Just to gild the lily, the wording from Tapioca’s link suggests that the 81 “firearms-related deaths” in England & Wales (a region, or regions, with a population of around 50 million people), includes accidents! Possibly even suicides?!
Compared to 500 homocidal shootings in Chicago (population around 10 million people).
As <American comedian> Bill Hicks said:
“There is no link between having a gun and shooting someone with it, nor of not having a gun and not shooting someone… you would be a fool and a Communist to think there is. Studies have been made and there is no link.”
He then went on to compare the firearms homocides in the USA and Britain and suggested that the few that went on here were probably by American tourists!
I’d be interested to note the source for the statement " Violent crime jumped by two-thirds between 1998 and 2003". According to British Crime Survey figures, violent crime in the UK has fallen by 35% since its peak in 1995, and has remained relatively stable since 2000. (cite )
I appreciate that there are multiple ways to measure crime figures, and the BCS figures are based on surveys, not actual numbers of recorded crimes, and that there can appear to be great discrepancies between this and the police figures of crime. The BCS figures are also the figures used by the UK Home Office. The BCS itself notes:
[ul]For a variety of reasons, people do not always report crimes to the police - which means they don’t get reflected in police recorded crime figures.The British Crime Survey (BCS) asks people about their actual experiences - and so gives us a more accurate picture of crime levels and trends across England & Wales
[/ul]
Even so, I can’t seem to find any figures to support the assertion of a 66% rise.
I could go on and state that the picture painted of the Uk is not one which I, as a Uk citizen, can identify with, but that’s another post entirely…
NickML
His comments about boiling pizza were very true, alas!
Anyone mystified by the last post by Nobby (still dancing!) should know it’s more Bill Hicks from the same section I quoted, this time about how bad British food is.
I always thought this was an American misconception but I spent this August in Texas and the food there is kind-of better. Damn.
You have to wonder what drugs Cecil was on when he wrote this sentence. Speaking of drugs, the Department of Justice reported 1,500,000 drugs related arrests in 2003 in America. The comparable figure in the UK was 140,000.
Given a population of 300,000,000 to 50,000,000, the rate per capita for drugs offences is roughly double in the US compared to the UK.
Should I verify more of Cecil’s research?
I think possibly Tapioca’s a bit too harsh on this subject, by which I simply mean that, although the raw figures suggest that drug use is about 60% more prevalent (unless my maths is wrong) in the States than Britain, the crime figures could be misleading, due to the American government’s draconian attitude to locking-up anyone caught with anything slightly illegal for a very long time.
On second thoughts, the arrest figures might be an under-estimate since most Americans who use drugs are already in jail!
This is incorrect. One needs only to turn once again to Joyce Lee Malcom and her book To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right to discover that the American right to own arms had its origin in English law. And how the compulsory duties of Englishmen to serve in an armed capacity for the local constabulary evolved until the right to bear arms became a cornerstone of the English Bill of Rights in 1689 (as long as you weren’t a Papist anyway).
“That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law . . .”
This isn’t, by any chance, a reference to longbows, is it? 
I know that there was a mediaeval law passed here that every able-bodied Englishman had to practice (weekly) their archery skills.
I know it’s just anecdotal, but to give the flavour of life here in England:
In 30+ years in London and 15+ in the countryside, I have never seen a gun, fired a gun or even heard one being fired. Nobody I know has ever owned a gun, or expressed any interest in them. (I did witness an armoured car robbery once - the criminals were armed with wooden clubs.)
Only in the last 10 years have I seen an armed policeman. (They carry guns at major airports, and to protect dignitaries.)
Just to back-up Glee’s point (who I’m assuming is gleeful because it’s Friday afternoon), I’ve never seen a gun in Britain. Ever. I’m 29.
Nor have I ever witnessed a violent crime, although I’ve known a couple of people who were mugged.
It still freaks me out when I see policemen abroad carrying guns. I guess that makes me a cissy.
This is just after the civil war which started 1642 and lasted about a decade. Cromwell died in 1654. The Jacobite rebellion occurred in 1715 so things where just getting stirred up again.
