Ghost
8 Point Buck
"Friendship must never be buried under the weight of misunderstanding."
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Post by Ghost on Dec 4, 2009 23:16:50 GMT -5
This project is a request of Grizz. It will be in several parts.
Part 1
Country Year Population Total Homicide Firearm Homicide Non-Gun Homicide % Households With Guns S Africa 1995 41,465,000 75.30 26.60 48.70 n/a Colombi 2005 43,000,000 36.53 29.59 6.94 n/a Estonia 1994 1,499,257 28.21 8.07 20.14 n/a Brazil 1993 160,737,000 19.04 10.58 8.46 n/a Mexico 1994 90,011,259 17.58 9.88 7.70 n/a Philippi 1996 72,000,000 16.20 3.50 12.70 n/a Taiwan 1996 21,979,444 8.12 0.97 7.15 n/a Ireland 1994 1,641,711 6.09 5.24 0.85 8.4 US 1999 272,691,000 5.70 3.72 1.98 39.0 Argenti1994 34,179,000 4.51 2.11 2.40 n/a Hungary 1994 10,245,677 3.53 0.23 3.30 n/a Finland 1994 5,088,333 3.24 0.86 2.38 23.2 Portugal1994 5,138,600 2.98 1.28 1.70 n/a Mauritiu1993 1,062,810 2.35 0 2.35 n/a Israel 1993 5,261,700 2.32 0.72 1.60 n/a Italy 1992 56,764,854 2.25 1.66 0.59 16.0 Scotland1994 5,132,400 2.24 0.19 2.05 4.7 Canada 1992 28,120,065 2.16 0.76 1.40 29.1 Slovenia 1994 1,989,477 2.01 0.35 1.66 n/a Australi 1994 17,838,401 1.86 0.44 1.42 19.4 Singapo 1994 2,930,200 1.71 0.07 1.64 n/a S Korea 1994 44,453,179 1.62 0.04 1.58 n/a N Zeala 1993 3,458,850 1.47 0.17 1.30 22.3 Belgiu 1990 9,967,387 1.41 0.60 0.81 16.6 Englan 1997 51,429,000 1.41 0.11 1.30 4.7 Switzerl 1994 7,021,000 1.32 0.58 0.74 27.2 Sweden 1993 8,718,571 1.30 0.18 1.12 15.1 Denma 1993 5,189,378 1.21 0.23 0.98 n/a Austria 1994 8,029,717 1.17 0.42 0.75 n/a Germa 1994 81,338,093 1.17 0.22 0.95 8.9 Greece 1994 10,426,289 1.14 0.59 0.55 n/a France 1994 57,915,450 1.12 0.44 0.68 22.6 Nether 1994 15,382,830 1.11 0.36 0.75 1.9 Kuwait 1995 1,684,529 1.01 0.36 0.65 n/a Norway 1993 4,324,815 0.97 0.30 0.67 32.0 Spain 1993 39,086,079 0.95 0.21 0.74 13.1 Japan 1994 124,069,000 0.62 0.02 0.60 n/a Ireland 1991 3,525,719 0.62 0.03 0.59 n/a Country Year Population Total Homicide Firearm Homicide Non-Gun Homicide % Households With Guns
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Ghost
8 Point Buck
"Friendship must never be buried under the weight of misunderstanding."
Posts: 465
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Joined: May 18, 2024 2:55:39 GMT -5
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Post by Ghost on Dec 4, 2009 23:19:32 GMT -5
Going Down, Down Under by GOA founder Sen. H. L. Richardson, (Retired)
Let's study the horror of what's happening to our Australian, English, Canadian and South African gun owning friends. The Aussies, like us, are a gun owning population; or should we say, were. The Australian continent is a vast, arid land, populated with only 19 million people. It also has an abundance of varmints, a pest problem of major proportions. It is little wonder that practically every rural house contained a firearm, used for the control of these bothersome critters.
The crime rate in Australia has been historically low: 1.8 per 100,000. It is an isolated country with no borders for the illegal to slip across. It has been rightfully referred to as a sleepy, peaceful land. That is, until the leftist government implemented a draconian gun confiscation policy.
For years, the Labor party [socialists] and the Liberals [conservative] were closely balanced-- a six-percent swing one way or the other could change their parliament. A small but vocal group of hard leftists split off and formed the Australian Democrat Party. They held few seats in Parliament; however, they have been mouthy, and the driving force behind the anti-gun movement.
On April 28th 1996, a maniac shot 35 people in Port Arthur. The media went ballistic, screaming about the evil of "assault" firearms. Australians were shocked. Nothing like this had ever happened in sleepy, peaceful Australia. The shrill cry and incessant anti-gun propaganda paid off and, in just 12 days, Federal resolutions were passed and the states enacted them into laws.
What did they enact? Did they just go after "ugly" guns, those military look-alike assault weapons? Think again! They outlawed every semi-auto, even those "pretty" duck guns, the Browning A5 and the Remington 1100's. They even struck down pump shotguns; the Winchester model 12 and the Remington 870 are two examples. The law read "Any pump shotgun with a magazine capacity of 5 rounds or less."
Do you own a Browning BAR rifle? Banned. How about a Winchester Model 100? Out of luck, all semi-auto hunting rifles were outlawed as well. They didn't miss a one.
You may ask, "Surely they left 22's alone, didn't they?" Nope, the criteria the government used was simple. If it's a semi-auto, it's gone. If caught with one of these "illegal" firearms, the crime was considered serious, punishable by multiple years in prison.
The Australian government offered to buy back all of the listed firearms. They then imposed a 1% tax on everybody to raise the money necessary to secure the "illegal" firearms. The massive 500 million buy back program was quickly, but poorly, implemented. Of the estimated 7 million firearms, roughly 40% are now prohibited. Close to 2.8 million firearms should have been surrendered to authorities. Was it a success? Hardly. Less than 25%, or 640,000 weapons, were turned in.
Gun Control and left-wing politicians said great things about the new law. A university of criminology professor stated, "It is probable that the crime rate will drop by up to 20 percent."
Nothing of the sort happened, in fact just the opposite took place. In 1997, just 12 months after the new laws went into effect, across Australia homicides jumped 3.2 percent, armed robberies were up a whopping 44 percent, assaults up 8.6 and in the state of Victoria there was a 300 percent increase in homicides. Prior to the new dictatorial anti-gun laws, statistics showed a steady decrease in armed robberies with firearms; now, there has been a dramatic increase in break-ins, especially against the elderly.
In 1998, in the state of South Australia, robbery with a firearm increased nearly 60 percent. In 1999, new figures reveal that the assault rates in the state of NSW has risen almost 20 percent.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the crime rate for burglary in America is now substantially less than Australia, Canada, and Britain. The data from a comprehensive study from the University of Chicago [Lott, Mustard] showed that in these same three countries, people were home almost half of the time when the burglaries were committed.
In the US, it was less than 13%. Fear of firearms in the American home was the reason given.
Again, in Australia, Canada and Britain, all handguns were already severely controlled. Failure to yearly re-register in a prompt manner could bring law enforcement to the doorstep to confiscate the firearm.
Reasons must be given why anyone needs a license. The government lists only 10 reasons for owning a firearm-- protection of self and family is not considered a "reasonable" request!
Guns aren't the only things prohibited.
In 1998, a new law was passed outlawing an assortment of knives. The fine for owning a classic Bowie knife? Up to $10,000 or two years in the crow bar motel. Owning handcuffs is prohibited. Caught with one of these items, the fine is up to $11,000 or up to 14 years in prison.
Hunting anywhere other than private property is now extremely difficult, where one must have written permission by the owner. One has to acquire a permit from government to hunt on government-controlled land. The Australian government is under no obligation to honor hunting requests and it is common for permits to be refused.
American hunters, especially those who hunt on western public lands-- take notice! Someday soon we will face the same problem on federal and state lands.
The anti-gun movement is the creature of the most radical leftist elements of the world wide socialist movement. The tactics are the same, with only slight propaganda alterations to fit each country. It's not surprising that the internationalist nose of the United Nations poked its way into the gun issue. The Sport Shooters Association of Australia stated that they had been "aware of a connection between the United Nations {UN} and Australia's new so-called 'national' gun laws." Look no further than the UN Security Council's pronouncements; they endorsed sweeping gun control measures, including a ban on private ownership of assault rifles.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for ways to reduce the global stockpile of some 500 million handguns, rifles, shotguns and assault weapons.
We gun owners are not just fighting for our gun rights; we are fighting for all our freedoms. The Second Amendment just happens to be the linch-pin.
