about US crime rate

someone posted that US has highest crime rate in industrialized world. he posted some old data, but if you take a snapshot (so to speak) of the world right now, those countries that have confiscated guns (and allowed immigrants who retain their own culture)(britian, australia, ...) have totally skyrocketing crime rates.


heres a link, but not enough time (you can search yourself if you want) to do a total work up.


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-232432,00.html


'The campaign is being launched a week after Sir John said that gun crime in London was reaching unprecedented levels and that innocent bystanders could be caught in gunfights.'


that unarmed citizenry (excuse me, subjects) seems to be working out pretty well.


brad

I'm glad to see this is getting official notice. Gun crime in "gun free" England has skyrocketed. My understanding is that home invasions are up too. Home invasions are not a real big problem where I am. The epitome of modern England is the scene where George Harrison was unable to fight off a knife wielding attacker and his wife had to fend him off with a fireplace implement. I think what she did may have been a crime there. And in a safe and wealthy area to boot.

Have Britain and Australia recently confiscated guns? If they have, then one could make a case that the confiscation might well have led to the increased crime. If not, one would be hard put to make this case. One might argue, as well, that the increased availability of, or willingness to use, guns in London, not confiscation, is responsible for increased crime. I note that the article said violence with the use of knives has also increased markedly, so it doesn't appear that gun ownership, or lack thereof, is the signficant factor.


As far as allowing immigrants to retain their own culture, again, if this were a recent phenomenon and coincided with an increase in crime, you could argue for the connection between the two. Otherwise, where would the connection be?


One has to be careful in defining "crime" too. I remember when I was living in New York people were shocked when, during a police strike, crime went down. Well, of course it went down, there were no police available to make any arrests. The point is that increases or decreases in crime might also have to do with increased or decreased vigilance on the part of authorities.

reports have been in the bbc and newspapers that statistics have been manipulated downward. (a string of 20 burglaries by one guy counted as 1 burglary, for example.)


brad

by the way, during the last LA riots, a lot of store owners protected their stores (successfully) with guns.


of course, the LAPD publicly stated that had the rioters approached the nicer areas, then the police would have done their job.


also in florida during that bad hurricane which wiped out all social services (police) for like 2 weeks, looting and crime would have been much, much worse without guns.


brad


p.s. youll never get my guns [img]/images/smile.gif[/img] (whole post was just because i forgot this on my last post)

A truly ridiculous argument. More annual deaths occur in 1 US city by gun violence than the entire European Union.

give your sources and i will undoubtably agree with you.


brad

if you really want a crime rate, look to south africa or thecountryformerlyknownasrhodesia.


brad

how many died by gun deaths in the european union in 1940?