Banning weapons in the UK really helped.

[Joeaksa]

Banning weapons in the UK really helped. Every week or so there is another shooting, and usually a death.

This is in a country where all handguns have been scooped up by the police, but the criminals forgot to turn theirs in.


Witness appeal in ice rink murder

Police do not know if James was the intended target

Detectives have appealed to hundreds of young people who were at a crowded ice rink when a teenager was shot dead to get in contact with them.

James Andre Smarrt-Ford, 16, was shot twice on Saturday night at Streatham Ice Arena in south-west London.

Police said the shooting took place near to the venue entrance, but James managed to stagger onto the ice. He was taken to hospital but pronounced dead.

Six male youths and an 18-year-old man have been arrested.

Police said James was approached at about 2300 GMT by a gunman who fired two or three shots.

Det Supt Gary Richardson

"Despite being fatally injured, James managed to stagger a few metres onto the ice, before collapsing," said Det Supt Gary Richardson, of the Metropolitan Police.

Mr Richardson said to 300 young people in their late teens and early 20s were at the rink when the shooting took place.

He appealed for everyone who was at the ice rink disco to contact Operation Trident, the Scotland Yard unit that specialises in investigating black gun crime.

Mr Richardson said the disco was dark at the time of the shooting and security staff patrolled the area with torches.

He said the victim's family were "devastated".

"We are still trying to build up a picture of how James came to be here," he added.

"Did the gunman target a gang of individuals, him on his own or indeed was it that he was not the intended target?"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/6330655.stm

[tabs]

Gun Contorl is like treating cancer with an aspirin. It may stop the pain, but it doesn't cure the underlying cause of the pain.

[Milu]

Originally posted by Joeaksa




He appealed for everyone who was at the ice rink disco to contact Operation Trident, the Scotland Yard unit that specialises in investigating black gun crime.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/6330655.stm

WTF?

There's now so much gun crime that the police have started departments by race to combat it?

The UK handgun ban has yet again shown itself up!

[StevoRocket]

Latest Figures Indicate a Further Fall in Gun Crime in England & Wales - October 2006



The latest figures published by the Home Office show a further fall in firearms offences in England and Wales. The figures, which do not include airgun offences, reveal falls in offences involving most types of weapon. The number of gun homicides and injuries were both down compared with the previous year. The data contradict the oft-repeated view that gun crime is spinning out of control. Although the number of offences remains too high to allow for any complacency they confirm that this country still has a very low level of gun crime relative to that in most other industrialised nations.


Number of deaths from firearms injury - United Kingdom, 1994 to 2003



Year Number

1994 341

1995 358

1996 254

1997 201

1998 203

1999 210

2000 204

2001 167

2002 169

2003 163

Most Mass Gun Killers are also Legal Gun Owners - Research

The following data were prepared in the wake of the shooting in Erfurt, Germany, 26 April 2002.

In the 14 deadliest mass shootings committed in wealthy nations during the past 35 years:

*

79% of the victims were shot with lawfully held firearms (185 of 233 victims)
*

86% of these mass shooting (12 of 14) were committed by lawful gun owners

Many killers, like the 19-year-old who shot 16 people dead at his school in Germany, were previously law-abiding sporting shooters or pistol club members - men whose legal ownership of guns was not questioned by authorities until after the tragedy

[red-beard]

That is almost never the Case in the US. Most gun crime here is with illegally obtained weapons. Some of the most law abiding people in the US are concealled weapon permit holders. Part of the reason for that is you must have a completely clean criminal record to get one. And to legally own a firearm in the US, you cannot have ever commited a felony, anywhere.

[red-beard]

I put this up about 6 months ago. All the Data is from the UN.

Crime Rates in the US, Canada and other Industrialized Countries

If you look at crime rates, the US is safer than most of the other countries.

http://www.unicri.it/wwd/analysis/icvs/statistics.php

The US does not have a higher crime rate than Canada. We have more crime, but the crime per 100,000 people is lower.

From the UNICRI-UNITED NATIONS
INTERREGIONAL CRIME AND JUSTICE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Look at Table 1, %crime victimization rates combined all crimes

Australia: 30.0
New Zealand: 29.4
England: 26.4
Netherlands 25.2
Spain: 24.8
Sweden: 24.7
Italy 24.6
Canada: 23.8
Scotland 23.2
Denmark: 23.0
Poland 22.7
Germany 21.9
Belgium: 21.4
France: 21.4
USA: 21.1
Finland: 19.1
Catalonia (Spain) 19.0
Austria 18.8
Switzerland: 18.2
Norway 16.4
Portugal: 15.5
Japan 15.2
Northern Ireland 15.0

This is a report from the "liberal" UN. The US is in the Lower Middle Quartet while Canada is in the Upper middle quartet.

Mean 21.77,
Median 23
St Dev 4.198

The USA is a little bit below average

[svandamme]

Originally posted by red-beard
I put this up about 6 months ago. All the Data is from the UN.

Crime Rates in the US, Canada and other Industrialized Countries

If you look at crime rates, the US is safer than most of the other countries.

Red Bears the relevance of your stats is a bit far fetched
since this thread is about guns and it's relation to violent crimes

and your links/stats include crimes like consumer fraud, corruption , theft, and others
it's about violent crime AND loads of other types of crime


it's like saying Africa in general has a better MPG per /100 000 inhabitants then the US...
yes it maybe true, no it's of no relevance because most folks there walk or use a bicycle, because they are to poor to drive...

[MFAFF]

We live in interesting times....

That being said...I think that even prior to the enactment of these laws in 1996 the likelihood of a legal owner of a hand gun carrying to a disco were to all intents and purposes zero, making the deterent factor a moot point. CC never

We should also llok at a couple of interesting figures...