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Ghost
8 Point Buck
"Friendship must never be buried under the weight of misunderstanding."
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Post by Ghost on Dec 4, 2009 23:20:11 GMT -5
A recent independent study on the effects of the firearm buybacks by Dr Wang-Sheng Lee and Dr Sandy Suardi of Melbourne University’s Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research studied the data with more sophisticated methods and concluded: "Despite the fact that several researchers using the same data have examined the impact of the NFA on firearm deaths, a consensus does not appear to have been reached. In this paper, we re-analyze the same data on firearm deaths used in previous research, using tests for unknown structural breaks as a means to identifying impacts of the NFA. The results of these tests suggest that the NFA did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates."[39]
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Ghost
8 Point Buck
"Friendship must never be buried under the weight of misunderstanding."
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Joined: May 18, 2024 2:55:39 GMT -5
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Post by Ghost on Dec 4, 2009 23:24:06 GMT -5
Q: Did gun control in Australia lead to more murders there last year? A: This ‘Gun History Lesson’ is recycled bunk from a decade ago. Murders in Australia actually are down to record lows. FULL QUESTION Is this true?? A little Gun History Lesson ⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full text ⬏ FULL ANSWER The e-mail says that " t has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms." Actually, it’s been 13 years since Australian gun law was originally changed. In 1996, the government banned some types of guns, instituted a buyback program and imposed stricter licensing and registration requirements. Gun ownership rates in Australia declined from 7 percent to 5 percent. Another law in 2002 tightened restrictions a bit more, restricting caliber, barrel length and capacity for sport shooting handguns.
Have murders increased since the gun law change, as claimed? Actually, Australian crime statistics show a marked decrease in homicides since the gun law change. According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, a government agency, the number of homicides in Australia did increase slightly in 1997 and peaked in 1999, but has since declined to the lowest number on record in 2007, the most recent year for which official figures are available. Homicides in Australia Furthermore, murders using firearms have declined even more sharply than murders in general since the 1996 gun law. In the seven years prior to 1997, firearms were used in 24 percent of all Australian homicides. But most recently, firearms were used in only 11 percent of Australian homicides, according to figures for the 12 months ending July 1, 2007. That’s a decline of more than half since enactment of the gun law to which this message refers. Some scholars even credit the 1996 gun law with causing the decrease in deaths from firearms, though they are still debating that point. A 2003 study from AIC, which looked at rates between 1991 and 2001, found that some of the decline in firearm-related homicides (and suicides as well) began before the reform was enacted. On the other hand, a 2006 analysis by scholars at the University of Sydney concluded that gun fatalities decreased more quickly after the reform. Yet another analysis, from 2008, from the University of Melbourne, concluded that the buyback had no significant effect on firearm suicide or homicide rates. So there’s no consensus about whether the changes decreased gun violence or had little to no effect. But the only argument we’ve seen arguing that it caused an increase in murder comes from our anonymous e-mail author. The claims about Australian gun control were circulating as far back as 2001, when Snopes.comwent over them and concluded that they were a "small, mixed grab bag of short-term statistics" signifying little. Historical Humbug The e-mail’s historical information is not much better. One of the more fanciful claims in the message is that during World War II "the Japanese decided not to invade America because they knew most Americans were ARMED!" In fact, according to the U.S. Army’s Center for Military History, Japan in World War II had set its sights mainly on Asia; its attacks on U.S. military targets were intended to clear the way for Asian conquests. American Military History, p. 165: Japan entered World War II with limited aims and with every intention of fighting a limited war. Its principal objectives were to secure the resources of Southeast Asia and much of China and to establish a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” under Japanese hegemony. Japan believed it necessary to destroy or neutralize American striking power in the Pacific (the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and the U.S. Far East Air Force in the Philippines) to secure its otherwise open strategic flank before moving southward and eastward to occupy Malaya, the Netherlands Indies, the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, the Gilbert Islands, Thailand, and Burma. Japan had no thought of invading the U.S. mainland, and the idea it was deterred from such an invasion by fear of homeowners with guns in their closets is historically absurd. (Note: The author alludes to a belief, widely held by supporters of gun rights, that Japan’s WW II Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto advised his country’s leaders against invading the U.S., supposedly saying "You cannot invade mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." This alleged quote appears literally thousands of times in various Internet postings. So far we have seen none that cite any source, or even give a specific time, date or place where Yamamoto is supposed to have said or written this. We invite any of our readers who can validate this remark to send us a citation that we can check out. Until then we must classify this alleged quote as unverified and probably a fabrication.) Update, May 11: We contacted Donald M. Goldstein, sometimes called "the dean of Pearl Harbor historians." Among his many books are "The Pearl Harbor Papers: Inside the Japanese Plans (1993)" and the best-selling "At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor (1981)." He is a professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. He told us the supposed Yamamoto quote is "bogus." In an exchange of e-mails he said: Prof. Goldstein: I have never seen it in writing. It has been attributed to the Prange files [the files of the late Gordon W. Prange, chief historian on the staff of Gen. Douglas MacArthur] but no one had ever seen it or cited it from where they got it. Some people say that it came from our work but I never said it. … As of today it is bogus until someone can cite when and where. As for the other claims, we talked to Dr. Robert Spitzer, a political science professor and the author of "The Politics of Gun Control" and two other books on gun control legislation. Spitzer called the e-mail "a cartoonish view of the complex events" regarding the rise of Nazi Germany, the Cambodian mass killings and the other events that the anonymous author attributes to gun laws. "The people who write these things don’t know comparative politics, they don’t know international relations, they haven’t studied war," Spitzer told us. We have no doubt that Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot tried to keep guns out of the hands of ordinary citizens. But that doesn’t mean that gun control necessarily leads to totalitarian dictatorships. This reasoning is a classic example of the fallacy known as "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" – "after this, therefore because of this." The fact that one thing happens after another does not mean that there’s any causation involved. And that rule would apply to anyone making an argument completely counter to that of our e-mail author, as well. Simply saying "Australian law reform reduced gun fatalities," if all you know is that deaths dropped after 1996, would be post hoc ergo propter hoc, too. In summary, this author’s claims are simplistic, fallacious and unsupported by historical or current evidence. – Jess Henig Sources Chapman, S. et al. "Australia’s 1996 gun law reforms: faster falls in firearm deaths, firearm suicides, and a decade without mass shootings." Injury Prevention. 6 Nov. 2006. Mouzos, Jenny and Catherine Rushforth. "Firearm related deaths in Australia, 1991-2001." Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice. Nov. 2003. Lee, Wang-Sheng and Sandy Suardi. "The Australian Firearms Buyback and Its Effect on Gun Deaths." Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research. Aug 2008. Williams, Daniel. "Australia’s Gun Laws: Little Effect." Time. 1 May 2008. Dearden, Jack and Warwick Jones. "Homicide in Australia: 2006–07 National Homicide Monitoring Program annual report." Australian Institute of Criminology. 2008. Australian Institute of Criminology. "Australian Crime: Facts and Figures." 2009. United States Army Center for Military History. American Military History, Volume II. 2005. POSTED BY JESS HENIG ON SUNDAY, MAY 10, 2009 AT 11:19 AM FILED UNDER ASK FACTCHECK • TAGGED WITH AUSTRALIA, CHAIN E-MAIL, GUN CONTROL
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Ghost
8 Point Buck
"Friendship must never be buried under the weight of misunderstanding."
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Joined: May 18, 2024 2:55:39 GMT -5
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Post by Ghost on Dec 4, 2009 23:25:36 GMT -5
Crime Rates Around The World
Comparative statistics of crime rates around the world draws a surprising, if somewhat amusing, conclusion – the world we now live in is a safer place than before.
Crime in the only remaining superpower is seen to be declining. In US, street crime hovers near historic lows – hence the declaration of certain analysts that life in US has never been safer. And with the apparently downward trend of criminal activities all over the world, the world appears to be a friendlier place – notwithstanding terrorism. This is in sharp contrast to the perception that the world is getting more dangerous everyday.
Though the United States still ranks among the highest in violent crimes among industrialized nations, and also in overall crime, the country is enjoying a decline in crime numbers, nevertheless. In the meantime, crime in many other nations – specifically in Eastern and Western Europe – appear intent on catching up. Low-crime societies like Denmark and Finland are ranking high among street crime rates in the present. Even countries absent from the crime radar are making themselves conspicuous – like another industrialized nation, Japan.
Comparative analysis of crime rate statistics around the world remains complicated. Different definitions of what constitutes a crime make official crime statistics undependable, for one. Still, the United Nation initiative of global crime rates tracking – the World Crime Survey – may offer the most realistic and reliable figures.
