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I've also heard that the UK collects such statistics in different ways than as compared to the US. For instance, my understanding is that in the UK a death by
by talmand 13y ago
I've also heard that the UK collects such statistics in different ways than as compared to the US.
For instance, my understanding is that in the UK a death by gunshot is not reported as a homicide until someone is convicted of said homicide. Even then, it is reported as a homicide for the year of the conviction, not of the death. Granted, I don't recall the source for this so I could be completely wrong. On the other hand, if someone is shot to death in the US and it doesn't appear to be self-inflicted, it's a homicide. If the person was shot in self-defense, it's justified homicide. Another granted though, this is a very simplistic explanation.
Anyway, my point being is that if two countries don't collect and categorize the data the same way then any type of comparison is pointless.
I've also seen the thought tossed out there that if you remove gang-related violence from the US statistics then the gun crime rate drops dramatically. Meaning that in most places in the US the gun crime rate is mostly on par with the safest places in the world. It's just the gang problems in major cities are elevating the averages.
- DanBC 13y ago> my point being is that if two countries don't collect and categorize the data the same way then any type of comparison is pointless. That's a very good point. I was being lazy and just going by a single line in a wikipedia article, so maybe I'm totally wrong. We seem to be doing better with gang gun violence. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-winning-battle-against-inner-city-gun-crime-8463957.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-winning-ba... Police are not routinely armed, so officer involved shootings are rare. Although we've had some really awful examples - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_firearms_in_the_United_Kingdom#Fatal_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_firearms_in_the_...
- talmand 13y agoWell, I wouldn't necessarily dispute the claim that the UK seems to have a better handle on gun crimes overall as compared to the US. It's just that the difficulties in doing so are quite different between the two.