Gun Control and the UK

[dihappy]

I'd like to ask those knowledgeable on the subject for some help.

Im trying to discuss on another board the flaws in gun control in the US.

Im not sure how to answer the questions im getting regarding gun control in the UK vs. the US.

I have been told that the UK with its Gun Control (ban), that there are far fewer gun related deaths vs the US.

Specifially this response:

"... how come America has about 30,000 gun crime deaths a year and the UK with strict gun control has less than 150?"

I was about to post something along the lines of:

"Why the total crime rate per capita is higher in the UK than the US?"
but i find conflicting numbers and nothing up to date so far.

"Why is there a greater risk of being murdered by knife or bomb in the UK?"

"Why doesn't the UK government ban knives? Why does the UK have the highest rate of illegal drug use in the EU?"

Do you think those are valid points? Anything else i can come back with, or is Gun Control something that actually works in the UK?

Should i just bite my tongue? Is our crime/murder rates just a product of a "free" country?

Thanks :)

[Lucky45]

it is hard to compare because the laws are very different. there is no 2nd Amendment and the only people allowed to carry guns are police. outside of police, to posses a gun you need to apply to the commissioner of police with a valid reason why?

also, the have a public order act, where a lot of things like cursing the cops would get you in handcuffs quick. there is more respect for law and order than in US

[jimlongley]

"... how come America has about 30,000 gun crime deaths a year and the UK with strict gun control has less than 150?"

I was about to post something along the lines of:

"Why the total crime rate per capita is higher in the UK than the US?"
but i find conflicting numbers and nothing up to date so far.

"Why is there a greater risk of being murdered by knife or bomb in the UK?"

"Why doesn't the UK government ban knives? Why does the UK have the highest rate of illegal drug use in the EU?"

Do you think those are valid points? Anything else i can come back with, or is Gun Control something that actually works in the UK?

Should i just bite my tongue? Is our crime/murder rates just a product of a "free" country?

Thanks :)

No, they had significant rises in crime rates after the ban, then they had slight drops and a levelling. There have been many more knife and bludgeon attacks than we have, but the debaters usually ignore those stats and spout ones of their own that skew the numbers.

Arguiing with them is a little like wrestling with a pig in mud. It doesn't accomplish anything, you get dirty, and the pig enjoys it.

[KBCraig]

Don't compare UK to US; compare UK to itself. The gun crime rate (and overall violent crime rate) has gone up in the UK every time they've passed stricter gun control laws.

Murder-by-firearm (and possibly rape) is the only violent crime statistic where the US still leads the UK.

If you want to do some comparison between US and UK (along with Scotland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands and Switzerland), here's some light reading. It's a 304 page .pdf from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cnscj.pdf

There are lots of charts, graphs, and numbers.

[nuparadigm]

"....it is hard to compare because the laws are very different. there is no 2nd Amendment...."

Exactly ! Getting into a UK vs. US statistical slug is kind of like trying to do the apples and oranges comparison. Using US stats if far better (if you're going to use stats at all). DC, NYC and other very restrictive environments offer more salient and relevant crime rise stats. More salient, because they are "local"; more relevant because, in this country, all of us share the 2A.

The 2A is foundational to all of US-specific weapons apologetics. Without it, we could make our case on the basis of argumentation based upon morals, ethics, logic or even theology. Each of those cases are sound and good, but the more we allow ourselves to be distracted from the 2A, the more we tend to slide toward apples and oranges.

[Smokewagon]

I would also question the 30,000 gun crime deaths per year. Thats like 80 something per day. I don't buy it.

[BlakeTyner]

Smokewagon, your skepticism is well-founded.

According to the US Department of Justice, in 2001 there were 29,573 TOTAL firearm deaths in the United States, of which:

802 were unintentional

16,869 were suicides

11,671 were homicides*

and 231 were undetermined.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs////glance/ ... frmdth.htm

*Although the data isn't broken down, this likely includes all justifiable homicides as well; there is no statistic for justifiable homicide, so it must be inside this number.


I can't dig up the cite right now, but a 1991 survey from the DOJ indicated that there were between 108,000 and 2.5 million civilian defensive uses of a gun in any given year. The discrepency is high because of differing surveys; the 108,000 was from a survey that eliminated false positives. The defensive use of a gun does not mean that a gun was fired, only brandished. Keep in mind the survey eliminates LEO/military and is concerned only with civilians.

