Thursday, December 6, 2012

More on the US vs. UK Crime Comparison

I was googling for "violent crime in the U.K. and found these two documents.
and
from which I gleaned this bit:
"Overall, according to the BCS, numbers of violent incidents have fallen back to similar levels to 25 years ago. There

were approximately 2.2 million violent incidents in 1981, and 2.4 million based on the 2005/06 BCS. The latest
figures show a significant reduction of 43 per cent from the peak of 4.3 million violent crimes in 1995.
Many of the violent crimes reported to the BCS are relatively low level violence (such as pushing and shoving) and
around half of the violent crime does not involve any injury to the victim."

I like that "low level violence." In the UK, that gets counted. In the US, guns are drawn and guys like Professor Kleck count it as a DGU.

The most interesting thing in those documents is that crime in the UK is not skyrocketing like the gun-rights folks keep telling us.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.


5 comments:

  1. duh....what will be the next unbelievable claim from the nra? all swiss have guns=no crime!!!!!!!!but!!!!!guns are controled big time. no unsanctioned use unless you want your ass in jail! inspections for compliance too. nra doesn't want you to hear that part...........
    tom webber
    miami

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    Replies
    1. Have you looked at the Czech Republic's crime rate? It's also low, and Czechs may own and carry firearms without too much paperwork. The have a strong gun industry, and their gun culture revived after the fall of communism. It seemed that the people liked exercising their rights after so many decades.

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  2. Mikeb, the only comparison that I've made regarding the crime rates in the two countries is about the homicide rate. The different methods of gathering data in the U.K. and the U.S. makes comparison of other kinds of violent crime difficult.

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  3. Have a look at this:

    http://dispellingthemythukvsusguns.wordpress.com/

    Best comparison I could find so far. It really delves into the definitions and statistics. Jump to the conclusion if you don't like reading. Basically, the US is more "violent" in most objective ways than Britain, as you're more likely to be murdered and injured there as a result of "violence" than in the UK.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks a million. That's exactly what every reasonable person already knew but that site spells it out. I posted it just now, entitled "The definitive comparison ..."

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