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Just google "gun crime rates in the UK". All the stats I've seen, and what I've been lead to believe in the news, is that gun crime rates have dramatically incr

by marrs 11y ago

Just google "gun crime rates in the UK". All the stats I've seen, and what I've been lead to believe in the news, is that gun crime rates have dramatically increased since the handgun ban (and illegal gun ownership has also increased). That's not to imply cause and effect, but I don't see any evidence that the handgun ban did anything to curb gun crime. Licensing rules were already very stringent at the time - you just can't compare it to the US - and Dunblane was a feak incident. I'm not aware of one like it before or since in the UK.

adwf 11y ago
Nope, quite the opposite, gun deaths of all sorts are down substantially. Less than half what they used to be. And Dunblane wasn't a freak incident here's one from 1987: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre Here's some data. Very clear downward trends since 1997. http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_a... http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_gun_homicide http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_g... Here's the Australian chart just for good measure: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_al... Not to mention that of course "gun crime / illegal possession" went up. We'd just made it all illegal by definition...
- kamjam 11y ago
  The reference to the Australia stats reminds me of the Jim Jefferies sketch on Gun Control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rR9IaXH1M0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rR9IaXH1M0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9UFyNy-rw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9UFyNy-rw4
  - adwf 11y ago
    Yeah that's an excellent sketch. I think he really does touch on an important point, the only good reason to have guns is because they're fun. Self defense is nonsense and protection from government is even more nonsense nowadays. I'm actually fairly pro-gun (for the UK at least), I think we're quite restrictive on the type of guns allowed (eg. larger calibre rifles would be fun down a range). But at the same time I'm very pro gun-control; they should be licensed, inspected, restricted in type and how/where you're allowed to carry, etc. Overall I'm happy with how it's worked out, I'd rather not have guns than have the problems of mass gun ownership.
    - rsync 11y ago
      "Yeah that's an excellent sketch. I think he really does touch on an important point, the only good reason to have guns is because they're fun. Self defense is nonsense and protection from government is even more nonsense nowadays." You're completely overlooking (dismissing ?) animal husbandry and predator control for livestock, etc. Depending on your location, a rifle (or three) is absolutely necessary to protect animals. On our ranch, we have a herd of sheep that we need to protect from heavy fox and coyote and bobcat predation. We also have to trap raccoons that go after our flock of chickens, so we have a .22 to put them down (no reason to wake up the whole valley with a larger caliber just to kill todays raccoon). Remember that next time you're at the farm to table restaurant eating the local lamb or the free range chicken - "your farmer"[1] uses firearms and considers them essential tools. [1] Popular in the US is a bumper sticker "Know your Farmer, Know your Food" ... or ... "I know my farmer"
      - adwf 11y ago
        Yeah, sorry. Work guns are the exception. They're the exception in the UK also. However, the vast majority of firearms sold are not for farming purposes. Agricultural jobs make up ~1% of the US workforce, yet there's over 1 gun per person. It's a bit of a red herring to talk about it though; no-one is advocating complete gun bans, but sensible gun control.
        FireBeyond 11y ago
        Similar in Australia, farmers are allowed to own rifles.
        rsync 11y ago