Thus, the math comes out to something like this:

Today, 31 people were killed by a firearm (of which an undetermined amount were killed justifiably by police or civilians; this number does not include suicides or accidental deaths.)

Today, 125 civilians used a firearm to defend themselves from death or serious bodily injury.

Today, 1 child (Age 0 to 14) was killed by a gun (including suicide, homicide, undetermined causes, and accidental deaths.)

Today, 2 children (Age 0 to 14) drowned in swimming pools. (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/drown.htm)

Today, 116 people died in car accidents (according to statistics provided by the USDOT's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, based on 2003 numbers.)

[frankie_the_yankee]

I would also question the 30,000 gun crime deaths per year. Thats like 80 something per day. I don't buy it.

About 20,000 of them are suicides. And many studies have shown that the availability of guns has NOTHING to do with suicide. Japan has a suicide rate 3x higher than the USA, and almost no guns. People who are determined to kill themselves simply switch to other available means when they don't have guns.

The interesting thing is that when you look at the COMBINED homicide and suicide rates for many countries, including the USA, they are quite similar.

The UK has higher rates than the USA for every catagory of violent crime EXCEPT homicide. Their rate of "hot" burglaries (where the victims are home) is something like 5x higher than here. Not surprising since people doing such crimes in America run a HUGE risk of getting shot vs. almost no risk at all in the UK.

Recently, the UK was cited for having the highest violent crime rate of any industrialized Western country.

Visit the websites of major Brit newspapers and you will quickly see what I mean.

And they ARE talking about banning knives, toy guns, BB guns, etc. And nearly the whole country is blanketed with surviellence cameras, many now being equipped with microphones and SPEAKERS.

Remember, Orwell's 1984 was set in the UK. It seems he was off by about 20 years.

[KBCraig]

I would also question the 30,000 gun crime deaths per year. Thats like 80 something per day. I don't buy it.

My paraphrase of a Wikipedia article (see the original for cites):

According to the FBI, firearms used to commit 68% of the 14,860 homicides in the U.S. in 2005. That's just over 10,100 gun homicides for that year.

The CDC estimates there were 52,447 violence-related and 23,237 accidental gunshot injuries in the United States during 2000. The majority of gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides, with firearms used in 16,907 suicides in the United States during 2004.

There are approximately 800-900 accidental gun deaths per year. If the suicide figures for 2004 and homicide figures for 2005 were steady, that would mean approximately 28,000 gunshot deaths from all causes: suicide, murder, negligent homicide, justifiable homicide, and accident.

There's also a good reference here, although it doesn't include western Europe (probably because of difference in reporting methods):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence

[dihappy]

Im interested in the defensive use of firearms by civilians. Can someone provide more info or a website on actual stories?

Thank you very very much.

[jimlongley]

After I get back from physical therapy I intend to download that wikipedia chart and check it against other sources.

Remember that Wikipedia is vetted by volunteers, and they may or may not be biased one way or another. It may also be a long time before they catch up with information, Jim Zumbo's name was listed as one of the defintions of "Quisling" for a couple of weeks.

A short time ago, to prove a point, I entered a bogus article on Wikipedia and left it there for several days. I removed it myself after showing the people who felt that Wikipedia is a citeable source.

BTW, the definition that I entered was "Cheffing" that is, performing as a chef, acting as a chef, etc. Totally bogus, but harmless enough in the long run. A firend's son is a chef and his parents tease him unmercifully about "cheffing" while he says there is no such word. So his father, after I did my thing, challenged him to look it up on Wikipedia and he came away very chagrined. Then we revealed my duplicity, and had a good laugh, even if the still say he's "cheffing" at work.

[PatrickS]

I would also question the 30,000 gun crime deaths per year. Thats like 80 something per day. I don't buy it.

My paraphrase of a Wikipedia article (see the original for cites):

According to the FBI, firearms used to commit 68% of the 14,860 homicides in the U.S. in 2005. That's just over 10,100 gun homicides for that year.

The CDC estimates there were 52,447 violence-related and 23,237 accidental gunshot injuries in the United States during 2000. The majority of gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides, with firearms used in 16,907 suicides in the United States during 2004.

