Are governments trustworthy?

in #libertarian6 years ago (edited)

Notice - this post is simaler to one I posted to Quora based on notes I made for the post on Quora. The wording is somewhat different.

The issue of, are governments trustworthy?

Many people hold that without question governments are trustworthy if the people are unarmed. Rock solid evidence totally contradicts this idea.
Those who advocate gun control laws seem to buy into the authoritarian government narrative that guns in private hands are always uniformly bad.

Are they? That is — as it turns out — not the case.
Second they never consider why it should be acceptable that the government should get to keep guns, while private citizens should not. It is simply wrong to assume that governments are uniformly trustworth.
Let us first consider some basic facts that are reasonably well documented.
You should be aware that it is possible for governments to murder people, the Nazis and Communists and several other governments did as well.
As it so happens a well respected academic professor made this his central field of research. That was R. J. Rummel.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_Rummel

He published a lot of his research openly.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

According to his research, during the 20th century excluding war casualties and executions where the accused was given some reasonable facsimile of due process of law, governments murdered 262 million human beings. Of course some reasonable error may be expected, but the error is not necessarally lower, it might well be higher.
262 million murders by human governments from January 01, 1901 through December 31, 2000 is the best estimate we have at this time.

The average population of the earth in the 20th century should be taken at 1950.

https://allcountries.org/uscensus/1350_total_world_population_1950_to_2050.html

From this source the 1950 world population was 2.556 billion people.
So 262/2556= 0.1025
To get an average annual rate divide by 100, to get the rate per 100,000 population multiply by 100,000. Then:
0.1025x 100000/100= 102.5 murders per 100,000 population per year.
How does that compare with the rate of murders by private citizens — in the US, the world, and the average murder rate in the Americas?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

US murder rate 2015 (from the above list of countries by intentional homicide rate)— 4.88 per 100,000 per year.
World average murder rate (same) — 6.2 per 100,000 per year.
Average murder rate in all of north and south America 16.3 per 100,000 per year.

My point should be obvious. A person in the world is about 16 times more likely to be murdered by a government than by a private individual.

I suggest keeping our guns, and ignoring or belittling gun ban advocates is the sane and reasonable choice.
Gun Control is simply not a reasonable choice, and Americans are 100% right to reject it.

A commenter claimed that GDP should be a factor, I think it marginal at best but here compare GDP per capita of several countries with various sorts of gun laws. The net effect is as usual gun control laws are not effective at crime control and basic sociological factors like being an ethnic melting pot and having a history of violence abd slavery are.

In the first place GDP per capita is what would matter not raw GDP. Reference to GDP per capita.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

Second even GDP does not consider the fact that in warmer parts of the world, the cost of living is significantly less.
You do not need warm clothing in Brazil, you generally do not need to heat a residence in Brazil, you generally are going to have fresh fruit available year round.
These advantages are not considered in calculations of GDP, or GDP per capita.
Living in northern countries it flatly required that you have warm clothing and a heated residence, yet, in calculation of GDP, these sales of clothing and fuel and heating equipment, and insulation are added to GDP, when in actuality they are additional costs of living.
Thus in such calculations you are counting costs as benifits, which is absurd.

My father in the 1960s got a job offer as an engineer working in northern Illinois, and a job offer in Houston TX, yes the Illinois firm offered more, but on looking at it, the difference per year was less than the cost of a complete set of winter clothing for him, and his wife and two children. So we stayed in Texas.

Same list for homicide rates as before.
Ignoring that, the USA has a GDP per capita of $57,400, and a homicide rate of 4.88.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_Czech_Republic

The Czech republic that also has right to bear arms in it’s constitution, has a GDP per capita of $33,200 and a homicide rate of 0.75

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Finland

Finland that also has relaxed/liberal gun laws has a GDP per capita of $42,400 and a homicide rate of 1.60 per 100,000

Britain has draconian anti-gun laws, that said, the UK has a GDP per capita of $42,500, (74% of the US) and a homicide rate of 0.92 per 100,000 per year, 123% of the Czech republic’s homicide rate.

Brazil has draconian gun control laws, a GDP per capita of $15,200 (neglecting the benifits I mentioned above) a homicide rate of 26.75 per 100,000 per year. They make airliners and have a space program.

China has draconian gun control laws, a GDP per capita of $15,400 OMG $200 more than Brazil per year!!! but really hard winters in the north.

I spent October & November of 2012 in Dalian China, you really need warm clothing. China has a homicide rate of 0.74 per 100,000. Less than the UK, about the same as the Czech republic.

So with a GDP of about the same as Brazil, both countries have draconian gun laws, and Brazil has 36 times the homicide rate of China, ,

Could it be that a history of slavery, and being an ethnic melting pot cause homicide rates to be high??

Pretty obvious relaxed gun laws in the Czech Republic & Finland do not cause high homicide rates.

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