US and UK murder – rate and weapon April 17, 2007
Posted by fleshisgrass in events.trackback
In the UK (population c. 60.5m) there were 765 reported incidents of murder for 2005-6 (Home Office, undated) – a rate of about 1.1 per 100,000.
In the US (population c. 298.5m) there were an estimated 16,137 homicides in 2004 (FBI, 2006a) – a rate of about 5.4 per 100,000. Of these, 10,654 were carried out with guns (FBI, 2006b).
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Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006a). Bureau of Justice Statistics. Homicide trends in the U.S.. Long-term trends. Available from: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/totalstab.htm.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006). Bureau of Justice Statistics. Homicide trends in the U.S.. Weapons used. Available from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/weaponstab.htm
Home Office (undated). ‘Homicide’ – long-term national recorded crime trends. Available from: http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/page40.asp.
GO USA!
If you SUBTRACT the Gun Crimes (16,137 – 10,654) you get 5,483 murders in the US (non-gun related).
This is a rate of 1.8 per 100,000.
THIS IS STILL HIGHER THAN BRITAN’S 1.1 per 100,000…
And doesn’t that make you wonder…why doesn’t the UK Statistic show the number of murders involving a firearm?
SO what is the use of comparing the data if it isn’t an even comparrison?
What would the people use to commit murder if guns didn’t exist, and how high would be the over-all crime rate if you convert a percentage of the murders over from firearm to “something else”???
Stupid statistics like this don’t help us understand the VIOLENT problem we have in the US…it only helps to promote a political agenda.
I’m not comparing them. I listed them.
Go find your own data (and please let me have it).
If they UK has one murder by gun I’d say they’re already worse off than the US statistically. I’d love to see how many homicides the UK had by firearm considering that they are “banned” there. The amount of guns owned in the US is astronomical compared to the number used in murders. I’m willing to bet it’s the opposite over there.
Yeah OK. But in the end it’s not about which country is worse off. Isn’t the question to ask here about establishing or ruling out relationships between homicides and weapons, rather than comparing countries? Sure, you do compare countries – not to establish a hierarchy of virtue, but to explore causes and factors.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6960431.stm
“According to Home Office figures, there were 59 firearms-related homicides in 2006-07 compared with 49 in the previous year.”
I would prefer the UK to be “worse off than the US statistically” (HyperU2) than to have the same homicide rate. But hats off to those hundreds of millions of Americans who have yet to use their legally-held firearms to kill someone. I’m just not confident that my fellow countrymen would show the same restraint.
It looks like firearms were involved in 2 thirds of the murders in the US. Is it perhaps that firearms make mass murder too easy to carry out? A single person with an ordinary handgun can kill half a dozen people in a few seconds with little effort. Someone with an assault rifle can kill a lot more. Hence we have incidents such as Columbine in the US. It is very hard to carry out a mass killing with a club, knife or sword etc. This is why mass killings, other than a single instance of terrorism, are rare in the UK. It seems like there is a major incident every other month or so in the US involving a mass killing by a madman with a gun. Let’s face it, an assult rifle can turn even a 98 pound weakling, or a chld, into a deadly force. More than happy to keep guns out of the hands of the public in the UK.
However, it is woth noting that gun ownership in Canada is almost as high as the US and yet the murder rate in Canada is very much lower. Canada has just over ten percent of the population of the US but only has just over 4% of the US murder rate.
Perhaps murder is a particulaly US problem?
Abe,
You didnt take your thoughts to the full conclusion. My good friend a135 lb weakling kept herself from being raped at knife point by a two time rapist by using the pistol she keeps in her night stand to shoot the guy in her bedroom(not fatally). Had she not had the pistol, the 6′3″ man would have overpowered her using his strength and kitchen knife. So.. Yes, a firearm can level the playing field. There are three types of people in the world. Sheep, Wolves and Sheep Dogs. I prefer to be a Sheep Dog. So does she. If she didnt have the pistol she would be another demoralized victim. Look at the Japanese they have almost double our suicide rate of the US and they dont have firearms. So, I think it is a problem with American Society rather than firearms. After all a firearm is an inanimate object that functions only if manipulated by a human. People kill people and they have been doing for many millinea without the help of modern firearms. If I had to hazard a guess as to the root of the problem I would guess that America has a large gap between middle class and poor/poverty. Most of the deaths occurr in the underpriveledged class. I have spent a good amount of time in the UK and you dont seem to have a much of a gap nor do you have the cultural clashes like the US.
