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I've answered this already ..... twice ! :yawn:
But in fact Norway has seven times the gun death rate of the UK per 100,000 so whats your point ?
Most violent in Europe ? Have you ever visited it ? On the contrary our overall official crime stats are the lowest since 1981 so it looks like all those gun bans have been helping
Crime at lowest level for 30 years | UK news | The Guardian
The point is your lethal response is your first response rather than the last on far too many occassions as is borne out by your stats
It could just as easily been so, as happens many times every day over there
Who cares as long as the guns are protected. Thats all that matters to most respondents here it seems
So what? Is someone killed it with a firearm morally superior to someone killed by another means?
You'd rather have 50 murders committed without a gun, then 10 committed with one?
I tried that already. Regarding cars and guns. I said dead is dead, right? It doesnt matter to the dead people or their families.
Apparently he things that 'intentional' deaths matter more, that the dead would care. And their families? Why? They're gone. It only matters if you continue to manufacture false perceptions around the reasons, like is common here: cars good, guns bad.
Maybe it would be no concern to you if your family were killed by accident or murdered (you obviously have guns that need protected more than they do after all) but I'll wager that is most certainly not the case for the vast bulk of individuals.
All modern societies have accidental deaths. You have yet to explain why all these additional and mostly intentional firearms deaths (almost absent from other developed nations) are acceptable
Then it seems even stupider for people you seem to know that would accept the much higher body counts as 'oh well,' it was just an accident. She was so sweet....but accidents happen.
And we have additional deaths thru accidents all the time. I asked if we should further restrict driving...we can you know. So can the UK. People just dont want that...they WANT to drive anytime, anywhere and thus accept that risk of death very willingly.
I asked if we should make swimming and boating illegal to prevent drowning? Why not? Why would a modern nation allow it if it leads to so many accidental deaths?
Because we *like* those things and are willing to accept the risks. But boo hoo hoo, some people are irrationally afraid of guns and seem to think that being dead from a gunshot is so much worse than drowning. Wow.
We have all these kinds of accidents too. You clearly are unwilling to acknowledge that intentional deaths by use of firearms are an additional and substantial extra threat almost unique to US society. Just looking at child deaths for example
And you are clearly unwilling to acknowlege that the vast majority of intentional deaths by firearms in the US are criminals and gang members. And some suicides. The criminals and gang members are not missed by "America." (one could almost consider it a public service if the guns help them exterminate each other). And the suicides are a mental illness problem, sad but the rest of us should not be punished for that.
Repeating the same defensive mantra over and over again doesn't make you right as the facts clearly illustrate
Gun deaths in children: Statistics show firearms endanger kids despite NRA safety programs.
Lursa said:And you are clearly unwilling to acknowlege that the vast majority of intentional deaths by firearms in the US are criminals and gang members. And some suicides. The criminals and gang members are not missed by "America." (one could almost consider it a public service if the guns help them exterminate each other). And the suicides are a mental illness problem, sad but the rest of us should not be punished for that.
Make up your mind...are you discussing intentional or accidental? Do not mix them together. I have provided my cases for both *separately.* I just did regarding vehicular and drowning deaths. One much more common, one more on par with accidental gun deaths. I asked if we should make much tighter regulations for cars and driving. I asked if we should ban swimming, boating, and pools.
So, make up your mind, but stop mixing intentional and accidental together just to try and make your (continually failed) point.
This (below) is separate and you failed miserably when you posted yourself that your own posted UK stats were 'overall.' LOL
Debatable, IMO. I consider sex crimes against children equally bad, possibly worse.The worst crime on the books is surely murder.
I'm not sure that is accurate.Your murder rates are by far the highest in the developed world
75% of murders being by firearm is a slight exaggeration - it is actually 70%, I believe.because of mass casual access to firearms which are used in three quarters of them.
That article I linked above actually mentions your country, in part.Since we introduced comprehensive gun controls over recent decades our already low gun crime has significantly diminished and our criminal fraternity now find it far more difficult and expensive to acquire them.
This apparently reduces the number of official "homicides" about 15%, and has a larger impact on gun-related homicide numbers.Finally, as an aside, one has to be very careful in making comparisons across countries because numbers are not always comparable. For example, homicides in England and Wales are not counted the same as in other countries. Their homicide numbers typically “exclude any cases which do not result in conviction, or where the person is not prosecuted on grounds of self defense or otherwise” (Report to Parliament).
Debatable, IMO. I consider sex crimes against children equally bad, possibly worse.
I'm not sure that is accurate.
I encountered this interesting article on the subject, and it raises some interesting points...Comparing murder rates and gun ownership across countries - Crime Prevention Research Center
75% of murders being by firearm is a slight exaggeration - it is actually 70%, I believe.
