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Originally Posted by the head
Well I have never said that harsher penalites will charistically decrease crime...it will in given instances no doubt (Singapore has a very low pickpocket, shoplifting rate because if you do it they cut off your hand) but in violent crimes no it requires a specific type of person to WANT to activly injure another human being...blackmarket guns are VERY easy to come by and many laws restricting ownership of firearms by people with prior felony convictions are not very activly enforced thus creating another issue...Calling me a conservative is a little insulting...but I guess that is what I get for wanting lower taxes...so do you support stronger penalties for illegal weapons while simultainously trying to remove guns from the law abiding public's hands? What side of the fence do you sit on and judge others on for this particular issue?
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I apologize for directing that post specifically at you. It was more meant to target conservatives in general. It sounds like perhaps you are more of a libertarian. But I have seen you post on foreign policy issues, and there you seem anything but a libertarian. So I figured you more for a republican conservative. I could be wrong though.
As for my personal opinion on this matter, I think that the only way to get guns of the street is to stop manufacturing them, and have a policy to gather up what guns there are and destroy them. This issue is much like the war on drugs. As long as the drugs are around, people are going to buy them. Prosecuting the street dealers or individuals who are caught with them is not going to have any affect on the problem.
So no, I am not for your typical gun control laws. But I do think it is remarkable how people in many parts of the world do not even have to lock their doors when they leave home, let alone worry about being the victim of a gun crime. I think violence is not a result of guns, but a result of poor social and economic conditions, and having a government that says "do as I say, not as I do".
Just a side note, but if you look at rates of violent crimes in the US (or in any country for that matter), you will find that following a war, violent crime rates always sharply increase for a few years.