Why US-UK crime rates is apples to oranges

[manta49]

In that respect it worked... The only other mass shooting since, over a decade later was in Cumbria, 2010.

I agree with most of what you have posted. But it is imposable to know that there would have being more or less mass shootings if the handgun ban did not happen.

 

[hounddawg]

for those that are curious here is a peer reviewed paper by Dr Joyce Malcolm of Harvard and the effect of gun control laws in the UK.

Not surprisingly violent crime increased dramatically

http://www.saf.org/journal/16/guncontrolinengland.pdf

more disturbingly mass shootings of children at grade school grab headlines but the 200 or so young black men who are killed every single day will not even make page 4 let alone the national news

 

[KyJim]

Tom Servo posted a link a few months ago to an Italian study showing crime rates in a number of European countries, including the UK, and the United States. The rate of violent crimes and crimes in general was much higher in the UK than the U.S. Homicide rates were higher in the U.S. (not sure how they picked their numbers). The study tried to determine why rates generally rose in Europe while going down in the U.S. The study did not look at the possible effect of high gun ownership rates and/or concealed carry permits in the U.S. The most noticeable correlation seemed to be the incarceration rate. Europe generally let criminals out of prison earlier than in the U.S. With the economy the last few years, many states have resorted to "catch and release" programs for felons. I'm betting our crime rates will go up as a result.

Study at: http://www2.dse.unibo.it/zanella/papers/crime-EP.pdf

 

[Scouse]

For those discussing the Tony Martin case - that article is a bit disingenuous on that point. He shot two burglars, one on sight, maiming him for life (a load of birdshot square in the groin I believe - ouch), the other in the back as he fled, killing him.

The shooting in the back of the second burglar as the 16 year old (bit early to call him a career criminal, as the article does) climbed out of a window to escape was ruled to not be self defence. I believe quite reasonably. I am not sure if he was charged in relation to the first shooting, whether this was ruled self defence or not.

I would also point out that he only served three years in prison and has been out for some time, since that article is 11 years old now.

UK crime reporting may be different to in the US, but the drawing of a line of causation between the tightening of gun laws in the late 90s and any rise in crime (whether it exists or not) is seriously flawed. Self defence has not been a legal reason to own a firearm in Great Britain (Northern Ireland excluded) for many decades. Someone above pointed out that the concepts of home defence here are drastically different to in the US, a cultural thing, they are right. The guns that were banned were sporting pieces, generally not kept ready in homes in case of a bump in the night. Rather, they were locked away with ammunition stored separately.

If there has been a rise in crime/violent crime, it happened regardless of the gun legislation. The growth of gun crime (which stopped - it has now been on the decline for a number of years, as I understand it, will try to find source for that) was due to economic, demographic and cultural shifts in urban populations, not because criminals suddenly didn't fear being shot by the general public any more. That hasn't been a real fear for criminals here for a long time - except maybe people who burgle farmhouses, of course. The same goes for all sorts of crime, not just guns.

It really has minimal relevance to the debate in the USA. Just because the anti-2A crowd use these arguments, doesn't mean the pro-2A crowd has to lower themselves to using them too.

 

[Pond James Pond]

It really has minimal relevance to the debate in the USA. Just because the anti-2A crowd use these arguments, doesn't mean the pro-2A crowd has to lower themselves to using them too.

Absolutely agree.

I agree with most of what you have posted. But it is imposable to know that there would have being more or less mass shootings if the handgun ban did not happen.

Fair enough: edited accordingly.

Here is what I feel should be happening and why.
The present backlash against guns or at least one type of gun is not actually a rejection of the 2nd A' per se. At least not in the way that the pro-gun group feel. I don't believe that most Americans want the 2nd A' to cease, or be abolished but they simply, understandably, want the likes of Sandy Hook to stop.

So what is behind these mass shootings? That should be the goal of any action to try and preserve gun rights, if guns are not root cause as the anti front maintain.
However, it would hugely naive to think it is the result of a single factor. It is not just semi auto rifles and nor is it just mental illness, video games or any other single thing.
I say this because the anti-gun crowd have been crying "it's the guns!" and recently we have seen a lot of "It's the mental illness management policies!" from the pro crowd.

I asked this question in two other threads but never got any answer. Third time lucky, perhaps:
Why does this happen in the USA with such frequency?

Yes there are mass-killings elsewhere, yes some of those shootings elsewhere were more destructive (Norway), but overall the incidence is much higher in the States. Why?
Then we see that of these mass killings, guns tend to be used more than other implements and of those guns, semi-autos seem to be a favourite. In this sense, we cannot say semi-auto rifles aren't part of the problem, because they frequently seem to be chosen by the perpetrator.