Other factors affecting crime levels are:
a. Difference in legal and criminal justice systems b. Rates of crime report and police recording c. Differences in the point at which a crime is measured – some countries believes it is the time when the offense is reported; others only do the recording when a suspect in identified and the papers are transferred to the prosecutor d. Differences in the ruling of which multiple offenses are counted e. Differences in the lost of offenses to be included in the whole crime figures f. Differences in data quality
Using the United States as a point of reference, we arrive at the following conclusions:
Burglary – Widely believed as the gravest of property crimes, burglary is lower in US today than in the 80s. As of 2000, US has lower rates than Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, and Wales. It has higher rates than Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Spain. Homicide – US had been consistently high in homicide rates than most of the Western countries from 1980 – 2000. Though the rate was cut almost in half in the 90s, it is still higher than all nations without political and social turmoil with the 2000 rate of 5.5 homicides per 100,000 people. Countries entrenched in turmoil like Colombia and South Africa, had 63 homicides per 100,000 and 51, respectively.
Rape – In the 80s and 90s, US rates were higher than most of the Western countries, but by 2000, Canada is leading. Rape reports are lower in Asia and the Middle East.
Robbery – The past 2 decades saw a steady decline in the US. Countries with more reported robberies than US include England, Wales, Portugal, and Spain. Those with fewer are France, Germany, and Italy, and Asian countries plus the Middle East.
In overall crimes (the total of all mentioned crimes), US ranks the highest, followed by Germany, United Kingdom, France, and South Africa.
-- Cathie Madsen, Dec 2006.
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Ghost
8 Point Buck
"Friendship must never be buried under the weight of misunderstanding."
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Post by Ghost on Dec 4, 2009 23:26:56 GMT -5
The head of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn,[32] noted that the level of legal gun ownership in New South Wales increased in recent years, and that the 1996 legislation had had little effect on violence. In 2006, the lack of a measurable effect from the 1996 firearms legislation was reported in the British Journal of Criminology by Dr Jeanine Baker (a former state President of the SSAA(SA)) and Dr Samara McPhedran (Women in Shooting and Hunting).[33] De Leo, Dwyer, Firman & Neulinger,[34] studied suicide methods in men from 1979 to 1998 and found a rise in hanging suicides that started slightly before the fall in gun suicides. As hanging suicides rose at about the same rate as gun suicides fell, it is possible that there was some substitution of suicide methods. Don Weatherburn described the Baker & McPhedran article as "reputable" and "well-conducted" and stated that the available data are insufficient to draw stronger conclusions.[35] Weatherburn noted the importance of actively policing illegal firearm trafficking and argued that there was little evidence that the new laws had helped in this regard.[36]
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Ghost
8 Point Buck
"Friendship must never be buried under the weight of misunderstanding."
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Joined: May 18, 2024 2:55:39 GMT -5
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Post by Ghost on Dec 4, 2009 23:29:14 GMT -5
Britain, Australia top U.S. in violent crime Rates Down Under increase despite strict gun-control measures ________________________________________ By Jon Dougherty © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com Law enforcement and anti-crime activists regularly claim that the United States tops the charts in most crime-rate categories, but a new international study says that America's former master -- Great Britain -- has much higher levels of crime. The International Crime Victims Survey, conducted by Leiden University in Holland, found that England and Wales ranked second overall in violent crime among industrialized nations. Twenty-six percent of English citizens -- roughly one-quarter of the population -- have been victimized by violent crime. Australia led the list with more than 30 percent of its population victimized. The United States didn't even make the "top 10" list of industrialized nations whose citizens were victimized by crime. Jack Straw, the British home secretary, admitted that "levels of victimization are higher than in most comparable countries for most categories of crime." Highlights of the study indicated that: • The percentage of the population that suffered "contact crime" in England and Wales was 3.6 percent, compared with 1.9 percent in the United States and 0.4 percent in Japan. • Burglary rates in England and Wales were also among the highest recorded. Australia (3.9 percent) and Denmark (3.1 per cent) had higher rates of burglary with entry than England and Wales (2.8 percent). In the U.S., the rate was 2.6 percent, according to 1995 figures; • "After Australia and England and Wales, the highest prevalence of crime was in Holland (25 percent), Sweden (25 percent) and Canada (24 percent). The United States, despite its high murder rate, was among the middle ranking countries with a 21 percent victimization rate," the London Telegraph said. • England and Wales also led in automobile thefts. More than 2.5 percent of the population had been victimized by car theft, followed by 2.1 percent in Australia and 1.9 percent in France. Again, the U.S. was not listed among the "top 10" nations. • The study found that Australia led in burglary rates, with nearly 4 percent of the population having been victimized by a burglary. Denmark was second with 3.1 percent; the U.S. was listed eighth at about 1.8 percent. Interestingly, the study found that one of the lowest victimization rates -- just 15 percent overall -- occurred in Northern Ireland, home of the Irish Republican Army and scene of years of terrorist violence. Analysts in the U.S. were quick to point out that all of the other industrialized nations included in the survey had stringent gun-control laws, but were overall much more violent than the U.S. Indeed, information on Handgun Control's Center to Prevent Handgun Violence website actually praises Australia and attempts to portray Australia as a much safer country following strict gun-control measures passed by lawmakers in 1996. "The next time a credulous friend or acquaintance tells you that Australia actually suffered more crime when they got tougher on guns ... offer him a Foster's, and tell him the facts," the CPHV site says. "In 1998, the rate at which firearms were used in murder, attempted murder, assault, sexual assault and armed robbery went down. In that year, the last for which statistics are available, the number of murders involving a firearm declined to its lowest point in four years," says CPHV. However, the International Crime Victims Survey notes that overall crime victimization Down Under rose from 27.8 percent of the population in 1988, to 28.6 percent in 1991 to over 30 percent in 1999. Advocates of less gun control in the U.S. say the drop in gun murder rates was more than offset by the overall victimization increase. Also, they note that Australia leads the ICVS report in three of four categories -- burglary (3.9 percent of the population), violent crime (4.1 percent) and overall victimization (about 31 percent). Australia is second to England in auto theft (2.1 percent). In March 2000, WorldNetDaily reported that since Australia's widespread gun ban, violent crime had increased in the country. WND reported that, although lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story: • Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent. • Assaults are up 8.6 percent. • Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent. • In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent. • In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily. • There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.
Related stories: Crime up down under Australia shoots back at NRA Jon E. Dougherty is a staff writer for WorldNetDaily.
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Ghost
8 Point Buck
"Friendship must never be buried under the weight of misunderstanding."
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Post by Ghost on Dec 4, 2009 23:30:20 GMT -5
ABC's Stossel Links Gun Control to Higher Crime By Brad Wilmouth (Bio | Archive) May 5, 2007 - 23:51 ET • •
On Friday's 20/20, ABC anchor John Stossel discussed the self-defensive benefits of gun ownership, debunking the myth that 'gun control reduces crime,' during 20/20's recurring series 'Myths, Lies & Downright Stupidity,' based on Stossel's book of the same title. Citing the recent Federal Appeals Court for D.C. ruling overturning Washington, D.C.'s ban on gun ownership, Stossel talked to the pro-gun plaintiff in the case, Tom Palmer, and pointed out that the murder rate in D.C. increased after the city's gun ban. Stossel: "Since Washington's gun law passed, the murder rate actually increased, even while America's murder rate dropped. It's because guns can also save lives, says Palmer, as one saved his years ago in California." (Transcript follows) The ABC anchor cited the case of Kennesaw, Georgia's law that requires its citizens to own guns, relaying a local police officer's observations that crime had dropped after the law passed. Lieutenant Craig Graydon, Kennesaw Police Department: "Well, after the city ordinance passed, there was actually a decrease in reported crime in the Kennesaw area, especially violent crime." Stossel described two instances in which guns were used by law-abiding citizens to stop criminals, including students at the Appalachian School of Law who went to their cars and retrieved their guns after a gunman attacked their school in January 2002. After relaying that the National Academy of Sciences "could not document a single gun regulation that reduced violent crime or murder," he concluded the story with a soundbite from pro-gun advocate Tom Palmer: "If someone gets into your house, which would you rather have, a handgun or a telephone? You can call the police if you want, and they'll get there, and they'll take a picture of your dead body. But they can't get there in time to save your life. The first line of defense is you." Below is a complete transcript of the segment on gun control from the Friday May 4 edition of 20/20 on ABC:
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Ghost
8 Point Buck
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Post by Ghost on Dec 4, 2009 23:33:52 GMT -5
Subject: ABOUT AUSTRALIA Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2001 6:05 AM Subject: Worth repeating From: Ed Chenel, a police officer in Australia. Hi Yanks, I thought you all would like to see the real figures from Down Under. It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by a new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars. The first year results are now in: Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent, Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent; Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent!) In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent. (Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not and criminals still possess their guns!) While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since the criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed. There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly. Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in "successfully ridding Australian society of guns." You won't see this data on the American evening news or hear your governor or members of the state Assembly disseminating this information. The Australian experience proves it. Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws affect only the law-abiding citizens. Take note Americans, before it's to late!
