London murder rate is HIGHER than New York's for the first time ever: Stabbings surge[W:579]

Visbek said:

At any rate... The larger point is that you're not all that likely to be mugged in either London or NYC these days, and are probably much more likely to be the victim of a violent crime in areas with high gun ownership and lax firearm laws (like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama etc) than with stricter laws (NYC, SF, London etc).

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If that's the case than explain why 99% of the guns used in crime are obtained illegally? In states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Pennsylvania, and so forth people aren't buying guns legally and then using them in crime. Its the illegal guns that are used in crime.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

I'd like to see a knife wielding killer decimate 59 people in ten minutes from the 23rd floor window of a hotel in Vegas.

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I don't know of any knife wielder doing that but I do know of an arsonist who lit up a dance club and killed 89 people, more people than in any mass shooting in the USA.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

No, we can't stop a guy with a truck or a bomb from their slaughter spree, but making it difficult for people to just purchase a sophisticated high powered firearm for the express purpose of engaging in a killing spree is a sane thing to do.

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These so called sophisticated high powered firearms that they want to ban or make harder to get they are not high powered, they are medium powered. A .30-06 round is far more powerful than the 5.56 round that is the round that these so called "assault weapons" shoot. A .30-06 round is often used to hunt large game but you wouldn't want to hunt large game with a 5.56. A Remington 750 in .30-06 is a semi automatic just like the AR rifles and would've probably killed more people in the Vegas shooting due to its greater power. But because the AR rifle is more scary looking that's why people want it more restricted, not because its more deadly.

Manc Skipper said:

It's gang turf wars which are pushing the rise in London. AKA "postcode wars"

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And what do you think drives our murder rate in this country?

Renae said:

Good thing they have gun control over there, imagine the murder rate if every criminal had easy access to an AR-15!

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It would probably be worse

OldFatGuy said:

The private lawful handgun ownership was at 10.3% in 2013. Since the supreme court case against Boston's gun control laws, NYC eased the permit process, and private handgun ownership in the city is now estimated by the NYPD at greater than 23%....

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I'm not buying that, especially since you've provided no sources.

E.g. Crain's article from 2016 says that city gun permits soared over the previous 5 years to... 62,000. That's in a city of 8 million. I.e. most of the firearms are coming from out of state, notably straw purchases in lax states like Virginia.

The article also points out that gun laws in New York State have become more strict. The SAFE act, passed in 2013, banned new sales of assault weapons and large magazines; increased background checks; and stiffened penalties for gun crimes. Everything survived court challenges, except the part that made it illegal to put more than 7 rounds in a 10-round mag.
The harder it is to buy a pistol, the more New Yorkers want to get one | Crain's New York Business

NY Times last year put the number of permit holders closer to 42,000. A big chunk of that are security guards, or people keeping a firearm at a business. NYC still has a 17 page application for a handgun permit. You have to be interviewed by the NYPD; renew every 3 years; meet strict safe storage requirements, and so on.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/nyregion/new-york-today-what-are-new-yorks-gun-laws.html

NY / NYC laws did not change in the wake of Heller or McDonald. E.g. in 2012, the courts upheld NY state laws that set strict conditions on concealed carry permits. I know of no NYC laws struck down in recent years. I see no indication of NYC having a major backlog on permits or renewals, nor am I aware of any case that required the NYPD to clear any such backlog.

London has had a low murder rate, not a low homicide rate, but only because a murder label is not applied until a homicide case is adjudicated and results in a conviction....

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Yes, I mentioned definitional issues. Still, it is evident that London's homicide rate is very low -- it's just that they had a bad couple of months. And again, NYC is heading for Mayberry territory when it comes to violent crimes.

BTW, Taxi Driver was never an accurate depiction of NYC. However thanks to the hypocritical new legislation making it a Federal Crime to promote prostitution on the internet and the loss of advertising on Craig's List and Backpage, we expect the girls and their pimps to relocate back on the streets as they look for business.

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lol

I didn't say Taxi Driver was accurate. I'm criticizing people who think that NYC is incredibly unsafe.

