There is a paradox about guns and violence in America - and sometimes it takes an outsider's perspective to see it. Here's an interesting article from the BBC about the relative safety of American towns and cities, even as there are more than 200 million guns in circulation:
Why is it then that so many Americans - and foreigners who come here - feel that the place is so, well, safe?
A British man I met in Colorado recently told me he used to live in Kent but he moved to the American state of New Jersey and will not go home because it is, as he put it, "a gentler environment for bringing the kids up."
This is New Jersey. Home of the Sopranos.
Brits arriving in New York, hoping to avoid being slaughtered on day one of their shopping mission to Manhattan are, by day two, beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about. By day three they have had had the scales lifted from their eyes.
I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place, the lack of the violent undercurrent so ubiquitous in British cities, even British market towns.
"It seems so nice here," they quaver. [...]
Wait till you get to London Texas, or Glasgow Montana, or Oxford Mississippi or Virgin Utah, for that matter, where every household is required by local ordinance to possess a gun.
Folks will have guns in all of these places and if you break into their homes they will probably kill you. They will occasionally kill each other in anger or by mistake, but you never feel as unsafe as you can feel in south London.
It is a paradox. Along with the guns there is a tranquillity and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream.
"At the moment, there is an effort being made to overturn a ban on some types of weapon in Washington DC.
Among those dead against this plan - those who claim it would turn the nation's capital into the Wild West - is a lanky black man (he looks like a basketball player) called Anwan Glover.
Anwan peeled off articles of clothing for our cameras and revealed that he had been shot nine times.
One bullet is still lodged in an elbow.
His younger brother was shot and killed a few months ago.
Anwan was speaking to us in a back alley in north-east Washington. If you heard a gun shot in this neighbourhood you would not feel surprised. "
"Wait till you get to London Texas, or Glasgow Montana, or Oxford Mississippi or Virgin Utah, for that matter, where every household is required by local ordinance to possess a gun.
Folks will have guns in all of these places and if you break into their homes they will probably kill you.
They will occasionally kill each other in anger or by mistake,"
"What surprises the British tourists is that, in areas of the US that look and feel like suburban Britain, there is simply less crime and much less violent crime.
Doors are left unlocked, public telephones unbroken.
One reason - perhaps the overriding reason - is that there is no public drunkenness in polite America, simply none. "
I'll wager he answers "none." The odds, and history, favor the idea that they are most likely either the work of criminals or of the police (and the latter, if so, raises the question of what Anwan himself was doing when he was shot.)
Why is this so? Because it isn't legal gun owners that are a threat. It never has been. It is criminals -- and the key thing to wrap your head around is that they will own and use guns regardless of the laws. They're... CRIMINALS!
So in fact, gun laws only disenfranchise law-abiding citizens, preventing them from defending themselves from home-invaders and worse.
They represent false hope for no shootings in a form that destroys liberty and does NOTHING to stop criminals from having guns. Supporting anti-gun legislation makes no sense.
...and one more thing: Gun laws are uniformly unconstitutional, impositions on rights that the government was never given any authority to impose. Now, if you want to change that, the constitution allows for amendment. Failing amendment, guns laws are the act of an out of control dictatorial government. Period. And before any of the usual morons pipe up, go look up what "milita" meant when the 2nd amendment of the constitution was written; then pay attention to the fact that regardless of the explicatory phrase, the operative phrase doesn't change its meaning one whit.
Give me a break. I'm not sure which is more absurd... the part about an absence of public drunkenness or the "polite America" part.
Legal gun owners may not be a problem in most cases. However, how many people are there like the Virginia Tech shooter who have never been diagnosed as mentally unstable (but who actually are) and who go and purchase guns? Yes, I know they knew he was unbalanced, but he still managed to purchase guns. Unless you can patch up all such cracks in the system, there remains a danger.
So yeah, America is safer. The armed populace keep the good, honest people from taking questionable or threatening actions. This is why you never see street brawls in this country. It's not worth the risk, unless you are committing some other crime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2syY12OPkwI
Anecdotal? Sure. A powerful message to the British? You bet. Why am I talking like Donald Rumsfeld? Who knows.