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Ghost
8 Point Buck
"Friendship must never be buried under the weight of misunderstanding."
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Post by Ghost on Dec 4, 2009 23:34:33 GMT -5
British authorities are apparently so satisfied with the results of stringent gun laws that they intend to use the United Nations to bring gun control to the United States. According to "The State," seven countries have begun a campaign to “regulate the global arms trade” and “prevent the illegal transfer of guns.” And leading the charge is John Duncan, Britain’s ambassador for multilateral arms control and disarmament, who described a recent month-long meeting of the UN General Assembly’s disarmament committee as “pivotal” in launching a new global treaty. Despite previous U.S.-led resistance to international gun control, when U.S. ambassador John Bolton repudiated such efforts, Duncan and other supporters hope to have the U.N. General Assembly vote on a draft treaty later this year. AMERICAN VERSUS BRITISH CRIME RATES Ironically, the same Britain now trying to export gun control has experienced an explosion in violent crime since virtually banning guns in 1997. In an article just three months old, the British MailOnline reports that England and Wales now have the highest violent crime in the European Union – a rate which, in fact exceeds that of the United States and even hyper-violent South Africa. Says MailOnline: “In the decade following [the election of the Labor Party] in 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 percent to 1.158 million – more than two every minute.” Indeed, the U.K. – a laboratory for the near-complete prohibition of private gun ownership – has a violent crime victimization rate of 2,034 per 100,000 residents. Meanwhile, the U.S., with its far less restrictive gun laws, has a violence rate of only 466 crimes per 100,000 residents. Even South Africa’s rate is lower, at 1,677 violent crimes per 100,000. Downplaying the report, British Police Minister David Hanson cited differences in crime reporting to call the figures “misleading.” OTHER COUNTRIES Also supporting the U.N. effort are Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan and Kenya. While violent crime rates are not readily available for Argentina, Costa Rica and Kenya, anecdotal evidence suggests violence exceeding our own. • Argentina: The Argentine Post, conducting a survey of households in 40 urban centers, reports fully 32.7% or respondents had a family member who had been victimized, and only one-third of such crimes had been reported. • Finland: With gun laws the BBC laments as “among the most liberal in the world,” Finland has a violent crime rate of only 738 per 100,000. • Japan: While violence is historically low in Japanese culture, suicide rates are invariably high, despite a near-complete ban on private gun ownership. Additionally, Japanese residents live in a virtual police state. • Australia: Another laboratory for gun control since restricting gun ownership following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, MailOnline reports a violent crime rate for Australia of 92 per 100,000 residents. This seems unlikely, however, since The Australia Institute of Criminology reports that assault alone occurs at a rate of 840 per 100,000 – a rate which increased dramatically since the Port Arthur ban. Other sources, including Austin Gun Rights Examiner Howard Nemerov, report either flat or increasing trend lines for violent crime since the ban. SPEAKING OF AUSTRALIA … And since the Australian government seems to want its restrictions brought to the U.S., perhaps we should glimpse what its subjects can expect in the future. "The Manly Daily," of Australia, reported on October 9 that pursuant to the Australian Firearms Act of 1996: “Northern Beaches Police will be turning up on the doorstep of every licensed gunowner in the area over the next four years to check their firearms are stored correctly. “Operation Aston follows the gun amnesty that ended on May 31 and will target guns stored incorrectly and the security of gun safes, Northern Beaches Commander Doreen Cruickshank said. “’Gun owners have a responsibility to ensure their weapon is safely stored at all times when not in use,’ Supt Cruickshank said. “’Licensing police will be attending the home of every licensed firearm owner in the northern beaches over the next four years to inspect every weapon and check the gun safe. “’Officers will be examining all gun safes to ensure they comply with the legislative requirements, particularly in relation to the standard and security of safes.’” [Emphasis added] ENOUGH SAID?
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Ghost
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Post by Ghost on Dec 4, 2009 23:37:08 GMT -5
Japan: Gun Control and People Control By David B. Kopel {This article appeared in the December 1988 issue of The American Rifleman.}
For gun controllers, Japan is a dream come true. The law issimple: "No-one shall possess a fire-arm or fire-arms or a sword or swords." Japan's crime rate is very low, and its gun crime rate virtually nil. Anti-gun lobbies tout Japan as the kind of nation that America could be, if only we would ban guns. Handgun Control quotes a Japanese newspaper reporter who writes: "It strikes me as clear that there is a distinct correlation between gun control laws and the rate of violent crime. The fewer theguns, the less the violence." But while Japan may be a gun-banner's dream, it's a civil libertarian's nightmare. Japan's low crime rate has almost nothing to do with gun control, and everything to do with people control. Americans, used to their own traditions of freedom, would not accept Japan's system of people controls and gun controls.
Japanese Firearms Laws Besides the police and the military, the only group that is allowed to posses guns is hunters, and that possession is strictly circumscribed. The police even check hunters' ammunition inventory, to make sure that there are no unaccounted shells or bullets. Hunting licenses themselves are not particularly difficult to obtain. A prospective hunter must take an official safety course; and then pass a test which covers maintenance and inspection of the hunting gun, methods of loading and unloading cartridges, shooting from various positions, and target practice for stationary and moving objects. The hunting license is valid for three years. Total permit fees for hunting rifles and licenses are 15000 (about 125 American dollars). When not hunting, gun owners must store their weapons in a locker. Trap and skeet shooting are also tightly restricted. Civilians cannot obtain handgun target licenses. Even possession of a starter's pistol is only allowed under carefully- detailed conditions. The section of the gun law which specifies who may be licensed offers no standards, just the vague statement that licenses must be denied "any person (taking into consideration also relatives living with him) who there is reasonable cause to suspect may be dangerous to other persons' lives or properties or to the public peace." Thus, the police have broad discretion in rejecting applicants. As in Britain, shotguns are far easier to obtain than rifles. In a nation with half the population of the U.S., there are only 27,000 rifle licensees. There about half a million licensed shotguns, although their numbers have declined by about 20% in this decade.
Crime Control Japan's strictly-regulated guns play very little part in crime. In 1985, for example, only 35 crimes, including 10 murders, were committed with hunting guns. Although handguns are completely forbidden to civilians, they still figure somewhat more often in crime. Handguns were used in 209 crimes in 1985. About 2/3 of all gun crimes are committed by Boryokudan, organized crime groups. As the gun-banners point out, the Japanese crime rate is dramatically lower than the U.S. rate. Tokyo, the world's safest major city, suffers muggings at the rate of 40 per year per one million inhabitants. New York City's rate is 11,000. According to government statistics, Japan has 1.5 homicides per 100,000 citizens each year, and America has 7.9. Actually, the gap between U.S. and Japanese homicide rates is not quite as large as the official statistics indicate. The real Japanese murder rate is about twice the reported rate; unlike the U.S., Japan does not count an attempt to injure, but which accidentally causes death, as a homicide. The F.B.I. also over-counts American murders, by listing the 1,500 - 2,500 legal, self- defense fatal shootings of criminals as illegal homicide. Still, Japan's actual homicide rate is two to three times lower than the U.S. rate. As for handgun murders, the U.S. rate is 200 times higher than Japan's. Robbery in Japan is about as rare as murder. Japan's annual robbery rate is 1.8 per 100,000 inhabitants; America's is 205.4. Do the gun banners have the argument won when they point to these statistics? No, they don't. A realistic examination of Japanese culture leads to the conclusion that gun control has little, if anything, to do with Japan's low crime rates. Japan's lack of crime is more the result of the very extensive powers of the Japanese police, and the distinctive relation of the Japanese citizenry to authority. Further, none of the reasons which have made gun control succeed in Japan (in terms of disarming citizens) exist in the U.S.
