Need figures to rebutt this.... (also need help in debate)

N

nralife

New member
There is a pretty good debate going on over on an LDS discussion forum. There is a guy over there with his stiff Brittish upper lip and holier than thou attitude that is getting me POed. In the quote below King Follet says the homicide rate in the UK is 6 per million people. I know that can't be right? Anyone here that wants to get in on this is more than welcome as long as you are polite and leave religion out of it. The fourm is at...


http://www.anewdesign.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number=1&SUB MIT=Go

...and the thread is entitled "guns are not toys."


Here is the quote I was talking about...

"In 1999 the homicide rate in the US was 6.3 per 100,000
in the same year in great britain the homicide rate was 6 per 1.2 million.

granted 6.3 per 100,000 is not too bad but 6 per over a million is a whole lot better,
also with the exception of 1995 with a rise of 7% in violent crime violent crime has been decresing in britain over the past 10 years, last year they had a reduction by 25%, however i think if I remember right the US also had a reduction by 17% despite some pretty high profile killings.

so the figures supporting a gun free society are there and can be fairly easily looked up with the use of the internet.

one other thing britain has had tight gun laws for over 200 years and hasnt had any type of vilent revolution or civil war since that time, neither has Australia for that matter."

Come over and have some fun. If you have any stats that would help I would appreciate them as well.


Joe

[This message has been edited by nralife (edited June 15, 2000).]
 
nralife:

You can start here:
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

That site has lots of international homicide figures. It also can point you to some good studies that show a very low correlation between number of guns and gun homicides (Kleck's study, I think).

I would be very surprised if England's overall homicide rate is as low as he says. That works out to what, .5/100,000? Maybe he is talking about firearm homicides? If that's the case, then his US figure is too high. Be careful that you don't compare apples with oranges. For that matter, international comparisons are very dicey because of so many other variables. For example, the US homicide rate would be higher than England's rate EVEN WITHOUT taking into consideration the firearm homicides. Clearly there is more going on here than just a difference in number of guns.

Anyway, check out guncite.com and you should be able to round up some good material.

Hope that helps...
 
hey, Joe. Go here and post this text and this link. Would have joined you over there, but King Howdy looks like he is on the ropes as it is. This will provide the knockout. Proof from a England paper that "killings are on the rise" due to "illegal guns flooding country".
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/01/16/stinwenws02004.html?999


London Times

Killings rise as 3m illegal guns flood Britain
Jon Ungoed-Thomas


UP TO 3m illegal guns are in circulation in Britain, leading to a rise in drive-by shootings and gangland-style executions, new figures have revealed.
Police are concerned that the amnesty after the massacre of schoolchildren in Dunblane in 1996, which led to 200,000 weapons being handed in, has failed to dent the underworld's supply of pistols and revolvers.

Criminals have maintained a steady flow of smuggled guns from eastern Europe, exhibition weapons reactivated in illegal "factories" run by underworld dealers, and guns stolen from private collections.

The estimate that 3m guns are illegally held in the UK - made by researchers collecting evidence for a parliamentary inquiry into the gun trade - is far higher than previously thought. The vast stockpiles of weapons have fuelled the recent spate of shootings in cities including London, Birmingham and Manchester, where a 17-year-old was killed last week.

Research suggests that in some areas a third of young criminals, classed as those aged 15 to 25 with convictions, own or have access to guns ranging from Beretta sub-machineguns to Luger pistols, which can be bought from underworld dealers for as little as £200.

"There is a move from the pistol and the shotgun to automatic weapons," said Detective Superintendent Keith Hudson, of the national crime squad. "We are recovering weapons that are relatively new - and sometimes still in their boxes - from eastern European countries."

In London there were more than 20 fatal shootings last year allegedly linked with the Yardies, gangsters who have their roots in Jamaica, compared with nine killings in 1998. In one, Andy Balfour, 32, was shot with a Mac 10 sub-machinegun, which can fire 20 rounds a second. He was hit eight times. Last July Tim Westwood, a BBC hip-hop disc jockey, was shot by a man who opened fire on the car in which he was travelling in Kennington, south London.

Killings in Manchester included the death last week of Gabriel Egharevba, 17, who was shot by a man on a motorbike in Longsight. It was the eighth fatal shooting in the city in seven months.

In April 1998 two youths aged 14 and 17 were shot in the same area by a gang with automatic machineguns. Detectives say modern weapons are fast becoming fashion accessories among young drug dealers protecting themselves and their territory. Unarmed officers say they risk confronting teenagers on mountain bikes brandishing automatic weapons.

In Birmingham there have been about 100 crimes a month involving firearms since last March, compared with 88 a month in the year ending in April 1998. Two men were shot dead in Birmingham in separate incidents at Christmas.