        "Similar in Australia, farmers are allowed to own rifles." Not really. Farm workers in Australia are allowed to own "class C" firearms which are "Pump-action or self-loading shotguns having a magazine capacity of 5 or fewer rounds and semi automatic rimfire rifles" ... I wouldn't really characterize a rimfire weapon as a real rifle and I am not really sure how useful that is, other than the raccoon work that I mentioned above. I wouldn't attempt shooting foxes or coyotes with a .22. The Australian gun laws are amazingly restrictive for a country that large and wild and varied. I would feel quite hamstrung as a farmer (or even simply a resident) in a remote, rural area with only a shotgun and/or a .22 (the typical rimfire weapon) ...
  - LyndsySimon 11y ago
    Sounds good to me so far. "Fuck off. I like guns!"
- marrs 11y ago
  Uhm, that graph shows the gun crime rate going up directly after the handgun ban, not down. That doesn't say to me that banning handguns reduced gun crime. Here's another graph showing the same thing, and another one below showing a correlation in the reduction of gun crime to an increase of policing resources. http://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/murder-and-homicide-rates-before-and-after-gun-bans/ http://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/murder-and-homicide-rates-b... Not to mention that of course "gun crime / illegal possession" went up. We'd just made it all illegal by definition... This is irrelevant. All licence holders were required to hand their weapons in to the police directly after the ban and the guns were counted in.
  - adwf 11y ago
    You must be wearing some funny glasses, I see a very clear downward trend from left to right over all those charts. And that chart you just linked is the very same one that was completely debunked earlier in the thread and still shows a consistent long term downward trend... It's not irrelevant as a large number of firearms were unlicensed. There were a ton of old service guns lying in peoples attics completely unregistered. It takes time to enforce a law.
    - marrs 11y ago
      long term, yes, but in the few years after the gun ban, the graph goes steeply up, so I don't know how you can draw the conclusion that banning guns had the consequence of reducing gun crime. And the graph I linked to seems to use the same data yours does, so aparently your data is just as worthless as mine. It's not irrelevant as a large number of firearms were unlicensed. There were a ton of old service guns lying in peoples attics completely unregistered. It takes time to enforce a law. There are probably still service guns lying in people's attics; I don't suppose much crime is being done with them. As far as handguns that were in active use - i.e. the ones relevant to this conversation - they had to be (and were) handed over to police within the year iirc. It was done quickly and efficiently. The licensing laws are and were very strict. Anybody who had a handgun was required to have a licence for it, for which good character references and criminal record background checks were (and are) required, and they had to renew it every year. They also had to be an active member of a gun club (the only place you were allowed to use a handgun), and that membership was also reviewed every year. So it's difficult to imagine how banning handguns would have much of an effect on handgun crime in the first place, unless you want to argue that licenced gun owners were committing crime and getting away with it, which I don't. But still, I'm willing to be convinced with evidence. A graph that doesn't show gun crime increasing after a ban would be a good place to start.
pjc50 11y ago
what I've been lead to believe in the news I think I found the problem. Dunblane was a freak incident in the UK, but would be a regular occurence in the US. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/02/mass-shootings-in-america-numbers-more-frequent-more-deadly http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/02/mass-shooting... The mass shooting phenomenon seems to be a side effect of US culture's relationship with violence, and especially "righteous" violence.
- marrs 11y ago
  I was referring specifically to the situation in the UK because this is what the GP was talking about. I don't know enough about US culture to be able to comment on the issues faced there. I can only say that US citizens appear to have a comfort with firearms that makes me uneasy. But again, a lot of my understanding on this subject comes from the media, so you can take it with a pinch of salt if you like.

