Interesting article on how the ban of handguns is attributed to a rise in crime.

[fumanchu182 23]

http://reason.com/ar...come/singlepage

 

This is one hell of a article that outlines how irresponsible a government is in restricting the rights of its citizens to protect itself. What is even more disturbing is that the commentary on this link on a site called reddit is alarming:

 

Brit here.

It's no secret in the scummy as fugg areas, kids can get a hold of guns, and its friggin terrifying. Before that, knives were the real scare. When I still lived in my shitty area of the UK, I never left the house without a knife, that would have landed me in jail, no questions asked, because of their 'zero tolerance' bs...

Kids grow up now, with ZERO respect or fear of the law, they know they can't be touched, and frequently abuse, assault, and stab people, as a joke... a friggin joke!! 13-14 year old kids!! But me? a 23 year old guy, carrying a knife just so I can defend myself? jail time!

Now I live in a dodgy area of Brooklyn, NY. It has like a 6% population of whites... so I stand out like fugg, and most of the muggings around here, are against white people (we carry those fancy ipods right?)... But I feel 10 times safer, knowing that anyone planning to mug someone, has to deal with the fact, someone MIGHT have a fugg off knife, or a gun...

As soon as I move out of this state I'm applying for my CCW...

Sensible gun laws work, and work well... the state of the law in England is a friggin joke, the laws intended to protect people, stop people defending themselves, while 13 year olds thinking a knife/gun is a toy and stabbing people for a friggin joke, can't be touched!!

****, if someone breaks into your friggin house, YOUR home, YOUR friggin castle!! YOU CANT DEFEND YOURSELF WITH A WEAPON!!!... That means knives, bats, clubs, ANYTHING that could cause damage... No matter what that asshole in your house is holding, you CANT grab a weapon...

Ok... rant over...

TL:DR - fugg the UK laws, I'm in America now, and plan on owning enough guns to equip an army.

 

How the fugg can anyone from England justify living there anymore?

[Krdshrk 3,878]

In 1999 Tony Martin, a 55-year-old Norfolk farmer living alone in a shabby farmhouse, awakened to the sound of breaking glass as two burglars, both with long criminal records, burst into his home. He had been robbed six times before, and his village, like 70 percent of rural English communities, had no police presence. He sneaked downstairs with a shotgun and shot at the intruders. Martin received life in prison for killing one burglar, 10 years for wounding the second, and a year for having an unregistered shotgun. The wounded burglar, having served 18 months of a three-year sentence, is now free and has been granted �5,000 of legal assistance to sue Martin.

 

[BlueLineFish 615]

 

Wow..who said you cant get worse than jersey. That's ridiculous

[Krdshrk 3,878]

Yes, it is ridiculous.

 

More info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Martin_(farmer)

[RedBowTies88 41]

Jeremy Clarkson for prime minister!

[njJoniGuy 2,133]

Wow..who said you cant get worse than jersey. That's ridiculous

Britain is who New Jersey has wanted to be its entire existence.

[fumanchu182 23]

Britain is who New Jersey has wanted to be its entire existence.

 

Funny that you say that because we are named after the Isle of Jersey in England. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey

[SpacemanFry 51]

Funny that you say that because we are named after the Isle of Jersey in England. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey

 

Gee might that be cause we were founded by the British??? Oh wow look at that, there are other states & places named after places in England...

 

PS - hehe... sorry, the smartass side of my just wanted to come out

[lunker 274]

As a matter of fact, for much of the Revolutionary war, Jersey was considered a Tory sympathizer stronghold. The industrialists didn't care about freedom. They just wanted to keep the status quo with England to maximize profits. The urban areas did not provide many soldiers. It was the rural farmers in the militia that eventually did us proud and fought for freedom for all of us.

[TheWombat 67]

In my view England's typically far safer than the US having lived there for 30+ years. It is easy to take specific stories out of context and twist them for a specific point of view. If there had been gun ownership in the recent London riots than far more than 5 deaths and the small number of members of public would have been injured.

 

All countries have pros and cons, but comparing the UK and USA from gun ownership/crime etc is far from straight forward.

 

Hath

 

TheWombat

[NicePants 58]

In my view England's typically far safer than the US having lived there for 30+ years. It is easy to take specific stories out of context and twist them for a specific point of view. If there had been gun ownership in the recent London riots than far more 5 deaths and the small number of members of public would have been injured.

 

All countries have pros and cons, but comparing the UK and USA from gun ownership/crime etc is far from straight forward.

