U.S.A. violent crimes drop 3% but....

[beet1e]

Let's go with the 10,248 number then.

Why not! You were only out by about 57% on your first try.

Note this is a 2% INCREASE over the previous year.

Note the gun homicide tally showed a 15% decrease for this period.

I'm not even going to argue with the rest. I can see what your doing. You're focussing on percentages, while avoiding actual totals. As I've said (and as you have agreed), our gun crime is next to nothing, so even if 17 more people were shot and killed this year as there were last year (68), that would equate to a whopping 25% increase here, but would barely register a blip on the US charts (ie. less than 0.2% of this year's US figure)

Year on year fluctuations old bean. Don't go getting your panties in a bunch over it.  

Few hundred? BS. This only scratches the surface.

Bet it's still less than the lives lost to firearms in the US - all in the name of "freedom", and the right to bear arms bought from any old gun shop on Main Street. Too bad you can't get a resupply of ammo at K-Mart. I hear they don't sell it any moore.

Toodle-Pip.

[Toad]

Originally posted by beet1e
Why not! You were only out by about 57% on your first try.  

[/b]

Not my try at all; the source was the unimpeachable BBC!

I'm not even going to argue with the rest.

[/b]

Smart move. The numbers over the years prove your increasingly strict gun laws have little to no effect on crime rates.
 

[Too bad you can't get a resupply of ammo at K-Mart. I hear they don't sell it any moore.

As in most things, you're wrong. I bought some ammo at the K-Mart two miles from my house last week. Wal-Mart is another close in source.

I have already covered this in the other thread. There are TWO ingredients to a gun homicide: 1) the gun itself; 2) the idiot holding it. Places like Canada/Switzerland have lots of #1. Britain has lots of #2. The US has lots of both #1 and #2.

[/b]

Oh, yeah, I've read it. It's what one would charitably call a hypothesis. You certainly have not proven it, but like most of your other theories you yourself accept it as unquestionably true.

Oh, well... at least you agree with yourself.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by Mr. Toad
Not my try at all; the source was the unimpeachable BBC!

LOL! And my source for the two thirds of gun crimes being committed with imitation firearms was the unimpeachable Honest Jill Labour Government spokesperson. We both need to be more careful then. You could make a good start by deleting the Guardian newspaper shortcut from your personal favourites menu.

The numbers over the years prove your increasingly strict gun laws have little to no effect on crime rates.

LOL!!! How wrong can you get? On the one hand you'll say something like "your gun crime has always been next to nothing", and then you come out with tripe like our gun laws are having no effect. Ahem, every wondered WHY our gun crime is next to nothing? Hmmm?   Erm..., erm..., oh yeah - it's those gun control laws we have, and have had for many, many years. But oh! They're only 97¾% effective, and in Mr. Toad's pristine white list of statutes, that wouldn't do at all. Hey, let's repeal all laws that don't work 100%. You can go back to the Wild West, and we'll invite the Romans back again.

Oh, yeah, I've read it. It's what one would charitably call a hypothesis. You certainly have not proven it, but like most of your other theories you yourself accept it as unquestionably true.

You got a better theory? Oh wait! Do please entertain us with your own hypothesis on American societal mores, and maybe throw in an essay on the people "who needed to be killed".

[NUKE]

Hey Beetle

You have to admit, your gun laws have not had an effect on your gun crimes.

Reduce this argument to it's core and you would have to concede that point.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by NUKE
You have to admit, your gun laws have not had an effect on your gun crimes. Reduce this argument to it's core and you would have to concede that point.

Read Nashwan's remark in my sig. Then go out with your new camera and take some pictures of trains.

[NUKE]

Originally posted by beet1e
Read Nashwan's remark in my sig. Then go out with your new camera and take some pictures of trains.

??

Beetle, I am simply saying that your gun bans have not changed the gun crime stats. Your gun crime has always been low.

But I do like trains and may take your advice.

[Thrawn]

Here's a wierd statistic.


"Fewer firearms are being used in crimes in Canada – for example, the rate of firearm robberies has significantly declined by over 50% since 1991, including a 12% decline in 2001, the lowest rate since 1974. The Government of Canada firmly believes that the Firearms Program is making an essential contribution to our efforts to sustain this reduction."


http://www.cfc-ccaf.gc.ca/en/general_public/news_features/other/crimedata.asp

[beet1e]

Originally posted by NUKE
??

Beetle, I am simply saying that your gun bans have not changed the gun crime stats. Your gun crime has always been low.

Now you're starting to get it. Our gun crime has always been low because our gun laws have always been there - (note the figurative use of "always"). Lazs 'll tell you that gun ownership dropped c1920, and that there was a "mass confiscation" under the "evil empire" of His Majesty King George V. What probably happened was that there were many service revolvers etc. still in circulation following WW1 which were redundant and were handed in once we were no longer at war. Not sure exactly what happened, and care even less.

Dunno about the 1996/97 ban. All I know is that Tony Blair's Govt. is obsessed with regulating everything. Maybe the ban was a token gesture. Who cares? We already had gun control, thank Cod

[NUKE]

Beetle, the UK pretty much banned handguns after 96/97 didn't they?

[beet1e]

Originally posted by NUKE
Beetle, the UK pretty much banned handguns after 96/97 didn't they?

They were pretty much banned long before that.

[NUKE]

Originally posted by beet1e
They were pretty much banned long before that.

Specifically, before 1996 could people in the UK own handguns?

[NUKE]

Originally posted by beet1e
What probably happened was that there were many service revolvers etc. still in circulation following WW1 which were redundant and were handed in once we were no longer at war. Not sure exactly what happened, and care even less.

