Nothing to see here, move along

[Nashwan]

Whenever the Police or lawful citizen kills an offender lawfully the case report made at the time by Police is still classified as "Homicide" for reporting purposes.

No, the FBI has a separate category of "justifiable homicide" for such cases. The FBI reporting rules are very clear on this.

Justifiable homicide—Certain willful killings must be reported as justifiable, or excusable. In the UCR Program, justifiable homicide is defined as and limited to:

    * The killing of a felon by a peace officer in the line of duty.
    * The killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen.

Because these killings are determined through law enforcement investigation to be justifiable, they are tabulated separately from murder and nonnegligent manslaughter.

Same thing with prison homicides. They kill each other all the time but looking at the stats you couldnt tell if it was in a maximum security prison or the White House lawn.

I'm not sure if the FBI figures include prison homicide, but it's not going to change the figures much either way. In 2002, the last year I have seen statistics for, there were 68 homicides in prisons and jails in the US. The rate for incarcerated criminals is just under 4 per 100,000, substantially lower than the rate for the US as a whole.

So again statistics are very misleading. And another thing, if a visitor from England were to visit the USA and if they stayed out of gang infested minority areas of inner cities then his chances of being killed by a gun in America are about as much as his chances are back home.

I'm not sure what the rates for holidaymakers are, as they tend to engage in very different activities on holiday. But excluding gang violence, you are still far more likely to be shot and killed in the US than the UK.

I'll bet 90% of this nations homicides are committed by poor,urban people of color where both the offender and victims are also people of color, and it might be more then 90%.

According to the FBI, about half the murders in the US are committed by whites, half by blacks.

And the other 98% of America? Most of all the places where lawful citizens are legally armed? No doubt safer then Britain.

Safer in that you are less likely to be mugged? Possibly, although if you take out the worst 2% of Britain, no.

But safer as in less likely to get murdered? No.

The murder rate for the whole of England and Wales, which includes inner cities like London, Gtr Manchester etc, is 1.4 per 100,000.

The only US states that beat that are:

New Hampshire 1 per 100,000
North Dakota 1.3
South Dakota 1.2

That's 3 out of 50 states that are safer than the British average.

If you look at England and Wales by police force area, not a single force has a murder rate as high as the US average. Of the 41 force areas, 20 have a murder rate lower than the lowest US state, New Hampshire. Dorset, for example, has a murder rate of only 0.28 per 100,000 people.

[Maverick]

Years ago I was told a little saying that after having taken statistics in college I found was accurate.

There are 3 kinds of liars, liars, damned liars and statisticians.

[Hurricane]

dunno if you heard about the Jean Charles de Menezes incident outside the uk?
The innocent foreigner (well almost, illegal immegrant I think but even so, thats deportation at worst!) shot 7 times cos somone mistook him for a terrorist.  And that was by a copper who was supposed to be well trained and well informed. And u think we should have more of these? handed out like sweets to any old moron that wants one?
No thanks.  
One innocent bystander killed, one badly placed shot that take a child life, one misunderstanding...it all leads to one death to many.

Im still stunned by the number of people that think theyre safer in the US with a gun than in the uk without one.

The numbers have been posted once already: 58 deaths in one year to 11-12000.  

If the population of the US was 190 times larger than the uk this would be roughly equal....
60.2mill (uk) to 300mill (us)...hang on thats only 5 times bigger.

So your 38 times more likely to be shot in the US than the UK.  Obviously this will vary from place to place within both.

Yet the US is safer?



And yes you can get guns in the UK, but its not easy.  A mate of mine reckons he knows a bloke whos got contacts that can, given a few months, find a replica handgun converted to fire real bullets. For a few £k (might shop around...).  Most guns these days are in museums.
The threat of handguns doesnt give me sleepless nights, and for defending my home, a cricket bat will suffice.

Edit:  btw there are roughly 80million gun owners in the US.  I couldnt find exact figures for the UK, but a 1991 survey reckoned it had gone up slightly from 0.1%...thats only around 600 people. Both numbers would increace if u add in illegally held firearms.

[Rich46yo]

1,  I didn't say what the FBI does or doesnt do. Im not in the FBI, and unless you are then link me to some info on how they classify. Im saying what we do. Our original case report is "Homicide" just like it would be if 30 kids in a school were killed. My point was about stats. People quote the kind of stats that back up their argument and dont worry much about where it came from. You cant trust stats.


                     2, They figure it as a "Homicide" in the jurisdiction where it occurred. But it doesnt really affect the law abiding people in that jurisdiction does it? Now would you know that just by looking at the stats. And Homicides are only one thing. There are many kinds of violent assaults that occur in prisons, and that the local jurisdiction has to eat the stats for.