That being said, the murder rate in the U.S. is much higher than in other countries. Britain has a lot of assaults, but much fewer murders.
Canada has severe restrictions on guns and has a much lower gun and crime rate. There are more than just two ways of doing things.
The murder rate in the United States is higher than some countries, not all. Instead of comparing the US to little Britain or Japan, compare the US to Europe, or Russia. You may be very surprised. And Canada just doesn't count, they're so damned polite :)
Canada had almost no gun control until recently and their crime problems are rising, btw.
Canada has a lower crime rate than the USA because of its vastly smaller population, especially in urban centres. I saw parts of Bowling for Columbine and couldn't believe how Canada was represented as such a peaceful utopia.
Gun laws do nothing to stop the criminals.
Airport security is tight in the USA, but I've never been groped in public like I was at Heathrow. I think the security guard was checking to see if that was all me.
Having lived in 4 countries including the US - US is the scariest so far. Police get out of their cars with their guns drawn around here (in the US).
It is a culture of violence - just look at the way the gun advocates respond to this type of post - with their 'it is our god damn right!' to own a gun. Now if only they would get so angry about real issues.....
As an addendum, I just wanna mention I'm happy with Neatorama for presenting articles that come from both sides of the political aisle.
The reason crime has dropped in the US, is because the laws have been tough on crime.
Highest incarceration rate in the world == less crime.
As for only illegal guns shoot people. Well are these illegal guns stolen from legal owners? probably. So if the legal owners don't have guns then less guns to be stolen.
So you people actually think that the guns are preventing the crime? and not having the highest incarceration rate in the world, and the most people in jail?
Getting rid of the guns would hopefully prevent a lot of those high school shootings. Even if it prevented half of them, it would be a good thing.
When guns are involved things escalate quicker. Right now, I live in Canada. However, I have lived in the US (Texas). In Canada, when something escalates (like a drunken fight at a bar) someone gets put in the hospital with fists and feet, worst case a knife. Same thing in the US, worst case is a gun.
I'd rather not be shot, if I had the choice.
I don't think you can use Jeremy Clarkson as an authority on anything American. He admits that he hates everyone. Not to mention that Top Gear is a COMEDY.
But somehow it is a constitutional right to have an abortion, based on a "right to privacy."
Something seems backwards about that.
There tend to be huge cultural differences comparing America to anyone else.
Also, comparisons on a larger scale seem more illustrative than just looking at this month, or last years crime rates.
Compare Europe to the US over the whole 20th century and blips in local crime don't matter so much. Of course, periods of open warfare have to be ignored for fairness.
This has more to do with the overabundance of drunken yobs in england than anything else.
Why is the foreign press under the impression that the US is some kind of monolithic place, and are always so suprised to find different kinds of people and different conditions in different states and cities? I've obviously felt safer travelling around the countryside in England than I did in London. And I felt safer in the commercial center of London than in more dangerous neighborhoods.... and the same in New York....
Anyway, gun ownership is sort of independent of overall crime levels. It just happens that where they intersect there is the possability that people get shot. No different in any other country, except that it's easier to get a gun on the black market in the US than in the UK.
Ditch the suicides from the study, and you get a 2.4 rate of accidental deaths or homicides to every justifiable shooting (of course, by that time, your sample size is small enough to question the validity of the data). Some might argue that's still a good reason for gun control, in that more people die unjustifiably than justifiably, but the study did not take into account any situation where a gun was used non-lethally (whether as a deterrent or by wounding) to stop a household invader. The study also included among the murderers a few who were charged with murder but acquitted by juries on the grounds of self-defence.
You're seriously claiming that having the highest incarceration right in the world and not the absolute largest murder rate is somehow a sign of success?
That's astounding.
http://essentials.baltimoresun.com/micro_sun/homicides/?range=2007&district=all&zipcode=all&age=all&gender=all&race=all&cause=all&article=all&show_results=Show+Results
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