Anti-gun campaigners hoped the handgun ban after Dunblane - where Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 children and a teacher - would reduce firearm crime. The latest figures, however, show crime involving weapons is on the increase.

Home Office figures reveal that, overall, armed crime rose 10% in 1998. There were 13,671 armed offences compared with 12,410 the previous year. Experts, however, believe that only half the weapons used in armed incidents are genuine firearms, the others being imitations.

Opponents of the handgun ban implemented after Dunblane say it has failed to cut gun crime because of the multiple sources of weapons available to the criminal underworld. Firearms experts say more research is needed to assess the source of the weapons accurately.

Kate Broadhurst, a researcher at the Scarman Centre, said: "Controls on legally held firearms are clearly unlikely to have much of an impact."

Customs officers do not believe smuggled guns account for the bulk of criminal weapons. Criminals instead rely on reactivating decommissioned guns, such as the 9mm Uzi or MAC 10, or supplies from corrupt dealers.

Home Office officials insist the legislation has cut off an important supply of guns to the underworld. They say the handgun ban was never intended to combat firearms-related crime, but was a direct response to Dunblane, which involved legally held handguns.

"It is lunatic that a handgun ban was imposed which even the Home Office accepts won't reduce crimes involving firearms," said Chris Price, chairman of the Gun Trader Association. "It's not the criminals that have suffered, but legitimate gun users and gun traders."


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"Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" - Patrick Henry
 
Brit homicide rate is about 1.7 per 100K last I saw (1997 maybe).

The Brits never had a high homicide rate even before the gun bans. The homicide rate is independent of their gun laws. If we were to remove all of the gun-related homicides in America we would still have a higher homicide rate (hands, feet, knives, clubs). Is he arguing that America has more of those per capita as well?

Rick
 
In 1997, according to the British Home Office statistics, Great Britain's all-weapon homicide rate was 1.7/100,000. In the US it was just ove 8/100,000. If you take guns out of the mix, our non-gun homicide rate is 3.5/100,000. Still double that of Great Britain's. However, if you remove New York,
Chicago, LA and two other cities from the mix, our homicide rate is lower. Anyone care to donate these five cities to the UK?

Dick
 
Monkeyleg:

Can you post the source for the individual cities' stats? I haven't seen that one around. Thanks.
 
FWIW

I noticed that this "King Follet" guy first claimed he wasn't from America and eventually admits he's from Britain. Then he raves about how safe Britain is and that "As I am not an American I can have this far leftist view that gun power should not be given to the people."

Then in a post he claims: "Yesterday a girl was shot and killed in a parking lot of a store in our city by her ex boyfreind whom she had just dumped and in a fit of anger and despair he shot her then shot himself (though he didnt die from his wounds). had guns not being so readily availble to that young man he would not have had the opportuinty to kill that young mother in a fit of anger."

My question is, if Britain is so safe and guns are so hard to get, how in the world did the "young man" get ahold of the gun he used to kill his girlfriend?
 
Good point Cordex!

Anyway frye you were right. After I posted the article from the London Times, King Follet folded his tent and left. Thanks to all for the help.

Joe

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Ever notice how they always pack up and leave (with a parting dart like "gun nazis") once they realize their own facts are bogus?

[This message has been edited by GnL (edited June 15, 2000).]
 
People like King Follett turned one of the freest countries in the world into a thought policed, post-industrial slag heap.

About all they're into is getting people riled up for the pure fun of watching them get riled up. They have no beliefs at all except that "Your most sacred beliefs are nonsense, and I can prove it."

I was in London for about a year. Cold people, warm beer, late paychecks, hard work, relentless annoyances, bad food, horrible weather. Of course, that's London. Once you get out of the capital it's a different country.

Socialists really screwed that country up, but good.
 
Try this one on the arrogant Limey lout. Ask him perticularly about the part about the abolition of the restriction on double jeopardy. Bet he feels real free now but that could change in a heartbeat -- or the lack of one.

This from the BBC News:Monday May 15, 7:30 PM

Police battling 'inner-city anarchy'

Police forces in the inner cities are so short-staffed they are barely able to control the "anarchy" on the streets, according to the head of the Police Federation.

Chairman Fred Broughton will call on Home Secretary Jack Straw for a Royal Commission to look into the future of policing.

The Federation, which represents rank and file officers in England and Wales, says the police service is at its lowest ebb in recent memory.

Mr Broughton, speaking on the eve of the Federation's annual conference, said the public was losing confidence in the police while funding was in complete disarray.

He said 90 police stations had closed down in the last 18 months.

He also claimed that forces in London, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester were so short of officers that they were unable to control what he described as they the anarchy on the streets late at night.

"There is a sense of disorder, and anarchy in many of these areas," Mr Broughton said.

"Most people would avoid these hot spots altogether as there are no police officers to turn to."

