Has it? Was the disadvatnage to legitimate sportsmen worth the ban? Is it any harder for a criminal to come across a firearm?
I’m not sure that making it harder for criminals to get firearms was ever the point.
Criminals, by their nature, tend not to be too worried whether something is legal or illegal. Even if gun laws were less strict, the guns used by criminals would still tend to be illegal ones, I think.
I’m not sure about the disadvantaged sportsmen but, on the plus side, nobody has used guns to murder a class of 4 and 5 year olds since the ban was introduced.
Well when BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE was made these were the statistics…
killed by guns each year…
United Kingdom - 68
United States of America - 11,127
I personally feel much safer in the knowledge that there are much less guns in the UK than in other parts of the world, although the problem is getting slightly worse. I am proud that we are one of the very few countries in the world that does not routinely arm its police officers.
The last I read, crime, violent crime, gun crime were all increasing in GB, while the crime rates in America keep declining, esp since most states now have CCW where nearly any citizen can get a license to carry a concealed gun.
What matters isn’t whether they are worried about whatever they do being legal or not, but whether they have an easy access to weapons or not.
If very few people own weapons, they’ll have a hard time getting their hand on one, even if they want one. If half the citizens own (legal) firearms, they will easily find someone who’s willing to sell one illegally, or more simply, stole one in a burglary. If very few weapons are available overall, then it will be very difficult to criminals to find one, illegal or not, except if they make them (which isn’t very practical) or smuggle them (which still is much more difficult/risky than just stealing one).
So, though high-profile criminals migh still be able to buy weapons (because they have the financial means/ connections needed to get them), you’re average low-profile drug dealer or assaulter is unlikely to be able to. And it will even more difficult for a high school student or an office clerck who goes postal to find one and slaughter his classmates/colleagues.
The mass murder of a class of 4 and 5 year olds was hardly a common occurence when guns were legal.
Where did you get those stats from?
If the handguns are legal, so is the ammunition.
If the handgun is illegal, it’s very easy to smuggle it in, by dismantling it. It is virtually impossible to smuggle bullets without them looking like bullets under X-Ray.
Therefore, the injuries caused by shootings in the UK are, in general, far less severe than would be found in a comparable number of handgun incidents in America, S Africa etc.
ackkkk I missed the crucial point in my comment: the importing of illegal ammunition is virtually impossible, so gangs tend to function with high-quality guns but pathetic ammo
Of course there are about 230 million more people in the US than in the UK so the disparity isn’t as bad as it seems just looking at the straight numbers – the ratio is still higher for the US however.
I have always been bothered by this comparison in relation to gun issues. My question is how many more knifing murders occur in the US than the UK each year? Beating deaths? I would be willing to bet that the ratio would be about same for those crimes as it is for shooting deaths. Anyone have the stats? I have the suspicion that it is the difference in the culture of violence between the US and UK that causes the disparity and not the availability of the wepon of choice.
It would be interesting to see the stats but I don’t have time to find them right now.
Makes me think of Archie Bunker’s answer to his daughter’s cite of the number of people who are shot each year in the US:
“Would it make you feel any better if they was pushed out of windows, little girl?”
Great Britain is smack in the middle of an exploding violent crime wave. While banning guns may not have caused it, it has not done anything to stem it.
The following article, by a doctor who serves in both poor urban hospitals and in prisons, should be an interesting read.
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1282/25_54/95612956/p1/article.jhtml?term=
I’ve never seen any evidence that legalizing concealed carry leads to a significant drop in crime. Maybe you can provide some.
Of course, there is also a dearth of evidence that legalization increases gun crimes.
Ohio, which recently legalized CC to a chorus of pronouncements of doom from naysayers and claims of big-time crime reduction from proponents, is a classic example of overblown rhetoric from both sides.
And now back to the U.K.
Are they hunting foxes with bows and arrows now?
You can’t compare the USA to GB- or even to Switzerland. But when you do “before and afters” or compare next door localities- Jackmanni is right- there really doesn’t seem to be any significant decrease in violent crime with increased gun control laws.