 

Hath

 

TheWombat

 

I've never lived in England, but I'll assume that, much like the US and any other part of the world, there are good and bad places where one can live, a bad place being an area in which crime is high. I mean no disrespect, but I'd say that it'd be hard for any person to judge an entire country based on any one place or even multiple places where that person has lived. For example, I live in Paterson, which many people in NJ and nearby states consider to be an absolute festering wound in terms of crime, but if you lived in the area that I live in, you'd think it's a pretty decent place aside from the (sometimes) noisy neighbors. What I'm getting at is, it is difficult to judge one area or even the whole of an area merely by our own experiences. All we have to go on are statistics, and the statistics say that England has higher crime per capita than the US.

[TheWombat 67]

My concern is that stats are easy to manipulate as crimes are categorized differently in different countries for example.

 

I just did a quick Google and found one website stating that there is more knife crime in the UK than Gun crime in the US therefore UK is more dangerous. That is a flawed conclusion as it doesn't look at all violent crime, I am sure there is significant knife crime in the US as well.

 

My understanding, and I'm happy to be proven wrong, is that homicides/murders in the US are higher than the UK, number of shootings in the US is higher than the UK.

 

Stats from the united nations from 2002 (sorry, just what I had to hand)

• 5.62 homicide rate in the US (per 100,000) compared to 2 in the UK
  
• 3.25 firearm homicide rate in the Us (per 100,000) compared to 0.02 in the UK.
  

 

Add firearms into the mix and the difference is even larger which makes sense as firearm ownership, even by criminals, is much lower in the UK.

 

If you look at the recent London riots then 5 deaths, if you look at the 1992 LA riots then 53 deaths. Perhaps not a fair comparison though as fundamentally different reasons for the riots.

 

I am sure the UK has changed in the 5 years since I lived there, however I still keep in contact with friends/family and the news.

 

Any and all stats will be suspect, unless there is very detailed clarity on what they include, how they are collected and how comparable they are. E.g. If someone is shot in Newark, gets taken to hospital and dies 2 days later from an infection is that logged as a shooting death, a firearm incident, just a death etc? I am sure there are some stats where the UK really is worse, however I do believe that homicides are lower in the UK as an overall statistic.

 

We are unlikely to find any data that all parties agree to since crime rates are a key political item to twist, however we do ourselves a disservice if we just jump on numbers ourselves without considering where they've come from and how they might have been manipulated.

 

A sensitive subject I know.

 

TheWombat

[SpecialK 193]

My understanding, and I'm happy to be proven wrong, is that homicides/murders in the US is higher than the UK, number of shootings in the US is higher than the UK.

 

 

And if you look where the higher murder rates are in the US they are mostly in areas where guns are banned or heavily restricted to the average citizen. You cannot compare how free access to guns in the USA versus restricted access to guns in the UK and include the restrictive states as they skew the stats the most. Last time I check I do not have free access to guns in NJ I have heavily infridged access to guns as I cannot even drive around with an unloaded one in my car without a damn good reason!

 

The anti's can come up with 100% proof that banning guns would stop crime and I would still be against gun control. I rather not live with people in peace that deep down want me dead and only do not harm me because they cannot find the right tool to do it with.

[TheWombat 67]

 

 

And if you look where the higher murder rates are in the US they are mostly in areas where guns are banned or heavily restricted to the average citizen. You cannot compare how free access to guns in the USA versus restricted access to guns in the UK and include the restrictive states as they skew the stats the most.

 

...

 

I'd go broader than this which is that comparing crime between countries is very difficult (at best) as there are far too many factors at play.

 

My point to my posts is that saying the UK has a higher crime rate than the US due to them not having firearms is not necessarily a correct conclusion, and as stats can show, depending on what crime rates we look at the figures are far lower than the US. I'll leave it at that, I just get irritated when I hear comments similar to 'crime is rampant in the UK due to having their firearms removed' as I don't believe that is correct and actually doesn't necessarily help the pro-gun argument.

 

TheWombat

[NicePants 58]

I'd go broader than this which is that comparing crime between countries is very difficult (at best) as there are far too many factors at play.

 

My point to my posts is that saying the UK has a higher crime rate than the US due to them not having firearms is not necessarily a correct conclusion, and as stats can show, depending on what crime rates we look at the figures are far lower than the US. I'll leave it at that, I just get irritated when I hear comments similar to 'crime is rampant in the UK due to having their firearms removed' as I don't believe that is correct and actually doesn't necessarily help the pro-gun argument.