The Japanese criminal justice system bears more heavily on a suspect than any other system in an industrial democratic nation. One American found this out when he was arrested in Okinawa for possessing marijuana: he was interrogated for days without an attorney, and signed a confession written in Japanese that he could not read. He met his lawyer for the first time at his trial, which took 30 minutes. Unlike in the United States, where the Miranda rule limits coercive police interrogation techniques, Japanese police and prosecutors may detain a suspect indefinitely until he confesses. (Technically, detentions are only allowed for three days, followed by ten day extensions approved by a judge, but defense attorneys rarely oppose the extension request, for fear of offending the prosecutor.) Bail is denied if it would interfere with interrogation. Even after interrogation is completed, pretrial detention may continue on a variety of pretexts, such as preventing the defendant from destroying evidence. Criminal defense lawyers are the only people allowed to visit a detained suspect, and those meetings are strictly limited. Partly as a result of these coercive practices, and partly as a result of the Japanese sense of shame, the confession rate is 95%. For those few defendants who dare to go to trial, there is no jury. Since judges almost always defer to the prosecutors' judgment, the trial conviction rate for violent crime is 99.5%. Of those convicted, 98% receive jail time. In short, once a Japanese suspect is apprehended, the power of the prosecutor makes it very likely the suspect will go to jail. And the power of the policeman makes it quite likely that a criminal will be apprehended. The police routinely ask "suspicious" characters to show what is in their purse or sack. In effect, the police can search almost anyone, almost anytime, because courts only rarely exclude evidence seized by the police -- even if the police acted illegally. The most important element of police power, though, is not authority to search, but authority in the community. Like school teachers, Japanese policemen rate high in public esteem, especially in the countryside. Community leaders and role models, the police are trained in calligraphy and Haiku composition. In police per capita, Japan far outranks all other major democracies. 15,000 koban "police boxes" are located throughout the cities. Citizens go to the 24-hour-a-day boxes not only for street directions, but to complain about day-to-day problems, such as noisy neighbors, or to ask advice on how to raise children. Some of the policemen and their families live in the boxes. Police box officers clear 74.6% of all criminal cases cleared. Police box officers also spend time teaching neighborhood youth judo or calligraphy. The officers even hand- write their own newspapers, with information about crime and accidents, "stories about good deeds by children, and opinions of residents." The police box system contrasts sharply with the practice in America. Here, most departments adopt a policy of "stranger policing." To prevent corruption, police are frequently rotated from one neighborhood to another. But as federal judge Charles Silberman writes, "the cure is worse than the disease, for officers develop no sense of identification with their beats, hence no emotional stake in improving the quality of life there." Thus, the U.S. citizenry does not develop a supportive relationship with the police. One poll showed that 60% of police officers believe "it is difficult to persuade people to give patrolmen the information they need." The Japanese police do not spend all their time in the koban boxes. As the Japanese government puts it: "Home visit is one of the most important duties of officers assigned to police boxes." Making annual visits to each home in their beat, officers keep track of who lives where, and which family member to contact in case of emergency. The police also check on all gun licensees, to make sure no gun has been stolen or misused, that the gun is securely stored, and that the licensees are emotionally stable.
Gun banners might rejoice at a society where the police keep such a sharp eye on citizens' guns. But the price is that the police keep an eye on everything. Policemen are apt to tell people reading sexually-oriented magazines to read something more worthwhile. Japan's major official year-end police report includes statistics like "Background and Motives for Girls' Sexual Misconduct." In 1985, the police determined that 37.4% of the girls had been seduced, and the rest had had sex "voluntarily." For the volunteers, 19.6% acted "out of curiosity", while for 18.1%, the motive was "liked particular boy." The year-end police report also includes sections on labor demands, and on anti-nuclear or anti-military demonstrations. Broad powers, professionalism, and community support combine to help Tokyo police solve 96.5% of murders, and 82.5% of robberies. In America, the police clear 74% of murders, but only a quarter of all robberies. 70% of all Japanese crimes end in a conviction; only 19.8% of American crimes even end in an arrest. A mere 9% of reported American violent crimes end in incarceration. Compared to the Japanese criminal, the American criminal faces only a minuscule risk of jail. Is it any wonder that American criminals commit so many more crimes? Additionally, Japan's tight, conformist social culture does an excellent job of keeping citizens out of crime in the first place. As the head of Tokyo's Police Department explains, "A man who commits a crime will bring dishonor to his family and his village, so he will think twice about disgracing them." Having lived together for several thousand years without significant immigration, the Japanese have developed the world's most homogenous and unified society. America's ethnic diversity causes tensions and crime, as the first or second generations of immigrants sometimes have difficulty adjusting to American ways. But even if immigration does cause some crime, our policies certainly seem more humane than the ethnic policies of Japan. When Japan, under severe American pressure, admitted 100 Vietnamese boat people, a leading publication called them "the sword of an alien culture pointed at Japan." Many Korean families have lived in Japan for longer than Michael Dukakis' family has lived in America. Although born in Japan, the Koreans have "impure" blood, which makes them forever ineligible for Japanese citizenship. Partly because the Japanese are so unified and homogenous, they accept and internalize social controls. It is this attitude of obedience and impulse control that matters most in the low Japanese crime rate. Guns or not, the Japanese are simply the world's most law-abiding people. Japanese-Americans, who of course have access to firearms, have an even lower violent crime rate than do Japanese in Japan. Likewise, prisoners in jails in Japan and in America prisoners have no guns, but American prisoners commit about a hundred murders annually, and Japanese prisoners none. Dr. Paul Blackman of NRA/ILA points out that if gun control were really the major cause of the low Japanese crime rate, it would be impossible to explain why Japan's non-gun crime rate is so much lower than America's non-gun crime rate. America's non-gun robbery rate, for example, is 60 times Japan's. If gun control were really such an important factor in Japan's low crime, it would also be hard to explain why Japan's murder rate is higher than Britain's (a shooter's paradise compared to Japan). Both Switzerland and Israel have many more guns per capita than even America, and require citizens to own or train with pistols and fully automatic rifles. Yet these countries have less murder and violent crime than Japan, and almost no gun crime. In short, it is not the presence or absence of physical objects that matters, but how they are treated. In America, scaffolding collapses kill about 2,500 workers over the course of a decade. Japan, though, has not had a single scaffolding fatality in the past decade. Japan has not outlawed scaffolding; rather, the Japanese business culture simply takes workplace safety more seriously than does American culture.
Suicide Japan's experience also indicates that gun control has almost no effect on a nation's suicide rate. While the Japanese gun suicide rate is one-fiftieth of America's, the overall suicide rate is twice as high as America's. American gun controllers argue that in America, more males die from suicide attempts because males are more likely to choose a gun as a suicide weapon. Yet in Japan, males are still twice as likely to die in a suicide attempt as are females. Japan suffers from many double or multiple suicides, called shinju. Suicidal parents often kill their children, at the rate of one per day, in oyako-shinju. In fact, 17% of all Japanese homicide victims are children murdered by suicidal parents. Thus, Japan's tight family structure, which keeps the crime rate low, is not an unalloyed blessing. Even America's leading gun control scholar, Stanford's Franklin Zimring concedes: "Cultural factors appear to affect the suicide rates far more than the availability and use of firearms. Thus suicide rates would not seem to be readily affected by making firearms less available." Zimring's observation fits with the evidence in America. All ethnic groups have equal access to firearms, but Jews are less likely to use guns as their suicide method, while Blacks and Southerners are more likely to use guns. Although American Blacks are more likely to use guns in suicide, the black suicide rate is below the American average.
