Do Guns Reduce Crime?

What are the causes of violent crime? Many factors have been considered in as the cause of violent crime. Does alcohol or drug use, poverty, lead exposure among children, child abuse, lack of love, poor judgement, violence in the media, poor parenting skills or guns affect crime? Coming up next six people debate if guns reduce crime.
For: Stephen Halbrook
Represents the NRA in suits against the DC and Chicago handgun bans
Halbrook's most recent book is The Founders' Second Amendment. Stephen filed a brief on behalf of over 300 members of Congress in the Supreme Court case of DC v. Heller, and won three Supreme Court cases on firearm issues. Holding a Ph.D. from FSU and J.D. from Georgetown, Stephen other books include Freedmen, the 14th Amendment, & the Right to Bear Arms, That Every Man Be Armed, Target Switzerland, and The Swiss & the Nazis.

For: Gary Kleck
Professor in the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University
Gary's research centers on violence and crime control, focusing on gun control and crime deterrence. Kleck is the author of Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control (1997) and Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America (1991), which won the Michael J. Hindelang Award of the American Society of Criminology in 1993 for making "the most outstanding contribution to criminology" in the preceding three years.

For: John R. Lott
Senior Research Scholar at the University of Maryland
Lott has held positions at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Stanford, UCLA, Wharton, and Rice and was the chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission during 1988 and 1989. Lott is the author of Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don’t, The Bias Against Guns and More Guns, Less Crime.

Australian Gun Ban

Against: John J. Donohue
Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor at Yale Law School
Donohue’s recent work has used large-scale statistical studies to estimate the causal impact of law and public policy in a wide range of areas from civil rights and employment discrimination law to the effect of legalized abortion, guns, and the death penalty on crime. Donohue is the empirical editor of the American Law and Economics Review and a research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Against: Paul Helmke
President of the Brady Campaign/Center to Prevent Gun Violence
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence is the nation's largest national, non-partisan, grassroots organization leading the fight to prevent gun violence, since mid-July 2006. Prior to this, Helmke was a lawyer in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he served as mayor from 1988-2000. In the early 1990s Helmke worked with Jim and Sarah Brady to help build support for the Brady Law and the federal Assault Weapons Ban.

Against: R. Gil Kerlikowske
36-year Veteran of Law Enforcement
Kerlikowske was appointed as chief of police for Seattle in August 2000. Kerlikowske served as the police commissioner for Buffalo, New York. He has also worked as a patrol officer, as a detective in narcotics and robbery, and as a hostage negotiator in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Moderator: John Donvan
Author and correspondent for ABC News.
Source: intelligence2: GUNS REDUCE CRIME

Anti-Americanism

Myths Of Anti-Americanism

Peter Slen interviewed Max Paul Friedman about rethinking anti-Americanism. Max Paul Friedman is an associate professor of history at American University and the author of "Rethinking Anti-Americanism."
Source: Book TV at American University: Max Paul Friedman, "Rethinking Anti-Americanism: The History of an Exceptional Concept in American Foreign Relations"

Tehran Removes Anti-US Posters

Download or Play Guns Reduce Crime Part 1
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Download or Play Myths Of Anti-Americanism



Music includes Jack Johnson Feat & Ben Harper - With My Own Two Hands, Poison Girls - Abort the System, Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth, Graham Nash - Military Madness, Robert Oppenheimer 1965, Curtis Mayfield - We Got to Have Peace, Gil Scott-Heron - The Bottle, George Carlin - Euphemisms, Meg Ryan - When Harry Met Sally Movie(1989), Kathryn Williams - Why Must We Be So Brutal, Willie Nelson - Whatever Happened To Peace On Earth?, Louis Armstrong - When the Saints Go Marching In, David Rovics - Two Mommies And Two Daddies, Alice Gomez & Madalyn Blanchett & Marilyn Rife - Sacred Flutes