From: "Lorne Gunter", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Appeared in the Edmonton Journal Wednesday 17 February 2001
Which country is the source of these headlines, all of
which have run in newspapers there since the New Year?
"Panic over gun crime.'' "Police move to tackle huge rise
in gun crime.'' "Handgun crime soars.'' "New government
figures reveal a number of crime hotspots.''
Sorry, you lose points for guessing the United States. Too
predictable, not to mention wrong.
Violent crime in general and firearms crime in particular
is on the decline in the U.S., from between four to 11 per
cent over the past three years, depending on which figures one uses.
I would have given a point for South Africa, although it is
not the correct answer, either. The R.S.A is in the grips of
a horrendous wave of firearms crime.
No, the correct answer to my question is Great Britain, where
armed robberies and muggings are now more common than they
are in the United States.
The inner cities of England and Wales are as violent and
crime-ridden as the ghettos of New Orleans, Atlanta, Miami,
St. Louis, Washington and south central Los Angeles. (New
York City neighbourhoods do not make it on this list because
they are no longer remarkably violent places. The American
cities I list are all more violent than N.Y.C.)
Central Newcastle, in the north of England, may actually be
the most dangerous place in the industrialized world. The Home
Office in Britain reports that "incidents of violence against
the person,'' which includes common assault, right up to and
including murder, are the highest there:
236.5 per 1,000 residents.
That rate -- nearly 24 per cent of residents suffering a
violent crime in one year -- is greater than all but a handful
of other districts in developed nations, and is surpassed by
none. It is three times the rate of violent victimization for
Britain as a whole, and four times greater than the Canadian
and American national rates. (That's right, the violent crime
rate in all of Britain is higher than it is in all of the
United States, and just as high in Canada as it is south of
the line.)
Home burglaries and car thefts are more than 50 per cent more
frequent in Britain than in the U.S. And there are nearly
three-quarters as many total rapes in Britain as there are
in the entire U.S., even though Britain has only about
one-quarter the population.
It is true that American murder rates remain much higher than
elsewhere in the developed world (three to 10 times higher).
However, this has been true for more than 100 years, gun laws
or no gun laws, in good times and in bad. Yet, even that gap
is closing as the American murder rate edges downward, and
many others edge upward.
But this all speaks to total violent crime, whether committed
with a firearm or not. So what of firearms crime in particular
in Britain?
More than three years ago, the British government banned all
private handgun ownership, and spent hundreds of millions of
pounds buying back the civilian arsenal. So, of course, handgun
violence disappeared, or at least dropped dramatically, right?
After all, high-minded civilized thinkers all know that gun
owners are just a bunch of mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging
kooks when they say, ``If you make owning a gun a crime, only
criminals will have guns.''
Good liberals know that if you make owning a gun a crime, you
will make crime go away. So after the 1997 ban, handgun crime
vanished, or nearly so, right?
Just from March 1999 to March 2000, there was a one-third rise
in handgun crime in Britain -- one-third! -- even though there
technically ought not to be any handguns in Britain that are
not in the hands of the police and military.
It was the same in Australia after its buyback in 1997. The
following year, gun crimes went way up there and have remained
elevated. It was the same in Britain after stringent earlier
controls were introduced in 1988: Gun ownership fell dramatically,
while gun crime continued to increase unabated.
And that pattern could easily repeat itself in Canada in response
to our new gun law. Criminals take a reduction in the number of
civilians owning firearms as a signal that going about their
business will carry less risk of retaliation or arrest. So as
the number of private firearms declines, the number of violent
crimes increases. Criminals know there is less chance of getting
shot in their line of work if citizens can be counted on not to
be armed, so they step-up their criminal activity.
Nothing puzzling about that. It's standard common sense. Which
is probably why anti-gunners can't figure it out.
Lorne Gunter, Columnist,
Edmonton Journal
Tele: (780) 916-0719
Fax: (780) 481-4735
--
Armed robberies are not more common in the UK than in the US,
before anyone quotes this article. There are more armed robberies
in the US on a slow afternoon than in the UK in a year, at
least with firearms. Our statistics define an armed robbery
as being with a firearm. Most of the rest of it is accurate.
Steve.
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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