. A study that was done in 1998 revealed that violent crime fell after states made it legal to carry firearms concealed. Murder rates dropped by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assault by 7% and robbery by 3%, in states that passed concealed weapons laws.
