Precisely *my* point. If being armed makes you a less desirable target, then why is it a problem for it to be known that you're armed?
This suggests that common criminals would have the wherewithal to check a registry to see if a potential target is armed or not. I would suggest that most crimes are random, with the perpetrators selecting victims of opportunity, without the prescience to know if their victim is armed or not. Banning guns, or even controlling them to such a degree that makes ownership nigh on impossible, skews the odds heavily in favor of the criminal.
In my opinion, only highly organized and prepared criminals would take the time necessary to check any such registry to see if someone is armed or not. These kinds of premeditated crimes are less likely to be committed against random victims, and I'm not sure that someone who is taking the time for the planning necessary in such a crime is much concerned about whether their victim is armed or not.
The point here isn't to cut down on crime, it's to make stolen guns easier to trace and make identifying stolen guns faster and easier.
(However, if the barrel pattern of each gun could be tied to the registration, you could theoretically trace the gun from the bullet, instead of hoping to luck into the gun. Now *that* might be a deterrent.)
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England and Australia have both effectively disarmed their citizens. It started with registries, wherein all law-abiding citizens listed their guns and their serial numbers to the governments. This did little if anything to affect the rate of violent crime in both of these places.
Again, that's not the point. The point is to make it easier to apprehend criminals who use guns.
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Next, semiautomatic weapons were confiscated, thanks to a handy checklist created from the same registry supposedly designed to protect citizens. Next it was all pumpguns, regardless of how many rounds they held. Now, the honest people have been disarmed, their weapons sawed up and melted down, and violent crime (robbery, rape, assault, murder) rates have skyrocketed.
Being against registration because it would make confiscation easier is like being against the space program because it might attract hostile aliens.
My point is that all the steps that many want to take here in the U.S. in an attempt to decrease crime and to make it easier to identify and trace stolen guns have already been tried elsewhere, including my examples of England and Australia. The registration idea failed in those places, and led to eventual confiscation. It's unlikely that such a registration system would work here, and the fear I share with many other gun owners is that such a failed registration system would lead to confiscation. I don't want to see that door opened.
There may be no guarantee that registration would lead to confiscation, but as long as there's no guarantee it won't, then I'm against registration.
But just for the sake of argument, has anyone been able to prove the cause-and-effect of the gun ban and the crime stats?
In 1996, Australia effectively banned guns. Local newspaper headlines showed the results:
"The number of Victorians murdered with firearms has almost trebled since the introduction of tighter gun laws.
--Geelong Advertiser, Victoria, Sept. 11, 1997.
"Gun crime is on the rise despite tougher laws imposed after the Port Arthur massacre, but gun control lobbyists maintain Australia is a safer place. . . . The number of robberies involving guns jumped 39% last year to 2183, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and assaults involving guns rose 28% to 806. The number of gun murders, excluding the Port Arthur massacre, increased by 19% to 75."
--"Gun Crime Rises Despite Controls," Illawarra Mercury Oct. 28, 1998.
"Crime involving guns is on the rise despite tougher laws. The number of robberies with guns jumped 39% in 1997, while assaults involving guns rose 28% and murders by 19%."
--"Gun crime soars," Morning Herald, Sydney, Oct. 28, 1998.
"Murders by firearms have actually increased (in Victoria) since the buyback scheme, which removed 225,000 registered and unregistered firearms from circulation. There were 18 shooting murders in 1996-97, after the buyback scheme had been introduced, compared with only six in 1995-1996 before the scheme started."
--"Killings rise in gun hunt," Herald Sun, Melbourne, Dec. 23, 1998.
"Victoria is facing one of its worst murder tolls in a decade and its lowest arrest rate ever."
--Herald Sun, Melbourne, Dec. 11, 1999.
"The environment is more violent and dangerous than it was some time ago."
--South Australia Police Commissioner Mal Hyde, reported in The Advertiser, Adelaide, Dec. 23, 1999.
As for England, I refer you to this lengthy article,
http://www.nraila.org/media/misc/lostrts.html I'm more or less in agreement that a gun ban won't prevent crime.
It seems we may all be in agreement on that. However, there are many people in this country who don't see that. I agree that instead of restricting the rights of gun owners, we need to examine the social and economic causes of crime. I think we can all agree that the causes of random violent crime are ultimately social or economic, or both, and that a gun is just a convenient tool for committing that crime. Take away the guns, and a different tool will be used, and the major difference will be that victims will be less able to effectively defend themselves.
) some of those numbers are misleading and don't tell the whole story:
