TheNews.com Offers Outright Lies About China and Guns
The Pakistani media outlet TheNews.com.pk offered a fascinating read in a story titled, “China serves as classic example of gun control laws.” This is an example of course of state controlled media, and it paints a rosy picture that verges on editorial without much insight from outside sources, and little in the way of counterpoint.
One passage reads:
“China does not allow its civilian population to possess guns today, but despite extremely stringent regulations in this context, the world’s most populous nation is still striving to completely curb the gun-related crime—- which is otherwise quite rare here as compared to most developed and under-developed nations on the globe.”
The problem with this above statement is that it essentially says that China doesn’t allow private ownership of guns, yet suggests there is gun-related crime. However, it never mentions that there are illegal guns. There may not be many but the fact that there are any shows that “gun control” can’t work completely.
But the article also offers this thought:
“Possessing a single gun in China can yield a three-year prison sentence, while perpetrators of gun crimes are often executed. (Source: The Asian Times: June 24, 2010). According to official history of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, the government had also cracked down harder on gun ownership after the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations.”
This is a statement that maybe more gun control types in America should read. There was a crack down on ownership after pro-democracy demonstrations, suggesting that guns could lead to a pro-democratic movement in China as the people could fight back.
Finally, the article ends with this chilling thought:
“It goes without saying that while gun laws have worked wonders in countries like China, they have failed to show promise in United States, India, Australia, Pakistan, Turkey, former Soviet Union and most of the European nations. By the way, there is no nation on the planet which does not have gun control laws”
The entire article reads much like a Jr. High level research paper rather than a news story, and it shows a true bias against guns. Would anyone really say that Chinese gun control is ideal? And if they do, we suggest those anti-gun zealots move to China.
Crime Report Story Lacks Crucial Information in Tale of Two Cities
In a story titled, “Gun Violence: A Tale of Two Cities,” The Crime Report noted “Chicago and Toronto are similar-sized cities – with one very big difference. Chicago averages 450 homicides a year, while Toronto averages just under 60.”
The story tries to suggest that the United States has almost as many guns as people and thus this accounts for the gun violence. Of course, what is lacking in the article is any mention of Chicago’s strict gun laws. Until last year it was all but impossible to legally own a gun in Chicago and the city was still a wild west of gun violence.
This missing fact sort of ruins and otherwise interesting read.
Spero News Offers “Truth and Myths” About Guns Headed to Mexico
This week Scott Stewart, writing for Spero News offered some interesting insight into myths about the arms trade to Mexico, and shed some light on the truths. In his piece, he looks at the numbers – including the dubious 90 percent that we’ve been covering.
He notes:
“The 90 percent number was derived from a June 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to Congress on U.S. efforts to combat arms trafficking to Mexico.”
Unlike most outlets, Stewart doesn’t leave it at that, following up with this insight:
“Almost 90 percent of the guns seized in Mexico in 2008 were not traced back to the United States.”
He cites various factors, but notes that the numbers don’t add up. Thus, unlike most of the mainstream media, he sees that there is no way that 90 percent of guns could possibly come from the United States. Read more
74% of all Firearms Worldwide Owned by Civilians
It is hard to imagine but civilians own more firearms worldwide than do all the militaries combined. The United States is one of the leading countries, with 90 small arms per 100 persons. Finland and Switzerland are high on the list of number of guns per 100. In Switzerland, any male eligible for military service is actually required to keep an assault rifle and army supplies. And yet Switzerland has the lowest murder rate in the world. Go figure.
Great Britain has one of the lowest gun-to-population rates in Europe. Unlike most other countries self-defense alone is not considered a good enough reason to get permission to own a firearm. (Much like American cities like Chicago and Washington D.C. were until recent Supreme Court rulings). Japan has even more draconian gun control laws and China bans all civilian ownership of firearms.
A people cannot be truly free if they don’t have the right to self-preservation through violence, if need be. To be totally dependent on government for the right to self-protection is to be a drone of the state. The individual is absorbed by the collective and the collective makes the decision who is and who isn’t to be protected, whether by conscious choice or bad luck.
Is Mexican Drug Cartel Crime Linked to Gun Control?