And who is this "we?" Y'know, maybe you shouldn't explain why you are so upset about that recent change in the law.... :mrgreen:

HonestJoe said:

Nothing to do with gun laws. Stop using people's deaths as tools in your partisan political games.

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yet you miss the bigger picture.
It doesn't matter if you have gun bans or not.

people will find a way to kill you.

VanceMack said:

And what do you think drives our murder rate in this country?

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suicides and gang and drug violence.
pretty much the super majority of gun violence.

Lursa said:

Since the law-abiding citizens there dont have guns, and the violent crime rate is higher than NYC, then it seems that ownership of guns might have saved some of those victims.

Because obviously, not being able to own guns hasnt fixed your violent crime issues.

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Maybe, but it's equally possible that if more people owned guns there'd be more gun crimes. In practice it'd probably be a bit of both but the point is we can't definitively say gun ownership or gun laws (two different things by the way) has an impact either way just by quoting generic crime statistics.

The UK has never had widespread gun ownership, various law changes having limited practical impact on the majority of citizens. Nobody has claimed gun laws will stop violent crime though, typically being focused on rare but serious incidents. Crime rates in the UK have variously gone up and down, varying greatly by region and type of crime while gun laws and certainly common gun ownership have remained pretty much the same.

Visbek said:

I'm not buying that, especially since you've provided no sources.

E.g. Crain's article from 2016 says that city gun permits soared over the previous 5 years to... 62,000. That's in a city of 8 million. I.e. most of the firearms are coming from out of state, notably straw purchases in lax states like Virginia.

The article also points out that gun laws in New York State have become more strict. The SAFE act, passed in 2013, banned new sales of assault weapons and large magazines; increased background checks; and stiffened penalties for gun crimes. Everything survived court challenges, except the part that made it illegal to put more than 7 rounds in a 10-round mag.
The harder it is to buy a pistol, the more New Yorkers want to get one | Crain's New York Business

NY Times last year put the number of permit holders closer to 42,000. A big chunk of that are security guards, or people keeping a firearm at a business. NYC still has a 17 page application for a handgun permit. You have to be interviewed by the NYPD; renew every 3 years; meet strict safe storage requirements, and so on.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/nyregion/new-york-today-what-are-new-yorks-gun-laws.html

NY / NYC laws did not change in the wake of Heller or McDonald. E.g. in 2012, the courts upheld NY state laws that set strict conditions on concealed carry permits. I know of no NYC laws struck down in recent years. I see no indication of NYC having a major backlog on permits or renewals, nor am I aware of any case that required the NYPD to clear any such backlog.

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Under Bloomberg's administration, laws didn't change, city policy changed. NYPD was ordered to stop placing obstacles in front of permit applicants and speed up the process. That hasn't changed during the current administration. You want proofs of numbers, speak with the NYPD Community Services. They will also tell you women composed the majority of the new applicants. I stopped trusting the NYT years ago. Their veracity failed with the retirement and deaths of their real reporters and news editors, and the Newhouse School of Journalism new hirings. When their articles became editorials incognito with purposeful misreporting of factual information for political goals.

Visbek said:

Yes, I mentioned definitional issues. Still, it is evident that London's homicide rate is very low -- it's just that they had a bad couple of months. And again, NYC is heading for Mayberry territory when it comes to violent crimes.

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I strongly suggest you take some midnight strolls through London. London was never low crime or low homicide, it did have a low murder rate. NYC's drop in crime rations has nothing to do with gun controls. It never did when the ratios were high. But that is a discussion for another day, another thread


continued

Visbek said:

I didn't say Taxi Driver was accurate. I'm criticizing people who think that NYC is incredibly unsafe.

And who is this "we?" Y'know, maybe you shouldn't explain why you are so upset about that recent change in the law.... :mrgreen:

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I agreed with you on the prior. That wasn't argumentative.

"We" is myself and friendly self appointed old critics who hang at the same cafes and bars in the neighborhood, retired police, attorneys, judges and so forth.

