Randy Cassingham's Blog

Posted by Andrew, UK on May 27, 2008:

There's not much to add on the violence issue; knives are used in stabbings people somebody wanted to stab somebody else, not because knives are somehow attracted to human kidneys.

But my customarily free-wheeling train of thought sidetracked, as is its wont, to a rant I recently posted on my blog. Y'see, the police in England (can't remember if it extended to the UK as a whole) recently voted to (deep breath) lobby the government to change the law to allow them to strike. In other words, they wanted the right to strike for better pay.

Now, I'm the first to agree that police are under-paid and under-appreciated, but they are one of those rare services that cannot and must not be allowed to strike. Particularly in the UK, where the governmental monopoly on force is almost complete. After all, we agree not to arm ourselves because we "know" that the police will protect us should everything go wrong. If we can no longer rely on that, then what?

If the police get the right to strike, I'm buying a gun.

Shouldn't be too hard, with no police to raid that white van on the corner.

Posted by Lucy, Texas on May 27, 2008:

It's a sad fact that in many places, a pizza can get to your house long before the police can get there.

Posted by Felix, California on May 27, 2008:

| Posted by: JEQP, Mexico | May 27, 2008 3:23 PM

I am not sure why you think I implied the argument was over, as if I just waved my hands and that was the end of it. I meant it as my personal take on the issue and why it puzzles me, and yes, those two points are the most common arguments I have heard for gun control, other than the meaningless "guns are evil and must be banned" which I have pretty much tuned out as nonsense which has no substance to dispute.

If you have rebuttals or other arguments, post them, and the discussion will continue. That's the point of posting here.

Posted by JEQP, Mexico on May 29, 2008:

Posted by: Felix, California | May 27, 2008 8:22 PM
And Randy...

It was this line: "If you can still say that guns have no use, then I have only pity for your narrow closed mind." In my culture that would be a dismissive attempt to end the argument. On that topic, I've never heard anyone say that "guns have no use", since they're obviously very useful for killing people.

"American doesn't have a problem with violence, humanity does. Take a look at what started this thread: it was a story from England."

I never said that violence only occured in America, but there is a far higher per capita rate of violence than any other comparable country (developed, democratic). I've stopped reading about school shootings in the US because it's become a bit of a "dog bites man" story -- and if it makes you feel any better I've also stopped reading happyslapping stories from the UK for the same reason. My point was that it doesn't seem to be the availability of guns that is the problem.

---

My response was to your comment, "I saw a Michael Moore video which put forward a very convincing argument that it wasn't the number of guns in America that was the problem, but the culture of America and the psychology of its people." Again, it's not the psychology of Americans, it's humanity that has a problem. -rc

Posted by Debra Weidman, Virginia - USA on May 31, 2008:

OK, first of all, PLEASE! Let's get a few things straight here. The US does NOT have "far higher per capita rate of violence than any other comparable country (developed, democratic)". What is being used as "fact and statistics" is actually newspaper articles from newspapers with an agenda. If you take actual statistics, you will find that the US has about the same crime rate (per capita) that it did 100 years ago, and yes, I am including school shootings!! The crime is much more visible today due to the immediacy of the press and the TYPE of press coverage we have today. Brits who come to the US are astounded by how safe they feel, even in New York City (shudder - don't like NY, myself, sorry!) compared to England!! So please, folks - before you start spouting the garbage the PRESS puts out as fact, check on the true statistics - OK? Because most of the time, the "press" is WAY wrong!

Posted by JEQP, Mexico on May 31, 2008:

Posted by: Debra Weidman, Virginia - USA | May 31, 2008 5:52 AM

Ignoring the problem won't make it go away. I do not get my information from "newspapers with an agenda", but from the United Nations. At this point I'll note that claiming that "the US has about the same crime rate (per capita) that it did 100 years ago" has absolutely nothing to do with comparing it to other countries. In point of fact, the statistics I've seen indicates that crime in the US is falling -- but so is the crime rate in most developed nations.

I'll admit the stats I give below are a bit old -- they come from the "Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 1998 - 2000", but I doubt that the relative positions will have changed much during that time.

Murders per capita

United States: 0.042802 per 1,000 people
Finland: 0.0283362 per 1,000 people
Australia: 0.0150324 per 1,000 people
United Kingdom: 0.0140633 per 1,000 people

Murders with firearms (per capita) (most recent) by country

United States: 0.0279271 per 1,000 people
Switzerland: 0.00534117 per 1,000 people
Australia: 0.00293678 per 1,000 people
United Kingdom: 0.00102579 per 1,000 people

In both cases the United States had the highest rate amongst developed nations -- it looked pretty good compared to South Africa or Colombia (for example) but it's not a reasonable comparison. I also included the country with the second highest rate, as well as England and Australia because those countries have been discussed. More than half of the murders in the US were by firearms, but the statistics from the other countries indicates that if the firearms weren't available significant number of murderers would find find another way to do the deed.

Posted by Paul, Colorado USA on June 3, 2008:

Actually if you look at just the murder rate of non-Hispanic whites in the USA, you'll find the rate is fairly close to that of European countries. From the CDC's mortality statistics, in 2005 (latest year available) the homicide rate of whites was 2.66/100,000 (or 0.0266 per 1,000). Not too far from Europe's rates. However, the homicide rate of blacks was almost ten times higher at 22.84/100,000! This is what drives up the average rate in the USA as compared to other countries.

Since both whites and blacks have equal access to firearms, it's obvious the problem isn't that guns are available, but rather points to society hugely failing the black community in some way. Whether this is due to economic, social or cultural factors, I can't say, but it's clear being black in America is much more dangerous than being white. And I think it's a terrible shame that nothing is being done to address this real problem other than trying to impose useless gun control laws.