Honestly if there are this many people finding problems with what you’ve posted then i can probably assume that you weren’t very educated on this topic when you wrote it so next time do some research and get the right facts before you post anything.
Anonymous, nothing I said was wrong when I wrote it. This is a blog, not a service. Go and do some serious research.
are economy is falling fast in the U.S., the crime is high the cops havent been reporting alot of the crimes. especially were i live houston texas we were ranked about 5th highest crime rate in U.S. but investigators found that alot havent been reported and found that we actually have the 2nd highest crime rate.
[...] health care) are much more significant than the ‘freedoms’ Americans imagine they have. US and UK murder – rate and weapon Flesh is Grass According the figures I found on the net your actually only five times more likely to be murdered [...]
concealed carry and licensed guns have been proven to reduce violent crime, so the guns are the problem (as proven by the canada example posted above). It is most likely a cultural issue, that and a drug one. In terms of gang violence and drug related homicides, I’d say that those cause most. The UK doesn’t have as much of a gang or drug problem as the US does.
Only 7% of all gun crimes (that isn’t just homicide, that includes things like carrying a gun into a hospital or shooting in an area where it is unlawful) are committed by licensed gun owners. The problem lies within the criminals, not gun owners.
Besides, black market guns are easy to buy here while extremely hard to buy in the UK.
Apart from the obvious reasons why the US has a higher homicide rate, one might be able to send their blame to certain democrats.
if we were unable to get guns so easily in america murders would at least half. i think the uk does have a lot of gang culture but guns are not easily accessible. it says on the net that the assault rate is higher in the uk than the us (considering the differences in population), swap the fists with guns and it wouldnt be assault it would be murder. our country is stupid and the government is fucked up. hopefully obama will make a big change in our society.
The numbers are skewed, they inlcude gang members shooting each other and drug dealers, all of which are much higher in the US than in the UK. If you take the gang problem and drug dealing issue out of the equation and all the police shootings involved, because police shooting in the UK are virtually non existent because most don’t carry guns, then you will have a much more fair comparison. That being said, I will take my chances, I lawfully carry my loaded gun all of the time, I am trained to used safely and I won’t be a victim against an armed thug that want’s to take my life over 20 bucks.
If we dismiss the US, for the moment, as an outlier, there exists a correlation among western nations between gun ownership and homicide rates. It is not across the board but the trend is there. The US simply has a grossly inflated rate even compared to their gun ownership rate (though the US does have a higher percentage of hand guns even than other countries with higher general gun ownership. Hand guns, of course, are most associated with murders). Accessibility to firearms does seem to increase the likelihood of murder. Those living in households in the US with guns are substantially more likely to be shot than those living in households with guns. One reason there is strong resistance to allowing British police to carry firearms routinely is that they do not want to encourage criminals to do the same. They may allow for more effective policing in the short run (discounting the inevitable unecessary police killings that will occur, as they do here) but in the long run it will lead to an increase in armed violence.
I realize this is tangential but I thought you might be interested:
Seattle JCC Trial and the Legacy of Bernhard Goetz
http://newcentrist.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/seattle-jcc-trial-and-the-legacy-of-bernhard-goetz/
what is this guys name i need it for a citation
The police in England don’t even carry small arms as I believe such weapons are illegal in that civilized country. With our macho attitude we are the only people of “first world” nations who discuss, as common place, the assassination of our leaders as something that is expected. That puts un in a “third world” class! We are now even exporting our misfortune to Mexico so their drug lords can kill even more North Americans! We are so lucky to be able to help Mexico with our misunderstood 2nd amendment! All personal weapons should be outlawed as well as the manufacture thereof…with ammunition,too!
Hello again…I know that if I owned a gun of any sort it had better be a chocolate gun, because if a criminal caught me with it, I would be forced to eat the thing. Listening to people here in Texas, who own guns, scare me with their talk of protecting their family, when I know that they are not smart enough to resist gangs of invaders overwhelming them in the middle of the night! The laws have to change in favor of the civil people who protect their families with laws. The Americans of today are not back-woodsmen or mountain-men, as much as some would like to be, rather we are humans who want peace “world wide”, as well as in their own backyard.
It is sort of ignorant to post statistics like these if you are not comparing them. Why even post it? All it does it create a false idea that more Americans are killing each other with guns whether implied or not. The truth is as far as general rate of crime, the US crime rate is much lower than European countries. The problems lie with inner city racial conflicts, and race divisions in prison (people get murdered in prison to). These numbers skew our rate of gun murder largely.