The reasons we are upset are simple. We collectively and mostly see this new law as an over reaching attack on the freedoms of the internet, a first frontal attack that will lead to other forms of censorship, from political hypocrites who almost all use prostitutes. A low hanging fruit target, but more is coming. They know and we know, prostitution will not end with this law. This law is a Trojan horse for censorship on the net.

From a practical point of view, these now forbidden adds are a loss for law enforcement. The adds kept many of the working girls off the streets, with a safer for them, more controllable environment. More important they gave LE a toolset for finding exploited runaway boys and girls, as well forced prostitution among immigrant groups, often imported here unlawfully, with forced prostitution the goal. Prostitution is not a victimless crime, but victimization of sex workers can be minimized. The adds were a tool for exactly that. DA's from liberal western states which saw this attack against these adds as good headlines for gaining votes, have opened the doors of censorship and destroyed a toolset that was used by law enforcement to reduce that victimization the politicians claim ignored. Let me remind you of Elliot Spitzer and the underlying hypocrisy which brought him down, black socks and all. They could have done the right thing from the onset, fought for making a lawful licensing system, with mandatory health protections for both workers and customers, eliminated pimps from the profit taking, controlling child exploitation and exploitation of ignorant forced immigrants into the trade. Instead they took the path of least resistance. And in the meantime new venues for advertising prostitution on the net are appearing daily, with new methods for obscuring themselves from the new laws. It was all political gesture with no real substance. A typical AG political venture.

HonestJoe said:

Maybe, but it's equally possible that if more people owned guns there'd be more gun crimes.

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Not if more people owned guns legally. Over 99% of the guns used in crimes are owned illegally so by letting people own guns legally it will not increase gun crime and will probably in fact reduce violent crime overall since criminals will be less likely to try to victimize possibly armed law abiding citizens.

Now, if more people owned guns illegally yes there would be no doubt more gun crimes. Which means, we should do a better job enforcing the laws we've got and preventing people from getting guns illegally.

OldFatGuy said:

Under Bloomberg's administration, laws didn't change, city policy changed. NYPD was ordered to stop placing obstacles in front of permit applicants and speed up the process.

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Yeah, all that happened was that Bloomberg slightly simplified the permit process. That's it. No lawsuits, no "obstacles," just streamlining the permit process... and not by much.

Back in the real world: In NYC, you still have to fill out a 17-page form, you still have to interview with the NYPD, you still have to renew every 3 years, concealed carry permit is extremely difficult to obtain, etc. There was no court case forcing any changes to NYC gun laws, and the number of handgun permit holders is still a tiny fraction of city residents -- either 40k or 60k out of 8 million.

You want proofs of numbers, speak with the NYPD Community Services.

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I already have two sources. So far, you've got none.

Oh, and in order to get the number of permit holders? Yeah, the NYPD had to sue the NYPD. A Gawker reporter also had to file a FOIA request in 2010 to get a list of the names of permit holders. So I seriously doubt that you called up 311 and got an answer in 2 minutes flat. (https://www.politico.com/states/new...-got-that-gun-permit-list-too-and-sued-000000)

Or perhaps you think that Politico and Gawker and the NYT and the NYPD are lying about this....?

I strongly suggest you take some midnight strolls through London. London was never low crime or low homicide, it did have a low murder rate. NYC's drop in crime rations has nothing to do with gun controls. It never did when the ratios were high. But that is a discussion for another day, another thread

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I have walked through London at night, it was fine, and yet again you've offered no actual data to back up anything you're saying.

No one really knows why crime plummeted nationally in the US starting around 1999. What we do know is that NYC has strict gun laws, a very low gun ownership rate, a low homicide rate, and a low crime rate overall. So at a minimum, the idea that low crime is correlated with high rates of gun ownership and/or lax gun laws and/or concealed carry just does not add up.

ludin said:

suicides and gang and drug violence.
pretty much the super majority of gun violence.