 

TheWombat

 

I can get why you would be irked at that. Look at Japan for instance. Low crime AND gun ownership is practically non-existant. Look at what the stats say about the lower crime states here in the USA. Generally, their gun laws are much more loose than areas with higher crime. If one place has strict gun laws and crime is low, and another has loose gun laws and crime is low, this would mean that guns have nothing to do with crime. If they do little or nothing to push the statistics one way or the other, why ban/restrict them?

[fumanchu182 23]

I can get why you would be irked at that. Look at Japan for instance. Low crime AND gun ownership is practically non-existant. Look at what the stats say about the lower crime states here in the USA. Generally, their gun laws are much more loose than areas with higher crime. If one place has strict gun laws and crime is low, and another has loose gun laws and crime is low, this would mean that guns have nothing to do with crime. If they do little or nothing to push the statistics one way or the other, why ban/restrict them?

 

To be honest if someone wants to kill someone else and doesn't have a gun accessible knives/bats and or sharp/blunt or heavy objects will do. Worst case scenario they try to strangle you. I have to agree, guns are not a major variance in these statistics.

[PeteF 1,044]

Statistics say whatever the statistian wants them to say.

Unless you have full knowledge of the data being reviewed don't waste your time

 

Example

30% of traffic fatalities invole alcohol.

therefore 70% don't.

Sober drivers are more than 2 times as likely to be in a fatal car crash.

 

We should all drive drunk the stats say its safer.

[SpacemanFry 51]

Statistics say whatever the statistian wants them to say.

Unless you have full knowledge of the data being reviewed don't waste your time

 

Example

30% of traffic fatalities invole alcohol.

therefore 70% don't.

Sober drivers are more than 2 times as likely to be in a fatal car crash.

 

We should all drive drunk the stats say its safer.

 

Wish I could give you +1000000. I wish more people truly understood this.

[KpdPipes 388]

mr Martin was denied early relaese, because during the equivalent of our Parole Hearing here, he stated he would do the same..ie shoot the burglars...he was and i Sh!t you not Deemed "A THREAT TO BURGLARS" and his parole was denied. NRA actually tried to help him in Emigrating here but State Dept denied him because of his Conviction.

[compujas 21]

mr Martin was denied early relaese, because during the equivalent of our Parole Hearing here, he stated he would do the same..ie shoot the burglars...he was and i Sh!t you not Deemed "A THREAT TO BURGLARS" and his parole was denied. NRA actually tried to help him in Emigrating here but State Dept denied him because of his Conviction.

 

We should all be so lucky as to be considered a "threat to burglars".

 

http://www.guardian....ymartin.ukcrime

"counsel for the [parole] board, argued that it had not acted irrationally and burglars were entitled to protection from violent homeowners and were not to be treated as "fair game".

 

Absolutely ridiculous. Unfortunately this kind of stuff happens here too, like that guy who sued the homeowner because he fell through the skylight while breaking into a house and landed on a knife. There shouldn't be any tort coverage for someone committing a crime. Being a criminal is a gamble, like playing russian roulette; don't get upset if the chamber comes up loaded...or should I say the homeowner comes up loaded.

[njJoniGuy 2,133]

Coming to our country, thanks to our current crop of Fabian Socialists!

(Soros, Obama, Hillary, et al)

[Soju 153]

So it is illegal in England to be a threat to burglars? They better fire all police, eliminate the court systems, judges, and prosecutors.

[NicePants 58]

So it is illegal in England to be a threat to burglars? They better fire all police, eliminate the court systems, judges, and prosecutors.

 

Dude, pretty soon England is just going to ban itself and fade out of existance.

[One_crazy_dude 1]

that was a good read and i wonder if you all think it should be sent to any of these politicians who feel we dont need to protect our selves with arms.

[deadeye74 5]

I know I will never move to the UK after reading this!

[Zell959 40]

My concern is that stats are easy to manipulate as crimes are categorized differently in different countries for example.

 

Agreed. For example, I believe the UK goverment has been accused of 'massaging' crime statistics on more than one occasion.

 

On the whole, as you've already indicated in this & another post, I'd be in agreement that it's likely best to consider crime too complicated a problem to easily compare across countries and/or easily attribute to only a few factors. That's why gun control fails. It's silver bullet politics at it's worst.

[Murphy4570 15]

So it is illegal in England to be a threat to burglars? They better fire all police, eliminate the court systems, judges, and prosecutors.

 

You have to make the body disappear over there. Over here the police will kindly take care of that messy business for you at least!