[quote=CA renter]
More on how the U.K. crime rates measure up to states with the lowest crime rate in the U.S. — some with very lenient gun laws. As others have already noted, some states and cities with the most restrictive gun laws also have some of the highest crime rates.
IOW, gun bans do not prevent violent crimes or homicides. The culture of the people is what prevents or fosters high crime rates. http://libertarianhome.co.uk/2012/12/uk-…%5B/quote%5D
To say that “some states and cities with the most restrictive gun laws also have some of the highest crime rates” means, IOW, that “gun bans do not prevent violent crimes or homicides.” is to ignore why those states have those gun laws in the first place, and it is also to ignore your main argument. (Besides which, “restrictive gun laws” and “gun bans” are not necessarily the same thing. And any gun ban, to be effective, would require a serious punishment for possessing a gun).
Say you have two towns. Town A is kind of rough and has a bunch of hoodlums living in it; town B is nicer. Graffiti is a big problem in Town A. Town A bans sales of spray paint and doubles the fine for spraying graffiti from $25 to $50. Lame measures, obviously. Similar to current gun-control laws. Those small measures aren’t going to do anything. So you look at these two towns and say, “Town A has tougher graffiti-control measures and still has a bigger graffiti problem.” Well, of course it does. It had a bigger problem to start with, and that’s why it enacted “tougher” measures. But those measures, while maybe technically more restrictive, don’t, in reality, have any effect at all.
So, in the case of these two towns, as you say, “The culture of the people is what prevents or fosters high crime rates.” But that’s only part of the story.
Let’s say you have a mandatory 5-year prison sentence for possessing spray paint in Town A. Do you think graffiti would be reduced? Of course it would. Crime rates are a result of a combination of culture and the rule of law. The reason that’s so hard to see in our country as far as gun-control laws is that there is nowhere in the U.S. that has meaningful gun-control laws.
The same people who are against meaningful gun control laws are generally also for tough punishment for crimes (I happen to be for gun control and for tough punishment for crimes). Why are conservatives so strongly for tough punishment for crimes? Is it because they think it will reduce crimes or for some other reason? If they believe that being tough on crime will reduce crime, why don’t they think it will be effective against guns?
[quote=CA renter]
What we don’t know about the U.K. is whether or not the gun laws are effective at keeping **gun crime** down (overall, their violent crime rate is higher than ours, but they track things differently, so it’s difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison…they are well known for the under-reporting of crimes), or if their surveillance program is what keeps it down.
Here’s an interesting article on the subject:
“We aren’t alone in facing this problem. Great Britain and Australia, for example, suffered mass shootings in the 1980s and 1990s. Both countries had very stringent gun laws when they occurred. Nevertheless, both decided that even stricter control of guns was the answer. Their experiences can be instructive.”
“…What to conclude? Strict gun laws in Great Britain and Australia haven’t made their people noticeably safer, nor have they prevented massacres. The two major countries held up as models for the U.S. don’t provide much evidence that strict gun laws will solve our problems.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424…
And, is this what we want from our government?
“Britain is ‘surveillance society’
CCTV cameras
There are up to 4.2m CCTV cameras in Britain
Fears that the UK would “sleep-walk into a surveillance society” have become a reality, the government’s information commissioner has said.
Richard Thomas, who said he raised concerns two years ago, spoke after research found people’s actions were increasingly being monitored.
Researchers highlight “dataveillance”, the use of credit card, mobile phone and loyalty card information, and CCTV.
Monitoring of work rates, travel and telecommunications is also rising.
There are up to 4.2m CCTV cameras in Britain – about one for every 14 people.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/61084… [/quote]
Here’s my favorite quote from the WSJ article:
“In 2008, the Australian Institute of Criminology reported a decrease of 9% in homicides and a one-third decrease in armed robbery since the 1990s, but an increase of over 40% in assaults and 20% in sexual assaults.”
And they conclude from this that gun laws haven’t made people “noticeably” safer. I reach a different conclusion. It seems that the country has gotten more violent over that time, as indicated by the increase in assaults and sexual assaults. But homicides and armed robbery decreased. Probably due to the gun-control measures.
A lot of the article talks about how massacres still occasionally happen. And, without extreme measures, we won’t prevent them entirely. I agree that you’re not going to completely halt mass killings. You’ll probably reduce them, but in any case, mass killings aren’t the main problem; they’re only what brings gun violence to the forefront of our nation’s consciousness. The main problem is the daily gun violence that occurs.
[quote=CA renter]
More on the U.K. — all of
Submitted by CA renter on December 28, 2012 – 4:04am.
More on the U.K. — all of this during the period that guns have been banned. As many of us have stated, it’s not the guns that are the problem…the people using them to commit violent acts are the problem. We need to focus on mental health and the obsession with sadistic violence in our society. [/quote]
I agree that we need to focus on mental health issues. Our country is really quite horrible at dealing with the mentally ill. Whose job is it to deal with them? I don’t want to turn this into a left/right thing, but, really, conservatives don’t want to spend the required taxpayer dollars on the mentally ill.
[quote=CA renter]
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Culture of violence: Gun crime goes up by 89% in a decade
By James Slack
UPDATED: 03:42 EST, 27 October 2009
Comments (29)
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gun crime
Gun crime has increased five-fold in some parts of the UK
Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.
The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year – a rise of 89 per cent.
In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.
In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled.
The statistic will fuel fears that the police are struggling to contain gang-related violence, in which the carrying of a firearm has become increasingly common place.
Last week, police in London revealed they had begun carrying out armed patrols on some streets.
The move means officers armed with sub-machine guns are engaged in routine policing for the first time.
Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Grayling, said last night: ‘In areas dominated by gang culture, we’re now seeing guns used to settle scores between rivals as well as turf wars between rival drug dealers.
‘We need to redouble our efforts to deal with the challenge.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-…
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It’s also important to note that the U.K.’s homicide rate was always lower than the homicide rate in the U.S., even before the gun ban.
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More on how the U.K. crime rates measure up to states with the lowest crime rate in the U.S. — some with very lenient gun laws. As others have already noted, some states and cities with the most restrictive gun laws also have some of the highest crime rates.
IOW, gun bans do not prevent violent crimes or homicides. The culture of the people is what prevents or fosters high crime rates. http://libertarianhome.co.uk/2012/12/uk-… [/quote]
A culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold. And the number of firearm offenses has almost doubled nationwide.
First of all, they don’t say what they mean by “offenses.” If possession wasn’t an offense before, and it is now, then that would explain some of it.
But far more importantly, a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold. This is obviously a big change. Gun violence has increased since ban. This can’t automatically be taken to mean that the ban had no effect or made things worse. If their culture has changed that much for the worse, then quite possibly without the gun ban, gun violence would have increased significantly more than it has with the gun ban.