I’d go for gun control if it greatly increased my safety- but it doesn’t even significantly decrease violent crime.
Odd, Mr. Moto- none of the thirty-odd members of my family residing in Central London or the less-savoury (Sparkhill and Oldbury) sections of Birmingham seem to have noticed this “exploding wave of violent crime”. Besides, the National Review is hardly a good source for bias-free reporting, and a quick look at the rest of the author’s ouvre shows that he’s written articles complaining that everything in Britain is going down the proverbial toilet.
Things are basically business as usual, outside Brixton.
Besides, violent crime in the UK has always been much more likely to involve non-projectile weapons. Stabbings, coshings, and hit-and-run incidents are much more common than shootings.
HumptysHamhole, the UK does have a fifth of the population of the U.S. The ratio according to kris (whose numbers are, admittedly, probably taken from a year that wasn’t representative) works out to about 1:168. If you account for the disparity in population, you get something close to 1:33. That isn’t “higher”; that is worlds apart.
Actually I was just referring to the lack of effect on violent crime of legalizing concealed carry. Gun control (i.e. “assault weapon” or handgun bans) is another issue entirely.
Really Not All That Bright, if you have a problem with Dr. Dalrymple’s points, please elaborate. Attacking the publication he published in is a distraction.
The simple fact is, Britain is a crime-ridden society by Western standards. In fact, for the period 1995-1999, the last for which detailed statistics are available:
[ul]Violent crime rose by 11% on average in the EU but by 20% in England & Wales.[/ul]
[ul]Domestic burglaries fell on average by 14% in the EU but by 31% in England & Wales.[/ul]
[ul]Of the 17 countries examined in the report, England & Wales had well above average levels of both property and contact crime (i.e. robbery, assault and sexual assault).[/ul]
Source for these statistics is a Home Office document linked below.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/hosb601.pdf
A disturbing feature of British burglaries, alluded to in the Dalrymple article, is that many of them are “hot” burglaries. That is, they are perpetrated with the occupants of the home present, usually kept at bay with weapons. Often these burglaries are accompanied with violence. This sort of burglary is a very rare crime in America, where burglars like to work without the occupants around. The presence of guns in many American homes helps explain this.
Your claim: “The simple fact is that Britain is a crime-ridden society by Western standards”. Then you link us to a document which tells us that first that:
1.) England and Wales have one of the lowest murder rates in all of Europe.
2.) Overall crime is down during the period studied in England and Wales, and has fallen faster than in most other countries in Europe.
So in short, your cite proves the exact opposite of your claim. You started with the premise that British crimes rates are unreasonably high and going up. Then you carefully went through the Barclay report, ignoring the bulk of the data while cherry-picking certain statistics that made the crime situation in Britain look bad. I encourage folks to read this entire report and decide for themselves, rather than trusting any bullet-point summary of it.
Do you actually believe that large numbers of people walk around with loaded and concealed weapons that they are ready to pull out at any suspicion?
My WAG is that the more guns available the more children killed in gun accidents and the more family members killed in what would otherwise be just a noisy argument.
Easy Google: 2000 murder rates, per 100000 population:
South Africa 50.14
21.40 Russia (1999) 21.4
U.S.A. 5.64
Northern Ireland 2.84
Scotland 2.11
Canada 1.71
England & Wales 1.61
Germany 1.17
Japan 1.10
They’ve never used guns. They’ve always used a pack of hounds guided by men on horses.
Whoa, misleading statistics everywhere! The UK’s population is around a fifth of the US, so l scale up any absolute values by 5 to compare.
All crimes per capita, 2000. UK & US similar.
All assaults per capita, 2000. UK & US similar.
Murders per capita, 2000. US rate 4 times UK rate.
Murders with firearms per capita, 2000.Half of all of the murders in the US use firearms. The UK’s rate is so small that it rounds to zero. Total: 8259 vs. 62 in 1999.
The US is not appreciably more criminal, or more violent, than the UK, but its murder rate is 4 times higher. Most of the murders which increase the rate in the US but are absent from the UK use firearms. Make of that what you will.