The Gun Response

This is the final part of a little discussion I’ve been having regarding guns, with one ‘Virus-X’. This final part of the exchange formed my final comment to him on this matter, which firstly got put into a moderation queue (not necessarily unusual), and then disappeared. I therefore post it here, and have also archived the original post by Virus-X, as well as the entire exchange, via the Wayback Machine, for posterity and accuracy. It should be noted that I do not regard Virus-X as representing the attitudes of any and every American toward guns, and that I have no problem with gun ownership per se. I do have to wonder why the idea that virtually unregulated access to weapons is seen as somehow making society safer, when all the evidence points to the opposite.

[QUOTE]By the way, how many of those homicides were justifiable? You do realize there is a distinction between justifiable homicide, and unjustifiable homicide, right? And, previously, you were complaining about my bringing up the UK and other nations. Actually, YOU were the first one to do that. I never mentioned it anywhere in the article, and it wasn’t mentioned, until you tried using it as a justification for an argument to violate Human Rights in the United States, as they are in the UK.[/QUOTE]

This will be, for now, my final direct response to you on this issue (though I reserve the right to dissect your posts in more detail, via my own site, if I feel it a worthy use of my time).

If you’re going to claim that somehow, the vast majority of the much higher homicides in the USA are justifiable, whilst elsewhere, they’re not, then I’ll trust you to back up your claims. Meanwhile, I’ll point out (yet again), that the national comparison is one where *you* wanted to make this solely about the USA and UK, whereas I was always making a wider comparison, one that you didn’t want to acknowledge. Furthermore, anyone glancing at the comments will see that my first comment didn’t mention other nations at all – your reply on the other hand, kept mentioning how we’re apparently not free here in the UK, and after that, I brought up several other nations as a point of comparison, whilst you have fixated on a simple UK vs US comparison.

By the way, if you practice what you preach and actually *look* at the details, you’ll see that the data on homicides involves intentional homicide (in other words, murder). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

[QUOTE]And if you’ve been doing your homework, you’re not getting a passing grade. I haven’t ignored gun homicide, at all. The whole article was pointing to the fact that many unjustifiable homicides would be prevented, if more potential victims were armed. So, no, you’re wrong, again, in suggesting I’m “ignoring” it, at all. You, on the other hand, completely ignore, time and again, every answer presented in every evidentiary video, so I’m not going to present them, anymore, because you only look at what you want to look at, while accusing me of doing the same thing.[/QUOTE]

You *are* ignoring evidence, in favour of Youtube videos. Every piece of statistical data demonstrates that countries with more robust gun laws have lower homicide rates. As mentioned in my previous post (which you have must have skimmed through), the total murder rates of the UK, Japan and France are *lower* than the USA’s murder rate with guns alone. It’s not a co-incidence that all three nations have stronger gun regulations than the USA.

I asked you why the US has a DEcreasing problem with violent crime, while experiencing an INcrease in legal gun ownership. Again, you ignored the question, and continued to make comparisons to the UK, France and Canada, dodging the question.[/QUOTE]

I haven’t dodged anything. You more or less admitted that the measuring criteria between the UK and USA is different and haven’t been able to justify why we should apply different yardsticks.

I quote:

DEFINING VIOLENT CRIME ==============================

United Kingdom:

“Violent crime contains a wide range of offences, from minor assaults such as pushing and shoving that result in no physical harm through to serious incidents of wounding and murder. Around a half of violent incidents identified by both BCS and police statistics involve no injury to the victim.” (THOSB – CEW, page 17, paragraph 1.)

United States:

“In the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses which involve force or threat of force.”   (FBI – CUS – Violent Crime)

So in the UK there is a much broader definition of violent crime, covering a wider range of incidents.

When the numbers are looked into more thoroughly (I suggest you read this link – https://dispellingthemythukvsusguns.wordpress.com/), it appears you are in fact more likely to be a victim of rape in the US, more likely to be raped, much more likely to be murdered, and more likely to be a victim of aggravated assault. This rather rubbishes the implication that the UK is a more dangerous place than the USA. Even if we accept as fact that the UK’s rate of violence is rising and the USA’s is decreasing, it doesn’t change the fact that the US remains more dangerous in several aspects, and to just to make sure it sinks in, those aspects are murder, rape, and aggravated assault.

[QUOTE]“So the presence of more guns doesn’t necessarily reduce the rate of robbery, though it does increase the likelihood of a fatal incident during a robbery.” That’s the POINT. If someone’s trying to rob you, or commit some other violent crime against you, that’s the point of firearm ownership.[quote]

Then it’s a pretty lousy point. The risk of serious injury or even death is dramatically reduced in nations with more robust gun control measures – firearms were used in 40% of robberies in the USA, and fatalities are three times as likely during a robbery with a firearm than without. If the same level of robbery is taking place, with or without guns, yet with guns they are far more likely to turn deadly, I fail to see how this demonstrates guns somehow reduce the problem, or make the situation better.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2579469

[QUOTE]You also ignored your own point that the violent crime is concentrated in major cities (of which the US has far more than the entirety of the UK). This means more people, with the possibility of more criminality. It also shows that the per capita rates are skewed, thanks to those cities, which have political structures and gun laws more closely matched to your own, instead of what is legal and just. One of the first videos I posted addressed that, and showed what the crime rate would actually be, minus those cities. Those facts were ignored, too. Again, you’ve ignored the evidence the crime is dropping in the US, but not in the UK, and, again, your arguments have amounted to nothing more than European extreme Hoplophobia.[/QUOTE]

The fact that you wish to move the goalposts is in itself an act of dishonesty. Let’s compare several major cities and their crime rates, as well as their policies regarding deadly weapons…

New York: New York has been one of the best examples of how to reduce crime levels, and funnily enough has some pretty reasonable laws on guns. However, as of 2012, there were 5.6 homicides per 100,000 people. https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2012/nov/30/deadliest-cities-worldwide-murder-rates-interactive

Tokyo had just 0.4 in 2012, London just 1.6 and Seoul 2.6. Berlin had 1.8 and Mumbai 1.3.

Tokyo follows the same strict gun control laws as the rest of Japan, and 78% of Japan’s population live in urban areas. This is only slightly smaller than the US figure of 80%. Tokyo’s murder rate was fourteen times lower than New York’s in 2012.

Around 80% of South Korea’s population also live in urban areas and South Korea has strict gun laws. Seoul follows the same laws as the rest of the country.

So the idea that greater urban populations somehow skews figures has been thoroughly debunked. It gets scorned still further – the UK urban population is similar to the USA’s, standing at around 81%. The same is true for Germany (75%). The only country to buck this trend out of the ones compared is India.

With that in mind, the conclusions are pretty clear – greater urbanisation does not lead to greater homicide rates, at least in countries where robust gun control laws exist.

On the Freedom Argument

This is, frankly, an absurdity that flies in the face of common sense. It must have escaped your attention that we held a general election in this country earlier on this year, as we have on many occasions. Last year we held a referendum on leaving the EU. We can protest our government and criticise our political leaders (I’ve done that myself, on a few occasions). We are not so lacking in confidence and faith in our sense of freedom that we need a prop, a crutch, in the form of a lethal weapon, to uphold it.

 

 

 

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