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Suicides arent murder but you are spot on with the gangs and drug violence. So that SHOULD tell people all they need to know. Its not the weapon. Its the gangs. Its the drug violence. Its turf wars. And as soon as places like the UK have gang cultures that start to grow in a manner similar to what we experience, they will have comparable numbers. Its probably lost on Manc the number of times he has bleated on about guns and gun violence only to readily be able to identify the source of violence in his own country...not guns...not knives...gangs and gang violence.

HonestJoe said:

Maybe, but it's equally possible that if more people owned guns there'd be more gun crimes. In practice it'd probably be a bit of both but the point is we can't definitively say gun ownership or gun laws (two different things by the way) has an impact either way just by quoting generic crime statistics.

The UK has never had widespread gun ownership, various law changes having limited practical impact on the majority of citizens. Nobody has claimed gun laws will stop violent crime though, typically being focused on rare but serious incidents. Crime rates in the UK have variously gone up and down, varying greatly by region and type of crime while gun laws and certainly common gun ownership have remained pretty much the same.

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The point is, that when crime rates go up...legal gun ownership gives the people, if they choose it, to defend themselves on equal footing.

You have a population of potential victims.

Lursa said:

The point is, that when crime rates go up...legal gun ownership gives the people, if they choose it, to defend themselves on equal footing.

You have a population of potential victims.

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Yeah, thing is? There is no correlation between changes in rates of legal gun ownership, and crime rates. E.g. There are lots of states with lax gun laws, high gun ownership rates, and high crime rates (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama etc); and states with strict gun laws, low gun ownership rates, and low crime rates (New Hampshire; Massachusetts; Connecticut etc).

In fact, overall we've seen gun ownership rates decline since the 1970s, while crime rates shot up until the 90s -- and then plummeted. This happened nationally, including in cities and states with strict gun laws and low gun ownership rates.

Thus: According to your logic, states like Hawaii (6.7% gun ownership rate) and Massachusetts (12%) ought to be inundated with criminals, looking for an easy score. And yet, those states have homicide rates below the national average, and a fraction of states like Louisiana.

While this does not tell us all of the causality involved, your theory seems to have a serious flaw.

DebateChallenge said:

I don't know of any knife wielder doing that but I do know of an arsonist who lit up a dance club and killed 89 people, more people than in any mass shooting in the USA.

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Understood, and I hope that I addressed that in the same post.

Visbek said:

Yeah, thing is? There is no correlation between changes in rates of legal gun ownership, and crime rates. E.g. There are lots of states with lax gun laws, high gun ownership rates, and high crime rates (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama etc); and states with strict gun laws, low gun ownership rates, and low crime rates (New Hampshire; Massachusetts; Connecticut etc).

In fact, overall we've seen gun ownership rates decline since the 1970s, while crime rates shot up until the 90s -- and then plummeted. This happened nationally, including in cities and states with strict gun laws and low gun ownership rates.

Thus: According to your logic, states like Hawaii (6.7% gun ownership rate) and Massachusetts (12%) ought to be inundated with criminals, looking for an easy score. And yet, those states have homicide rates below the national average, and a fraction of states like Louisiana.

While this does not tell us all of the causality involved, your theory seems to have a serious flaw.

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My 'theory?' I didnt post a theory.

I posted that law-abiding people with guns have the option for self-defense that helps level the playing field against violent crime.

DebateChallenge said:

Not if more people owned guns legally. Over 99% of the guns used in crimes are owned illegally so by letting people own guns legally it will not increase gun crime and will probably in fact reduce violent crime overall since criminals will be less likely to try to victimize possibly armed law abiding citizens.

Now, if more people owned guns illegally yes there would be no doubt more gun crimes. Which means, we should do a better job enforcing the laws we've got and preventing people from getting guns illegally.

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You just made up that 99% statistic didn't you. It's true that a lot of guns used in crimes are illegally owned at that point but many of those come from legal sources, either stolen or in a legal private sale. There is no such thing as a legal gun or an illegal gun; if you increase the number of guns, you can't avoid increasing both.

Anyway, regardless of your carefully considered logic, the fact remains that the statistics and especially the statistics quoted in the OP, don't support any claims that gun control laws or gun ownership rates significantly influence general crime rates in any direction.