Gun Culture While Japan's gun control has been irrelevant to crime control or suicide prevention, it has been successful in another sense: virtually no-one in Japan, except for some carefully- controlled hunters, has a gun. Japan is truly a gun-free society. Most of the Japanese tourists who shoot at the Hawaii Gun Club on Oahu have never even seen a gun before. Yet it is doubtful that America could imitate even this limited "success" of Japan's gun control. Americans possess many more guns than the Japanese ever did; and, unlike the Japanese, Americans seem determined to keep their weapons. Japan never had a significant stock of non-military guns, so gun control was simple to mandate. But in America, there are already over 100 million long guns, and 60 million handguns. In 1985, the Japanese police seized a record high 1,369 illegal guns. A big-city police force in the U.S. might confiscate that many in a few months. An island nation, Japan can more or less seal its borders against illegal gun imports. Yet even if gun manufacture in America vanished, and all present guns were confiscated, illegal imports would quickly rebuild the American gun supply. If the United States imported illegal handguns in the same physical volume it imports marijuana, 20 million handguns would cross our borders every year. (The legal market for handgun purchases is about 2.5 million annually.) For the vast majority of Japanese, never seeing a gun is hardly a deprivation, for Japan developed only the most minimal cultural attachment to firearms. When Portuguese trading ships arrived in the middle of the 16th century, Japan's many feudal rulers investigated guns for use in the ongoing civil wars. Long before the "Southern Barbarians" (Western traders) ever arrived, Japan had far outpaced Europe in metallurgy. Within a few decades, the various Japanese armies had more, better-built guns than most European armies. A military dictator named Hideyoshi was particularly expert firearms tactics, and Hideoyoshi finally conquered Japan and ended the civil wars. In 1588 Hideyoshi decreed the "Sword Hunt," and banned possession of swords by the lower classes. The pretext was that all the swords would be melted down to supply nails for a hall containing a huge statue of the Buddha. Instead, Hideoyoshi had the swords melted into a statue of himself. After Hideoyoshi, the Tokugawa Shogunate took power, and ruled Japan until the late 19th century. The Shogunate used guns extensively in its invasion of Korea. But after the invasion was repelled, Japan turned inward, rejecting all forms of Westernization. Western contact was limited to a single Dutch trading mission, which was required to stay on a small island in Nagasaki harbor. The Tokoguwa began the gradual process of eradicating all Western influence from Japan, including the use of firearms. Under the Tokugawa, peasants were assigned to a five-man group, headed by landholders who were responsible for the group's behavior. The groups arranged marriages, resolved disputes, kept members from traveling or moving without permission, maintained religious orthodoxy, and enforced the rules against peasants carrying firearms or swords. The Shogunate's gun control eventually disarmed not only the peasantry, but also the Samurai warriors. Gun-smiths were restricted in the number of apprentices they could adopt, and eventually sales to anyone besides the military government became illegal. The Samurai did not mind, though. While American pioneers considered their guns a symbolic "badge of honor," the Samurai revered swords as the true symbol of knighthood. For combat, Samurai disdained guns because they allowed fighting from a distance, rather than face to face, and required the combatant to assume an undignified crouching position. Further, there was little practical use for long guns, since there was almost no big game to hunt. Thus, in the 1850's, when Commodore Perry re-opened Japan, Japanese were still using primitive matchlock guns similar to the type the Portuguese had introduced over 300 years ago. Led by American manufacturers, the rest of the world had replaced matchlocks with flintlocks. In 1872, the Samurai and the Tokugawas were deposed. The Samurai had used swords to fight against a conscript army, which was armed with rifles. (Although the army now had firearms, villagers still did not.) In America, on the other hand, guns were owned by virtually all adult males. In response to the tremendous American demand for guns, America developed the world's leading firearms companies. Mass production of firearms led America into the Industrial Revolution, and became our first major manufactured export. Japan, however, has never had much of a firearms industry. MITI, Japan's Ministry for Trade, is hardly encouraging Japanese companies to capture the world's growing market for high-tech plastic/metal alloy guns. Indeed, Japan has only one handgun factory. The manufacturer's main business is heavy electrical equipment; the guns are just a courtesy for the government. Factory spokesmen will not even reveal the factory's location. Without a culture of civilians firearms ownership, the Japanese never saw strict gun control as anything out of the ordinary. And because the crime rate is so extraordinarily low, the Japanese, unlike many Americans, perceive no need to own a gun for individual self-defense. Perhaps the most important reason the Japanese voluntarily accept disarmament is that their government does the same. After the disaster of World War II, war was perceived as an unmitigated horror, and the army was abolished. The police carry guns, but rarely shoot them, instead using their black belts in judo or police sticks. In an average year, the entire Tokyo police force only fires six shots. Even if guns vanished from America, it is difficult to imagine a big-city American police force firing only six times in an entire year. Likewise, there is obviously a strict gun prohibition in American prisons, but the guards are still armed; the vast majority of Japanese prison guards carry only police sticks. In a top-down society such as Japan, when the government disarms itself, it creates a powerful moral climate for citizens to do the same. Needless to say, a disarmed military and police are not likely in the United States, and neither is voluntary compliance with gun control. In many American cities where it is nearly impossible to legally carry a gun for self-defense, many people do so anyway. Many more own illegal weapons at home for self-defense. Thus, American gun banners correctly insist that strict gun controls be accompanied by mandatory jail terms. The gun banners recognize that without mandatory sentences, judges and juries would rarely send their fellow citizens to jail for an illegal self-defense gun. Without the certainty of jail, strict controls are often ignored. But in Japan, the citizens voluntarily comply with the gun law; accordingly, there is no mandatory minimum penalty for unlicensed firearm possession. If gun ban is readily obeyed in Japan, but is massively resisted wherever it appears in America, isn't that an indication a gun ban might be acceptable in Japan, but wrong in America?
Should America Import Gun Laws Made in Japan? In the 1910 debate preceding the New York's Sullivan Law (the first major American gun control law affecting citizens entitled to full civil rights) one writer recommended that New York copy Japan, "where intending purchasers of revolvers must first obtain police permits, and sales must be reported to the police." In 1987, a letter to the editor of The New Republic announced that Japan has so little crime because "citizens forsake their right to own guns in return for safety," and that America must do the same. Yet these gun controllers who want America to imitate Japan fail to understand that one culture cannot simply adopt another's laws. Post-war Japan was told to follow American criminal procedure and anti-trust rules, but soon stopped. The rules did not work in a culture used to unlimited police power, and enamored of giant conglomerates. The Japanese Constitution, written by the American conquerors, has "rights" language far more sweeping than the American constitution. But because Japan lacks a tradition of individual rights or of judicial activism, the Japanese Supreme Court has been passive, unwilling to enforce the rights provisions of the Constitution. For example, the Japanese constitution, unlike the American one, has strong language guaranteeing equal political, economic, and social rights for women. Yet in practice, American women are far freer than Japanese women, and are given far more legal protection by their own constitution. America made Japan adopt a powerful liberal Constitution, but it could not make Japanese courts think about individual rights the way American courts do. Gun banners who rejoice that Japan functions without a right to bear arms should note that Japan functions without other rights as well. Not only the laws regarding protection of criminal suspects, but freedom of speech, of intimate conduct, and of religion are far narrower than in the U.S. Japan even has an official religion, Shinto. The Japanese military recently consecrated a deceased military hero as a Shinto god, although the man was a Christian, and his widow objected vehemently. The contrast between the individualist American and the communal Japanese ethos is manifested in everything from behavior at sporting events to industrial labor organization. As a result, pressure to conform, and internalized willingness to do so are much stronger in Japan than in America. This spirit of conformity provides the best explanation for Japan's low crime rate. It also explains why the Japanese people accept gun control. Theoretically, America could adopt a gun ban like Japan's. But that ban would be completely alien to our society, which for over 300 years has had the world's freest, most uncontrolled gun culture. Japan's gun laws are part of an authoritarian philosophy of government that is fundamentally at odds with America's traditions of liberty. Such laws have no place in our country.
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Ghost
8 Point Buck
"Friendship must never be buried under the weight of misunderstanding."
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Post by Ghost on Dec 4, 2009 23:47:06 GMT -5
Her ya go Grizz. I tried to get it as accurate as I could. I found a lot of data and numbers that were turned way or the other (Pro or against). It was rather difficult weeding through it. It was easy to find biased data and I wanted to build something that was unbiased. After reading all the stuff I had to go through I came away with , or reassured myself of what I already knew, its not the guns that are the problem. Its us and the lack of morals and ethics. We have to start over as a society, here and abroad. We have to quit being so lazy and raise our children to have respect for the human condition. We have to teach them ethics and morals by example, not by talking about them.
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Ghost
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Post by Ghost on Dec 4, 2009 23:47:26 GMT -5
What Does the Bible Say About Gun Control? by Larry Pratt Executive Vice-President Gun Owners Foundation
The underlying argument for gun control seems to be that the availability of guns causes crime. By extension, the availability of any weapon would have to be viewed as a cause of crime. What does the Bible say about such a view?
Perhaps we should start at the beginning, or at least very close to the beginning -- in Genesis 4. In this chapter we read about the first murder. Cain had offered an unacceptable sacrifice, and Cain was upset that God insisted that he do the right thing. In other words, Cain was peeved that he could not do his own thing.
Cain decided to kill his brother rather than get right with God. There were no guns available, although there may well have been a knife. Whether it was a knife or a rock, the Bible does not say. The point is, the evil in Cain's heart was the cause of the murder, not the availability of the murder weapon.
God's response was not to ban rocks or knives, or whatever, but to banish the murderer. Later (see Genesis 9:5-6) God instituted capital punishment, but said not a word about banning weapons.
Did Christ Teach Pacifism?
Many people, Christians included, assume that Christ taught pacifism. They cite Matthew 5:38-39 for their proof. In this verse Christ said: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also."
