Britain and guns

[chorlton]

Interesting stuff, and some good points. I dont know the exact figures for crime in either country, so I won't comment further on that. I think that maybe I should have said "less criminals with access to firearms per capita" or something similar. BTW, as one of the links I posted mentioned somewhere, shotguns and rifles can still be legally owned by citizens. However, there are severe restrictions on calibre (or caliber) and an application process similar to what I believe would be a CHL or Class 3 license.
The conclusion from all our posts seems to be that the legal possession of guns should be a right in any country. The British people are not exposed to guns, and hunting is a largely class based pastime. Small steps and fact based education of both people and MPs are required, and support from overseas friends.

 

[agricola]

hvengel,

One other point about crime statisics. Most criminologists believe that the way these are gathered and reported in the US tends to overstate the level of violent crime where as the English statisics tend to understate the level of violent crime.

I would love to see who actually said this, because the two sets of statistics from England and Wales (the Police statistics of recorded crime, and the British Crime Survey) cover the whole of the two countries, wheras the FBI's UCR covers (IRRC) 95% of cities. Plus, if you look at Recorded Crime from England and Wales, you find, with regards to violent crime:

22% are assaults where no injury occurs
15% are instances of harassment, where again no injury occurs (injuries that did occur as a result of a harassment would be recorded depending on the severity)
38% are "less serious injuries" - cuts and bruises

(from http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs04/rdsolr1804.pdf )

As you note below, recent (1997-8) changes in the way the statistics are counted have had the effect of greatly increasing the "level" of violent crime.

The English changed the way these statisics where gathered and reported a few years ago which resulted in close to a 100% year to year change in their crime rates at a time when the real increase was probably closer to 15% or 20% but even these newer statisics are thought by many to understate the actual level of crime in England but not nearly as much as the stats did before the change.

Again, it would be interesting to hear who has conjectured that 15-20% "rise" being buried in the stats - the most active mouths on the subject - Lott, Malcolm et al - have just used the stats unaltered, as it pushes their idea that the various bans caused the rise in crime (see here ). I am unaware of anyone who has actually looked into the stats from that side of the argument, and for someone to do that and then pluck rises out of the air would be a bit stupid.