In one of his more lucid moments, Alex Jones did say one thing in response to a question from Piers Morgan. He said something along the lines of "Yes, we (the US) are a violent society"
The crux is what can be done to make the US a less violent society.
Whether or not other societies are equally or more violent is irrelevant to the status quo in the US.
Neither the anti-gun, nor the pro-gun groups will find a solution to this problem by focusing on rifles alone. However, guns, being tools of destruction are an easy option for any government who needs to be seen as proactive on a complex issue, in a society (western societies as a whole) that has become accustomed to not having to wait and the "quick fix".

So we need to i.d. what makes people tip, and find ways to make it harder for them to access firearms.
The pro-gun front need to find answers to both these puzzles if they want to stand a chance of preventing extensive gun legislation, and in the present climate, simply citing the 2nd A' is not going to suffice, however valid that arguement may be.

May be stating the obvious, but sometimes it seems people lose sight of these simple points in all the rhetoric.

Just my 2p

 

[Scouse]

Far more than tuppence worth that, Pond. Spot on.

 

[Webleymkv]

The gun ban in the UK was as a result of the Dunblane mass shooting. It was a move to reduce firearms deaths, not crime as a whole.

In that respect it appears to have worked... The only other mass shooting since, over a decade later was in Cumbria, 2010

The goal of reducing firearm deaths or mass shootings specifically seems very odd to me. I'd think that the goal would be to reduce all deaths or mass murder rather than only those involving firearms. If the goal of the British gun control laws were to prevent mass murders, then they failed as there have been other mass murders in the UK since 1997, though most of them such as the 7 July 2005 bombings did not involve firearms.

As is the case with the U.S., the more effective solution for the U.K. would have been to address the underlying causes for mass murders rather than the tools used to commit them (in the case of the U.K., most mass murders seem to be acts of terrorism).

 

[MLeake]

Governments worldwide love sideshows. Gun control in the US, the US as Great Satan in Iran, or the Palestinian plight in Saudi Arabia - all of these are useful tools for diverting the attention of the masses away from governmental creep and stagnating economies.

 

[Pond James Pond]

The goal of reducing firearm deaths or mass shootings specifically seems very odd to me.

Odd? How?
I've never heard of any government launching a policy to counter all deaths, or all crimes: that is next to impossible. There are initiatives to reduce road deaths, then there are policies to reduce gun deaths, then there are action plans to reduce drug use. There is never a universal policy for them all.

There were mass shootings, so they banned guns:
I don't agree with the solution they choose because it struck me as a knee-jerk reactionism, but aiming for a reduction in or elimination of mass shootings hardly strikes me as odd.

...they failed as there have been other mass murders in the UK since 1997, though most of them such as the 7 July 2005 bombings did not involve firearms.
As is the case with the U.S., the more effective solution for the U.K. would have been to address the underlying causes for mass murders rather than the tools used to commit them (in the case of the U.K., most mass murders seem to be acts of terrorism).

As you said yourself, most if not all mass-killings have been terrorist related.
Unless you propose putting the attacks of 9/11 in the same category as Sandy Hook, Aurora and Columbine etc, then that is a inaccurate assertion IMO.

Hence I have to re-assert that, in the case of the UK, mass-killings have seemingly dropped dramatically with only one incident in Cumbria a couple of years back...

Having said all that we are, again, going back to a UK-US comparison which has little or no benefit in the current political climate on your side of the Atlantic.

 

[tulsamal]

It seems to me to still be a case of self-reassurance: the social issues, culture, demographics, relative disposalable income, population density, etc are sufficiently different to make a direct comparison of crime rates, taking gun rights as the main variable, as being an exercise in futility.

Got to agree and restate something several have already mentioned. My Major and Masters degrees are both in Political Science. If you do any academic work in the whole "gun control" field, you are quickly trained that you can't easily compare one country to another. There are just too many differences. So academic work in this area tries to study one country at a time.

When this was all brought up on the CNN talk show, this is what the pro-gun person should have pointed out. Rather than comparing absolute numbers of murders, you have to look at the per capita ones. Even more importantly, you need to look at how those numbers have changed over time. If somebody wants to argue that British gun control is responsible for a lower number of murders there, they have to include what the numbers were like for the ten years before the gun control came into effect. If the numbers were the same before the law... how can they make a cause and effect argument?

The US is a very large and very diverse nation. And we vary a tremendous amount just within our own borders. I live in a very rural county in NE Oklahoma. I have my CCW and carry whenever I go out but the reality is that this county very, very rarely has a murder. We might go ten years or more between them. But Tulsa County has had 8 murders in the first 9 days of the year. (Not usually that bad. Average is only 49 a year. Half as many as OKC.)

Considering how we are and our history, IMO you could physically eliminate every gun by some kind of magic spell and our murder rate would perk along about the same. Drug dealers will fight and kill to protect their turf. So will gangs. Some people will continue to kill others over money or women. There ARE things we can do to moderate some of this violence but doing away with guns won't fix it. Especially if we don't have that magic spell and we can only get rid of the ones the law abiding own!

Gregg