sorry, you deflected the "selfish" point, didn't you .. that aside, as we're used to it from visitors here, lol .. here is one comment i'm down to ..
BlueMax .. 11 January 2011 11:35AM
But our violent crime rate is almost four times higher than the US. Camden is worse than Detroit!
That's where the stats become complex, when you move from "murder rate" to "violent crime" and compare Britain with the US.
What's your source for the "almost four times higher" claim? I know a few years ago the US National Rifle Association tried the same claim.
Then, when their stats were analysed, it was discovered that wildly different crime reporting methods were being used and, once a level playing field was established, UK violent crime rates turned out to be half that of the US.
So the source of your stats, to back your "almost four times higher" claim, is key. Can you recall your source?
But whatever the comparative stats for violent, non-lethal, crime, we're still left with a US murder rate 4-5 times high than the UK.
Plus the generalised fear in which US citizens must live their lives. It's a terrible thing to go about one's daily life in fear of getting shot. 99.9% of Britons are free of that fear. It's a blessed freedom.
It's ironic that the "Land of the Free" lives in such fear. I worked for many year with nice Yanks in London - some very right-wing gun owners among them and, without exception, they loved that aspect of living in Britain.
But no way would they give up their guns at home in America! They were, effectively, gun addicts, tormented by their own Constitutionally-protected addiction."
"The argument the DC has tight gun laws and the highest gun crime rates is fundamentally flawed for two reasons."
DontCallMeShirley .. 11 January 2011 12:01PM
The argument the DC has tight gun laws and the highest gun crime rates is fundamentally flawed for two reasons.
First of all, it is almost entirely urban. Murder rates are almost always higher in urban areas, which makes comparing it to, for instance, Montana, completely irrelevant.
Secondly, which is perhaps linked to the first point, anyone making this argument has probably misunderstood the link between cause and effect. The reason why there are tight restrictions on guns is because of the problems with gun crime, rather than the other way around. In some states, the low levels of crime mean that tight gun rules are not as necessary.
[Insert: fuagf, just what i've been thinking.]
Just another interesting point - I live in Milton Keynes (that's not the interesting bit) which, according to these figures, if it were an average American city, would experience one murder by firearm every 50 days. But I cannot remember any fatal shooting at all in the last 10 years or so, nor is there any real threat of this. Another way of looking at it, if Britain had the same rates of gun crime as America, we would have about 36 murders from guns every WEEK. Terrifying to think, really.
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