The Sermon on the Mount from which this passage is taken deals with righteous personal conduct. In our passage, Christ is clearing up a confusion that had led people to think that conduct proper for the civil government -- that is, taking vengeance -- was also proper for an individual.
Even the choice of words used by Christ indicates that He was addressing a confusion, or a distortion, that was commonplace. Several times in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount Christ used this same "you have heard it said" figure of speech to straighten out misunderstandings or falsehoods being taught by the religious leaders of the times.
Contrast this to Christ's use of the phrase "it is written" when He was appealing to the Scriptures for authority (for example, see Matthew 4 where on three occasions during His temptation by the devil, Christ answered each one of the devil's lies or misquotes from Scripture with the words: "it is written").
To further underscore the point that Christ was correcting the religious leaders on their teaching that "an eye for an eye" applies to private revenge, consider that in the same Sermon, Christ strongly condemned false teaching: "Whoever therefore breaks one of the commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven..." (Matthew 5:19). Clearly, then, Christ was not teaching something different about self defense than is taught elsewhere in the Bible. Otherwise, He would be contradicting Himself for He would now be teaching men to break one of the commandments.
The reference to "an eye for an eye" was taken from Exodus 21:24-25 which deals with how the magistrate must deal with a crime. Namely, the punishment must fit the crime. The religious leaders of Christ's day had twisted a passage that applied to the government and misused it as a principle of personal revenge.
The Bible distinguishes clearly between the duties of the civil magistrate (the government) and the duties of an individual. Namely, God has delegated to the civil magistrate the administration of justice. Individuals have the responsibility of protecting their lives from attackers. Christ was referring to this distinction in the Matthew 5 passage. Let us now examine in some detail what the Scriptures say about the roles of government and of individuals.
Both the Old and New Testaments teach individual self defense, even if it means taking the assailant's life in certain circumstances.
Self-Defense in the Old Testament
Exodus 22:2-3 tells us "If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft."
One conclusion which can be drawn from this is that a threat to our life is to be met with lethal force. After the sun has risen seems to refer to a different judgment than the one permitted at night. At night it is more difficult to discern whether the intruder is a thief or a murderer. Furthermore, the nighttime makes it more difficult to defend oneself and to avoid killing the thief at the same time. During the daytime, it better be clear that one's life was in danger, otherwise, defense becomes vengeance, and that belongs in the hand of the magistrate.
In Proverbs 25:26 we read that "A righteous man who falters before the wicked is like a murky spring and a polluted well." Certainly, we would be faltering before the wicked if we chose to be unarmed and unable to resist an assailant who might be threatening our life. In other words, we have no right to hand over our life which is a gift from God to the unrighteous. It is a serious mistake to equate a civilized society with one in which the decent people are doormats for the evil to trample on.
Trusting God
Another question asked by Christians is "Doesn't having a gun imply a lack of trust that God will take care of us?"
Indeed, God will take care of us. He has also told us that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. (John 14:15)
Those who trust God work for a living, knowing that 1 Timothy 5:8 tells us "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." For a man not to work, yet expect to eat because he was "trusting God" would actually be to defy God.
King David wrote in Psalm 46:1 that God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. This did not conflict with praising the God "Who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle" (Psalm 144:1).
The doctrine of Scripture is that we prepare and work, but we trust the outcome to God.
Those who trust God should also make adequate provision for their own defense even as we are instructed in the passages cited above. For a man to refuse to provide adequately for his and his family's defense would be to defy God.
There is an additional concern to taking the position that "I don't need to arm myself. God will protect me."
At one point, when Satan was tempting Jesus in the wilderness, he challenged Jesus to throw himself off the top of the temple. Satan reasoned that God's angels would protect him. Jesus responded: "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God'" (Matthew 4:7).
It may seem pious to say that one is trusting in God for protection, and we all must, but it is tempting God if we do not take the measures that He has laid out for us in the Bible.
Role of Government
The Bible records the first murder in Genesis 4 when Cain killed his brother Abel. God's response was not to register rocks or impose a background check on those getting a plough, or whatever it was that Cain used to kill his brother. Instead, God dealt with the criminal. Ever since Noah the penalty for murder has been death.
We see the refusal to accept this principle that God has given us from the very beginning. Today we see a growing acceptance of the idea that checking the criminal backgrounds of gun buyers will lessen crime but we should seldom execute those who are guilty of murder.
In Matthew 15 (and in Mark 7) Christ accused the religious leaders of the day of also opposing the execution of those deserving of death -- rebellious teenagers. They had replaced the commandments of God with their own traditions. God has never been interested in controlling the means of violence. He has always made it a point to punish, and where possible, restore (as with restitution and excommunication) the wrongdoer. Control of individuals is to be left to self-government. Punishment of individuals by the civil government is to be carried out when self-government breaks down.
Man's wisdom today has been to declare gun free school zones which are invaded by gun-toting teenage terrorists whom we refuse to execute. We seem to have learned little from Christ's rebuke of the Pharisees.
Nowhere in the Bible does God make any provision for dealing with the instruments of crime. He always focuses on the consequences for an individual of his actions. Heaven and hell only applies to people, not to things. Responsibility only pertains to people, not to things. If this principle, which was deeply embedded in the common law, still pertained today lawsuits against gun manufacturers would be thrown out unless the product malfunctioned.
Responsibility rightly includes being liable for monetary damages if a firearm is left in a grossly negligent fashion so that an ignorant child gets the gun and misuses it. The solution is not to require that trigger locks be used on a gun to avoid being subject to such a law suit. Some might argue that this is nothing more than an application of the Biblical requirement that a railing be placed around the flat rooftop of a house where people might congregate. But trigger locks are to be used with unloaded guns which would be the same as requiring a railing around a pitched roof where people do not congregate.
Surely in protecting against accidents we cannot end up making ourselves more vulnerable to criminal attack, which is what a trigger lock does if it is in use on the firearm intended for self protection.
The firearm that is kept for self defense should be available in an emergency. Rooftop railings have no correspondence to the need for instant access to a gun. On the other hand, guns that are not intended for immediate use should be kept secured as a reasonable precaution. But to make the owner criminally or monetarily liable for another's misuse violates a basic commandment of Scripture: "the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself" (Ezekiel 18:20b).
Self Defense Versus Vengeance
Resisting an attack is not to be confused with taking vengeance which is the exclusive domain of God (Romans 12:19). This has been delegated to the civil magistrate, who, as we read in Romans 13:4, "is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil."
Private vengeance means one would stalk down a criminal after one's life is no longer in danger as opposed to defending oneself during an attack. It is this very point that has been confused by Christian pacifists who would take the passage in the Sermon on the Mount about turning the other cheek (which prohibits private vengeance) into a command to falter before the wicked.
Let us consider also that the Sixth Commandment tells us "Thou shall not murder." In the chapters following, God gave to Moses many of the situations which require a death penalty. God clearly has not told us never to kill. He has told us not to murder, which means we are not to take an innocent life. Consider also that the civil magistrate is to be a terror to those who practice evil. This passage does not in any way imply that the role of law enforcement is to prevent crimes or to protect individuals from criminals. The magistrate is a minister to serve as "an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil" (Romans 13:4).
This point is reflected in the legal doctrine of the United States. Repeatedly, courts have held that the government has no responsibility to provide individual security. One case (Bowers v. DeVito) put it this way: "there is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered."
Self Defense in the New Testament
The Christian pacifist may try to argue that God has changed His mind from the time that He gave Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. Perhaps they would want us to think that Christ canceled out the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 or the provision for justifiably killing a thief in Exodus 22. But the writer of Hebrews makes it clear that this cannot be, because "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). In the Old Testament, the prophet Malachi records God's words this way: "For I am the Lord, I do not change" (Malachi 3:6).
Paul was referring to the unchangeability of God's Word when he wrote to Timothy that "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Clearly, Paul viewed all Scripture, including the Old Testament, as useful for training Christians in every area of life.
We must also consider what Christ told his disciples in his last hours with them: "...But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a sack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one" (Luke 22:36). Keep in mind that the sword was the finest offensive weapon available to an individual soldier -- the equivalent then of a military rifle today.
