[Tom Servo]

Caught part of a Cops episode today, filmed in Sacramento. Looks like they carry Sigs there. Anyhow, brother #1 threw grease on brother #2, so brother #2 stabbed brother #1. The responding officer was a British lady, and in her opening monologue thing, she said that she didn't want to go back to work in merry olde England because, "with crime the way it's getting there, I wouldn't feel safe without a firearm."

More proof from our more "civilized" friends that restriction doesn't equal safety.

[whm1974]

"with crime the way it's getting there, I wouldn't feel safe without a firearm."

I can't say I blame her.

-Bill

[Molon Labe]

And with the way liberties are being confiscated in merry olde England, I wouldn't feel safe without a full auto .50 BMG…

[armoredman]

Nah, a nice surplus Chieftan MBT....

[mbs357]

I wouldn't feel safe in England period.

[dmallind]

Well let's not overdo things. What type of violent crime in the UK is more prevalent than in the US?

I lived there 22 years and trust me I look over my shoulder a lot more here than there - armed or not.

There are many aspects to a safe society and armed citizenry is but one of them - and even then is most vital when you have a widely armed criminal population. Certainly Britain has armed criminals, but common street thugs tend not to be armed there for the most part (note - you cannot logically disprove this statement by finiding one example of an armed criminal - show me the overall armed robbery and armed assault stats if you want to show I'm wrong). Organized crime gangs and paramilitary terrorist grousp may be - but your average thief/mugger/barfighter is not.

Britain's homicide rate for one is far lower. There are numerous reasons for this of course, but certainly it does not indicate wholesale fatal preying on an unarmed populace. I have no data for general bar brawl violence but in my - lamentably extensive - experience the Brits may have more of that kind of assault than we do, but we'd be on very shaky ground responding to an assault with fists by using a firearm anyway (unless the aggressor was much bigger, much stronger and showed no signs of stopping before great bodily harm or death was the result) so not sure how that's relevant.

Again do not misconstrue my point - there are many ways to compare countries and many reasons you can't. It's as easy for someone to pick a low crime countrry with strict gun control as it is for us to do the opposite. I am NOT making an argument on whether gun availability has anything to do with crime rates - such arguments are silly for BOTH sides because they can't equalize every other social factor in different nations. Britons have had exceptionally low and exceptionally restricted levels of gun - especially handgun - ownership for decades before Dunblane and the recent restrictions so I don't think any change in crime either way can be extrapolated on that - gun ownership in England never had much of an effect to change in the first place.

But let's not go overboard and assume that means they are getting slaughtered in the streets because they can't defend themselves - stats do not bear that out.

That does not mean we wouldn't have a bigger problem if we had the same gun laws at this late stage - I think that would be a foolish bet. Far more of our common thugs and low level criminals are armed. It's far easier to get a gun legally or illegally here than it has ever been in the UK - by the time guns were affordable for the masses they were already highly restricted (probably a causal connection there!) so disarming non-criminals here WOULD have a deleterious effect on public safety - that doesn't mean it has to have the same effect in England or Japan where armed criminals are far less prevalent to be defended against in the first place.

[DontBurnMyFlag]

i just saw that episode today. it was damn good. bout time brits start to realize they should be using guns.

[Otherguy Overby]

dmallind sed:
I lived there 22 years and trust me I look over my shoulder a lot more here than there - armed or not.

Basing one's obervastions of the US on living in St. Paul Minnesota, I find a bit questionable. St.Paul is not one of the friendliest parts of the country. I, too, would consider extra looks over one's shoulder there as anything but paranoid.

Most all of Southern California is friendlier and safer than St. Paul

"Minnesota Nice" has become little more than a feel good myth. A few visits to the "mall of america" would dispell most from that theory.

For those THR members who've never lived there, Minnesota is a breeding ground for whack job liberals.

[mbs357]

I might have to agree, been having a fun discussion with one on my gaming clan's forums.
@_@

[Andrew Rothman]

Basing one's obervastions of the US on living in St. Paul Minnesota, I find a bit questionable. St.Paul is not one of the friendliest parts of the country. I, too, would consider extra looks over one's shoulder there as anything but paranoid.

Most all of Southern California is friendlier and safer than St. Paul

Nope. Los Angeles has twice the murder rate and 1-3/4 times the violent crime rate, according to 2003 Uniform Crime Reports (http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/cius_03/xl/03tbl08.xls).

On a statewide basis, California has more than twice the violent crime and almost three times the murder per capita (http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/cius_03/xl/03tbl05.xls).

I'm not saying this to disrespect California. Heck, if it weren't for the congestion, expense and lack of civil liberties, I'd move there in a minute!

More stats:
--
Surprisingly, Gary, IN was the murder capitol of the US that year. The list from there is:
INDIANA Gary
INDIANA East Chicago
LOUISIANA New Orleans
NEW JERSEY Camden
VIRGINIA Richmond2
CALIFORNIA Compton
NEW JERSEY Irvington
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Washington
MARYLAND Baltimore
KANSAS Pittsburg

For violence, Opa Locka, FL was king. The top ten were:
FLORIDA Opa Locka
FLORIDA Belle Glade
MICHIGAN Benton Harbor
PENNSYLVANIA Darby
MICHIGAN Saginaw
FLORIDA Cocoa
SOUTH CAROLINA West Columbia
NEW JERSEY Irvington
SOUTH CAROLINA Myrtle Beach
NEW JERSEY Camden

In Minnesota, Robbinsdale was the top city for murders per capita, with Bemidji (Bemidji!) in second place.

