I read the BCS methodology when I did the Criminology course. They go round to people's houses, randomly selected, and interview them for an hour or two. They ask them if any crimes have happened to them. If they don't consider the event a crime then they don't put it in. There might be some exaggeration, but any distortion caused by that is going to be far less than the myriad distortions that apply to the police figures. Every serious criminologist thinks that the BCS is more accurate. No one on here is any such thing, so you can all think what you like if it make you all more comfortable with the views you hold. It bothers me not.

The rise in violent crime in Britain, which some of you like to link to Britain's increasing gun control, can be explained much more sensibly in other ways. Firstly, it is a common trend in increasingly urbanised western societies whatever their gun laws. Secondly, very few British people owned guns at the start of the century (it wasn't exactly the Wild West), and before the handgun ban very few people carried guns. There simply wasn't a gun culture in the way that there is over there. Guns were never a part of British life in the same way, until their recent increased use in gang wars in urban areas. Very few non-gang members are killed by guns - most of the rise is yardie violence. Thirdly, your recent drop in violent crime coincided with increased police funding and more aggressive enforcement procedures, such as zero-tolerance.

If we all accept, as we should given the world-wide evidence that you all like to quote, that gun ownership rates have almost no correlation with crime levels, then we should put this whole idea to bed. It's a non-starter in either direction.

But that's already in a culture where guns are rife. There is a massive difference between the US and the UK on this. If everyone was instead encouraged to carry guns for self-defence then I suspect that our situation would become more akin to yours. We don't want that.

Eh? No, I don't want our gun crime rates anywhere near your levels. Yours are dropping slightly from a very high point. Ours may be rising slightly from a very low one. Our situation is still better than yours in this respect.

Not so. Most of those measures are decided at the state level, and police funding at the local level, hence there is nothing uniform for it to coincide with. States have all different laws and penalties.

Ok, let's stipulate that for the moment. Then, the next step is straightforward. Since gun ownership DOES offer utility for self defense and firearmss DO get used to thwart violent crime where allowed, what conceivable case can be made to not allowing people to have firearms with which to defend themselved?

Authority authority authority..... Show me facts not rehashed rhetoric!

However, you argument doesn't pan out

You have legal firearms, yet your rape rates are HIGHER then the UK
You have legal firearms yet your murder rates are HIGHER then the UK
you Have Legal firearms yet all your violent (As opposed to non-situ) Crime is HIGHER then in the UK.

Texas may have lower crime then the rest of America, but look at the comparative number of firearms offenses. Hmm.....

Legal firearms means guns are more prevelent meaning guns do more damage.

In answer to DGG9's question about what arguement can be made about not allowing firearms.

Firstly prove how many crimes and offenses are thwarted by gun-use. And prove it Evidentially, not quoting rhetoric.

Secondly 2 coutner questions can be raised

'How many legally owned or acquired firearms were used to commit firearms related offenses?'

'How come even if you do have your self-defense option, you're still a lot more likely to die...ironically from a bullet wound.'

Neon

I'm not against people having guns. I do, however, object when people argue that the supposedly 'skyrocketing' violent crimes in Britain are a result of banning handguns. I am also against any sort of move toward a culture where guns are seen as a normal, legitimate and reasonable part of everyday life, because I feel that is the root of your problem. It doesn't matter that the Swiss all own guns because they keep them all indoors, but in the US people are, relatively, armed to the teeth, and you have mind-bogglingly high levels of gun crime. To put this in perspective, if the UK gun homicide rate continued to rise at its current 'skyrocketing' rate (9%?) it would still take 41 years to get to where yours is now, and you have always had, I believe, greater gun freedom than we have. This is why I don't want to go down the US route.

You STILL evade my questions: when gun control is instituted or loosened, what happens to crime rates?

Btw, your stats are meaningless since most crime in the US is perpetrated in major cities, most of which have effective gun bans.

Inexcusable that you elide the points I made over and over.

Demonstrably false.

Check out the US government's NCVS. Then check out any of 16+ studies, many conducted by anti-gun scholars.

An extremely rare number. The vast majority of crimes committed in the US are committed by career criminals who, by law, can not own firearms. They steal them, mostly.

False. Show a cite. Are you counting suicides? But that's absurd, since suicide is means-independent.

People only claim that as rebuttal to the claims of YOUR politicians that the next piece of gun control will, finally, bring peace on earth.