There are approximately 800-900 accidental gun deaths per year. If the suicide figures for 2004 and homicide figures for 2005 were steady, that would mean approximately 28,000 gunshot deaths from all causes: suicide, murder, negligent homicide, justifiable homicide, and accident.

There's also a good reference here, although it doesn't include western Europe (probably because of difference in reporting methods):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence

Another kind of "apples to oranges" comparison is raw numbers
rather than per capita. It seems to me that it is only meaningful
to compare per capita numbers, which indicate the degree to which
laws affect action. Raw numbers for a certain act may be double
in one context than another and yet be far rarer per capita in
the first context than the other due to population differences.

[KBCraig]

Remember that Wikipedia is vetted by volunteers, and they may or may not be biased one way or another....

A short time ago, to prove a point, I entered a bogus article on Wikipedia and left it there for several days. I removed it myself after showing the people who felt that Wikipedia is a citeable source.

Wikipedia is a portal, not a source. Use it to get citeable sources, not as a citeable source.

You can't cite it, because it can change drastically before you hit the "post" button (but the history view does show how it looked with every change).

Kevin

[pbandjelly]

here's some stats for ya
Death Stats
click the link, and enjoy. or copy the following and use to your satisfaction.

http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.html

[dihappy]

Let me post for your enjoyment the post that locked the thread:

Dihappy wrote:
I thank you all for voting. I am quite surprised that most voted saying that "GUN FREE ZONES" are MORE dangerous.
I wonder if most of you read that backwards icon_smile.gif

I should have maybe defined "GUN FREE ZONE" as meaning Guns Are Not Allowed in those zones.

My opinion is obviously that no guns allowed on campus make campus very dangerous, and any bad guy knows that if he/she wants to kill anyone in those areas, there wont be anyone with a gun to stop them until the police arrive.

Id be willing to bet that some students will carry some kind of a weapon on campus after what has recently happened.

It seems that universities are popular among deranged lunatics wishing to take revenge on society.

I am grateful for everyones opinions. Truth is, i did expect these kind of posts on this board.

In the end, your safety and life are no ones responsibility except your own. And i respect everyones opinion on how you choose to do that. I will say that i could never cower and hope for the best if ever confronted by a bad guy in my home or on the street. Statistics show that one has a better chance of surviving an assault by fighting back rather than complying and hoping for the best.

I will always protect myself and my loved ones, if that means putting a bullet in someone to stop them from killing me, then that is what i will do.

No hard feelings guys and gals. Take care icon_smile.gif

For you the argument is settled right: Jews shoot Arabs as they please to "defend" themselves so for you it's logical that everyone on a university campus should be wearing a gun, just in case. The use of this very example proves that you're a racist right-wing gun-toting brainwasher in support of everything that's wrong in your country.

It's people like you with their atavistic Texan mentalities, shining images of Jewish glory (a religion that installed violence as an elementary right 1500 years before Islam came up and has never adapted to any culture anywhere ever since) together with ueber-fascist power-rules-all ideas that have rushed this planet straight into another World War.
I don't know if you're going to wake up to this elementary piece of logic one day but it's too late anyway. We all have to thank you for that. You personally because you have let that dog of president loose on the rest of the planet.

The only country that has used nuclear, chemical and biological weapons until now is your own and we all know why. For precisely the same fact: you are very very SCARED, scared to die and scared to live, for a good reason: you are a danger to each other. You're people living among strangers come from God knows where, run out of Indians to kill and looking for more, the thrill of the kill. Do you wear a stetson in your car too, cowboy? Your "loved ones" are the silly little excuse to carry a gun to make war instead of a dick to make love, giving yourselves the right to put a bullet between the eyes of someone who ...steals your car, your girlfriend, your companies' oil. And you're proud of this "logic", accepting that others haven't seen the light yet. Thank you again.

You talk about some unknown, potential danger, whether it's Iran or your local gone-crazy neighbor, but for most of us you and your country are the clear and present danger.

Although MOST of the posters were in opposition to my opinion, let me say that this guy got flamed big time after this post as a racist, etc. etc.

He is also on the verge of being banned from what i understand.

Anyway, i wanted you guys/gals to see the mindset of how some see us over on the otherside of the big pond :)