If you have a gun you are more likely to end up killing someone simple.
It is to easy and clean you pull the trigger and someone dies you don’t even have to be close to do it. It makes killing very easy anyone saying otherwise must be in possession of boundless stupidity.
Martin how stupid is your statement basically you say if take away all the gangs that kill and the fact that the UK police don’t kill people with guns so the gangs don’t need guns then the the figures would be a better comparison.
I can only assume that you are thick and now nothing of relevance on this matter so dismiss your opinion.
After the 1997 shooting of 16 kids in Dunblane, England, the United Kingdom passed one of the strictest gun-control laws in the world, banning its citizens from owning almost all types of handguns. Britain seemed to get safer by the minute, as 162,000 newly-illegal firearms were forked over to British officials by law-abiding citizens.
But this didn’t decrease the amount of gun-related crime in the U.K. In fact, gun-related crime has nearly doubled in the U.K. since the ban was enacted.
Might stricter gun laws result in more gun crime? It seems counterintuitive but makes sense if we consider one simple fact: Criminals don’t obey the law. Strict gun laws, like the ban in Britain, probably only affect the actions of people who wouldn’t commit crimes in the first place.
England’s ban didn’t magically cause all British handguns to disappear. Officials estimate that more than 250,000 illegal weapons are still in circulation in the country. Without the fear of retaliation from victims who might be packing heat, criminals in possession of these weapons now have a much easier job, and the incidence of gun-related crime has risen. As the saying goes, “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”
i personally think that its heart breaking to see all these women, like me, be raped and they have no control over whats happening. Those statistics are too high, nothing should be happening anywhere at any time to any girl.
It is important to repeat…all weapons for personal use should be banned from manufacture as well as the ammunition needed for these weapons. If not all, at least the hand gun which is too easily concealed. Statistics only matter to folks who cannot use their common sense.
hi im offically fro england and want to clarify i few misconceptions some of you have about british legislation…
1) firearms are not fully banned from our country….. individuals can posess fire arms but have to register for liscence in the case of sport (shut gun events shooting game etc or work permitted ie speciality police and army personel) in britian no typical citizen can apply for a fire arm like america.
2) yes america has a very high fire arm murder rate (something in the congjunction of their own firear policy handling)
3) murder is defined differently within the uk and us uk has typical murder or that in which defence, america has a number of statutes such as murder in the 1st and second degree etc british legislation does not define it within the same way.
4) rape victimisation does not include just women… men get raped and statistics are flawed within that as men are the ost likely to under report their own rape as well.
5) violent crime can mean anything such as attepted murder or a vicious attack that has not resulted in murder. so think of that more…
6) gun related crime may have doubled in the uk but the small propotion that have used guns to commit in the first place and the fact all crime rises each yr due to population factors recession factors…
and finally when looking at statistics if they state the percentage of killings per 100,000 they are taking out the bias of hightened population in dfferent countries…. the variation between number of gangs… can ppl please use a lil common sense before refuting their answer please its not difficult!
Us common sense “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” i like this saying you are right if they ban guns in America i can guarantee that there will be more burglarize and killings on innocent people in there own homes. And if guns are banned and America was to be invaded the law enforcement and national guard are not gonna be able to do anything about it.
Self defense is most unlikely , as home-invaders are usually surprising and very rapid giving little time to grab your weapon. If you do secure it, it will probably be after you’re shot.
If the ammunition is banned (not manufactured) what are the shooters going to put in their illegal weapons?
Slam me for sounding racist or profiling, but 53% of homicides in the US are committed by black people, with about 95% of that against other black people (i.e. gang related homicide). 45% were committed by white people (note that figure lumps in Hispanic groups who have a similarly bad gang problem but the stats don’t separate them out). This is a country where 12.9% of the population are black, compared to the UK where it is 2%. Basically, guns kill, but only in the wrong hands. Mexico has tightened it’s gun control, but has a raging drug war (will concede that a lot of it’s guns are coming from the US). Sorry, but we have to look at who is doing the killing, not that there is killing. If these gangs can import crack, they should have no problems with importing guns. I think we need to stop tippy toeing around the subject (Michael Moore especially as he glossed over this fact in Columbine)
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm
Also, we do focus on mass killings a lot as it grabs the media’s attention, but realistically they are far in the minority (even with March’s shocking events).