Empirically false. The "gun culture" has been in effect all along; only recently have US crime rates risen (say, in the last 40 years), so obviously guns are a non-factor. The places in the US where the "gun culture" is the strongest are also by far the most peaceful.

Again, false. Until very recently, concealed carry was easily obtainable by the Swiss. Ditto, the Israelis. Low crime prevails there. The high crime areas of the US usually feature gun control.

A shame that you would keep people in your own country from defending themselves against violent crime. The guns = crime theory is completely unsupported by the facts, and is well beneath you. IMO, you're smarter than that.

Don't patronise me.

Firstly, it is rubbish to suggest that, because the argument that gun control raises crime is a counter to the argument that it lowers it, it is in some way legitimate. The legitimate counter argument is that gun control doesn't have much effect on crime.

Secondly, that the Swiss were able to carry guns does not mean that they did. This is the difference between culture and law.

Thirdly, you talk of empiricism and facts. The big fact is that our 'system' (and I mean that holistically, not just legally) produces extraordinarily better results in terms of gun crime than yours.

Fourthly, none of the gun fans on here have ever explained, or tried to explain, why the US gun crime rate is so high. If you have a better explanation than the 'gun culture' argument, then let's hear it.

But that, too, is a matter for research, not assertion.

But they could carry. The guns are there. The entire premise of the gun prohibitionist argument is that guns cause (or enable) crimes. But of course civilized people don't commit crimes even though they have access to guns. This refutes the gun control argument.

Then let's not hear any nonsense that the US can simply graft another country's gun laws and get similar results, when we both agree that there are more variables involved. The statement is rhetorical, btw, not addressed at you.

The answer is your "holistic" approach. Sociologists are well aware of many factors that correlate with crime: fatherless families, lack of education, easy entry to criminal careers, lack of racial homogeneity, lowering cultural levels of "public morality" (for lack of a better word). The US has a lot of these factors. And virtually all of the US crime is committed by members of those demographics. Our cities are dysfunctional. If you removed US cities from the equation, US suburban crime rates are the same as almost any other country.

No No, don't be so pathetic! Prove this to me. Show me an authorative demographic breakdown of where the crime occurs in the US. Then show me an authoratative list of states with gub-bans. Prove your point don't jsut cite it.

You have no case. If you can't PROOVE what you're saying is true, then you'll loose your argument.

What points..all you do it cite that england has higer violent crime rate, which I have disproven
You then said it was syk-rocketing which Arty has disproven.

We have addressed every point you've made with statistical and logical counter-argument. All we have had in response is gun-toting rhetoric.

You cited that cite form the UN report, I actuall;y downloaded the report and gave you all the comparative figures.

If it's demostrably fale, then you will be abble to demonstarate it. I'll of course provide you with a retort, because I'm afraid I didn't have time to research for one.

I will do......

Prove it, of course, you have still to prove my statement 'demonstably false'


Read your own UN report about gun related homocides...... If you do have the option of firearms self defence, then how come you have an extortionately higher rate of gun homocides.

Neon

Sorry, I will not keep running down cites and stats when you evade the most basic questions. You keep bleating about the comparative UK/US crime rates as if that meant something. My response, again:

1. Gun crime in the UK was lower BEFORE there was any significant gun control.

2. You can't compare US and UK now because they started with different initial conditions. The A/B comparison is completely invalid.

3. UK and US demographics are very different.

4. The only way to factor out cultural and demographic differences is to look within ONE country, before and after gun control changes. In the US, 70 million more guns in private hands in the last decade; violent crime plummets. In the UK: ever increasing gun control, ever increasing crime (not just the last few years, but the last century).

All this shows the worthlessness of your static A/B comparisons.

When you adequately respond to this, we can proceed.

Are you under the impression those facts are contradictory?

I can't go along with that. It may be a benefit to that person and society that they successfully protected themselves, but people dying is never a good thing. I don't think anyone who's ever killed anyone in self-defense felt good about it.

