Gun crime 60pc higher than official figuresAh, life in Sarah Brady Paradise.
The true level of gun crime is far higher than the Government admits in official statistics, it can be revealed.
...Figures to be published by the Home Office this week will massively understate the scale of the problem.
This means one of two things: The UK government is either criminally negligent or they're lying, deliberately and for a focused end purpose.
Why would anyone let either an incompetent or a tyrant disarm him?
I've heard some, more considerate of mainstream trepidations than I am, suggest that if Obama wins we'll lose our gun rights.
Perhaps they will.
Perhaps others will demonstrate the real-world meaning of "Use it or lose it."
From what I'm seeing, the spirit of recognition, resistance and anger in a growing percentage of American gun owners is being massively understated.
[Via Featherless Biped]
I don't know if it's this way anymore, but the U.S. and England have different methods of reporting crime. In the U.K., someone is shot dead by someone it counts as one murder. In the U.S., if the shooter had an accomplice, which is usually the case, it counts as two. If he had two accomplices, it counts as three murders, etc. The U.K is also bad about not reporting crimes that go unsolved, which is, of course, the vast majority.
ReplyDeleteI really don't see anything notable in that article.
ReplyDeleteThe Home Office is classifying "gun violence" as "gun crime" while the newspaper wishes to inflate the number by including every instance of illegal gun transfer or possession.
I think that the government is right to only include instances where a gun is used in the commission of a crime because to do otherwise is to paint a much more alarmist picture.
I understand that we in the US love to point out every bit of evidence of how counterproductive Britain's gun ban has been, but I think they're more likely to simply be unproductive, and I think this article speaks to that.
It's merely an example of the press crying for more fascism to address the HUGE problem of gun violence which is mostly unchanged.
As long as there's never another mass shooting, the UK will consider their gun ban to have done its job, because all they really care about is the publicity. Better to have 20 child murders spread throughout the year than to have 20 murdered on one day, I suppose.
This article does give an incomplete picture--underreporting of British crime statistics has been noted for years, ex:
ReplyDeleteBritain: From Bad to Worse by Dave Kopel, Dr. Paul Gallant and Dr. Joanne Eisen, reported back in 2001:
Britain's justice officials have also kept crime totals down by being careful about what to count.
"American homicide rates are based on initial data, but British homicide rates are based on the final disposition." Suppose that three men kill a woman during an argument outside a bar. They are arrested for murder, but because of problems with identification (the main witness is dead), charges are eventually dropped. In American crime statistics, the event counts as a three-person homicide, but in British statistics it counts as nothing at all. "With such differences in reporting criteria, comparisons of U.S. homicide rates with British homicide rates is a sham," the report concludes.
That said, you make good points, Anon.
I think you're right about the anger of, at least, enlightened gun owners. The line to get into a gun show I recently attended was abuzz with talk of a new AWB, Obama's REAL record on gun rights, and a high amount of worry of what is going to happen. While I wasn't legal for the first AWB, I have never heard that level of talk and awareness at a show before.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but think there is a perfect storm coming, with the forces of the economy (and that sham of a bailout) and the socialistic tendencies of a potential Obama administration that will end up creating a situation where it will be time to lay all the chips on the table and go "all-in".
And while I pray it won't come to that, I'm still preparing for the eventuality as best I can.
III