by marrs 11y ago

adwf 11y ago

Nope, quite the opposite, gun deaths of all sorts are down substantially. Less than half what they used to be. And Dunblane wasn't a freak incident here's one from 1987: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerford_massacre Here's some data. Very clear downward trends since 1997. http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_a... http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_gun_homicide http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_g... Here's the Australian chart just for good measure: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_al... Not to mention that of course "gun crime / illegal possession" went up. We'd just made it all illegal by definition...

kamjam 11y ago
The reference to the Australia stats reminds me of the Jim Jefferies sketch on Gun Control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rR9IaXH1M0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rR9IaXH1M0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9UFyNy-rw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9UFyNy-rw4
- adwf 11y ago
  Yeah that's an excellent sketch. I think he really does touch on an important point, the only good reason to have guns is because they're fun. Self defense is nonsense and protection from government is even more nonsense nowadays. I'm actually fairly pro-gun (for the UK at least), I think we're quite restrictive on the type of guns allowed (eg. larger calibre rifles would be fun down a range). But at the same time I'm very pro gun-control; they should be licensed, inspected, restricted in type and how/where you're allowed to carry, etc. Overall I'm happy with how it's worked out, I'd rather not have guns than have the problems of mass gun ownership.
  - rsync 11y ago
    "Yeah that's an excellent sketch. I think he really does touch on an important point, the only good reason to have guns is because they're fun. Self defense is nonsense and protection from government is even more nonsense nowadays." You're completely overlooking (dismissing ?) animal husbandry and predator control for livestock, etc. Depending on your location, a rifle (or three) is absolutely necessary to protect animals. On our ranch, we have a herd of sheep that we need to protect from heavy fox and coyote and bobcat predation. We also have to trap raccoons that go after our flock of chickens, so we have a .22 to put them down (no reason to wake up the whole valley with a larger caliber just to kill todays raccoon). Remember that next time you're at the farm to table restaurant eating the local lamb or the free range chicken - "your farmer"[1] uses firearms and considers them essential tools. [1] Popular in the US is a bumper sticker "Know your Farmer, Know your Food" ... or ... "I know my farmer"
    - adwf 11y ago
      Yeah, sorry. Work guns are the exception. They're the exception in the UK also. However, the vast majority of firearms sold are not for farming purposes. Agricultural jobs make up ~1% of the US workforce, yet there's over 1 gun per person. It's a bit of a red herring to talk about it though; no-one is advocating complete gun bans, but sensible gun control.
      - FireBeyond 11y ago
        Similar in Australia, farmers are allowed to own rifles.
        rsync 11y ago
        "Similar in Australia, farmers are allowed to own rifles." Not really. Farm workers in Australia are allowed to own "class C" firearms which are "Pump-action or self-loading shotguns having a magazine capacity of 5 or fewer rounds and semi automatic rimfire rifles" ... I wouldn't really characterize a rimfire weapon as a real rifle and I am not really sure how useful that is, other than the raccoon work that I mentioned above. I wouldn't attempt shooting foxes or coyotes with a .22. The Australian gun laws are amazingly restrictive for a country that large and wild and varied. I would feel quite hamstrung as a farmer (or even simply a resident) in a remote, rural area with only a shotgun and/or a .22 (the typical rimfire weapon) ...
- LyndsySimon 11y ago
  Sounds good to me so far. "Fuck off. I like guns!"
marrs 11y ago
Uhm, that graph shows the gun crime rate going up directly after the handgun ban, not down. That doesn't say to me that banning handguns reduced gun crime. Here's another graph showing the same thing, and another one below showing a correlation in the reduction of gun crime to an increase of policing resources. http://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/murder-and-homicide-rates-before-and-after-gun-bans/ http://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/murder-and-homicide-rates-b... Not to mention that of course "gun crime / illegal possession" went up. We'd just made it all illegal by definition... This is irrelevant. All licence holders were required to hand their weapons in to the police directly after the ban and the guns were counted in.
- adwf 11y ago
  You must be wearing some funny glasses, I see a very clear downward trend from left to right over all those charts. And that chart you just linked is the very same one that was completely debunked earlier in the thread and still shows a consistent long term downward trend... It's not irrelevant as a large number of firearms were unlicensed. There were a ton of old service guns lying in peoples attics completely unregistered. It takes time to enforce a law.
  - marrs 11y ago
    long term, yes, but in the few years after the gun ban, the graph goes steeply up, so I don't know how you can draw the conclusion that banning guns had the consequence of reducing gun crime. And the graph I linked to seems to use the same data yours does, so aparently your data is just as worthless as mine. It's not irrelevant as a large number of firearms were unlicensed. There were a ton of old service guns lying in peoples attics completely unregistered. It takes time to enforce a law. There are probably still service guns lying in people's attics; I don't suppose much crime is being done with them. As far as handguns that were in active use - i.e. the ones relevant to this conversation - they had to be (and were) handed over to police within the year iirc. It was done quickly and efficiently. The licensing laws are and were very strict. Anybody who had a handgun was required to have a licence for it, for which good character references and criminal record background checks were (and are) required, and they had to renew it every year. They also had to be an active member of a gun club (the only place you were allowed to use a handgun), and that membership was also reviewed every year. So it's difficult to imagine how banning handguns would have much of an effect on handgun crime in the first place, unless you want to argue that licenced gun owners were committing crime and getting away with it, which I don't. But still, I'm willing to be convinced with evidence. A graph that doesn't show gun crime increasing after a ban would be a good place to start.

pjc50 11y ago

what I've been lead to believe in the news I think I found the problem. Dunblane was a freak incident in the UK, but would be a regular occurence in the US. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/02/mass-shootings-in-america-numbers-more-frequent-more-deadly http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/02/mass-shooting... The mass shooting phenomenon seems to be a side effect of US culture's relationship with violence, and especially "righteous" violence.

marrs 11y ago
I was referring specifically to the situation in the UK because this is what the GP was talking about. I don't know enough about US culture to be able to comment on the issues faced there. I can only say that US citizens appear to have a comfort with firearms that makes me uneasy. But again, a lot of my understanding on this subject comes from the media, so you can take it with a pinch of salt if you like.