Seems more and more Brits think they have a right to defend themselves;

Iron Maiden - Age Of Innocence
From the album "Dance Of Death"

I can't be compromising in my thoughts no more
I can't prevent the times my anger fills my heart
I can't be sympathizing with a new lost cause
I feel I've lost my patience with the world and all

And all the politicians and their hollow promises
And all the lies, deceit and shame that goes with it
The working man pays everything for their mistakes
And with his life too if there was to be a war

[Chorus:]
So we can only get one chance, can we take it?
And we only got one life, can't exchange it
Can we hold on to what we have, don't replace it
The age of innocence is fading like an old dream

A life of petty crime gets punished with a holiday
The victims' mind are scarred for life most everyday
Assailants know just how much further they can go
They know the laws are soft, conviction chances low

[Repeat chorus]

You can't protect yourselves even in your own home
For fear of vigilante cries, the victims wipe their eyes
So now the criminal they launch right in our face
Judical system lets them do it, a disgrace

Despondent public worries, where it will all end?
We can't protect ourselves, our kids from the crime trend
We cannot even warn each other of evil in our midst
They have more rights than us, you cannot call that just

[Repeat chorus]


Up the Irons! :slayer:

Evade.....I have cited every point you've made and argued it I've reaserched my asnwerrs, I've cited my research for you. I've given you access to my research. You can't argue with me, you're not arguing with me. You're contradicting me. This isn't an argument. An argument is more then the defacto nah-saying of what I say. It requires presposition supoistion exploration and response. ...look I'm even making it your quote my quote now so that I don't tax your brain too much in finding my responses. Although to be fair, I am directly answering your questions in my native tongue. I'm using a tongue called English. An obscure language I know, but it's my primary tongue. I'm sorry If I don't use contractions and modern slang. But I use in the raw, full fat English thesaural potence.

Yes, you won't quote facts because you simply can't find them. If your case is Demonstrably provable demonstrate how provable it is.

Every statstic you have placed SO FAR has been either countered by one of mine, it's authority brought into question or it simply dosn't prove or even in the case of your amazing UN research disproves your point.

If you make something which was legal previously a crime, people will suddenly become criminals defacto meaning a rise in crimes for a period of about 10 years.

This was dsicovered by a brilliant Candaia Judge called Welland. Wellands law satates that to prohbit any act results in a ten year 'adjustment period'. It bears out exceptionally well when looking at the outlawing of canabis ad cocaine in the US for example

I will concede that the 97 Handgun act seems to have little to no effect on the gun-crime statstics but this is in either way. The RISE is completetely attribuateble to the above mentioned consideration.

SO because the US which as long as it's been the US has had legalised firearms. A founding constitutional right, and the UK has only really recently (late 18th Century) got rid of firearms. this means that any comparison between 2 countries is going to be wrong.

So because the US has always had firearms access means that it can't be attributed to crime while the fact that the UK getting rid of firearms means it can?

BOLLOCKS! that argument is the most purile peice of nonsense I've ever head the misfortune to read. What sort of two way street is that.

A small city-centralised populous with the noticble majority in the outskirts or sub-urban and a mediem minority of ruralites. This can be appled demographically to the Uk or the US and France, Germany and the rest of Western Europe. I do beleive Australia and Canada. The only Ecconomic power to vary from this is JApan which has 99% of its populous living in 10% of the islands net-area.

Okay, ours has risen in line with an increased number of offenses from prviousl legitiamte sources and in line with the national average of crime increase. However when comapred with the BCS survey it actually shows that the net crime value has DECREASED.

I think I have proven the point of A/B comparisons. If we're going to hold the US law as a paragon of rightousness in gun owning then you should expect the comparison to hold.

Either admit you have no idea what really happens in the UK and shut up, or accept that UK/US comparisons must be made

I've lives in Washington, LA, London, Manchester and Newcastle (where I am now) all for a period of no less then 2 years.

London and Manchester are Englands most violent places. However only in LA and Washingotn did I actually hear guns go off on a nightly basis.

When a Murder happens in England, it's a national scandal. When it happens in the US, it's one of seven that happened the night before in that state alone.

No, I've answered your questions. Up until now I've been polite, but your tone of arrgoant superiority when it is completely unwarrented, being as it is, oblivious to the reams of facts that have went before it, is utterly insulting.

I have specifically answered your questions and disproved your points.

Not only are they contradictory, they are self compounding.

If you're right that legally carried firearms are the solution to preventing violent crime, howcome the statistics show that firearms and violent offense rates are higher. Surely the right to self defence would make people safer...surely the rates would be LOWER if your nation of legal firearms providing real denfence actually meant anything.

It's clear as day.

Gun crime has went up because there are now more things which can be catagorised as crime, and gun owners seem to be completely impervious to reason...such as It's now an illeagal weapon sir, hand it over or you're nicked. It hasn't went up out of line with the rest of the rise in crime rates.

There's your answer.

Now. I think the majority of brits on here has shown they DON'T want legalised firearms.

Neon