mcguin

I usually don't chime in to these conversations especially since the majority of the posts on here are coming from guys who have already said what I would've said in answer to the guy from Ireland. The fact of the matter is, no other country has room to talk about what America should and shouldn't do. If it wasn't for America, you probably wouldn't be typing any posts on here to begin with, that goes for any of the other nations listening. And the fact of the matter is, you take away guns from law abiding citizens, your still left with the scum of this country obtaining guns illegally and continuously shooting down armed police officers. This country was founded by armed militia men! It is our right to bear arms, and thats the law! And the last argument to put people in place is look at what happened to great ole Britain! Disarm the peeps and the crime rates keep rocketing up! Now you have the same crooks with the illegal handguns, and the innocents are carrying what? not guns!

Moondogg

Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated):

Homicide Suicide Other (inc Accident)

USA (2001) 3.98 5.92 0.36
Italy (1997) 0.81 1.1 0.07
Switzerland (1998) 0.50 5.8 0.10
Canada (2002) 0.4 2.0 0.04
Finland (2003) 0.35 4.45 0.10
Australia (2001) 0.24 1.34 0.10
France (2001) 0.21 3.4 0.49
England/Wales (2002) 0.15 0.2 0.03
Scotland (2002) 0.06 0.2 0.02
Japan (2002) 0.02 0.04 0

Data taken from Cukier and Sidel (2006) The Global Gun Epidemic. Praeger Security International. Westport.
(appoligies that the table is not overly clear to read, it will not let me edit the set up)

Though this was an interesting table, and helped to explain my views better. i am not so much against law abiding people have guns for their protection, as i am their ease of access makes them much more likely to be used for crime. i just find it mind boggling to think that on their 18th birthday any guy or girl can walk into Wal Mart and purchase a deadly weapon, no questions asked.

Moondogg

WillBrink - sorry for not reading your posts fully, i had an exam on friday morning, and so i really should not have been posting on thursday, i was just coming online for short peroids and was trying to save time by skimming over the articles.

i would like to know where Richard Munday got his facts from, because any tables or stats that i can find nowhere near agree with his statement that

'we suffer three time the violent crime suffered in America'

i also feel that your are taking a lot of his statements to be fact, when they are really a matter of opinion.

the bit that a do take offensive to however, is being called a sheep. of course i would defend myself if someone entered my house, however the fact that guns are not easily accessable here means that he will most likely not have one (and by most likely i mean almost certainly) and so i can defend myself by different means. i support the war in iraq, i support tough prison sentences, i support the death penalty, i support taking a tough stance with Iran, just because i think it unwise to give everyone easy access to firearms sure as hell does not make me a sheep.

i dont really want to move off topic here, but as for the world wars, if america had got its finger out and entered in the war in 1939 with britain (a country with whom you have a strong alliance) and not waited until 1942 the war could have been won much faster and millions of lives could have been saved.

DOMS

I don't want to cause an embolism or anything, but you do realize that you can kill a person without a gun, right?

Moondogg

the table is meant to show that because americans have such easy access to guns, they are much more likely to use them irresponsibly. which is basically the reservation i have with them being so widely available, the way in which people abuse them.

WillBrink

Read the article again. He gives exactly what his source is.

Will Brink @ WWW.BRINKZONE.COM

WillBrink

Wrong again:

"There is no international evidence backing this up. The Swiss, New Zealanders and Finns all own guns as frequently as Americans, yet in 1995 Switzerland had a murder rate 40 percent lower than Germany's, and New Zealand had one lower than Australia's. Finland and Sweden have very different gun ownership rates, but very similar murder rates. Israel, with a higher gun ownership rate than the U.S., has a murder rate 40 percent below Canada's. When one studies all countries rather than just a select few as is usually done, there is absolutely no relationship between gun ownership and murder." - Dr John R Lott.

Will Brink @ WWW.BRINKZONE.COM

clemson357

No, I think the table is meant to show how your average layman is completely unable to grasp the concepts involved in looking at statistics.

Pardon me if I don't belabor explaining it to you. This topic is like a revolving door of idiots; every time you get done explaining the blatantly obvious to one person, another one jumps in with the same biased garbage and it starts all over.

________________________

WillBrink

Truth.

Will Brink @ WWW.BRINKZONE.COM

WillBrink

It's always stunning to me how little most from the UK know about their own crime rates, yet feel it's fine to offer opinions on ours. Most from the UK don't even know how their crime stats are collected, and the fact there are two primary sources used. A good article on that:

Exploding the myth of the falling crime rate | UK news | The Guardian

Will Brink @ WWW.BRINKZONE.COM

WillBrink

Sort of like this?

TOKYO (AP) — A man plowed into shoppers with a truck Sunday and then stabbed 17 people within minutes, killing at least seven of them in a grisly attack that shocked a country known for its low crime rate.

The lunchtime violence in the Akihabara district, a popular electronics and video game area, sent thousands of people fleeing.

The assault, which occurred on the seventh anniversary of a mass stabbing at a Japanese elementary school, was the latest in a series of knife attacks that have stoked fears of rising violent crime in Japan.

7 dead in Tokyo stabbing rampage - USATODAY.com

Time to ban trucks and knives!

Will Brink @ WWW.BRINKZONE.COM

DOMS

It must have been a gun-knife.

DOMS

It's also stunning how European countries manipulate statistics.

I knew that if a person murders someone and it gets pleaded down in court, it's not recorded as a murder. Now, according to that article, there is just blatant tampering.

WillBrink

How countries record their stats and or manipulate them is a whole other interesting conversation, but the above article touches on some of it. However, a very interesting read comes right from the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics called "Is the violent crime rate higher in the United States or England?" found here:

Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime and Justice in the U.S. and England and Wales: Victim surveys versus police records

Talks about the differences in how crime is reported between the US and the UK, etc. Some interesting tid bits of note:

"in 1995 American police recorded 78% of all robberies reported to them, while English police recorded 35% (figure 15). In other words, American police were about twice as likely as English police to record a robbery coming to their attention in 1995"

The bottom line here is, when they ask actual victims of crime, UK is higher than the US, but UK police tend to under report crime on their side, which makes UK appear lower in crime than the US.

Will Brink @ WWW.BRINKZONE.COM

mcguin

I love the source moon uses...! And your incorrect when you say that any 18 year old can just walk into a walmart and buy a gun, get the facts before you start rambling please..

WillBrink

As i said, people from other countries have myths of all manner in their heads about US gun issues, and tend to know appallingly little about their own crime rates or the data in general when it comes to guns. They seem to feel their "opinion" is all they need to debate the topic....

Will Brink @ WWW.BRINKZONE.COM