Jimbob, es, what you argue here is racist. The racist part is where you use the stats about black people “This is a country where 12.9% of the population are black, compared to the UK where it is 2%” to explain the stats about gun crime, as if blackness (rather than social factors) were the predictor.
Put it like this: how many women committed those homicides? Do you think that we should impose extra controls on the basis of sex? Me neither.
Thinking about Binghampton’s dead today.
Jimbob, yes, what you argue here is racist. The racist part is where you use the stats about black people “This is a country where 12.9% of the population are black, compared to the UK where it is 2%” to explain the stats about gun crime, as if blackness (rather than social factors) were the predictor.
Put it like this: how many women committed those homicides? Do you think that we should impose extra controls on the basis of sex? Me neither.
Thinking about Binghampton’s dead today.
His name is Jimbob that’s all you need to know! (do see what I did there?)
P.S. Emma I am also from England; however, although a lot of what you have posted is correct can please attempt some grammar and punctuation or the Yanks will think we have turned stupid
i concur w/ us common sense. aside from that; although i dont want to legitimize jimbo with a response, id like to know if he/she thinks that it is a black problem or a class issue. Its no secret that because of the US’s history, blacks make up a large faction of the impoverished, why couldnt this be the reason for all of the violence in that particular community? Jimbo is probably also one of those american’s who thinks that black males gain more from afirmative action than anyone else, when in actuality it white women!
aside from his ignorance, the bottom line is this…a gun sitting on the shelf wont kill anyone untill its picked up by an idiot on a mission. if i were going to rob someone, it would give me piece of mind to know that they dont have any protection and as stated previously outlaws dont follow the law…so banning guns doesnt protect anyone, it just make law-biding citizens more vulnerable. I saw “Bowling for Columbine” although his documentaries are propaganda, i couldnt help but agree w/ michael moore.
p.s. i know ur name is jimbob
“Its no secret that because of the US’s history, blacks make up a large faction of the impoverished, why couldnt this be the reason for all of the violence in that particular community?”
I generally agree that the poorest communities in the U.S. are the most violent. However, I would not agree that poverty is the reason for “all the violence” in a particular community. Other factors play a roll, including the breakdown of the black family and the ascendancy of thug culture.
I’m not that old but I am old enough to know that poverty has existed in the hood for a long time. The level of violence (specifically gun violence) has increased. Shoot-outs were uncommon when I was growing up. By the 1980s, it seemed like there was a drive-by every weekend. A lot of this had to due with the crack explosion and subsequent crack wars that plagued much of urban black America.
But something else had changed. Back in the day, times were just as tough. There were drugs and similar negative influences. And it seemed like people were more poor (materially) back then than today. In the face of all these difficulties it was the institution of the family that kept things from falling apart. Strong families that placed a value on education and would not let their kids chill out on the corner at 1am on a school night. It was not acceptable behavior and you could get your butt whupped for doing so.
Another difference is the development of thug culture. There have always been thugs in poor communities who prey on their own. What has changed is how these criminals are perceived. They have gone from being despised to being lauded. Certainly not by everyone, but to a significant enough degree that middle-class blacks (and whites) emulate the thug lifestyle.
If your population is armed then the police are armed then the population arm themselves more it a self perpetuating problem.
As I have already stated if you have a gun in your hand and your angry enough anyone could kill more guns equal more murder its simple mathematics.
Not all the murders in the USA are going to be gangs a big percentage would be someone with a gun sees his wife with another man etc etc pulls the trigger then someone is dead.
A total ban on guns would mean less people carry them and less people die, carrying a gun in the UK is an instant 5 year sentence, if you shoot someone or not so that’s a massive deterrent to wanna be hoods!!
Just wandering by trying to pick up stats for an argument elsewhere.
Those Americans who claim that drug-related killings/mass killings skew the results … well, yes they do. Tough. Those are Americans killing each other. Also, we in the UK have inner-cities, and, yes I’ve lived in them, and they may not be as bad as US inner-cities, but we still count the results. If Brits excluded our inner-city killlings, we’d probably come out better.
The post-Dunblane thing always gets pulled out the hat as an excuse for the ineffectuality of “banning” guns. Bullshit. Guns were controlled before Dunblane, and after the laws were tightened, we’ve not had another Dunblane-like incident. IMO, in the UK, a real problem has been the influx of weapons and hoods from the East. That’s increased our gun-crime.
Quite a few states in the US do have some sort of “control”, but that control is so lax in most states it’s laughable. It is my understanding that gun-owners in North Carolina were supposed to possess some health-certificate saying they are fit to handle guns. LOL@Vtec.