                    3, Yeah 1/2 by whites and 1/2 by blacks. Right? Florida had about the same stats too. The problem with that was Hispanics were counted as white. Even still victim rates are still 6 times higher, and offender rates are 7 times higher. And you'll notice the Justice Dept., or FBI, makes no mention of Hispanics. Only white,black, and other. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm Some cities, like LA, have most of their murders committed by Spanish street gangs, and we have many, many committed by Latino gangs. I guess its far easier for Politicians to digest by calling the offenders white. My comments were "poor inner city people of color".

                  4, I dont need stats, dont trust them, and there are many parts of English cities I wouldnt go into either. I never said we have less homicides then England. I just said you have to be careful throwing stats around. Most of all if you dont live here, have never been here, or have never been an American Big City street cop for 25 years. Boy, the things Ive seen done with stats.  

Originally posted by Nashwan
No, the FBI has a separate category of "justifiable homicide" for such cases. The FBI reporting rules are very clear on this.

I'm not sure if the FBI figures include prison homicide, but it's not going to change the figures much either way. In 2002, the last year I have seen statistics for, there were 68 homicides in prisons and jails in the US. The rate for incarcerated criminals is just under 4 per 100,000, substantially lower than the rate for the US as a whole.

I'm not sure what the rates for holidaymakers are, as they tend to engage in very different activities on holiday. But excluding gang violence, you are still far more likely to be shot and killed in the US than the UK.

According to the FBI, about half the murders in the US are committed by whites, half by blacks.
Safer in that you are less likely to be mugged? Possibly, although if you take out the worst 2% of Britain, no.

But safer as in less likely to get murdered? No.

The murder rate for the whole of England and Wales, which includes inner cities like London, Gtr Manchester etc, is 1.4 per 100,000.

The only US states that beat that are:

New Hampshire 1 per 100,000
North Dakota 1.3
South Dakota 1.2

That's 3 out of 50 states that are safer than the British average.

If you look at England and Wales by police force area, not a single force has a murder rate as high as the US average. Of the 41 force areas, 20 have a murder rate lower than the lowest US state, New Hampshire. Dorset, for example, has a murder rate of only 0.28 per 100,000 people.

[john9001]

Originally posted by Hurricane



The threat of handguns doesnt give me sleepless nights, and for defending my home, a cricket bat will suffice.

 

And what do you do when they ban cricket bats, of course not a total ban , you will be allowed to keep your bat locked up at the cricket club.  Because what do you need a cricket bat at home for?

[lazs2]

hurricane..  our homicide rate is falling..  but..  It matters not.. you simply never had a very high rate, guns or no.   There is no gun law you guys have ever passed that has decreased your rate of homicide or violent crime.  

Now you can look at that any way you want but..  If something changes in your countries makeup that makes it more like ours..

Oh, I don't know... let's say it gets a little more "diverse".

We have already been there.. we have gone up and down on the gun thing and we find... ta da... that in our "diverse" country where half the homicides are commited by one small segment of the racial makeup of our country...  that.. the more lax the gun laws.. the less violent crime we have.

Now.. you can either work toward keeping your country lilly white or.. you can face the reality and look to us as an example of how it works when not everyone looks or thinks just like you.

lazs

[RTHolmes]

Originally posted by Nashwan
For the most part they aren't getting guns ... We believe people should be able to go shopping without having to worry what gun to take to protect themselves.

well said  and believe me,  I'm not having a go at the US, the situations are completely different. The UK is starting from a point where most of the population doesnt have access to firearms, rather than imposing gun control on a society where most already do have access, and ownership is a constitutional right.

Out of interest, just imagine that US citizens didnt have a right to bear arms (still think of that Family Guy joke when I hear that btw ) and gun ownership and crime was very rare. Would you really vote for a new law which allows everybody to carry firearms?

[lazs2]

and for nashwan...  I hope that you are not saying that it would be impossible for me to get a gun in your country in a day or so?  that I couldn't make one in a leiserly afternoon in the shop?

If you admit that.. then you have to ask... did the laws do any good?  did depriving citizens in any way decrease attacks on people or homicides in general?   well.. no.. it didn't really.

But you say... "gun crime has gone down"... well.. maybe.. depends on who twists the numbers and they can and will change in any case... but lets give you the huge benifiet of the doubt..

If anyone can still get a gun and they aren't... what has changed?  there are plenty of guns around still.. so why don't they use em?

simple.. the penalty is horrendous for using a gun..even getting caught with one.

Soooo... one has to ask.. wouldn't you have exactly the same effect if you allowed everyone the right to defend themselves with any gun they chose but still maintained your horrendous penalties for criminal missuse?

Of course you would.. good people never shot each other in any case and those of you who would murder are still doing it regardless.   You are fortunate that with your lilly white population on a tiny little island with its traditions of only slaughtering people in far away lands...  that your rate is and has been low in your own country forever.  

My guess is that you won't be able to maintain that... you will have to enter the real world and deal with larger populations of people who don't think the way you were ingrained to think.   At that point we will see how well your "take guns away from the people" theory works out.

My take is that all you lilly white your-0-peeeeans better either learn to breed or how to fight.

lazs

[Skuzzy]

This thread should have never been started in the manner it was.