Rap music shooting in Britain....really?

[2aguy]

Perhaps if we all had guns we could get our murder rate up to American levels. Total bollox.
You carry on exercising your right to kill each other, we are quite comfortable over here in undefended Britain.

You anti gunners don't think.....your criminals get guns...lots of them. They do not commit murder. That is the difference. Your social system is breaking down.....your system..that used to turn British youth into good British citizens is breaking down.....that is why your gun crime went up and why you now have to arm your police...

It isn't access to guns that creates gun murder...it is the lack of inhibitors against murder in the criminal subculture that creates gun murder......

Americans own 357 million guns....less than 8,124 were used to commit murder....of those the majority of those murders were comitted by violent career criminals against other career criminals.....the murderers are 90% likely to have a prior arrest record...the victims.....70-80% have prior arrest records....

Does that describe the average American? No. Does that describe the average British citizen? No.

Our gun crime is confined to very tiny areas in our major cities...just like Britain.....

The only difference...your criminals do not feel the need to kill their victims the same way our criminals do......

Guns aren't the issue....

 

[2aguy]

Perhaps if we all had guns we could get our murder rate up to American levels. Total bollox.
You carry on exercising your right to kill each other, we are quite comfortable over here in undefended Britain.

If you had a gun would you commit murder with it?

 

[2aguy]

3% borders on statistical insignificance and might simply come down to methodology. It's not enough to base policy or laws on, especially ones that abrogate basic human rights.

Its murders per 100000 of population. Its not an opinion poll. The figures show that the US is the most unsafe country in the western world.

This is a wrong statement...here is some actual research....

The Mistake of Only Comparing US Murder Rates to "Developed" Countries

Prejudice about the "Developed World" vs "the Third World"

But these are the only countries the US shall be compared to, we are told, because the US shall only be compared to “developed” countries when analyzing its murder rate and gun ownership.
And yet, no reason for this is ever given. What is the criteria for deciding that the United States shall be compared to Luxembourg but not to Mexico, which has far more in common with the US than Luxembourg in terms of size, history, ethnic diversity, and geography?

Much of this stems from outdated preconceived and evidence-free notions about the "third world." As Hans Rosling has shown, there is this idea of "we" vs. "them." "We" are the special "developed" countries were people are happy healthy, and live long lives. "Them" is the third world where people live in war-torn squalor and lives there are nasty, brutish, and short. In this mode of thinking there is a bright shiny line between the "developed" world and everyone else, who might as well be considered as a different species.

[RELATED: "Gun Control Fails: What Happened in England, Ireland, and Canada"]

In truth, there is no dividing line between the alleged "developed" world and everyone else. There is, in fact, only gradual change that takes place as one looks at Belgium, then the US, then Chile, and Turkey, and China, and Mexico. Most countries, as Rosling illustrates here, are in the middle, and this is freely exhibited by a variety of metrics including the UN's human development index.

Once we understand these facts, and do not cling to bizarre xenophobic views about how everyone outside the "developed" world is too dysfunctional and/or subhuman (although few gun control advocates would ever admit to the thought) to bear comparison to the US, we immediately see that the mantra "worst in the developed world" offers an immensely skewed, unrealistic, and even bigoted view of the world and how countries compare to each other.

 

[2aguy]

3% borders on statistical insignificance and might simply come down to methodology. It's not enough to base policy or laws on, especially ones that abrogate basic human rights.

Its murders per 100000 of population. Its not an opinion poll. The figures show that the US is the most unsafe country in the western world.

Take a look at this research......a chart ....

But if you're familiar with the OECD, you'll immediately notice a problem with the list Fisher uses. Mexico is an OECD country. So why is Mexico not in this graph? Well, it's pretty apparent that Mexico was left off the list because to do so would interfere with the point Fisher is trying to make. After all, Mexico — in spite of much more restrictive gun laws — has a murder rate many times larger than the US.

But Fisher has what he thinks is a good excuse for his manipulation here. According to Fisher, the omission is because Mexico “has about triple the U.S. rate due in large part to the ongoing drug war.”

Oh, so every country that has drug war deaths is exempt? Well, then I guess we have to remove the US from the list.

But, of course, the US for some mysterious reason must remain on the list, so, by “developed” country, Fisherreally means “ a country that’s on the OECD list minus any country with a higher murder rate than the US.”

At this point, we're reminded that Fisher (and no one else I’ve ever seen) has made a case for what special magic it is that makes the OECD list the one list of countries to which the US shall be compared.

More Realistic Comparisons Involve a Broader View of the World

Why not use the UN’s human development index instead? That would seem to make at least as much sense if we’re devoted to looking at “developed countries.”

So, let’s do that. Here we see that the OECD’s list contains Turkey, Bulgaria, Mexico, and Chile. So, if we're honest with ourselves, that must mean that other countries with similar human development rankings are also suitable for comparisons to the US.

Well, Turkey and Mexico have HDI numbers at .75. So, let’s include other countries with HDI numbers either similar or higher. That means we should include The Bahamas, Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba, Panama, Uruguay, Venezuela, Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Estonia, and Latvia.

You can see where this is going. If we include countries that have HDI numbers similar to — or at least as high as — OECD members Turkey and Mexico, we find that the picture for the United States murder rate looks very different (correctly using murder rates and not gun-deaths rates):

Wow, that US sure has a pretty low murder rate compared to all those countries that are comparable to some OECD members. In fact, Russia, Costa Rica and Lithuania have all been invited to begin the process of joining the OECD (Russia is on hold for obvious political reasons). But all those countries have higher murder rates than the US. (I wonder what excuse Fisher will manufacture for leaving off those countries after they join the OECD.)