This is not a gun control thread
Apr. 21st, 2007 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swehOne of the obvious consequences of the VT tragedy is that gun control "discussions" are almost everywhere.
One common statement used by the anti-gun control side is that gun crimes are rocketting (yes, I've seen that word used) in places which have gun control, such as England.
I was sure that gun driven crime only seems to be "rocketing" in those places because the base numbers are so low. A small increase becomes a high percentage. So I decided to look into the figures.
Between Apr 2002 and Mar 2003, 81 people were killed because of guns in Britain (Home Office statistics). That's from a population of approx 60 million (CIA factbook stats, July 2006), so approx 1 death per 740,000 of the population. In 2001 there were 11,348 homicides caused by firearms in the US (CDC 2004 figures). That's from a population of 298 million (CIA factbook, July 2006), or 1 homicide per 26,300 of the population.
( http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/TUTORIAL/GUNS/GUNSTAT.html is quite interesting. )
Allowing for some vagueness in the numbers and problems of comparing year against year and recognising the UK figures include non-homicide deaths whereas the US ones don't (CDC figures 2004 say that suicides outweigh homicides: Suicide 16,869; Homicide 11,348; Accident 802; Legal Intervention 323; Undetermined 231 for 2001), US firearm homicide figures are 28 times higher than UK total firearm deaths.
As an aside, not part of my main point, but someone might bring it up...
Now it can be argued that lack of readily available guns would then just mean that other weapons are used. So... in the UK there were a total of 765 homicide offences recorded in 2005/06, a decrease of twelve per cent compared to the previous year. The figure of 765 includes 52 homicide victims of the 7 July London bombings. That's one homicide per 78,400 of the population; so total UK homicide rates are still only 1/3 of the number of US firearm homicides alone.
We can't know if UK homicide rate would go up if firearms were more readily available; we can't know if it would go down, either. We just don't know. Maybe Americans are just more aggressive than English :-)
OK, back to my main point!
So, anyway, a "rocketting" increase in UK firearm offenses is still a drop in the bucket compared to US offenses.
Note that I'm not arguing for or against gun control in America. It's not my place. Americans have their own heritage and laws in place; this is a debate that needs to take place between Americans, and I'm not one. I make no statement as to whether gun control is good or bad.
All I am doing is taking issue with the "rocketting" statement and showing that statements like that need to be taken with context.
Because this is not a gun control thread, I've disabled comments.
One common statement used by the anti-gun control side is that gun crimes are rocketting (yes, I've seen that word used) in places which have gun control, such as England.
I was sure that gun driven crime only seems to be "rocketing" in those places because the base numbers are so low. A small increase becomes a high percentage. So I decided to look into the figures.
Between Apr 2002 and Mar 2003, 81 people were killed because of guns in Britain (Home Office statistics). That's from a population of approx 60 million (CIA factbook stats, July 2006), so approx 1 death per 740,000 of the population. In 2001 there were 11,348 homicides caused by firearms in the US (CDC 2004 figures). That's from a population of 298 million (CIA factbook, July 2006), or 1 homicide per 26,300 of the population.
( http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/TUTORIAL/GUNS/GUNSTAT.html is quite interesting. )
Allowing for some vagueness in the numbers and problems of comparing year against year and recognising the UK figures include non-homicide deaths whereas the US ones don't (CDC figures 2004 say that suicides outweigh homicides: Suicide 16,869; Homicide 11,348; Accident 802; Legal Intervention 323; Undetermined 231 for 2001), US firearm homicide figures are 28 times higher than UK total firearm deaths.
As an aside, not part of my main point, but someone might bring it up...
Now it can be argued that lack of readily available guns would then just mean that other weapons are used. So... in the UK there were a total of 765 homicide offences recorded in 2005/06, a decrease of twelve per cent compared to the previous year. The figure of 765 includes 52 homicide victims of the 7 July London bombings. That's one homicide per 78,400 of the population; so total UK homicide rates are still only 1/3 of the number of US firearm homicides alone.
We can't know if UK homicide rate would go up if firearms were more readily available; we can't know if it would go down, either. We just don't know. Maybe Americans are just more aggressive than English :-)
OK, back to my main point!
So, anyway, a "rocketting" increase in UK firearm offenses is still a drop in the bucket compared to US offenses.
Note that I'm not arguing for or against gun control in America. It's not my place. Americans have their own heritage and laws in place; this is a debate that needs to take place between Americans, and I'm not one. I make no statement as to whether gun control is good or bad.
All I am doing is taking issue with the "rocketting" statement and showing that statements like that need to be taken with context.
Because this is not a gun control thread, I've disabled comments.
