John Lott's Website: Split personalities for South Africans on Guns

5/18/2006

Split personalities for South Africans on Guns

It is pretty hard to figure out what these people are thinking:

There are currently 3.7 million legally registered firearms in South Africa, but the number of unregistered weapons is thought to be higher. 82 per cent of respondents support enacting a law that would imprison illegal firearm owners for at least 10 years. . . . .

Polling Data

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? - South Africa should be a gun-free society.

Agree 68%

Disagree 25%

Don’t know 7%

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? - People should be allowed a firearm if they can prove they need it for self-defence.

Agree 66%

Disagree 28%

Don’t know 6%

3 Comments:

Anonymous said...: This whole "proof of need" canard really bugs me whenever I hear it...not to mention the fact that the people that have assumed the authority to judge 'need' are not interested in 'proof', but rather in shifting the definitions of 'need' and 'proof', and securing themselves as an elite capable of granting concessions to the pleas of their subjects.

Is 'the state' in any position to guarantee total safety? If so, what liability does it accept for failure? If not, by what notion of justice do they deny the liberty to compensate for their incompetence?; 5/18/2006 4:18 PM
saturdaynightspecial said...: Whenever the 'State' does for the citizen then the outcome is rarely, if ever, as good as when the people (the individual) does for itself. This applies to self protection from harm. One's personal safety is a personal responsibility not a 'State' responsibility. When citizens do otherwise then many of them will be harmed.

But in this case the outcome will matter mostly by what their media advises them - to arm themselves or to let the 'State' protect them.; 5/18/2006 6:38 PM
Anonymous said...: I was in S Africa a few weeks back,

I'd be interested to know the cross section of people questioned for this;

was it whites and coloureds in Joburg who have to put up with running the daily gauntlet of car jackings, home invasions etc

was it young blacks who boycotted school during the last years of aparthied, and who support seriel rapist, multiple murderer of women and crown prince for the leadership, Zuma, because he is the one likely to ennact Mugabe like policies

("screw the consequences, at least he'll hurt the whites and asians")

Was it capetown liberals, who read oxfam Canada's report "a gun free south africa"

Worth every penny the south africans paid for it...

or was it the older generation of black guys who can see through the populism and are dreading the death of Mandella for the Zulu -Xhosa power struggle that will ensue

Zulus refer to the Xhosa dominated government bodies as the "Xhosa Nostra"

Just before I left, a cop shot 8 people, including his partner and baby, and several colleagues, with his service pistol.

Certainly one isolated example of why guns should only be used by those wearing the uniform of the state eh?; 5/21/2006 8:52 AM