“Long before the Mexican drug cartels cut a distribution deal with their South American confederates, back when Colombian drug lords were busy corrupting their society’s democratic system, Mexico’s federal government was cracking down on private gun ownership. Its war against civilian firearms began in 1968, after civil unrest spooked the powers that be. The Mexican government closed all privately held firearm stores. From that point on, all firearm sales had to go through the Mexican Defense Ministry. It determined what guns were sold to whom at what price.” Read more
One News Outlet Questions Mayors’ Findings
Kudos to the Clarion Ledger of Mississippi for saying what others in the mainstream media are not, namely that guns are not the problem. The news site responded to the report from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and offered this thought:
“The criminals will always find ways to get guns and it is best to concentrate on regulating the criminal, not the firearm. As state Rep. Ed Blackmon, D-Canton said: ‘Mississippi does not bear the responsibility for the social ills of the world.’”
Well said. Maybe some various mayors should keep both points in mind before issuing another dubious and biased study.
China Tries to Target Black Market Guns
The Wall Street Journal is about the only mainstream media outlet picking up on story that was first reported in China Daily this week on how authorities in China are cracking down on illegal guns. It should be stressed that in China almost all guns are essentially banned, but there has been a stark increase of the number of illegal guns being produced domestically. Read more
Asia Times Offers Insight on Chinese Gun Laws
The usual argument by liberals and other anti-gun zealots is that if you get rid of the guns, crime will follow. After all, the argument is made, without guns there can be no way to shoot each other. So close the gun show loopholes, ban handguns, tax ammunition, make it impossible to own a gun. But time and time again the anti-gun zealots are wrong. Gun sales are up, crime is down should be proof enough. But alas, it isn’t.
So let’s look at the situation in China. As reported by the Asia Times Online, it is noted that since 1966 China has banned the sale, private manufacture, possession and even import and export of bullets and guns. The exception is for government owned companies that can export firearms. But the point is that individuals in China, the land that invented gunpowder by the way, cannot own guns. The news site offers this statement on the harshness of the penalties for those who break the law:
“Possessing a single gun can yield a three-year prison sentence, while perpetrators of gun crimes are often executed.”
We would stress that this is a three-year prison sentence in China, not some country club jail either. A three-year sentence would likely be a hellish time indeed. So clearly gun crime must be non-existent, but alas this isn’t the case. Asia Times Online notes:
“Yet despite harsh penalties, China’s Ministry of Public Safety (MPS) has said it increasingly faces armed suspects. In the most recent high-profile case last month, a security guard in Hunan province in southerly China, apparently upset by a court-imposed divorce settlement, shot and killed three judges and wounded three others before turning the gun on himself.
“It was not an isolated incident. In early 2007, a man in northeast China killed five family members and neighbors in a rampage with a homemade pistol. In September 2007, a man in Guangzhou city in southern China was sentenced to 19 years after using a replica gun to rob a bank customer. And in December 2008, a guard at a munitions depot shot and killed a colleague over a chess match, and was shot to death himself by police two days later.”
The news site further notes that guns are routinely smuggled into China, even as the nation is one of the largest gun manufacturers in the world. So the point of all this is that criminals will always find a way to get guns, and law-abiding citizens shouldn’t be punished as a result. Guns are not the problem; it is the criminals with those guns that are the real problem, and tackling crime should be where energy is spent. Not making new laws or trying to turn law-abiding citizens into criminals.
International Media Believes U.S. Fueling Illegal Arms Trade
Turn on the news of conflicts around the world and you’re likely to see the Soviet designed AK-47 time and time again. But surprisingly the United States, not the former Soviet Union, now gets the lion’s share of the blame for supplying the world with illegal firearms.
In an editorial posted by Jamaica Gleaner News on recent violence in Haiti the writers called out the United States for supplying guns to Mexican cartels. Fortunately, at least, the article didn’t see the United States in this alone:
Jamaica and her CARICOM partners should invite gun manufacturing countries such as the United States, China and Russia to a summit on small arms
This is an interesting opinion, but would Russia care – should Russia even care – about the weapons that were sold during the Cold War by the former Soviet Union? And what would a summit really mean?
Chinese Media Pick Up on Event Ignored by U.S. Media
Leave it to the Chinese to pick up on an event that the American media has so far largely ignored. Chinaview.com noted that in New York there was a large anti-gun demonstration, just the sort of event that the biased media in the states should love to cover:
“Anti-gun activists, city leaders and victims of shootings gathered in Times Square of New York City Monday afternoon, demanding an end to gun violence as part of National Day of Outrage.”
Of course maybe the media stayed away as this event was sponsored by the notoriously outspoken Rev. Al Sharpton and his National Action Network. It is interesting that the Chinese media sees America as the wild west, especially given that in a nation where no guns are allowed in the hands of private citizens, tens of thousands have been confiscated since April!