Most murders, outside of gang and drug-related, are friend related. US soldiers come home from Iraq and blast the hell out of their partners. With their partners guns. Availability and attitude is the kill.
Someone mentioned Michael Moore; he’s almost always dismissed for “propaganda”. Yet his conclusion in Bowling for Columbine is telling, particularly if one compares US gun crime with Canada: he said that racism was at the root of gun-problems in the US. The reason that all you white-folks bearing guns is that you fear being raped or robbed by the fearsome blackman. A few of the comments on this thread seem to bear this generalisation out.
It is funny to read the comments back on forth on this issue. With freedom comes risk. An example would be if people are allowed to drive, there are going to be accidents. If people are allowed to drink, someone is going to drink and drive (how many people die each year from that?
We as Americans have the right to bear arms for protection against the state. Read the constitution, the right is there so that if we had to defend ourselves we can come together and do so. If we did not have firearms, we would never have broke away from the King.
So take the bad with the good, and be happy that you can defend yourself. Maybe in the present we would be better off without firearms, but there will be a day when we will need them. Pick up a history book, and then you might not be so keen on letting go of your rights.
Defend yourself from the state?
Huh?
You are the state. Democracy means people power
Americans… why do they hate the govt so much
American Freedom, you are absolutely correct. The feds. are out of control and our congressmen & senator are spineless. We need to separate Bills so the feds.cant piggy back like what just happened.They attached $108billion dollar IMF bill to a $80billion bill for the military. The IMF are known to funnel money to terrorist countries and this $108B will go to bailout the European banks.Our tax dollars(millions) also will be sent to Saudi Arabia, Africa, Jordan and many others so we suffer the consequences.
“The reason that all you white-folks bearing guns is that you fear being raped or robbed by the fearsome blackman. A few of the comments on this thread seem to bear this generalisation out.”
Not at all. Most Americans know the vast majority of “black” crime is black men (youth, really) killing other black youth. Believe it or not, even conservatives recognize this is the case. We see it in the news every day. The difference between American liberals and conservatives is the reason why each think this is happening. Conservatives generally focus on the breakdown of the black family, liberals on institutional racism.
As a doctor I am appalled at the rate of gun violence in the US. I AM Libertarian about illegal drugs. The drug war creates many many muggers and burglers and party store stick up men. In Britain they give Heroin to addicts (but I don’t think crack?)
With all the crazy people drunk people bad tempered people domestic violence etc etc a person with a gun is a potential “time bomb.” We also need to be a little more socialistic about wealth distribution healthcare and education here in the US. People should be encouraged to own dogs (but not fighting pits pleez lol) and tear gas. At worst they should have ONE gun in a lock box with an alarm connected to the police station so when they take the weapon out the authorities immediately KNOW. most of us should swear to our insurance companies that we don’t have guns in our homes cars or on our person and if found to be lying be fined or imprisoned. If you buy a gun you are part of the problem and feeding the redneck gun industry. YOUre the school shooter wife shooter gang banger b/c you are keeping them in business. That is why when an unjustifyable shooting occurs Glock and remington should be sued.
You people are morons. Do you even have an inkling of what the current crime statitics are? the UK has the highest violent crime rate in the west, beating out even the “evil” US. One American called Britain more “civlized” than the US. Clearly this braindead Oprah watching drone has been brainwashed by a europhila US media. Perhaps you should use the Internet (that evil American invention) for more than downloading recipes and porn.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/england-has-worst-crime-rate-in-the-west-693609.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html
Thanks for that Mario. I for one find you entirely convincing. I think it is your careful, well-referenced argument and polite, concerned style which made me warm to you.
Self reporting surveys are unreliable and dishonest. Someone B***h slapped them or snatched their purse??
Heck I bet even Brixton is a joke next to Detroit and parts of Chicago and LA. Murders and shootings are what we’re concerned with here. And most times, guns would NOT prevent a rape b/c the perp has the element of surprise on his side. Avoidance tactics are much better.
Rock onto Electric Avenoooo….
Anonymous – “Defend yourself from the state?
Huh?
You are the state. Democracy means people power
Americans… why do they hate the govt so much”
I believe a Democratic Republic is more appropriate than Democracy.
We hate the Government, at least myself, because for the last 96 years said Government has been letting our currency be debased by a private institution, has been whittling away at our freedoms bit by bit. The Government no longer listens to the people, see the recent bailouts. It lets the Federal Reserve print money out of thin air depriving it of 96% of its value. It had the nerve to create a piece of legislation nullifying the 4th through 9th amendments in one fell swoop and named it The Patriot Act adding insult to injury.