The Christian pacifist will likely object at this point that only a few hours later, Christ rebuked Peter who used a sword to cut off the ear of Malchus, a servant of the high priest in the company of a detachment of troops. Let us read what Christ said to Peter in Matthew 26:52-54:
Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels? How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus? In the companion passage in John 18, Jesus tells Peter to put his sword away and told him that He had to drink the cup that His Father had given Him. It was not the first time that Christ had to explain to the disciples why He had come to earth. To fulfill the Scriptures, the Son of God had to die for the sin of man since man was incapable of paying for his own sin apart from going to hell. Christ could have saved His life, but then believers would have lost their lives forever in hell. These things only became clear to the disciples after Christ had died and been raised from the dead and the Spirit had come into the world at Pentecost (see John 14:26).
While Christ told Peter to "put your sword in its place" He clearly did not say get rid of it forever. That would have contradicted what he had told the disciples only hours before. Peter's sword was to protect his own mortal life from danger. His sword was not needed to protect the Creator of the universe and the King of kings.
Years after Pentecost, Paul wrote in a letter to Timothy "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever" (1 Tim. 5:8). This passage applies to our subject because it would be absurd to buy a house, furnish it with food and facilities for one's family, and then refuse to install locks and provide the means to protect the family and the property. Likewise it would be absurd not to take, if necessary, the life of a night-time thief to protect the members of the family (Exodus 22:2-3).
A related, and even broader concept, is found in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Christ had referred to the Old Testament summary of all the laws of the Bible into two great commandments: "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,' and your neighbor as yourself'" (Luke 10:27). When asked who was a neighbor, Christ related the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37). It was the Good Samaritan who took care of the mugging victim who was a neighbor to the victim. The others who walked by and ignored the victim's plight were not acting as neighbors to him.
In the light of all we have seen the Scriptures teach to this point, can we argue that if we were able to save another's life from an attacker by shooting the attacker with our gun that we should "turn the other cheek instead?" The Bible speaks of no such right. It only speaks of our responsibilities in the face of an attack -- as individual creatures made by God, as householders or as neighbors.
National Blessings and Cursings
The Old Testament also tells us a great deal about the positive relationship between righteousness, which exalts a nation, and self defense. It makes clear that in times of national rebellion against the Lord God, the rulers of the nation will reflect the spiritual degradation of the people and the result is a denial of God's commandments, an arrogance of officialdom, disarmament and oppression.
For example, the people of Israel were oppressed during the time of the rule of the Judges. This occurred every time the people apostatized. Judges 5:8 tells us that, "They chose new gods; then there was war in the gates; not a shield or spear was seen among forty thousand in Israel."
Consider Israel under Saul: The first book of Samuel tells of the turning away of Israel from God. The people did not want to be governed by God; they wanted to be ruled by a king like the pagan, God-hating nations around them. Samuel warned the people what they were getting into -- the curses that would be upon them -- if they persisted in raising up a king over themselves and their families. Included in those curses was the raising up of a standing, professional army which would take their sons and their daughters for aggressive wars (I Samuel 8:11).
This curse is not unknown in the United States. Saul carried out all the judgments that Samuel had warned the people about. His build up of a standing army has been repeated in the U.S., and not just in terms of the military, but also the 650,000 full-time police officers from all levels of government.
Saul was the king the Israelites wanted and got. He was beautiful in the eyes of the world but a disaster in the eyes of the Lord. Saul did not trust God. He rebelled against His form of sacrifice unto the Lord. Saul put himself above God. He was impatient. He refused to wait for Samuel because God's way was taking too long. Saul went ahead and performed the sacrifice himself, thus violating God's commandment (and, incidentally, also violating the God-ordained separation of duties of church and state!)
Thus was the kingdom lost to Saul. And, it was under him that the Philistines were able to defeat the Jews and put them into bondage. So great was the bondage exerted by the Philistines that "Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, 'Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears.' But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen each man's plowshare, his mattock, his ax, and his sickle;...So it came about, on the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan..." (1 Samuel 13:19-20; 22-23).
Today, the same goals of the Philistines would be carried out by an oppressor who would ban gunsmiths from the land. The sword of today is the handgun, rifle or shotgun. The sword control of the Philistines is today's gun control of those governments that do not trust their people with guns.
It is important to understand that what happened to the Jews at the time of Saul was not unexpected according to the sanctions spelled out by God in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. In the first verses of those chapters, blessings are promised to a nation that keeps God's laws. In the latter parts of those chapters, the curses are spelled out for a nation that comes under judgment for its rebellion against God. Deuteronomy 28:47-48 helps us understand the reason for Israel's oppression by the Philistines during Saul's reign:
Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of all things; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. The Bible provides examples of God's blessing upon Israel for its faithfulness. These blessings included a strong national defense coupled with peace. A clear example occurred during the reign of Jehoshaphat. 2 Chronicles 17 tells of how Jehoshaphat led Israel back to faithfulness to God which included a strong national defense. The result: "And the fear of the Lord fell on all the kingdoms of the lands that were around Judah, so that they did not make war against Jehoshaphat" (2 Chronicles 17:10).
The Israelite army was a militia army (Numbers 1:3, ff.) which came to battle with each man bearing his own weapons -- from the time of Moses, through the Judges, and beyond. When threatened by the Midianites, for example, "Moses spoke to the people , saying, 'Arm some of yourselves for the war, and let them go against the Midianites to take vengeance for the Lord on Midian'" (Numbers 31:3). Again, to demonstrate the Biblical heritage of individuals bearing and keeping arms, during David's time in the wilderness avoiding capture by Saul, "David said to his men, 'Every man gird on his sword.' So every man girded on his sword, and David also girded on his sword" (1 Samuel 25:13).
Finally, consider Nehemiah and those who rebuilt the gates and walls of Jerusalem. They were both builders and defenders, each man -- each servant -- armed with his own weapon:
Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens loaded themselves so that with one hand they worked at construction, and with the other held a weapon. Every one of the builders had his sword girded at his side as he built (Nehemiah 4:17-18). Conclusion
The wisdom of the framers of the Constitution is consistent with the lessons of the Bible. Instruments of defense should be dispersed throughout the nation, not concentrated in the hands of the central government. In a godly country, righteousness governs each man through the Holy Spirit working within. The government has no cause to want a monopoly of force; the government that desires such a monopoly is a threat to the lives, liberty and property of its citizens.
The assumption that only danger can result from people carrying guns is used to justify the government's having a monopoly of force. The notion that the people cannot be trusted to keep and bear their own arms informs us that ours, like the time of Solomon, may be one of great riches but is also a time of peril to free people. If Christ is not our King, we shall have a dictator to rule over us, just as Samuel warned.
For those who think that God treated Israel differently from the way He will treat us today, please consider what God told the prophet Malachi: "For I am the Lord, I do not change..." (Malachi 3:6).
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Post by grizz1 on Dec 8, 2009 22:50:22 GMT -5
Thanks Ghost for all the hard work. Much reading and as you said you can find both biased and unbiased opinions. After all this trouble we are back to square one which is in my opinion, just good old common sense. A gun will not go on a rampage of it's own, there is a lunatic involved in all these mass as well as solitary shootings, it was never the gun that came up with the idea. Furthermore with each passing day we see, hear and are "taught" new ways of murder just by watching the news. There are bombings, stabbings, poisionings, beatings, the list goes on & on. The facts are that it is not legal to murder,rape, rob, steal , laws passed down thousands of years ago by our lord, adopted by nearly every civilization and yet these crimes continue.
It is against the law to do many things, run stop signs, speed, drink & drive- the penalties can be rather harsh if caught for any of these reasons but most of us see these happen everyday,
So how far do we go with passsing laws is my question for people that want gun control, most laws on the books now are broken everyday, it has not been proven to me that gun contol would drop the crime rate whatsoever. And any one that likes gun control, would you feel 100 percent safe in my house, if guns were banned knowing that cell phones will not work from here, it is 12 miles to town on a road with 55 sharp curves, land line phone is long distance and only goes through about 90% of the time, nearest neighbor is 1/2 mile away, there will only be 4 deputies available for your call and they could be 40 miles away on a dirt road helping someone else, are you starting to see my point ANTI-GUN PERSON. Indeed they will show up sometime to take photos of your dead body if an intruder has decided to cause you great harm.
Most folks say gun contol will never happen, I believe 100% gun control will never happen but I expect a constant push for control to continue. Who would have thought Austrailia would have gun control? Who would have thought they needed gun control, certainly not myself! Amazing though, it is still all right for a young Austrailian man to be handed a rifle to go help NATO or other forces to fight in foreign lands for someone elses safety but he can't defend the family farm back home of a damn Armadillo, GO figure !
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Renegade Dan
6 Point Buck
Posts: 114
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Joined: May 18, 2024 2:55:39 GMT -5
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Post by Renegade Dan on Dec 11, 2009 18:28:02 GMT -5
Great Job Ghost. Thank you for sharing this
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