Sixgun.....Do I need to hit you with the comparative crime figures statistic

I can see Billy's point about self-defence and his argument is coherent, a criminal will run at an armed victim, when the victim gets the drop on him.

BUT

the figures show that in England where you're not a lot more likley to robbed 1.2 times U.S. per 1000 people figures, deaths and rapes are actually 10 and 8 times higher respectively.

ALthough I will concede a 4-5 times higher car crime rate and 2.8 times higher in-house burglaries. the overall question of self-defence is do I die with a gun in my hand and be robbed anyway or just hand over my wallet.

Guns can disuade the less well prepared mugger but when they are available for defence like in the U.S. they are also available for the crime in question. and they only work when the intended gets the drop on the assailalent. Most muggers don't carry big signs and neon warnings.

Sixgun saying the same thing over an over again without actually proving yourself and only quoting other people who don't justify their actions makes your argument worthless

What the above statistics don't mention is criminal Modus Operandi. Car crime is a huge problem in the U.K. as car crime is massively higher per 100k people. A massivley higher car crime which accounts for 20% of all crimes and rarely results in physical harm to the victim is a lot less of an issue of crime then the issue of having caps popped in your arse. With this considered and the fact that burgalries and car crimes, which I have conceded are higher, are on a large majority are convenience crimes. crimes where the criminal will avoid the victim. the chance for harm is substantially less.

You quote David bamber who is also wraites with a heavily conservative bias.... as do most broadsheets such as the times and ironically enough the independant. He is therefore criticising the government as it is not representative of his political views

Your arguement is flawed. Whan I preneted your with comparitive april 2002 figures from the U.S. government which are (possiblly) biased in favour of the current administartion the whole notion of saftey was higher in favour of the U.S.

the fact of the matter is in the U.K. a large number of crimes are oppertunistic crimes which do not involve any interaction between victim and assailant.

think about it when you relaise that the chances of me dieing in the U.S. are 10,000% higher the the U.K.

Neon