Would you shoot a burglar

[maxxi]

Salsaboy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I think that's enough now. This has turned from a

> question as to whether you would shoot a burglar

> into a personal attack on Carter which is not on.

> Show some respect for peoples opinions.

My opinion is that anyone who believes the 'guns don't kill people' lie is an idiot and as Carter put that argument forward then he is an idiot.

Carter's opinion is that "MAXXI is a @#$%&" so don't talk to me about personal attacks on witless sociopaths who think they are Charles Bronson.

[El Pibe]

deaths per 1,000,000 by firearms anually

England/Wales

homicide = 0.7

suicide = 3.3

unintended = 0.1

Switzerland

homicide = 5.8

suicide = 56

unintended = 1.3

USA

homicide = 41

suicide = 57

unintended = 2.3

[Jeremy]

El Pibe : total homicide / suicide / death by misadventure stats would be more useful, regardless of the method.

[woodrot]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19499157

guns innit

[El Pibe]

Jeremy i linked to an incredibly comprehensive PDF on murder and firearm stats the last time we had this discussion.

The was a concrete causality between high gun ownership and high murder rates and I think I mentioned how poor blowing your brains out was as cries for help go.

Yes gun control countries had a much higher propoortion of killings with pointy things but put very bluntly (baddam tish) low gun ownership = lower murder rate.

I'll have a look later, is it in the drawing room somewhere?

[DJKillaQueen]

Hmm canada has just as many guns in circulation as the USA but a significantly smaller homicide rate......so can't be the guns can it?

I think this argument about gun ownership is a red herring. Many farmers own shotguns, as do many people in remote rural areas, and they do so without ever using it on another person. The majority of murders too are carried out without a firearm in sight in this country.

What matters here is the range of emotions a person goes through when finding an intruder in their home. I'd defy anyone to not be either angry or terrified or both if in the middle of the night they hear someone breaking into or burgling their home. If they are in a remote area, on their own, or have children with them then I can certainly understand an extreme of those emotions. When people are scared, they don't act methodically or rationally.

In the case of this couple, FOUR burly men entered their home in the middle of the night to burgle it. The husband woke to see a man in his bedroom. He had his wife next to him......I'd defy anyone in that situation to not grab the nearest available weapon, or item that could be used as a weapon to defend themselves. And it mystifies me as to why we have so much sympathy in law for the criminal in these cases.

I don't own a gun, nor would ever have any interest in doing so, but I would grab the nearest effective weapon if ever someone broke into my home and made me feel that frightened.

[El Pibe]

here it is

Re: The Gun Lobby in the US

Posted by El Pibe July 25, 12:03PM

Here's pretty much every stat you could ever want

http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/Homicide/Globa_study_on_homicide_2011_web.pdf

(about 8mb pdf, if you're on a slow connetion be warned)

It is of course true and there are a host of factors.

Innefective government/governance, corruption, a preponderance of criminal activity and civil war are of course the biggies in high homicide rates.

Outside of that high firearm deaths are directly correlated to high gun ownership as is a high degree of firearm homicide.

The Canada thing seems to be something of a modern day myth.

This from the Canada MOunted Police website http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/res-rec/deaths_deces-eng.htm

Quote:

From 1970 to 1996, approximately 37,399 individuals died or were killed as a result of gun shot wounds. This accounts for an average of 1,385 deaths per year over 27 years.

Between 1970 and 1996, 14% of all firearm-related deaths involved homicides.*

Between 1987 and 1996, there were approximately 183 firearm homicides per year.

In the northwest territories firearm deaths is almost 20 (ie about 3 for homicide) per 100,000, that's a HUGE figure.

In more urban(e?) Ontario (yes, with high prosperity, low crime, high community buy-in but significantly low gun ownership) that falls to 2.9 (ie 0.5ish).

England's homicides per year is only 1.17 and of that figure a miniscule proportion is from firearms.

THe US murder rate hovers around the 4.5 - 5 mark (and the gun is the favoured method) and I dread to think what the firearm death rates amount to!!!!

*this brings up side debate about how easy it is to commit suicide. A cry for help is pretty inefectual once your brains are splattered across the ceiling I guess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

[DJKillaQueen]

Here is a good thesis on the subject of gun ownership and homicide.

