But there were only 42 gun deaths in England, and they don't have guns.

Sorry, Otter. Forgot the smiley!

Ballistic Otters said:

I do have a citation! I meant Americans, not criminals. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the USA has an intentional homicide rate of 4.8/100,000, and the UK has 1.23/100,000. There's always some overlap, and statistics don't mean all too much in the grand scheme of things, but they're a pretty good thing to cite when arguing against UK policy.

So, what I was trying to say is this; if this person wants to argue with someone citing the UK as a model for crime reduction, she has to compare the homicide rates of the two countries. 65% of homicides in the USA are carried out by use of firearms. So, the argument is, even if none of the firearms murders happened, we'd still have a higher murder rate at 1.68 to the 1.23 in the UK. That's not counting all of the murders that were deterred by firearms, all of the murders that would use a less efficient weapon, any of that. Even removing every firearm murder, we've got a higher murder rate. Which is what I meant by saying that Americans are statistically more violent. Poor choice of words on my part, but I don't think I'm incorrect or out of bounds with what I said.

I also won't argue with your RKBA disagreement. I take a different political philosophy than you, it would seem. We give up some natural rights and defer to the government and constitution. We mean the same thing (in practical terms,) just say it in carefully different ways.

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Fair enough.

I politely disagree with you that Americans are more violent though, based on the difference between America's homicide versus the UK. In the link provided by OC for Me, it shows the way the UK "counts". There is a disparity there that makes us, as nations, incomparable, IMO.

Statistical rates/averages are easily compared by examination of the variations and standard deviations where provided.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime....

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First mistake, using UN stats, especially to bolster a point that America is 'X' and the other P-ant country is not considering how anti-America the UN and virtually every member of the UN is.

The cops in the UK do not report (record) their homicides until they are darn good and ready to.

On the other hand, we here in America report (record) homicides before they are even adjudicated to be homicides. Then we have to go back and change them to something other than a homicide based on the outcome of the investigation or trial.

Our gun-crime-commission-to-gun-ownership rate is magnificently below theirs.

EDIT: I should be more specific: gun-crime-commission-to-gun-possession. That is, ultimately, what people are trying to talk about. A stole weapon used in the commission of a crime makes no implication upon the rightful owner. Of course, no one actually talks about this. That would derail the clever narrative.

OP inform your acquaintances that while more people are shot to death in the U.S., more people have their entails spewed onto that pavement in the U.K.

Dunno 'bout you but if I'm to be attacked by an armed assailant, I think I'd prefer to be shot over being gutted.

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I'll have to work up some figures but....

_1,800,000_ number of legally owned firearms in the UK divided by __42___ number of deaths. (1:42,850)
vs.
_200,000,000_ number of legally owned firearms in the USA divided by _9,000_ number of deaths. (1:22,222)

... those are just rough, 'off the cuff' numbers, and we All know what those are worth. ( I highly doubt many legally owned firearms in either country were used in homicides)

Ballistic Otters said:

I do have a citation! I meant Americans, not criminals. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the USA has an intentional homicide rate of 4.8/100,000, and the UK has 1.23/100,000.

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The UN must be ignoring all the violent crimes commited by Chavs.

Those stats are ********.

I don't trust anything the UN does or says or even implies.

I have to say that even if the statistics proved that we are five, ten or a hundred times more violent in America, the bottom line is that this is a philosophical issue and not a crime issue. Is there a secret number at which we ponder the aforementioned statistics and say: Well, there it is, time for the government to control and confiscate all means of self defense to include guns. We all know that all governments have a sterling reputation for making societies more peaceful.

See: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html

I happen to think the UK parsing of stats is on par with the reliability of their Climate Research Institute and the subsequent intellectual corruption discovered there.

SouthernBoy said:

Ah, but the UK has murders committed with a host of other weapons besides firearms. If you adjust for population for a comparison to the U.S, they had over 6400 murders last year.

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This is very true. Also consider that Montana has one of the highest gun rates per capita and one of the lowest gun crime rates in America.