Now that it is perpetuating the Economic Depression with continued money printing, “bailouts“/“stimulus” and excessive spending on BS I can not imagine being without my gun.
I fully believe the time is coming in the next few years that sooner or later we Americans will need those guns. I especially believe this will be true should Cap and Trade or similar bill passes.
Add to that the Governments Interventionist policy abroad, it is my opinion we have no business in other peoples business and that funding this policy is contributing to our current economic situation. I think it is wrong to tax the people to fund said policy.
Elliott Bettman MD – “If you buy a gun you are part of the problem and feeding the redneck gun industry. YOUre the school shooter wife shooter gang banger b/c you are keeping them in business.”
Well by that logic I guess I inflict death through car accidents as I buy cars when needed. Similarly I must kill people through cancer because I like to smoke. Likewise I support my Government killing people because I pay my taxes. I must then support alcoholism because I occasionally drink alcohol…
Even if we “civilized” people stop buying the Guns there will still be a Guns as the criminals will obtain or craft them as we see happening in the UK with their extraordinary Gun control laws and as we have seen in DC.
Please note I did indeed intend to say craft them. Simply Google “Make your own Gun”.
By the way must be a racist; the usage of redneck in this context can only be taken as such. So much for your “educated” viewpoint… Pardon me if I do not feel awed over the “MD” after your name and suddenly accept the BS you printed.
I didn’t like that use of ‘redneck’ either.
But there’s too much wrong with your arguments for lethal weaponry for me to go into here and now.
BBC today.
UK Murder rate has fallen by 17% to the lowest rate since 1989
No break down yet of cause.
148 less people murdered in UK in 2008 compared to previous year.
Has to be good news.
The reason why police in UK do nto carry guns is because we have dedicated Fire Arms Team (FSU) that respond to an incident involving a gun when ever a call is made by a member of the public. Each police force has these teams and can be at the “scene” within 15 minutes. It may suprise the Yanks, but Armed Police are being used on an huge basis in the UK. I speak from experience being a UK “Bobby” and can honestly say we do not have the same threat level as the US when pulling a vehicle so i do not need a gun as people simply dont carry them as they are not as readily available.
That said i do have a TASER as each call has the potential for violence something that is unfortunetly identical as America hence why the UK violent crime figures are so high. Im sure that if UK government legalised gun possession, the UK murder rate would increase ten fold.
smokers are idiots and DO kill bystanders through cancer-employees at restauarants and bars. Not to mention the cardiac bypass lung cancer surgery chemo oxygen for emphysema dentures (smoking causes BAD gum disease etc etc. smokers are parasites on society worst than welfare cheats
The murder rate among whites in the U. S. and the murder rate among whites in Europe are about the same. The murder rate among Japanese people in the U. S. and the murder rate in Japan are about the same. A randomly-selected black is 8x more likely to commit murder than a randonly-selected white.
It doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure out why the U. S. has a high murder rate.
Even though it doesn’t take a genius, you still can’t figure it out can you AC?
I hope you remain an infinitesimally marginal influence wherever you live.
that’s why we need presidents like Obama who continue affirmative action programs. Dr. Huxtable on TV was not an absentee father or criminal.
the ends justify the means
I have a couple of points for consideration.
1. The constitution.
Every single time gun laws are mentioned in the USA, the world-famous constitution is dusted off. “We have a right to bear arms” is all we hear. Yes, that is true, however both the USA and the UK (and – 2,000 years before – the Romans) had a right to own slaves, but we all got rid of that rule, didn’t we? The constitution could be changed again if there was enough public support.
——
2. The ‘Dunblane’ incident.
UK gun laws have been incredibly tough for the best part of a century. Even before that (i.e. the 1800s), gun crime wasn’t very high (even though many people owned guns as part of local militia or army regiments). The gun laws were tightened again after the Dunblane tragedy, and since then there hasn’t been another comparable incident (thankfully). The fact that gun crime has increased since the Dunblane tragedy is not a failing of the laws of this civilized nation, but a failing of the government to better control immigration and smuggling.
One last point – Dunblane is in Scotland, not England. People from the US always refer to the UK as England, and that’s the equivalent of me referring to the USA as, say Wyoming or Illinois – England is a component state within the UK, or “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Nothern Ireland”, to use the full name. England and Scotland have been joined (‘united’) for over 300 years. Please catch up.