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

It's opening paragraphs state.....

There is a compound

assertion that (a) guns are uniquely available in the United

States compared with other modern developed nations, which is

why (b) the United States has by far the highest murder rate.

Though these assertions have been endlessly repeated, statement

(b) is, in fact, false and statement (a) is substantially so.

Edited to add, that comparing the USA to the UK is pointless. It's not comparing like for like, whether in proportion, culture, history etc. At the end of the day a gun is an inanimate object. Levels of violence within a culture is the real issue here. For example, the more unequal a society is, the higher the level of violence tends to be statistically. If we compare levels of crime.....there are also a correlations between that and murder and inequality. Guns are truly a red herring in all that.

[El Pibe]

There you go, the old Canada myth again.

A gun is an inanimate object.

Genius, so is a banana but not one associated with high murder rates.

Yes inequality is an important factor but guns let any old Tom dick or Harry point an inanimate object at someone and make them dead.

[Huguenot]

That paragraph doesn't tell you anything. It's a straw man. Several straw men - that much is obvious.

We already know that guns are not available uniquely in the USA, for example Carter on this thread has one. Nobody has claimed any such thing.

Likewise nobody has asserted that guns are solely to blame for high murder rates.

What you're trying to do is use thar ridiculous statement as an assertion of the defensibility of firearms ownership, when you can do no such thing.

[DJKillaQueen]

Ok El Pipe here are some stats for europe and gun ownership.

Nation/ Murder Rate/ Rate of Gun Ownership

Russia 20.54 [2002] 4,000

Luxembourg 9.01 [2002] c. 0

Hungary 2.22 [2003] 2,000

Finland 1.98 [2004] 39,000

Sweden 1.87 [2001] 24,000

Poland 1.79 [2003] 1,500

France 1.65 [2003] 30,000

Denmark 1.21 [2003] 19,000

Greece 1.12 [2003] 11,000

Switzerland 0.99 [2003] 16,000

Germany 0.93 [2003] 30,000

Norway 0.81 [2001] 36,000

Austria 0.80 [2002] 17,000

What do you see there? No correlation between gun ownership and high homicide rates, in fact the opposite. Read the attached thesis before you comment El Pipe. It's well researched and produced by Harvard.

And H, just where have I supported gun ownership? I am merely arguing with the idea that the more guns a society has, the higher the murder rate, when every piece of available data completely blows that myth out of the water. And that if it's not gun ownership that leads to higher homicide rates, it has to be something else. I think exploring what that something else is, is a valid part of the debate.

[DJKillaQueen]

Another way to look at this is to look at the rise of knife crime un the UK. There is no doubt this has increased significantly over the last decades. Is it the availabiliy of knives that have caused this? No-one would ever make such a ridiculous suggestion, as knives have always been readily available, and teenagers have always had pen-knives.

What has changed is the culture of carrying a leathal weapon and being prepared to use it. Guns like knives are only a weapon of choice by those prepared to commit a violent crime, or conversely those feeling a need to defend themselves. Guns get a high profile because they are more lethal than knives, compared to their proportion of use, and it is that point which makes the avaialbility of guns undesirable. At the end of the day, if someone is intent on murdering someone, there are countless ways to do it and many of them far more violent than by gun shot.

And the more you look at the data, the more apparent it is that violent crime and murder is reflective of more prevalent things within a culture than gun ownership.

[Huguenot]

I've just read the link, it's not a 'good' thesis at all - in fact the authors clearly state when they are collecting data from 'anti gun' authors which by implication positions them as 'pro gun' authors.

The data they're use is highly selective - they don't compare gun homicide rates at all. Instead they focus on a very wooly 'violent crime' comparison to prove that 'violent' crime is not the consequence of gun ownership. No, but gun deaths are - you can't kill someone with a gun if you don't have one.

The UK 'research' once again is wooly opinion - in particular quoting authors who rage against the 'millions' (I kid you not) of illegal firearms in the hands of criminals in the UK. Frankly we don't even have enough criminals for that to be the case, let alone armed ones. The authors quote this as 'proof' that the UK has millions of guns and a low gun crime rate.