In addition, look at the gun murder rate among whites in America and it is on par with Canada, England and Australia

Fallschirmjäger said:

I'll have to work up some figures but....

_1,800,000_ number of legally owned firearms in the UK divided by __42___ number of deaths. (1:42,850)
vs.
_200,000,000_ number of legally owned firearms in the USA divided by _9,000_ number of deaths. (1:22,222)

... those are just rough, 'off the cuff' numbers, and we All know what those are worth. ( I highly doubt many legally owned firearms in either country were used in homicides)

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How many of those 200 million guns happen to be owned by one person. A buddie has nearly 100 firearms of all shapes and sizes. The '200 million legally owned firearms' does not correlate to 200 million firearm owners.

OC for ME said:

How many of those 200 million guns happen to be owned by one person. A buddie has nearly 100 firearms of all shapes and sizes. The '200 million legally owned firearms' does not correlate to 200 million firearm owners.

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by the same token, firearms built by individuals are completely unaccounted for in such numbers. Likely antique and other old arms are not included either as its hard for govt types to count them.

OC for ME said:

How many of those 200 million guns happen to be owned by one person. A buddie has nearly 100 firearms of all shapes and sizes. The '200 million legally owned firearms' does not correlate to 200 million firearm owners.

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Pretty sure the point was that more guns do not increase gun murders. As such, the number of gun owners is irrelevant.


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PistolPackingMomma said:

I can't recall correctly at the moment, as I still haven't had my coffee, but doesn't the UK have a very funky scale about how they count murders? Like, they only count murders they can solve, murders that only happen to a certain demographic, things like that. It was explained to me (iirc) that they did it that way to keep the official numbers low so tourists would still feel safe about going to jolly ol' England.

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The UK doesn't report homicides to the international community unless the case is "closed". This means a LOT more than one might first think...

First, if someone is murdered in June, and no suspect is apprehended, tried and convicted by December, then that homicide is NOT reported for that year.

Second, if someone IS arrested and tried, but acquitted, then THAT homicide is not reported, because technically, the "murderer" was not convicted. And if the person who was acquitted actually WAS the murderer, but got off on a "technicality", then that homicide will NEVER be reported as a homicide...

If the homicide was committed by an LEO or someone with diplomatic immunity, or as part of some sort of "covert LE operation", then those are almost NEVER reported as "homicides" in the UK, because even though the murderer might be factually known, and there might even be video evidence of the act, it was a "death caused in the performance of duty" and therefore nobody will be prosecuted (unless it was SUCH an egregious murder that the public won't let it rest, or the victim was someone with a lot of political clout). Since no one is prosecuted in this sort of circumstances, the case is technically never "closed", and therefore not reported.

So there are probably dozens of "homicides" in UK every year that do not get reported in the same year where they occur--and probably are NEVER reported due to the quirks of the British reporting conventions.

In the US, we report homicides when they occur, and when the case is OPENED as a homicide, so our numbers seem inflated compared to many European nations. Some cities in the US--like Baltimore and DC, have closure rates less than 65%, so you can sort of see how this might effect the total numbers reported, to be AGAINST the US, and FOR the UK.

All other things being equal, if the UK has similar closure rated for homicides as the US, they are actually having almost twice as many homicides annually than they report...

lysander6 said:

I happen to think the UK parsing of stats is on par with the reliability of their Climate Research Institute and the subsequent intellectual corruption discovered there.

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Here, here, and bully!

Not only are their crime reporting conventions as reliable and truthful as their "Climate Research" info, but they are being "adjusted" for EXACTLY the same reason--to make tyranny look attractive and to further brainwash the People into accepting increased serfdom...

Jack House said:

Pretty sure the point was that more guns do not increase gun murders. As such, the number of gun owners is irrelevant.


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It is relevant.

This link _200,000,000_ even gives a rough estimate of the likely number of firearm owners which works out to be about ~80 million.

Guns do not fire themselves, firearms do not commit violent crimes, firearms do not even commit homicide.

The argument must revolve around the number of citizens that own firearms not the number of firearms owned.

The number of guns owned sure does seem to be a big issue with the antis and the ATF.

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