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We hear all the time that the reason murder rates are higher in the USA than Europe is that Europeans don't have any guns. But that's just a simple uneducated conclusion. Murder rates in the USA would be higher even if we had no guns. And now we know that there are actually a lot more legal and illegal guns in Europe than anyone wants to talk about. And in fact, recent mass shootings have illustrated how easy it is to get an illegal gun in Europe.
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When wannabe-terrorist Ayoub El Khazzani was wrestled to the floor of a train in France and given a righteous stomping by pissed off and proactive passengers, they relieved him of a small armory. He had been planning to inflict murder and mayhem with an AKM assault rifle, a semiautomatic pistol, a box cutter, and a container of gasoline. Despite themselves being unarmed, three Americans, a French-American, and a Briton jumped Khazzani, beat him with his own rifle, and put an end to his scheme.
But how did the misfired terrorist acquire his intended implements of destruction in supposedly gun-phobic Europe? Could it be that firearms aren't quite so unavailable as right-thinking policy-peddlers assure us on their way to insisting that Americans should be disarmed in (supposed) likewise fashion?
"Contrary to the common assumption that Europeans are virtually unarmed, the 15 countries of the European Union have an estimated 84 million firearms. Of that, 67 million (80 per cent) are in civilian hands," noted the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey in 2003.
At that time, the organization reported registered civilian-owned firearms in France as numbering 2.8 million. But unregistered guns owned in defiance of the law were estimated at 15 to 17 million, vastly outnumbering official figures.
Belgium, where the train Khazzani intended to turn into a killing ground originated, had 458,000 registered firearms in 2003. But the unregistered total is again much larger, at an estimated 2 million.
Even in neighboring Germany, stereotyped as a nation of reflexive law-abiders, 7.2 million legal guns are far outnumbered by 17 to 20 million illegal firearms.
Even in neighboring Germany, stereotyped as a nation of reflexive law-abiders, 7.2 million legal guns are far outnumbered by 17 to 20 million illegal firearms.
You'd think this would be common sense by now... until you can magically make all guns and the tooling/knowledge of how to make them disappear, in a world awash in guns you only disarm the lawful folks (i.e. the people who aren't the cause of the problem) when you ban them. That makes the problem even worse in the long run because you just made the bad guy's job A LOT easier by taking away the victim's ability to fight back and therefore tipped the risk vs reward scale in favor of the criminals, which of course makes for more criminals and even more crime.
If you are a gun hater... sorry, but it's too late. Gun violence is not going away even if every lawful gun owner turned in their stash and the guns were crushed. Even if Law Enforcement could get every gun in the country (as probable as accurately counting all the grains of sand on the beach, BTW) you would just create a new smuggling industry from places like Mexico (another country awash in guns despite said guns being entirely illegal) which we have absolutely no control over. You can't close Pandora's box once it's open... that was kind of the point of that story!
Yes of course. So you have quoted, what, 8 people?
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