As for comparing the US with Russia in the 90s as 'proof' that Russia had a bigger murder rate, the mind boggles. Russia was a country that had just gone through an extended period of revolution and social unrest, and the rest of the Central European states are still living in the middle ages. The US is not.

That piece is simply bollocks - but full credit to Harvard

[DJKillaQueen]

We'll have to agree to disagree on the credibility of the debate offered by the thesis H. I don't find the stats woolly at all. The trust of the thesis is that culture, levels of law enforcement, social disorder etc have more impact on homicide rates (hence the comparison to Russia) than gun ownership alone. I think it makes a good argument on that level.

America is a violent culture. This is what defines it's high level of murder and violent crime. It's a subject that has been explored by many intelligent writers, journalists etc and the conclusion is always the same....that there is something particular to American culture that has this consequence. To blame it all on higher levels of gun ownership is just too simplistic.

Edited to add.....it's a debate that has raged for a long time, and good arguments can be made from all viewpoints. I just don't buy the idea that if we removed all guns from the planet tomorrow, that the league table positions of countries by level of violence/ homicide would be very much different. But of course I can't know that for sure. No-one can.

[El Pibe]

I have been reading it, and as H says it is absolutely ridden with logical fallacies.

Firstly you say you shouldn't compare the UK and the USA but that's a much more valid comparison than the study's chosen basis which is to compare it with the Eastern Bloc countries with their high levels of corruption and quasi statified criminal elements. I'd be also interested to see if statistics from Chechnya and Ossetia make it in there.

I think I decided to give up on the report after the thoroughly disingenuous

?data on fire‐ arms ownership by constabulary area in England,? like data from the United States, show ?a negative correlation,?10 that is, ?where firearms are most dense violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense violent crime rates are high‐ est.?

In fact firearms incidents are highest in the rural areas with the greatest concentration of guns, but yes, violent crime is way higher in urban areas with lower firearms ownership. That's really only one step short of an outright lie.

[DJKillaQueen]

Well the majority of violent crime, including murder is not carried out with a firearm in the UK. What do you make about my point regarding knife crime? Do we starting suggesting a wide availability of knives is responsible for the growing murder rate in the UK, a rate that incident increased by 52% in England and Wales since the introduction of gun control laws in 1968 and 15% since the 1997 handgun ban.

[Alan Medic]

If you could, it would be interesting to know what the relationship is between how wealthy a country is and how many people die as a result of 'materialistic' crimes. Guns or no guns. What pushes people over the edge to decide to resort to crime where sometimes it appears to be simply based 'what you have' is what I want.

I don't have what I would like by a long stretch,but I'm not about to try and obtain it by means other than legitimate ones.

[DJKillaQueen]

Here is an in depth analysis that explores that concept Alan....

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/Resources/Crime%26Inequality.pdf

It's a detailed one that requires some sticking with to understand in full, but on page 30 it demonstrates clearly, huge differences in range from continent to continent. It considers impacts like poverty, GDP, education etc and for me demonstrates the complexities in understanding the levels of violence from continent to continent and nation to nation. It's also extremely clear that all those things, including law inforcement do have a bearing on the figures too.

[El Pibe]

"Well the majority of violent crime, including murder is not carried out with a firearm in the UK."

Well that's rather the point, but your report encourages the reader to infer an inverse proportionality between gun ownership and violent crime which is total nonsense.

[DJKillaQueen]

I don't think that's true. It is showing examples of inverse proportionality to illustrate that the idea that increased gun ownership precipitates increased crime is not proven. For example, if you look at the figures for gun 'ownership' state by state, there are great differences. California has one of the highest levels of gun ownership. It also has a high level of violent crime.

What's impossible to know is how much of that ownership is a reaction to the fear of crime in a high level area (most of the guns owned are never used in any incident of crime whatsoever). My argument is that to say high levels of murder exist because of high levels of gun ownership is no more proven than high ownership of guns being a reaction to a high level of local murder.

[DaveR]

There are 2 quite distinct questions here:

Does wider gun ownership lead to an increase in murders/violent crimes involving the use of guns?