Thanks for reading. This was way more fun than doing my taxes. :)

[UberPhLuBB]

Funniest thing I heard on Cops was just about 3 months ago.

There's a guy who has barracaded himself in his bus (which is his home) and refuses to come out (I guess he was parked somewhere where he shouldn't have been for the cops to be there).

Officer 1 stands on a 5-gallon bucket to get his head high enough to look into the side window and talk to the guy. Talk fails, guy won't come out. The cop gets down off the bucket and says "Got me standin' on a bucket just to talk to him."

Officer 2, who has done nothing this whole situation turns to the camera and, with conviction, says "You shoulda seen some of the things I've had to stand on..."

I've never laughed so hard in my life! You know that laugh where you just can't move your diaphragm? Can't breathe in or out, can't move, can't talk, just locked up with sheer laughter? I got that. Nothing before or since has done that to me.

I don't watch Cops for the "action" or the footwork. I watch it for the laughs!

Sorry to get off topic. :)

[Mrs. Armoredman]

with crime the way it's getting there, I wouldn't feel safe without a firearm."


I can't say I blame her either. I am glad she wants to be safe. I say good for her...


As for the brothers,I think they need to grow up.

Mrs. A.

[logical]

Clearly crimes are more numerous and severe in Detroit than say London.....

But am I, being a generally "law abiding citizen", personally safer in Detroit with my legally carried .357, or in England with a folding unmbrella?

[Double Naught Spy]

An opinion expressed by a single individual, in this case a female cop, hardly consitutes proof of anything.

[yorec]

But it is a nice soundbite... The world learns from soundbites.

[ring0]

excerpt from article found at http://www.tsra.com/Lott109.htm :

"Britain has already banned just about every type of weapon that a criminal might want to use. Handguns were made illegal in 1997, and nearly every other firearm (even BB guns) is now subject to a complex regulatory regime.

Twice As Dangerous

The laws didn't do what was claimed. The government just reported that gun crime in England and Wales nearly doubled in the four years from 1998-99 to 2002-03. The serious violent crime rate soared by 64%, and overall violent crime by 118%. The violent crime rate in England and Wales now stands at twice the rate of that in the U.S."

[Spreadfire Arms]

Double Naught Spy wrote:

"An opinion expressed by a single individual, in this case a female cop, hardly consitutes proof of anything."

the part: "in this case a female cop"

care to clarify what you mean? it appears that you discount females being to perform the role of law enforcement officers.

if that is indeed your stance, please provide us with facts and personal experiences relating to your take on this. also tell us how many years you have been in law enforcement?

[Stevie-Ray]

I wouldn't feel safe in England period. I'd feel perfectly safe in England.



Flying over it piloting a Nighthawk.

[BriGuy1]

Not an opinion. You are more likely to be a victim of violent crime in London than in New York City.

If you would like more authorative data, you might try looking for crime data published by the Home Office (UK government agency) and compare that to the data our FBI compiles for the US. In virtually every catagory of violent crime, the UK has the higher crime rate.

The reputation of low-crime England was created, in part, by the Home Office that, until 1999 or 2000 or so, deliberatly underreported crime. For example, if one burgler broke into 20 homes, all 20 were reported as one crime in the official Home Office stats. Pressure from the British public helped force more realistic reporting standards.

www.homeoffice.gov.uk

http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/guncontrol_20010302.html

[BriGuy1]

Oh, just to clarify, I love England, and visit London whenever I get the chance. I have never felt unsafe over there, though, I never hung out in the bad parts of town...

I did take the tube the wrong direction late at night once (can't remember the wrong place I wound up in) but it was in a very bad part of town. The Tube Guy saw me about to leave the station, looking very much lost, and he stopped me, confirmed I was lost, then let me through the turnstyle at no charge to get on the right train. He was very much wanting me to not go outside, not even to catch a cab back. No doubt, there are one or two places here in the States I would not want to be walking around at night.

God save the Queen!

[Gordon Fink]

Anecdotally, at least, the U.K. has long been known for the prevalence of casual violence.

~G. Fink

[Texian Pistolero]

Is this British lady willing to "open" herself to the mentoring touch of a true zen master?

I feel a certain "ascendancy" of what Abraham Lincoln might call, the "better angels of my nature", rising in predominance.

[Texian Pistolero]

If you want to understand the British and violence,

Read a book call "Among the Thugs",

or view the Kubrick film,

"A Clockwork Orange".

[GT]

My first 25 years were spent in England and I am still a UK citizen.

It was not always so in the UK.
But England, like Continental Europe, has been a breeding ground for Socialism. The 20th Century was the Century of Socialism and although it has been discredited wherever it has been tried - from Stalinist Russia through Nazism to the ChiComs - Socialism still has a siren-like attraction for those who would be in power and those who would give up their own power for a free ride.

One of the main controls of Socialism is to make everything illegal and then to punish crime in inverse proportion to its seriousness. Thus burglars are punished less than the homeowner who attempts to defend himself against them.

The result is a cowed populus squeezed between the hammer of violent crime and the anvil of draconian law enforcement.

This is the way the Socialists prefer it and unfortunately all the political parties in the UK are Socialist (to one degree or another).

I feel sorry for my ex-people. But you get the government you deserve. High violent crime rates are just one side effect to Nanny State Socialist Bureaucracy.

Look upon England as an example of how not to run an English-speaking democracy. Never let that happen here.

Heck! I have nowhere else to go!

G