Again, only 3 US states can match the murder rate for England and Wales, and the UK rate contains large cities like London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Gtr Manchester etc.
London is the only large city on your list. And I bet none of the "three states" you list have a major (by US standards) city. And, very clearly, homicide in the US is not uniformly dispersed among the states, within a state, within a county or within a specific city.
Chicago is currently divided into 25 police districts. According to data released by the Chicago Police Department in January; five districts have remained among the city's deadliest over the last five years: Harrison, Austin and Marquette on the West Side and Englewood and South Chicago on the South Side.
In 2002 alone, these districts represented less than a fifth of the city's population, yet accounted for 40 percent of Chicago's murders. Murder counts in these areas are at about the same levels they were five years ago.http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JAS/is_2_32/ai_98166282However, gangland influence is spreading and active in the poorer parts of mid sized and smaller cities, some in what could be considered rural areas. The gangs have been very active in franchise expansion. Still, even in those communities there is a clear delineation of the good and bad neighborhoods.
It's not "more of this kind", because it's a rate, not an absolute number. The evidence shows that the US prison population, minus guns, carries out less murders than the US average, whereas the British prison population carries out substantially more than the UK rate. Perhaps we have similar rates of violent criminals, but the absence of guns makes them less dangerous. After all, in prison, where guns are not available, our criminals are every bit as murderous as yours.
I never meant to imply we have similar rates of violent criminals (exactly the opposite) but that violent criminals kill other violent criminals just like they do on the streets. Of course, without information as to how the prisons are run, who exactly is killing in prison relative to other inmates, why they are killing... there is not enough information to really draw a conclusion form this either way. I could conclude, for example, that UK ethnic gang types have more concentrated interactions in prison than in their home neighborhoods that the UK has lagged in dealing with this special type of inmate. In the US, the gang focus has been a major component of prison control for 50 years and we have developed mechanisms to minimize some of the impact. US style street gangs are still a very new development in traditional Europe.
Maybe the heavy direct supervision you have as a prison inmate keeps down the killings to about this level? That does corresponded to the fact that NYC's crime rates dropped dramatically in the 1990s when they dramatically increased the number of cops on the beat. And, even with no guns, and full supervision, inmates are readily able to kill using weapons made out of coffee cup lids, melted in a toilet stove and worked into a deadly point.
Because supply is so easy. Cut off the source of supply, and suddenly criminals have to go to much greater lengths to obtain a gun.
First, with over 100 million guns in circulation this is a non starter from a practical standpoint. 2nd, the US is not an island. 3rd, impediments to the drug trade have had little impact on price or availability. Would removing all domestic guns increase price? Yes. Would that matter to the types who do most of the killing? I can't see it. We don't have a lot of "casual" killing in the US that do not involve the type of people who would pay extra for a gun (but, IMO, probably not that much extra).
Probably. Mid level drug dealers require firearms to do their "job", so price isn't much of a deterrent. But they tend to keep the guns to deal with other drug gangs, not use them on the public in street robberies.
Your chance of being killed in the US if you are not actively involved gangland activity, are an active "wanna be" or socialize with gang bangers or actively emulate that lifestyle are fairly slim.
For robberies specifically, according to the FBI, out of 14,121 murders in 2004 (9,326 involving a firearm) only 988 were related to a robbery (745 using a firearm). It does not state what percentage of those were one criminal robbing another, etc. Just like the figure for "killed in an argument" does not break out to one gang banger or thug disrespecting another. This, out of a national population of about 300 million at the time. There were over 401,362 total robberies in 2004.
That means: You have/had a 0.13 percent chance of being robbed in a given year. If you are robbed, you have a 0.185 percent chance of being shot and killed during the robbery. Overall, you have a 0.00025 percent chance of being shot and killed in a robbery attempt compared to the "enormous" 0.0031 percent chance of being killed in any kind of firearm homicide.
I wouldn't trust British newspapers that much.
Greater Manchester has a population of 2.5 million. If the firearms murder rate was 10 per 100,000, that would be 250 firearms murders in Manchester in 2002.
Perhaps the reference was to all homicide, which means you can have US style death totals without the need for a gun. Or perhaps they referenced Greater Manchester when the meant just the city itself. But, I certainly cannot trust the local papers to print any statistics or provide balance on gun control here. They are clearly biased, and will print editorials that are a cut and past from Brady.org without even asking a basic question like "how many people are actually killed by assault rifles each year?" Simple Journalism 101 -- unless you are not interested in invalidating your agenda. So, I suppose I agree with you there.
The one figure that they cannot manipulate one way or the other is the number killed by firearms. It was 49 last year, down from the high of 2002, and lower than the figures for the early 90s.
Which would be useful if the UK had a history of US style street gangs so you could make an apples to apples comparison. You also imply that somehow, inner city crime has a current and historical dynamic between the US and UK. That is not the case. What is the History of the Italian Mafia in the UK that rose to prominence during the Prohibition years in the US? Where is the UK Jewish mafia of the period. Where is the UK Bloods and Crips and MS-13? Has the UK had well established, inner city ethnic gangs of anywhere near the scope seen in the US?
As posted in the Kleck study homicide rates vary greatly even among similar regional European counties without a firm correlation to gun ownership. As this often posted but never acknowledged study notes ( Street Gang Violence in Europe
http://books.google.com/books?id=tr...d8wDsLo#PPP1,M1 ), US style gangs are something new for Europe, as is the violence they bring with them. Limited firearm ownership has perhaps kept the violence down initially, but that is rapidly changing.
Will Europe ever really catch up to the US? Maybe not. One might imagine the Russian Mafia moving in and organizing things into a more efficient model. However, will these youth channel their energies into violent but not economic channels (Islamic fundamentalism, etc.)... we'll have to see there too. The London train bombers already have shown an appreciation for the true tools of mass killing, and they aren't firearms.
cont.
