Some London neighborhoods are set to look a little more like Northern Ireland as elite paramilitary police hit the streets of specific neighborhoods marked by high levels of drug-related gang violence.
About 20 officers from the Metropolitan Police's CO19 branch, the English equivalent of American SWAT Teams, will increasingly patrol "no go" zones where rival Turkish gangs have engaged in violent shootouts recently. The officers, some on motorbikes, will conduct weapon sweeps on individuals.
Drugs and violence and obviously guns are coming into London. It seems perfectly logical that the police need to meet the threat with increased firepower.
London has recently seen a significant jump in gun crimes with 1,736 gun crimes reported in between April and September—a 17 percent increase over last year. On average, there are 50 to 60 shooting deaths a year in England and Wales, according to the AP.
Do you think the increase in gun crime in spite of strict gun control laws proves those laws do not work? That's the pro-gun argument, isn't it? I say it's not necessarily so. If gun availability increased and we somehow could ensure that none of the other factors changed, then the argument might make sense, but I'm afraid that's not the case.
Often I'm accused of focusing only on the gun to the exclusion of all else, an accusation I deny. I'm well aware of the other factors involved in a violent society. Ironically, the pro-gun argument that says Chicago or Newark or London has gun violence in spite of their laws, which proves those laws don't work, pretends that gun availability is the only factor. In other words, when convenient the gun rights crowd does the same thing they accuse me of.
I ask you this, about the gun violence in London, about the suicide rate in Japan, about Chicago and Newark, if somehow we could immediately flood those places with handguns, do you think there'd be more violence or less? Do you think the violence would increase in lethality in such a case? This is how common sense and reason can give you the answer when conflicting statistics often cannot.
What's your opinion? What do you think about the opposition to London's decision? They feel it violates the tenets of English policing, which is traditionally done by unarmed officers on foot patrol. Another concern is "how the unit would handle such powerful weaponry on crowded city streets." That's a good question, isn't it?
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
If more guns equals less crime, then logically fewer guns equals more crime.
ReplyDeleteLondon is just following the trend of its American sisters Newark, Philadelphia, and Chicago.
And unlike those other cities, London is on an island. So you can't blame this one on gun flow. At least not your idea of gun flow where Joe Public gets his house broken into and his gun ends up getting stolen used against some gangbanger in Chicago.
No. This is a much more sinister gun flow. The kind that comes with international, organized crime. Ever since they've instituted gun "common sense" gun control in England, the black market for weapons has flourished. Crime has flourished as well.
Russian criminal organizations import weapons into England with near impunity. As a result, it's easier for a criminal in England to buy a machine gun than it is for a law-abiding citizen to buy a bolt-action rifle for hunting.
That is what gun controllers have done to England, what they're doing in California and New Jersey, and what they want to do to the rest of the US.
"What do you think about the opposition to London's decision? They feel it violates the tenets of English policing, which is traditionally done by unarmed officers on foot patrol. Another concern is "how the unit would handle such powerful weaponry on crowded city streets." That's a good question, isn't it?"
They are right to worry. British cops are probably worse shots than American cops. But that's the price to pay for civilian disarmament. When you appease those who advocate a police state, you can't be surprised when you end up with one.
Back when the English could own handguns, English police could afford to walk around unarmed. In the rare case they needed a gun, they would borrow one from an armed citizen. Naturally, now that everyone else is unarmed, the Bobbies are going to need their own guns.
There is little to add to what AztecRed said; he nailed it pretty good. I would like to answer this one question of yours though:
ReplyDelete"I ask you this, about the gun violence in London, about the suicide rate in Japan, about Chicago and Newark, if somehow we could immediately flood those places with handguns, do you think there'd be more violence or less?"
I believe that guns have less effect than you realize, good or bad. The suicide rate in Japan is unbelievable but it is cultural. More or less guns will have little affect on their suicide rate.
While I firmly believe that armed citizens do reduce street crime, I do not believe that if the gun bans were lifted in Chicago and Newark right now that there would be any difference in their gun crime statistics. The bulk of their killings continues to be street gang violence and even if the streets were flooded with legally armed citizens you would see a sharp decline in armed robbery and muggings but gang violence will continue. Gangs already have a source of guns and they use them.
When talking about inner city violence, the presence of guns in citizens hands is not the issue. That is why you have your conflicting data. Both sides of the argument can claim victory or failure. Why? Because guns are not the big factor. They are merely tools, inanimate objects.
