[geeks] Re: Gun Control

[Phil Stracchino]

On Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 08:16:13AM +0000, Mike Meredith wrote:
> On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 18:25:47 -0500, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> > Relative to the US, yes.  Frankly, the UK has never really HAD a
> > violent crime problem to speak of.
> 
> Really? According to 2001 Interpol statistics, the UK(England&Wales) had
> 182.69 robberies with violence per 100,000; the USA figure was 148.50.
> The murder rate was 1.63 (UKE&W) and 5.61 (USA). Looks like the UK is
> pretty much as violent as the US, except that we're far less likely to
> get killed.

Well, OK, I oversimplified that.  Quite badly, the more I think about it
...  comes of typing too late at night.

What I *should* have said was, "Historically, England's murder rate has
been much lower than that in the 'problem' spots in the US."  


> My understanding is that violent crime has fallen by 24% since 1997. I
> suspect you mean violent crime with guns which I can't find anything
> reputable for quickly. I suspect that gun crime could increase by
> several times without showing up in the overall figures simply because
> the initial levels were so low.

Yes, and that's more what I intended to say ....  as I said, I shouldn't
be trying to argue clearly late at night.


> There's another theory relating to how guns are creeping into UK
> criminal hands. At roughly the right time, the arms dealers to the
> IRA/"Loyalist" thugs suddenly had their markets dry up; they pushed
> these onto UK criminals, and a few started using them.

An interesting and probably sound speculation.


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