No-go areas

He highlighted areas outside pubs and nightclubs between 2200BST and 0200BST which had become no-go areas for many people.

Mr Broughton said the time had come for a review of policing including an examination of the structure of forces, of police training and the merits of patrolling.

He said a Royal Commission would be able to examine the future role of policing in a balanced and non-partisan way.

He also said that crime-busting schemes such as Neighbourhood Watch and special constables could not replace effective policing.

"The truth is that all these alternatives have failed," he said.

"We are seeing communities with no policing at all."

Mr Straw and Tory Leader William Hague will be among a host of high profile figures to join hundreds of police officers from around the country at the Police Federation conference in Brighton over the next four days.

Dave French, chairman of the constables section of the Police Federation, will tell delegates on Tuesday of poor management in the force, dwindling resources and the "haemorrhaging of good officers on a daily basis faster than the drip feed of new recruits can replace them".

Other debates at the conference will cover issues such as sex offenders, liquor licensing powers and driving on drugs.

Mr Straw is due to make an address on Wednesday and is expected to criticise politicians who snipe at the police.
On Thursday Mr Hague will pressure the government to abolish the legal principle of double jeopardy and allow people to be tried twice for the same crime.

The proposal has been condemned as "knee-jerk headline seeking" by Home Office Minister Paul Boateng.

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Gun Control: The proposition that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her own panty hose, is more acceptable than allowing that same woman to defend herself with a firearm.

[This message has been edited by jimpeel (edited June 16, 2000).]
 
If it is Statistics you want here is more than you will want to know according to the English government itself: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/hosb100.pdf if that doesn't work try here http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crimprev/sta_index.htm and utilize the links........I will keep looking for more

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...“ They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” --Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it.
---Richard Henry Lee, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788

Take care and God Bless, El Jefe

The ANTI-HCI Site!
 
Michael Castleman in his book Crime Free writes,

"If handgun ownership were directly associated with violent crime, one would expect that areas with highest per capita handgun ownership would have the highest rates of handgun crime. In fact, the opposite is the case. Handgun ownership is much more common in rural areas than in cities, yet urban residents are twice as likely to fall victim to violent crime."

Those that like to point out the number of people murdered with firearms in the United States as opposed to the number murdered in England fail to mention that the rape rate in the United States is 15 times higher than England's and 23 times higher than Italy's. Our robbery rate is 15 times that of England, 8 times that of France and 150 times that of Japan. Today almost 200 Americans are crime victims each hour.

Those that like to point to other countries fail to mention the constitutional rights guaranteed to all persons accused of a crime in this country versus the rights a person has in those other countries. Are you willing to give up your right to a public trial by a jury of your peers, your right to an attorney even if you can't afford to hire one, your right against unreasonable searches and seizures, your right to an appeal, and your right to due process of law just to name a few? Remember these rights were given to us by the same individuals who gave us the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Most firearms used by the street criminals are not purchased or acquired out of state they are acquired in their home town or community. Most street criminals commit crimes within their own home communities.

While handgun sales since 1900 have rocketed from 270,000 sales a year to over two million the violent crime rate continues to fluctuate. The best predictor of violent crime is not based on the availability of firearms or other weapons. The best predictor of violent crime is the number of people most likely to use whatever weapon is available. The greater the restraint on law abiding citizens owning the firearm of their choice the greater the number of violent criminal acts.

Most gun control legislation while seeking to reduce crime in reality increases crime by making many otherwise law abiding citizens law breakers, i.e. criminals who are only criminals because of what is commonly referred to as status crimes. Crimes like possession of alcohol by a minor. Possession of cigarettes by a minor. Driving a motor vehicle without a license. Certainly those citizens who are otherwise law abiding are not the violent criminals whom society should be concerned about. How is someone 21 years of age and gainfully employed a threat merely because he or she happens to own a firearm be it a handgun or a semi-automatic rifle or an assault weapon?

Most citizens would like to comply with the law, all laws, but many otherwise law abiding citizens will not comply with a law which will according to most available data expose them and their loved ones to greater danger at the hands of the criminals the government seems all to willing to place back on our streets. While we want to live peaceable with all, we are not willing to meekly submit to criminals running rampant in our neighborhoods and rely solely on the government, be it local, state or federal for our protection which far too often is no protection at all.

No law can ever force criminals to register or let alone give up their firearms. No crime has ever been reduced or decreased by a law being passed unless that law itself made it legal to do what had previously been illegal. As an example consider possession of alcohol and the repeal of the 18th amendment ending prohibition. Before prohibition drunk driving deaths where negligible. Even though laws have been enacted requiring drivers to be licensed and prohibiting driving while intoxicated or impaired people continue to drive both impaired and without a license. It was not until 1939 that drivers in Florida were required to be licensed. Drivers licensed by the various states are now killing over 50,000 persons a year with disabling injuries numbering over 1,800,000 per year at a cost of over $57.8 billion. These are the kinds of people the states are permitting to drive when driving is considered a privilege and not a right. Are we to assume then that had these licenses not been issued 1,800,000 citizens a year would not suffer from the disabilities they now have or another 50,000 people would still be alive each year?
 