Lursa said:

My 'theory?' I didnt post a theory.

I posted that law-abiding people with guns have the option for self-defense that helps level the playing field against violent crime.

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The theory (or claim, if you prefer) is that using a gun for self defense, in that situation, will in fact level the playing field. That doesn't wash. On a large scale, there is no correlation between higher rates of gun ownership, and falling or low rates of crime -- as one might expect if that were the case. At a minimum, high rates of civilian gun ownership -- something surely known by criminals, who are almost always local -- does not act as deterrent.

On the individual level, there are all sorts of other problems which fuel the self-defense myth. E.g. even with trained experts, 77% of shots miss in an encounter; the victim is usually ambushed and encounters are often very short (3 seconds), meaning that victims don't have enough time to respond.

Or: An epidemiological survey of self-defense with firearms produced (for some people...) unexpected results. Such as....

• Guns are used for self-defense less than 1% of the time
• Using a gun for self-defense did not lower the rate of being injured during a crime
• With robberies, using a gun did not reduce the rate of having property stolen, compared to using any other weapon
• Other measures of self-defense (notably running away, which is less likely to produce an injury during a crime)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743515001188

These results are preliminary (as the sample is small), but the study fixes a lot of issues with other studies -- which suggest that there are 33 times more violent crime than is reported by any other measure.

I.e. it is far from clear that carrying a gun "levels the playing field."

Checkerboard Strangler said:

Understood, and I hope that I addressed that in the same post.

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Well did you?

HonestJoe said:

You just made up that 99% statistic didn't you.

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Look it up and see for yourself.

HonestJoe said:

It's true that a lot of guns used in crimes are illegally owned at that point but many of those come from legal sources, either stolen

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Than we should do a better job at enforcing the law that says you can't steal guns, or that you can't steal period.

HonestJoe said:

or in a legal private sale.

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You use the word legal, if the private sale is legal than the person getting the gun is obviously getting it legally.

HonestJoe said:

There is no such thing as a legal gun or an illegal gun;

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There is such a thing as legally getting a gun or illegally getting a gun.

HonestJoe said:

if you increase the number of guns, you can't avoid increasing both.

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You could avoid, or at least cut down, on the number of people who get guns illegally by enforcing the current laws on how to get guns.

HonestJoe said:

Anyway, regardless of your carefully considered logic, the fact remains that the statistics and especially the statistics quoted in the OP, don't support any claims that gun control laws or gun ownership rates significantly influence general crime rates in any direction.

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Look at Vermont and New Hampshire, two states with very low crime rates which are both very gun friendly. Look at New Jersey which has a high crime rate and is very restrictive with guns.

Visbek said:

At a minimum, high rates of civilian gun ownership -- something surely known by criminals, who are almost always local -- does not act as deterrent.

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As a matter of fact it does. Ever hear of criminals targeting a police station? Neither have I.

VanceMack said:

And as soon as places like the UK have gang cultures that start to grow in a manner similar to what we experience, they will have comparable numbers.

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Exactly, and while drugs might be easier to smuggle into a country than guns, from what I do know supposedly drugs often have to be grown in certain places with certain climates so that unless you live in such a region you would have to import drugs into your country. Guns on the other hand don't have to be imported because people can make them. You don't need a certain climate and you don't have to live in a certain region to manufacture guns, so if people want more guns they can just manufacture them themselves.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

I'd like to see a knife wielding killer decimate 59 people in ten minutes from the 23rd floor window of a hotel in Vegas.
Look, there is no 100% guaranteed solution to violent murders, but there are steps that can be taken to make it harder for mass killers to do what they do.
No, we can't stop a guy with a truck or a bomb from their slaughter spree, but making it difficult for people to just purchase a sophisticated high powered firearm for the express purpose of engaging in a killing spree is a sane thing to do.
.

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how? Please explain exactly how you plan to do that.

I think you will find that all you really will do is make it difficult for me.. a law abiding citizen.. to purchase a firearm.. meanwhile.. doing nothing to prevent a criminal intent on a killing spree from purchasing one.