In the UK, in the period 1999 to 2004 the crude rate of gun deaths was 0.285/ 100,000

The figures are provided by the 'official' statistics from the Government and so must be taken with the right perspective.

If we look at the US, again taking 'official' figures, in this instance from the CDC we get a crude rate of 10.31/100,000.

Now I'm always loath to take 'official' figures at face value...certainly in this regard.. so lets halve the US rate and double the UK one...another extreme but why not...

The UK then rises to 0.57/100,000 whilst the US falls to 5.15/100,00.

It still a factor of 9 to get from one to another.

Its also interesting to note that this one incident made it to the front page of all the national dailies....which if it were not deemed 'newsworthy' would not be the case...

In the light of the UN figures it would therefore appear that other than crime involving guns there must be almost no crime at all in the US, whilst in the UK there is little gun crime but loads of other types...too right.

Amazing what figures can tell you.

[red-beard]

It started out that way, but run down the stats and you will see the violent crimes rates.

Gun Deaths is a pretty narrow measure of crime in an area.

[svandamme]

i don't see it in the stats you posted...

[Dottore]

Originally posted by svandamme
i don't see it in the stats you posted...

Neither do I.

In fact these figures are clearly misleading - though you haven't posted enough information to allow one to determine just how they are misleading.

But a few years ago I looked at these statistics in great detail on a work related project - and the US was always at the top of the violent crime rankings in the developed world. Always. On any measure.

[azasadny]

The problem is that the "numbers" are collected and presented by groups who have a vested interest in the results and therefore cannot be trusted. The anti-gun people will show numbers that back up their position and the pro-gun people will show numbers that back up their position. How will be able to form a well-informed opinion based upon actual facts?

[Jeff Higgins]

So the U.K. had 341 "gun deaths" in 1994. What was the population at that time? It seems 341 is damn near statistically irrelevant (unless you are one of them, of course). Now how many lawful firearms owners were there in the U.K. at that time? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Is it really justifiable to intrude into so many people's lives in an effort to drive an already statistically irrelevent number to zero? Yes, the number has been cut in half by 2003, but half of nothing is still nothing.

What I'm driving at is just how important is gun control to the population at large? It seems it was a non-issue in the U.K. in 1994 and remains so now. The general population is statistically no safer, nor in greater peril, than they were in 1994. So why bother? It appears merely a feel-good do-nothing bit of legislation meant to dupe the populace into thinking their leaders are "doing something" about crime. Its only real affect has been to deny an enjoyable and interesting hobby to a statistically harmless segment of the population.

I think the gun control debate has been clouded on both sides. The anti-gun crowd would have us believe that removing guns from the population will have a significant, noticible affect on crime. Yet when viewed as a component of the entire crime picture, the U.K.'s gun crime is meaningless. No one is safer, because they were pretty damn safe to begin with.

On the other hand, the pro-gun lobby has gotten caught up in the "right to self-defense" argument. Again, very clearly a non-issue in the U.K. And probably here in my own country. Why can't the argument simply be that it is a hobby we enjoy, and it has no demonstratable affect on anyone else? That would seem the case in the U.K. Why take guns away from folks when they were never any danger to anyone to begin with?

This is an emotional issue on both sides. Both sides have degenerated into unreasonable arguments to support their views. The statistics support that assertion; crime and self-defense should be a non-issue to both sides. The real crux of the matter is that we have an artifact, the gun, that is completely irrelevent to anyone that does not own one. Non-owners statisically will never be faced with one in a crime, ever. So why are they so damn passionate about getting rid of them? Owners statistically will never use one to prevent a crime. So why use that as the cornerstone of their pro-gun argument?

[Dottore]

Originally posted by Jeff Higgins
Owners statistically will never use one to prevent a crime. So why use that as the cornerstone of their pro-gun argument?

I think because so many people in your society have firearms, that you would feel naked without one. And I understand this argument well.

I don't think the gun lobby focuses on the hobby aspect. I mean there are many countries where you can own a weapon and shoot this at the range - although ownership and use is very tightly controlled.

But in the US there is an emotive aspect to gun ownership that has something to do with the notion that guns should be available for protection.

[fastpat]

I think gun control in the UK serves a very valuable purpose. It shows how silly a society, which has a very low murder rate from all causes to begin with, can be to induce itself to disarm through state intimidation and ridicule, and while the murder rate increases anyway from other factors, not the least of which is encouraged third world immigration, that society can still be in near hysterics over firearms.

Truly educational.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally posted by fastpat
I think gun control in the UK serves a very valuable purpose. It shows how silly a society, which has a very low murder rate from all causes to begin with, can be to induce itself to disarm through state intimidation and ridicule, and while the murder rate increases anyway from other factors, not the least of which is encouraged third world immigration, that society can still be in near hysterics over firearms.

Truly educational.

Exactly. Gun control is merely used as a distraction; firearms are an emotive scapegoat. Like I said, when government starts controling them, it has no impact on public safety whatsoever. The U.K. stats prove that. It only serves to take the focus off of the real issues.

[creaturecat]

Originally posted by red-beard

Gun Deaths is a pretty narrow measure of crime in an area.

.........unless you are discussing whether banning guns in the UK really helped......

[Moneyguy1]

NRA does not defend gun ownership as a hobby.

More of a duty.

[jorian]

While the incidence of gun crime has decreased steadily in the UK since 1994, the incidence in reporting gun crime and related hysteria has increased exponentially. The same is true here in Canada.

[svandamme]

Jorian , do you know any statistics about violent/gun crime in Canada
and how it relates to beeing far or close to the US border?

and anyone else, similar data , but on the US side?