Does wider gun ownership lead to an increase in murders/violent crimes overall?

The answer to the first question is almost certainly yes. The answer to the second is trickier, and unlikely to be able to be answered by doing a snapshot comparison between different countries because of the impossibility of controlling for the all the other factors that affect overall levels of murder/violent crime. There has been a lot of research in the US about the effect of gun control laws, and the academics are just as polarised as the politicians, but even that research is probably of limited use for predicting what would happen in the UK. I'm not aware of any UK specific research that has attempted to track the impact of changing gun laws during the 80s and 90s.

One of the problems is that in the UK gun laws are in effect nationally. If you wanted to generate really compelling data you would have to choose two comparable cities, change the gun laws in one, and sit back and see what happens. Might be difficult politically.

On the specific topic of shooting burglars, FWIW the US anti-gun lobby is certainly claiming that there is an observable increase in justifiable homicides in states that have both weak gun control laws and "stand your ground" laws:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/05/stand-your-ground-gun-control-data

[El Pibe]

Actually I think that's 4 questiong

Q:Does wider gun ownership lead to an increase in murders involving the use of guns?

Q:Does wider gun ownership lead to an increase in violent crimes involving the use of guns?

Q:Does wider gun ownership lead to an increase in murders overall?

Q:Does wider gun ownership lead to an increase in violent crimes overall?

A:yes

A:yes

A:yes

A:no

job done

[El Pibe]

Of course it's not that simple.

If djkq had bothered to read the UN report I linked to the major factors are in descending order

war

failed state

rampant oraganised crime

high corruption

inneffective rule of law

disenfranchised populace

lack of gun control

ineffective gun control

wealth inequality

violent crime per se is a whole different story.

THat report and the daily mail have been barking on about how UK has the highest violent crime rate of europe and compared to USA & South Africa!!

THat may well be but the UK has the lowest murder rate of all of them (bar monaco).

And I can tell you where I'd rather live.

Places like Norway, Finland and Switzerland with much higher gun ownership and higher murder rates but lower violent crime rates mean they're generally safer but for goodness sake don't start bringin the kids into it!

So the real question is not

a)"does gun increased ownership cause [insert whatever you want here]?"

But

b)"does gun ownership increase the likelihood that [insert whatever you want here] results in someone dying?"

There cannot be a dispute that the answer is yes which is why so many interested US think tanks and lobbyists spend a fortune making sophisticated straw man arguments like the one DJKQ fell for to keep the focus on a).

*edited to actually add the countries*

[DJKillaQueen]

' I'm not aware of any UK specific research that has attempted to track the impact of changing gun laws during the 80s and 90s.'

Murder rates have increased by 52% in England and Wales since the introduction of gun control laws in 1968 and 15% since the 1997 handgun ban. So gun laws do not reduce murder rates or violent crime.

El Pipe, you still haven't replied to my very valid point about knife crime. You have shown nothing that conclusively proves that incerased gun ownership causes higher murder rates or violent crime, and for every think tank report that suggests it does, there are others that make the same points as I.

Culture and the propensity towards violent behaviour in an individual is far more important. If someone gave me a gun, it would not somehow take possession of me and turn me into a potential violent criminal anymore than picking up a knife every time I use my kitchen does. But if I were someone of violent criminal nature, a gun might be a preferable tool to a knife, but either will do.

[El Pibe]

Fine, don't bother reading the UN one then.

What it boils down to is you have a thing in your head saying "culture, guns have nothing to do with it"

And I have one saying "If you stab someone they might die, if youshoot them they'll probably die"

This apart from the moral question about other people buying your guns.

US gun control laws are such that 1 in 8 gun shops are on the US mexico border, something masssively at odds with the population (1 in 400 maybe?).

THe violence in Mexico, mostly with weapons bought in the US is responsible for some 12000 deaths in the last year, some 60000 since the violence really kicked off.

That's double the rate of US soldiers killed in Vietnam and on a par with the Syrian civil war.

Apart from being an argumenttive so and so I really can't see why you're so keen on gun deregulation, but hell, go for it and see what sort of country you live in, I'll be long gone.