And that is why cities like London and Chicago, with strict gun control, continue to have soaring crime rates in spite of their laws while places flooded with guns, like rural and small town America are not awash in blood though guns are more readily available.
Gun control is a failure because criminals do not obey laws. About half of the anti-freedom people out there will not or cannot admit this. The other half know this but are looking for people control--not crime control with their schemes.
More on this story:
ReplyDeleteGill Marshall-Andrews, chairwoman of the Gun Control Network campaign group, described the routine arming of officers as a "very retrograde step" and warned that it could lead to higher levels of gun crime.
"This is likely to raise the stakes and encourage more criminals, especially young criminals, to arm themselves," she said.
But gun crime in Britain is supposed to be low because gun control keeps criminals form getting guns, right? But now we see the head of Britain's main gun control group saying that more criminals will now arm themselves. So if more criminals in Britain WANT to arm themseves, they can get guns?
British Gun crime is relatively non-existent compared to US gun crime. In fact, the gun crime stats include such things as replica arms and airguns. Not to mention this can be anything from just simple possession, waving it in a public place, to using it for robberies.
ReplyDeleteWhere you see the rise in armed crime comes from the organised gangs which the clip points out that CO19 "increasingly patrol "no go" zones where rival Turkish gangs". CO19 usally deals with terrorists and court security for major crime trials.
But this is a force of 20 officers and CO19 is a relatively small force all in a city with an official population of 7,556,900 and the metropolitan area has an estimated total population of between 12 million and 14 million making it the largest in the EU.
London compares to NYC in size, yet NYC had 523 reported murders in 2008. That is 10 times the amount of murders as in all of England and Wales.
The gun culture in the UK is also vastly different from the US in that guns have been strictly regulated for almost 100 years.
I think England tends to get in a panic where gun crime is concerned, but they have much less of a tolerance for it than does the US.
So, Laci, what you are saying is that gun control doesn't work because criminal gangs will get guns anyway. And because of these gangs, British cops need to arm themselves but they did not need to do so when subjects were allowed to own guns and the crime rate was lower.
ReplyDeleteGot it. Thanks.
Citation on those Number's Laci?
ReplyDelete"So if more criminals in Britain WANT to arm themseves, they can get guns?"
ReplyDeleteOf course they can. Not only are the Russians importing fully automatic weapons into England, a cottage industry of improvised weapons as started up in the UK as well.
They've gone so far as to ban certain models of air guns because British police were coming across small factories where they did nothing but convert air guns and other simulated firearms into real firearms.
Laci, Thanks for putting the thing in perspective. The problem with comparing the US to the UK is one of scale. When they say they've got an increase in gang violence, it's a drop in the bucket of what goes on in American cities, as evidenced by the fact that they've assigned a whole 20 officers to the problem.
ReplyDelete"Drop In The Bucket" or "not on the same scale" or whatever comparison you make still does not change the fact that gun control has failed in Great Britain. Criminals still continue to get guns.
ReplyDeleteMaybe there is an "iron pipeline" through the chunnel? Maybe 90% of all of their guns are bought by straw purchasers in an Ohio Walmart that routinely smuggle them across the border into Wales. That's it.
The UK nonetheless provides another lesson for the US. As noted, the UK has had far more gun control for a far longer time than the US -- and far less gun crime.
ReplyDeleteTheir gunowner licensing, "need" requirements, and gun registration system exceeded what most US gun control advocates claim to want. Yet when high-profile shootings occurred there anyway (as they inevitibly will), the UK responded by bannng and confiscating all handguns and all semiauto and pump action hunting rifles and shotguns (the pump action shotgun may be the most common hunting gun in the US).
Thus the UK provides a lesson to those who would deny the concerns of US gunowners regarding a "slippery slope."
Laci, Thanks for putting the thing in perspective. The problem with comparing the US to the UK is one of scale.
ReplyDeleteSo you standardize the numbers for population, the same way you would when comparing between states.
Regardless you're little "gun free utopia" is not only exceedingly violent, it's also not even close to gun free. The criminals still have guns.
Jay - The UK is a prime example of what MikeB, Laci and there ilk want to do to gun ownership in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteHunters who think the anti-gunners won't come for their guns are blissfully ignorant of history. The anti-gunners never stop, and predictably, the criminals are always one step ahead of them, undeterred by increasingly strict gun controls.