You might think the NYT to be an unlikely venue for this sort of op-ed:
(T)he Virginia Tech shootings have already led to calls for all sorts of changes: gun control, more mental health coverage, stricter behavior rules on campuses. Yes, in a perfect world, there would be no guns, no mental illness and no Cho Seung-Huis. But the world is very imperfect. Consider that Britain
Op-ed? Small beer.
I’ll be impressed when I see the word “Evil” in an editorial. I ain’t holding my breath..
b2
Good read. Much of it makes sense.
But it’s against my religion to believe in “evil genes”.
May she never meet another Rick.
Define ‘disaster.’ Since stricter gun-control laws were introduced in the UK, firearms offences and related crimes (assaults involving firearms, homicides with firearms, etc) has risen in some categories, fallen in others, or remained static. In other words, stricter gun control laws have had little effect on gun crime, for better or for worse. This is probably because the UK never really had much of a ‘gun-culture’ to begin with.
Which means that whatever the result of stricter gun control laws in the UK, they simply aren’t relevant to the situation in the US. Apples and oranges, innit?
Maybe she was talking about this?
Or, could’ve been this:
Which are both pretty dated, I admit – right after the gun ban became law. But this isn’t – it’s from February of this year:
Those are pretty big increases year over year, even if they do come from a lower starting figure. I think she’s made at least a rebuttable point, Chris.
And we read an awful lot about UK citizens getting rousted by the constabulary for daring to defend themselves. That’s a culture of its own that wouldn’t sell very well over here, for whatever reason. Which is a good thing, since no one’s offering to sell it.
The figures for 2005/06 are lower – 50 homicides by firearm compared to 75 for 2004/05. I’m not sure what the figures were for gun-related homicide deaths in the USA, but I’ll hazard a guess it was both per capita and in total higher.
Overall homicides for 2005/06 show a 9% decrease over the previous year, and 2005/06 figures include the 52 people killed in the London Bombings of 7th July 2005.
The figures of 9,974 exclude the use of air guns, but include the use of replica weapons, which rose from under 1000 to over 3000, a trend which has continued to increase since 2000/01, whereas the use of genuine handguns rose to a peak in 2000/01, fell, and has risen slightly again.
Further confusing the issue is that some police reporting methods changed in 2002/03, which inflated the gun offences statistics in some categories and not others. Prior to then ‘injury’ meant a physical injury, whereas now merely being threatened (whilst unpleasant, to be sure) gets you a nod in the statistics.
The total figures show a steady decline from 24000 odd in 2002/03 to 21,521, the second consecutive year of a decline. Roughly half those offences involved an airgun.
But of course the BBC aren’t interested in a complicated picture like that.
I’m not saying she is wrong, just that the UK is probably not the right example to use.
I don’t know about the whole legitimacy of self-defence stuff, as I’m not in the UK, but I’ll wager it’s a bit more complex than what the Beeb is selling.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/hosb0207.pdf