To quote legislation of this time as a way os saying that there is something culturally english about baring arms is diengenous to say the least.
bah 
spelling
disengenous even
Y’know, I subscribed to the Straight Dope some time ago and took some glee in hearing some of the comments - taking most of them at face value.
What a mistake!!! Today’s article is an appauling mess of poor research, so much so that I think you’re right - at the very least you have to verify everything…
And if you have to do that, what’s the point of subscribing??
Ball dropped, Cecil - I expect you’ll be apologising next week.
Oh, and I’d completely missed that “hand guns banned in 1996” quote. What a clanger!!!
OK UncleBeer, I take your point. What I was trying to emphasise is that we have no recent history (the last 100 years or so at least) of a gun culture.
To suggest that recent gun control legislation in the UK contributed to a rise in gun crime against a now defenceless population is the misunderstanding in Cecil’s article we’re trying to dispel. Anybody who applies for a gun licence in the UK and stated they were applying for it in order to defend themselves and their property would be considered wholly unsuitable to be anywhere near firearms.
Before the recent legislation, gun ownership was already limited. The population was not disarmed by this legislation. We never had guns in the first place.
The only people who have guns are farmers, people who shoot for sport (game etc.) and people who keep guns at shooting clubs and use them in a strictly controlled environment. There are also a few guns in private ownership which would be better described as antique militaria and would be of more danger to the person shooting them than the person being shot at.
Before anybody corrects me…
Ah, yes, but the crucial phrase is ‘suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law’. The most important of those laws was the 1671 Game Act which restricted gun ownership only to those landowners with annual incomes of £100 or more. In other words, there was a right to bear arms but only for the very rich - an inconvenient fact which Professor Malcolm has always had to go to great lengths to explain away. Historians of early modern England have, for most part, concluded that she greatly overstates her case.
Just taken the time to read the column.
Very poor. Cecil is human after all like the rest of us. Poorly researched. Unsubstantiated conclusions and a viewpoint that is sadly under-informed about British culture.
To tackle some of which is said;
- Population density in the UK is far higher than the US. It is therefore inevitable that it suffers more from urban crime per head.
-As owlstretchingtime said, football hooliganism has little or nothing to do with either poverty or unemployment. The poor and unemployed cannot afford to be football hooligans.
-The conclusions aren’t helped by quoting statistics that refer to England & Wales as if they were national figures and the blurring throughout between England and Britain.
-While I have sympathy for Tony Martin, he seems to have be harrassed by scum until he was at the end of his tether, you cannot escape the facts that he engineered his house into being a burglar trap and then shot an unarmed juvenile.
-The populace have not been “disarmed”, they simply have never been armed to begin with. Gun owners in the UK was always very much a minority. Most UK citizens have no desire to own a gun.
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The link between unemployment and antisocial behaviour is debatable to say the least, but this article slings it in there without a second thought.
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The number of gun deaths in comparison to the US speak for themselves. Any rise in this can probably be more attributed to an intensifing of criminal fueds rather than anything else. As a resident of the UK who could count the number of times he has seen a real gun in the UK on one hand, I am very unlikely to be shot. I like it that way.
Thinking about it, I must be a real minority as a UK resident because of the number of gun-related incidents I’ve been involved in or had relatives involved in:
- When I was about eight, someone eejit shot through the dining room window of our house when the whole family was round for tea. No, we weren’t some kind of Geordie Mafia family - it turned out to be kids with messing around with an air rifle.
- I grew up on an estate that became known by the local police as “Little Chicago” after a shoot-out at the working men’s club.
- About 6/7 years ago, my mum was involved in an armed robbery - in the sense that she was in the bank when it took place.
Having said all that, I have to back the others Brits in the thread and say that gun crime in the UK is rare in the extreme.
My anecdotal evidence - me and two friends were held up at gunpoint on the street. The police who dealt with it found this an unusual case - and that’s the Moss Side police. They’re used to crackheads shooting each other, and teenagers mugging and knifepoint. It’s rare for the two worlds to cross into each other. (The big gang members dislike having kids running amok mugging within their territory, because it means there’s more police activity in the area.)
…mugging at knifepoint…