Sorry to be pedantic, but I’m sure any self-respecting American would do the same if I called them Canadian (or vice versa).
——
3. Immigration / Race
I don’t think that immigration plays a huge part in the number of gun crmes committed in the UK. There has been immigration to the UK for several hundred years, and a large upwards trend since just after WWII, where peope from ‘the colonies’ who had served this country with distinction were allowed to bring their families here in the hope of a better life. The 1950s influx didn’t spike gun crime, neither did the 1960s or 70s influx either. My thoughts on the real reasons comprise section 4…
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4. Drugs.
Pre-1960s, things like heroin, crack, cocaine and crystal meth were not used my very many people in the UK. Most ‘hippies’ were into cannabis, LSD and other ‘party’ drugs. Although these drugs cost something (they certainly weren’t being handed out for free), the amount of money / profit availale from them wasn’t huge, and in addition not many people were dealing to make huge amounts of money – they were dealing to their friends in a bid to share the love. However, since the early 1980s, things like herion and cocaine have really taken a hold. Whereas a kilo of cannabis costs (very roughly) about £4-5,000 GBP ($5,500 – $8,000 USD), a kilo of cocaine goes for about (again, very roughly) £22,500. With the increase in monetary value comes a increased danger of being robbed, and therefore dealers started carrying guns for protection. Once one dealer had a gun, the oters needed guns also, and for that reason the vast majority of gun crime in the UK is gang related. The vast majority of gun crime is also black-on-black (not asian-on-asian, whie-on-white or any other combination of races). Now, there have been inner cities fo a number of years. There has been poverty for a number of years. There have been drugs for a number of years. There have been immigrants for a number of years. So why is there an increase now? On to point number 5…
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5. Families
Since the 1960s, there has been a big drive to give women ‘equal rights’ and get them into the workplace. Before this (with the exception of during the world wars), women generally stayed in the house with the kids, and men generally went out to earn money for the family. This gave the traditional ‘nuclear family’ unit, the family unit that has been the blueprint for humans since before we were all ape-like creatures. The breakdown of this family unit – party by feminism and ‘equal rights’ for women, partly by absentee fathers who get a girl pregnant and then run off into the sunset and partly thanks to the much-relaxed divorce laws in the UK (which mean that you now no longereven have to enter a court to get divorced) – has caused generations of children to grow up without fathers, without a structured family and without any role models (more about role models soon). Kids now WANT to get pregnant so that they can sponge off our benefits system – you’re now better off having a kid and not working than earning the minimum wage in some crappy job, so why not simp turn yourself into a baby factory? These kids without fathers, or more specifically without a single responsible parent, are the ones much more likely to pick up a gun and/or join a gang.
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6 Role Models.
Role models used to be football players or people like the Beatles / Rolling Stones. Nowadays many kids (especially kids of an ehtnic minority) listen to rap music. Now, rap music does not MAKE people pick up a gun. It DOES however advocate using guns, glamourising guns and also glamourising the material things in life that poor kids can’t afford. Instead of working to earn the money for the finer things in life, kids now see crime as an easy way of making money. Crime leads to drugs, drugs lead to gangs, gangs lead to guns.
Other bad role models include ‘Crime Tyme’, the tag-team wrestlers from the WWE. In my day it was Hulk Hogan, the clean-living all American hero. The kind of guy who said “drugs are trouble” and “just say no”. Now we have wrestlers called Crime Tyme – what kind of role model is this for our kids?
Standards have slipped in the entertainment world also, to such a point that we now expect to see people being shot on TV on a nightly basis. Even in the UK, where guns are a rare item, people are shown on TV running about with them as if they are John Rambo – it doesn’t reflect reality, but breeds a culture of fear amongst the criminal underclass and impressionable kids – leading to more guns, and more violence.
I’ve not even touched on the media, but I don’t have time to write about everything.
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I’ve only scratched the surface with this rather large rant. I’ve probably offended some people, and made sense to others. There are many more examples as well, but I’d be looking for a Phd in Gun Rantology if I wrote any more. If anyone’s read this far, thanks.
I really appreciate this very thoughtful and thought-provoking comment, Leon. It was a very personal, rather than rigorously substantiated, comment drawing on your own world-view and I have to say I didn’t find much convincing in your section on families.
