Myth: Britain has strict gun control and a low crime rate
Since gun banning has escalated in the UK, the rate of crime especially violent crime has risen.
Fact: Ironically, firearm use in crimes in the UK has doubled in the decade since handguns were banned.
Fact: Britain has the highest rate of violent crime in Europe, more so than the United States or even South Africa. They also have the second highest over all crime rate in the European Union. In 2008, Britain had a violent crime rate nearly five times higher than the United states (446 vs. 2034 per 100,000 population).
Fact: 67% of British residents surveyed believed that As a result of gun and knife crime [rising], the area I live in is not as safe as it was five years ago.
Fact: U.K. street robberies soared 28% in 2001. Violent crime was up 11%, murders up 4%, and rapes are up 14%.
Fact: In 1919, before they had any gun control, the U.K. had a homicide rate that was 8% of the U.S. rate. By 1986, and after enacting significant gun control, the rate was 9% practically unchanged.
Fact: ... [There is] nothing in the statistics for England and Wales to suggest that either the stricter controls on handguns prior to 1997 or the ban imposed since have controlled access to such firearms by criminals.
Fact: Comparing crime rates between America and Britain is fundamentally flawed. In America, a gun crime is recorded as a gun crime. In Britain, a crime is only recorded when there is a final disposition (a conviction). All unsolved gun crimes in Britain are not reported as gun crimes, grossly undercounting the amount of gun crime there. To make matters worse, British law enforcement has been exposed for falsifying criminal reports to create falsely lower crime figures, in part to preserve tourism.
Fact: An ongoing parliamentary inquiry in Britain into the growing number of black market weapons has concluded that there are more than three million illegally held firearms in circulation double the number believed to have been held 10 years ago and that criminals are more willing than ever to use them. One in three criminals under the age of 25 possesses or has access to a firearm.
Fact: Handgun homicides in England and Wales reached an all-time high in 2000, years after a virtual ban on private handgun ownership. More than 3,000 crimes involving handguns were recorded in 1999-2000, including the 42 homicides, 310 cases of attempted murder, 2,561 robberies and 204 burglaries.
Fact: Handguns were used in 3,685 British offenses in 2000 compared with 2,648 in 1997, an increase of 40%. It is interesting to note: British Offenses in 2000 Offense category + from pre-ban Armed robbery 170.1% Kidnapping/abduction 144.0% Assault 130.9% Attempted murder 117.6% Sexual assault 112.6% Of the 20 areas with the lowest number of legal firearms, 10 had an above average level of gun crime. Of the 20 areas with the highest levels of legal guns, only 2 had armed crime levels above the average. Fact: Between 1997 and 1999, there were 429 murders in London, the highest two-year figure for more than 10 years nearly two-thirds of those involved firearms in a country that has virtually banned private firearm ownership.
Fact: Over the last century, the British crime rate was largely unchanged. In the late nineteenth century, the per capita homicide rate in Britain was between 1.0 and 1.5 per 100,000.27 In the late twentieth century, after a near ban on gun ownership, the homicide rate is around 1.4. This implies that the homicide rate did not vary with either the level of gun control or gun availability.
Fact: The U.K. has strict gun control and a rising homicide rate of 1.4 per 100,000. Switzerland has the highest per capita firearm ownership rate on the planet (all males age 20 to 42 are required to keep rifles or pistols at home) and has a homicide rate of 1.2 per 100,000. To date, there has never been a schoolyard massacre in Switzerland.
Fact: The scale of gun crime in the capital [London] has forced senior officers to set up a specialist unit to deal with ... shootings.
1 Violence, Guns and Drugs: A Cross-Country Analysis, Jeffery A. Miron, Department of Economics, Boston University, University of Chicago Press Journal of Law & Economics
2 Scotland tops list of world's most violent countries, The Times
3 Minutes of Evidence, Colin Greenwood, Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs
4 In Switzerland, handguns are obtainable once a person obtains a simple police permit which is valid for six months. Federal law over weapons, weapon accessories and ammunition (weapon law, WG), Federal Assembly of the Swiss Confederation.
5 Carol Kalish, International Crime Rates, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report (Washington: Department of Justice).
6 Army rifles remain racked at home, Swiss Defense Ministry statement.
7 Chocolates for guns? Brazil targets gun violence, Rubem César Fernandes, executive secretary of Viva Rio, a nongovernmental agency that studies urban crime, Christian Science Monitor.
8 Homicide trends in the United States, U.S. data: Bureau of Justice Statistics. Brazil data: Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
9 Targeting Guns, Gary Kleck, Aldine Transaction, 1997, at 360.
10 Juristat: Crime Statistics in Canada, 2004 and FBI Uniform Crime Statistics online.
11 Criminal Victimization in Seventeen Industrialized Countries, Dutch Ministry of Justice.
12 A Comparison of Violent and Firearm Crime Rates in the Canadian Prairie Provinces and Four U.S. Border States, 1961-2003, Parliamentary Research Branch of the Library of Parliament.
13 National Report by Finland, United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. 14 Pekka-Eric Auvinen shooting in Tuusula, Finland.
15 Weapons sell for just £50 as suspects and victims grow ever younger, The Times.
16 The most violent country in Europe: Britain is also worse than South Africa and U.S., Daily Mail, citing a joint report of the European Commission and United Nations.
17 YouGov survey of 2,156 residents.
18 British Home Office, reported by BBC.
19 Targeting Guns, Gary Kleck, Aldine Transaction.
20 Minutes of Evidence, Colin Greenwood, Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs.
21 Fear in Britain, Gallant, Hills, Kopel, Independence Institute.
22 Crime Figures a Sham, Say Police, Daily Telegraph.
23 Reported in The Guardian.
24 42 killed by handguns last year, The Times, reporting on statistics supplied by the British Home Office.
25 Illegal Firearms in the UK, Centre for Defense Studies at King's College in London.
26 Ibid.
27 Crime and Society in England 1750-1900, Clive Emsley, at 36.
28 Where Kids and Guns Do Mix, Stephen P. Halbrook, Wall Street Journal, June 1999. 29 Ibid. 30 Associated News Media.
the most telling statistic is the percentage of violent crime in britain vs the u.s., the u.s. is not even close. (violent crime consists of the use of any weapon, including guns). guess my answer would be i'd rather be shot than clubbed to death.
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