Dunno about the 1996/97 ban. All I know is that Tony Blair's Govt. is obsessed with regulating everything. Maybe the ban was a token gesture. Who cares? We already had gun control, thank Cod

So basically you are saying that you do not know what happened regarding the gun bans and could care even less, yet you then become the all knowing, passionate advocate/expert on the subject in the next breath.

[Toad]

Your gun crime always has been low. The relatively recent changes lauded on this board in your gun laws have not had any significant effect on your crime rate. They've just been feel good moves that achieve nothing except to remove a few civil liberties from the law abiding folks.

Better theory than yours?

Sure, like Canada, England has a much less violent society than ours and a much more homogeneous society than ours. Personally, I think you guys could have similar gun ownership to the Canadians and have similar crime stats.

After all, you folks are famous for "polite" right down to your queues for the buses.

*****

Nuke, Beet has no idea of the history of gun control in his country.

Go here:

ALL THE WAY DOWN THE SLIPPERY SLOPE: GUN PROHIBITION IN ENGLAND

You'll enjoy reading exactly how the Brits lost their rights to own a handgun and the techniques used to take them away. It also shows how they ended up with highly restrictive rules on using long guns and lost the right to own "repeaters".  You'll also find that anti-gun US groups are using the same techniques.

Short story:

....Thus the Firearms Act of 1920 sailed through Parliament. Britons who had formerly enjoyed a right to arms were now allowed to possess pistols and rifles only if they proved they had "good reason" for receiving a police permit.[60] Shotguns and airguns, which were perceived as "sporting" weapons, remained exempt from British government control.....


...In the early years of the Firearms Act the law was not enforced with particular stringency, except in Ireland, where revolutionary agitators were demanding independence from British rule, and where colonial laws had already created a gun licensing system.[63] Within Great Britain, a "firearms certificate" for possession of rifles or handguns was readily obtainable. Wanting to possess a firearm for self-defense was considered a "good reason" for being granted a firearms certificate....

...The British government in the 1950s left the subject of gun control alone. Crime was still quite low, and issues such as national health care and the Cold War dominated the political dialogue. Even so, the maintenance of the existing, relatively mild, structure of rifle and pistol licensing would have important consequences.

As the Firearms Act remained in force year after year, a smaller and smaller percentage of the population could remember a time in their own lives when a Briton could buy a rifle or pistol because he had a right to do so rather than because he had convinced a police administrator that there was a "good reason" for him to purchase the gun. As the post-1920 generation grew up, the licensing provisions of the Firearms Act began to seem less like a change from previous conditions and more like part of ordinary social circumstances....

.Under the 1967 system, which is still in force for the most part, a person wishing to obtain his first shotgun needed to obtain a "shotgun certificate." The local police could reject an applicant if they believed that his "possession of a shotgun would endanger public safety." The police were required to grant the certificate unless the applicant had a particular defect in his background such as a criminal record or history of mental illness...[94]

...The Hungerford atrocity was the only instance in which a self-loading rifle had been used in a British homicide. Punishing every owner of an object because one person misused the object might seem unfair, but two factors worked in favor of prohibition. First, the cabinet leadership observed that the number of owners of self-loading rifles was relatively small, so no important number of voters would be offended. Second, shotgun owners, who are by far the largest group of gun owners, generally decided that they did not care what the government did to someone else's rifles.[137]

Parliament responded. Semi-automatic centerfire rifles, which had been legally owned for nearly a century, were banned.[138] Pump-action rifles were banned as well, since it was argued that these guns could be substituted for semi-automatics.....

...As a result of the 1988 law, shotguns that can hold more than two shells at once now require a Firearms Certificate, the same as rifles and handguns.[141] Moreover, all shotguns must now be registered. Shotgun sales between private parties must be reported to the police. Buyers of shot shells must produce a shotgun certificate. Applicants for a shotgun certificate must obtain a countersignature by a person who has known the applicant for two years and is "a member of Parliament, justice of the peace, minister of religion, doctor, lawyer, established civil servant, bank officer or person of similar standing."....

...While the Dunblane Enquiry did recommend many new controls, the Enquiry did not recommend banning all handguns.[158] Prime Minister John Major's Conservative government had decided to accept what it knew would be the Cullen recommendations, tightening the licensing system still more, but not banning handguns. However, then Labour Party leaders brought Dunblane spokesperson Anne Pearston to a rally, and, in effect, denounced opponents of a handgun ban as accomplices in the murder of school children. Prime Minister Major, who was already doing badly in the polls, crumbled. He promptly announced that the Conservative government would ban handguns above .22 caliber, and .22 caliber handguns would have to be stored at shooting clubs, not in homes.[159]

A few months later, Labour Party leader Tony Blair was swept into office in a landslide. One of his first acts was to complete the handgun ban by removing the exemption for .22s
......  

As I said, it's an interesting read, particularly this little bit in the Conclusion.

This Essay has also identified several structural elements in the British system of government that contributed to the gradual elimination of the right to arms in Great Britain:

rights are subject to balancing against perceived government or social needs;

the government is not constrained by internal checks and balances;

there is a consensus that Parliament, which is, in practice, a few leaders of the majority party, rather than the people or the law, is sovereign;

there is no written constitution;(p.464)

the absence of a right in a written constitution impedes the growth of rights consciousness among the people.

[beet1e]

LOL Toad! You were up early - didn't think you'd lose sleep over *this*.

I'll wait for Lazs before writing my reply to enlighten NUKE.

[Toad]

Believe me, I'm not losing sleep over this.

I have a few other things on my mind.