Not sure what exactly you mean by "casual access to firearms".
That article I linked above actually mentions your country, in part.
Apparently in England and Wales:
This apparently reduces the number of official "homicides" about 15%, and has a larger impact on gun-related homicide numbers.
It's an interesting article that I am still reading.
Edit: Actually that article makes another point several times - in their opinion, this data does not provide a good picture of things - many other factors are involved in murder rate and such, not simply # of murders compared to # of gun murders, or # of guns available.
They mention that Switzerland has quite high access to firearms, as every adult male between 18 and 42 has to have a government-issued firearm in their home.
Israel has similar situation - it has much higher gun access rates than it's listed gun ownership rates, because most of the firearms are government-owned, even if they're present in the home of whomever they are issued to.
So gun ownership or guns per 100 persons are not accurate determinations of "how many people have access to guns".
For example there are probably people in the US with 10s or hundreds of guns they personally own - but they're locked in safes or the like (especially if collectables/antiques, I presume) and far less accessible than, say, a handgun in a bedside table drawer, or whatever.
Keep repeating your scriptures all you like if it makes you feel better but guns clearly blight your society and you've been shown ample study evidence for that . Going into denial about it won't make it go away. If you choose not to accept it then I certainly cannot make you.
And you are clearly unwilling to acknowlege that the vast majority of intentional deaths by firearms in the US are criminals and gang members. And some suicides. The criminals and gang members are not missed by "America." (one could almost consider it a public service if the guns help them exterminate each other). And the suicides are a mental illness problem, sad but the rest of us should not be punished for that.
Repeating the same defensive mantra over and over again doesn't make you right as the facts clearly illustrate
Gun deaths in children: Statistics show firearms endanger kids despite NRA safety programs.
Toddler wounds both parents with 1 shot from handgun
Toddler was a good shot, too bad the parents were stupid enough to leave wife's purse with a loaded gun in it for the kid to reach.
More irresponsibility from gun owners.
Authorities have taken their child away from them for the time being, but maybe too late.
I'm not sure that is accurate.
75% of murders being by firearm is a slight exaggeration - it is actually 70%, I believe.
Not sure what exactly you mean by "casual access to firearms".
This apparently reduces the number of official "homicides" about 15%, and has a larger impact on gun-related homicide numbers.
Edit: Actually that article makes another point several times - in their opinion, this data does not provide a good picture of things - many other factors are involved in murder rate and such, not simply # of murders compared to # of gun murders, or # of guns available.
They mention that Switzerland has quite high access to firearms, as every adult male between 18 and 42 has to have a government-issued firearm in their home.
Israel has similar situation - it has much higher gun access rates than it's listed gun ownership rates, because most of the firearms are government-owned, even if they're present in the home of whomever they are issued to.
For example there are probably people in the US with 10s or hundreds of guns they personally own - but they're locked in safes or the like (especially if collectables/antiques, I presume) and far less accessible than, say, a handgun in a bedside table drawer, or whatever.
To cut a long story short this is a trivial matter, no issues.
Sure as long as the lethal toys are safe why care about the casualties ... as long as it isn't you or yours of course
Gun laws won't work with you guys. So live with it.
Ok:Prove it ?
Harvard Study: Gun Control Is Counterproductive
Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?
A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence.
Din B. Kates* and Gary Mauser**
The study, which just appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694), set out to answer the question in its title: "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence." Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-gun counterparts across the pond, the answer is "no." And not just no, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but an emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases.
The findings of two criminologists - Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser - in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling:
Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).
EDITORIAL: Guns decrease murder rates
In Washington, the best defense is self-defense
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
More guns in law-abiding hands mean less crime. The District of Columbia proves the point.
<snip>
Few who lived in Washington during the 1970s can forget the upswing in crime that started right after the ban was originally passed. In the five years before the 1977 ban, the murder rate fell from 37 to 27 murders per 100,000. In the five years after the gun ban went into effect, the murder rate rose back up to 35. One fact is particularly hard to ignore: D.C.'s murder rate fluctuated after 1976 but only once fell below what it was in 1976 before the ban. That aberration happened years later, in 1985.
This correlation between the D.C. gun ban and diminished safety was not a coincidence. Look at the Windy City. Immediately after Chicago banned handguns in 1982, the murder rate, which had been falling almost continually for a decade, started to rise. Chicago's murder rate rose relative to other large cities as well. The phenomenon of higher murder rates after gun bans are passed is not just limited to the United States. Every single time a country has passed a gun ban, its murder rate soared.
<snip>