Homicide rate has little or nothing to do with guns. The NON-GUN homicide rate in the U.S. is higher than the TOTAL homicide rate in th U.K. (my understanding) - therefore, the difference is obviously culture and not gun-related. We are more violent people, guns or no guns.
 
The DOJ published a study in 1995 comparing the violent crime in the U.K. (England and Wales, actually, but that's where pretty much everyone lives in the U.K.) to the U.S. The title is, roughly, "A Comparison of Crime Rates between the United States and England and Wales".

Highlights:

(1) Robbery in the U.K. is 1.4x greater than in the U.S.

(2) Assault in the U.K. is 2x more prevalent.

(3) Burglarly in the U.K. is about 2x more prevalent.

(4) Rape and homicide are more likely in the U.S., but each of these is a pretty rare crime compared to the other categories. If we just focus on (1), (2), rape, and homicide (violent crimes) the total violent crime rate in the U.K. is nearly double what it is here.

(5) This isn't about violent crime itself, but it's interesting. Criminals in the U.S. are more likely to be caught for their crimes, more likely to be convicted, and serve longer sentences than in the U.K. Only the last item didn't surprise me.

But, really, international comparisons are a bad basis for understanding the effects of gun control. Not enough is held constant between countries. Britain does not have the widespread poverty the U.S. has, Britain does not have the immigration patterns we have, Britain does not have the same history of racial antagonism, the same economy, or the same culture.

Even if you wanted to do such a comparison, though, it's hard to see why we should be obsessed with Britain. We could, as many do, point to Switzerland, which has about the same homicide rate as the U.K. Switzerland, of course, is a country in which most of the citizenry is required to keep a fully automatic rifle and ammunition in his house, and many more do so even though they're not required. Handgun prevalence is very high there, too, probably higher than here. Then there is Mexico, which has near scarcity of guns but an astronomically high homicide rate.

But again these comparisons are just not so informative.

Here's some more relevant information. Since the beginning of the 20the century, and reliable records, rates of violent crime have risen and fallen in the U.S.. (Violent crime: each of assault, robbery, rape, homicide.) In fact, about half the number of years violent crime has fallen, about half the number of years it has risen. Yet gun prevalence has risen every single year as best we can tell. That is, gun prevalence has risen constantly, while violent crime has risen half the time and fallen half the time. That's just about exactly what you'd expect if there weren't a significant relation between gun prevalence and violent crime.

Since the early seventies, for example, violent crime in _each_ of the four categories has dropped about 30% (it's even lower today, these figures are a couple years old.) Yet gun prevalence in the U.S. has doubled in this time, both in total and per capita. Handgun prevalence has more than doubled in this time. Gun prevalence has doubled, that is, but violent crime has fallen about 30%. (See Kleck, _Targeting Guns_ 1997).

This doesn't show that gun prevalence reduces crime, of course, but it's exactly this sort of statistic--- which is not uncommon for various comparisons in this century--- that embarrasses the claim that gun prevalence is the cause of high crime in the U.S.
 
Also found this; England's Crime Rate Now Higher than U.S.!

March 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice released the results of the third annual International Crime Victimization Survey. It revealed that, contrary to popular wisdom, not only has the U.S. crime rate declined , (sometime dramatically the past few years), but it has been surpassed by a rising European crime rate.

Most notably, that favorite example depicted as a model for U.S. laws, England has surpassed us. The Crime Victimization Survey can be accessed from the Department of Justice web site www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/cjusew96.pr.

In 1981, the English robbery rate was about half of ours, by 1995 it was 40% higher. Their burglary rate was less than half of ours in 1981, but by 1995 it was twice ours. The English assault rate was roughly the same as ours, but by 1995 it was twice ours, as is car theft. In 1981, our per capita murder rate was 8.7 times that of England and Wales, by 1995 it had narrowed to 5.7. In 1981, we had a per capita ratio of 17 rapes to each rape occurring in England and Wales, by 1996 the per capita ratio is 3 to 1.

The authors of the study, David Farrington, criminologist from Cambridge, and BJS statistician Patrick Langan conclude the major factor resulting in these change is a toughening of laws and lengthening of sentences in the U.S., resulting in a decline in our per capita crime rate. During the same period, a liberalizing of laws and sentences in England and Wales, where the burglary rate of 1981 was roughly a third of ours, is now 30% higher per capita.



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...“ They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” --Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it.
---Richard Henry Lee, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788

Take care and God Bless, El Jefe

The ANTI-HCI Site!
 
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