So my daughter's friend tased a teacher today....

[Tinwhistler]

I've been in these gun/crime rate debates before. I'm always annoyed when someone compares the crime rate of say, Belgium or Finland with the US as a whole. The problem being that the US is not a small community. It's not a fair comparison. There are places in the US where the murder rate is WAY below belgium or finland (like, say Nebraska) and places where the rate is astronomical (I'm looking at you Baltimore, St. Louis, and New Orleans). The US is an extremely large and extremely diverse country. Hell, the population of Houston, Texas alone is about the same as the population of the entire country of Finland.

If you stop painting with a broad brush, you can see where there are some very good places in the US when it comes to crime rates, and there are some pretty terrible ones. Much like if you look at the European continent as a whole: You'll find many places that have decent crime rates, and there are some real shit hole places with deservedly bad reputations.

When I've been in these debates, what many Europeans seem to gloss over is that school and crime rates have been dropping steadily since the 70s. For around 40 years, our crime has been trending downward. And for much of Europe, the crime rate has been trending upward. I don't think the solution is to blame a country, culture, or guns in general. It doesn't fit the observable patterns, and just smacks of nationalistic, lazy thinking.

 

[Chazwozel]

Or how about the fact that there has been a grand total of THREE school shootings in modern Finland? Raumanmeri 1989, Jokela 2007 and Kauhajoki 2008.

Yeah, if it was -20 below outside, all I'd do is sit inside and masturbate too!

 

[Bubble181]

Tin: but the EU (being about TWICE the size of the US populationwise, and including such model countries as Latvia or Slovenia, you know, pillars of modern western thinking that haven't seen violent wars and revolutions in the past 20 years or anything), our school shooting numbers - and mind you, that was all I was talking about - are still much, much lower.

Zarvox: no, that's common sense. Someone hits you, you get the cops and arrest their ass. Trying to hit back usually isn't worth it, and will just land you in jail, too. See how that works?

Tin: I never said I didn't like the US or that it didn't have a lot of good places. Heck, I love the US for some things, and I really wouldn't mind living in quite a few parts of it.


GB: Yes, Belgium IS the entirety of Europe condensed down, and it IS the definitive example of good gun control. You finally got my point. Huzzah :-P

That said, I know a place I can borrow a kalashnikov for €200/day illegally, so really...:-P Gun control helps - even if criminals can get their hands on weapons (which they can, in Belgium as well, obviously...Heck, we're amongst the biggest handgun producers in the world with FN), they're much less likely to use them. Knowing the guy behind the counter won't draw a gun on you means there's a lot less need to shoot him, see? And in general, people tend to prefer being robbed over being killed and robbed :-P

 

[Tinwhistler]

Dude, there's been like 60 school shootings worldwide in the last 15 years. It's a bit of a stretch to think you can draw any meaningful statistical information out of them.

That said..gun control does help. People to get stabbed, that is.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/anger-over-failure-to-cut-knife-deaths-1756108.html

The father of murdered teenage actor Rob Knox said today that the Government was using "TCP on a large open wound" as it was revealed a programme to tackle knife crime failed to reduce deaths.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/22/knife-crime-deaths-rise

The number of teenage homicide victims of knife crime remained unchanged at 23, while the number of adults over the age of 20 killed actually went up during the campaign by seven to 103, results of the official monitoring programme show.

http://sob.apotheon.org/?p=1323

* In or about 2006, there were about 60 million (actually closer to 58M, but we'll use the rounded-up number to be kind to hopolophobes) people in the UK as a whole, including Scotland.

* In England and Wales alone — discounting Scotland — there were over 163 thousand knife crimes.

* By the end of 2006, there were more than 300 million people in the US as a whole.

* In the US as a whole, there were fewer than 400 thousand gun crimes.

* In the UK, based on these numbers, there was one knife crime commited for every 374 people (rounded down).

* In the US, based on these numbers, there was one gun crime committed for every 750 people — less than half a gun crime per 374 people (about 0.4987 gun crimes per 374 people, actually).

* That means that, based on these statistics, you are more than twice as likely to be a victim of knife crime in the UK as you are to be a victim of gun crime in the US.

 

[Bubble181]

Pbbfftt :-P

People'll kill people. Much more people die in countries rife with guns like, say, Somalia, Congo, or the US, than die in countries without guns-a-plenty, like Belgium, Luxemburg, or the Netherlands. Therefore, guns help people kill people easier. So, guns are bad. You defend guns, so you must be bad too. You naughty!


...Sorry, can you tell I'm tired and not, per se, interested in a meaningful debate? :-P

 

[Tinwhistler]

color me surprised

 

[Chazwozel]

Tin: but the EU (being about TWICE the size of the US populationwise, and including such model countries as Latvia or Slovenia, you know, pillars of modern western thinking that haven't seen violent wars and revolutions in the past 20 years or anything), our school shooting numbers - and mind you, that was all I was talking about - are still much, much lower.

The US has much larger density of schools than the EU does.

 

[GasBandit]

Pbbfftt :-P

People'll kill people. Much more people die in countries rife with guns like, say, Somalia, Congo, or the US, than die in countries without guns-a-plenty, like Belgium, Luxemburg, or the Netherlands. Therefore, guns help people kill people easier. So, guns are bad. You defend guns, so you must be bad too. You naughty!


...Sorry, can you tell I'm tired and not, per se, interested in a meaningful debate? :-P

That's entirely fallacious. People have been killing each other in droves long before the advent of the firearm. You get close to the truth though in that you almost recognize that guns are just tools. What determines killing is the person holding it. Be it shooting, stabbing or strangling, people kill people, and Europe doesn't have much room to speak to that vs the United States.

 

[Tinwhistler]

That's entirely fallacious. People have been killing each other in droves long before the advent of the firearm. You get close to the truth though in that you almost recognize that guns are just tools. What determines killing is the person holding it. Be it shooting, stabbing or strangling, people kill people, and Europe doesn't have much room to speak to that vs the United States.

Helsinki's murder rate is close to New York's, dontcha know. The homicide rate in northern Finland is greater than that in central and west Africa. Hmm...

 

[Soliloquy]

Well, to be fair, I'm not sure if I'd trust the reported crime rates in countries like Somalia.

 

[Kitty Sinatra]

. . . I'm . . . not . . . interested in a meaningful debate?

Even if you were, you wouldn't find it at Halforums.

 

[@Li3n]

Well, to be fair, I'm not sure if I'd trust the reported crime rates in countries like Somalia.

They're probably very accurate about the number of crimes that are reported... the problem is figuring out what % of the overall crimes those are... probably very little.