Some good points, however…
1. The Rolling Stones and Beatles are/were not exactly “clean living.”
2. Hulk Hogan took MASSIVE amounts of steroids to get that big Worse, he denied it and covered up saying he took them “to recover from an injury.” He has been recovering for Decades!
3. Divorce?? whatya gonna do. Let people stay in abusive relationships?? The NeoCons won’t hire a bloke unless they have the “Ozzie and Harriet” image of wife two kids and a Golden Retreiver in the back yard. In the “divorce no murder yes” generation lots of Andy Capp and Flo couples I bet.
4. I strongly oppose the Drug War here in the US. OK have an age limit and give crack and Heroin to addicts only as in the UK. But prohibition just makes Al Capone (or the Mob the Gangs the Cartels the Pimps etc etc) rich causes lots of crime and the “small fish” end up with hardened killers and rapists in prison. Stop locking up America!!
For me this is very persuasive, Elliot.
Elliott, I feel sorry for your patients. If you actually have any.
To explain, you come across incredibly rude, arrogant and uniformed especially the comment re: “neocons”. Most neoconservatives recognize the reality of divorce in the U.S. and are not opposed to it on principle. Out of wedlock births are another matter. Most neocons are critical of this. But divorce? You must be thinking of palecons and other so-called traditionalists. But it’s no surprise that a knee-jerk liberal like yourself would lump the two together.
You know, I saw “NeoCon” and thought to myself “I don’t like it when people bandy around that term”.
Generalisations feed off generalisations. So, herewith, the mammoth interview Alan Johnson conducted with Joshuah Muravchik in Democratiya. It doesn’t address the issue of divorce, but it will serve to atone for my passivity in the light of this generalisation of Elliot’s, despite the fact it made me uncomfortable at the time. Let nobody use ‘neocon’ as a coded insult again.
http://www.democratiya.com/interview.asp?issueid=11
I have to say NC, though, you are using Liberal in much the same way.
I realize there are a wide variety of liberals out there. That’s why I qualified the term with the words “knee-jerk” as opposed to moderate liberal, centrist liberal or thoughtful liberal.
Thanks fleshisgrass, really stimulating topic (obviously!). Your initial stats aren’t a truly ‘fair’ comparison – but then again, I’m struggling to find two states/ countries that define crimes the same way! Your numbers are at least indicative. This whole area raises another point.
There’s a fundamental issue here with elected representatives controlling the categorisation of crimes – they’re always after short-termist PR stories, and manifesto pledges have to be met, even if that means massaging statistics or redefining crimes altogether. That’s one sentiment from the more right wing posters on this blog that I can sympathise with – never trust your government! That does not mean I endorse holding a gun to their heads btw.
One correlation that everyone seems to be agreeing with (remarkably) on these comments is the link between illegal drugs and gun crime. This then leads to arguments around the possibility of legalising drugs to remove them from the equation. I don’t want to go down that route – this is more of an info request.
Has anyone has come across any data that strips out violent crime around specific drugs by country? What is the ‘most violent’ drug?
I’ve not been able to find data for Holland’s experience – it’d be interesting to see if once you legalise certain drugs you find a significant drop in violence associated with it or not.
fleshisgrass said, “Jimbob, es, what you argue here is racist.”
I hate when people say such stupid comments. If what he said is a statistical fact then it is a statistical fact. It has nothing to do with being racist. Facts are facts and you can hide behind saying something is racist but, you are not solving anything by hiding the facts. Take out black crime and you will see how our crime rate drops. Too bad it is that way because if effects so much. White flight comes to mind and that also adds to our energy consumption because whites are driving their SUV’s much further to avoid the gun fire. Sad but true. This black crime has huge impacts on all kind of things. I think people need to stop thinking it is racist to state facts and that will help in fighting the problem. I wish there was an easy solution but, there isn’t.
“Take out black crime”
How, h? We’re all in this together – that’s the point.
h, are you suggesting getting rid of black people from America, or just black criminals. Do white criminals get to stay?
I can’t work out what you’re after.
There is racism and reverse racism. But it is segregation that CAUSED all the crime and blight. In my native Detroit, whites left after WW2 b/c the freeways and VA home loans made it easy to build new homes with big lots out in the burbs. US is only about 10% black but hoods like Detroit Newark and whole sections of Chicago LA and NY are african american. If we just integrated the cities or gave subsidized housing scattered in the suburbs (Wayne Oakland Macomb) county of the Detroit area there would BE no black majority, black mayors, black juries or congressional black caucus. Also noone would live in a deep Ghetto. HIspanics?? that’s another issue