A new study about guns and gun deaths: Backs up what many have been saying all along

reply to post by stirling

TBH I am sick of hearing from our UK cousins how they figure we should live.

Imagine how the whole world views Americans, many of whom seem to believe they have a Divine Right to moralise on anything and everything?

Passing reasoned opinions on various subjects is the very essence of ATS, why wouldn't people be commenting on site like this?

Do you think everyone should simply post the 'I love USA' propaganda and any dissenting opinions should not be tolerated?

They got their asses handed to them in 1776,...

FFS, That was 238 years ago, do you realise just how truly pathetic that comes across to everyone outside the USA?

....and their puny attempt to rule the entire world is defunct.

Exactly where is the relevance of any of this regarding the topic under discussion....its really reminiscent of primary school playground reasoning?

And it was hardly 'puny' was it?

Violent crime is rife in the UK and assaults are numerous as anywhere.....

Can't disagree with that....but then again you really have to look at what constitutes 'violent crime' in the relative nations to get a true comparison and understanding.

Their cops carry submachine guns at the airports and they have flying squads of armed police.

Yes. So what?
What point are you trying to make?

The whole freakin country is covered with TV cameras and they are one of the most spied upon nations.

Yes, there are lots of camera's.
Personally I have conflicting opinions on that - but it is worth mentioning that the vast majority are privately owned and nearly all of the footage goes unviewed, its only when a crime has been committed that any footage is actually watched.

And do you honestly believe the US government 'spies' upon its citizens any less than the UK's or most of the country's?

And again, where is the relevance to this topic?

Why cant they fix their own problems before ranting to us about their gun Theories which do not fit the situation here.

People in glass houses and all that.

The uk is a nation that is packed with people.

And so are parts of the USA.

We have near limitless spaces and the police are far from showing up in time to do aught but bag n tag the bodies....

But that's not the case in the cities though is it?
And I'm sure I'm right in saying this but most of the gun related deaths in the USA are in poor urban areas.

Truth be known its our OWN business!

Of course its your OWN business - the US will do as the US see's fit, and that's how it should be.
And other nations will do as they see fit.

But none of that will stop us discussing and debating things here on ATS and various other sites - if you can't see and accept that then perhaps its time you started asking yourself what you are doing here?

ETA
Thanks to Wrabbit for giving a more reasoned and balanced American perspective.

stirling
their puny attempt to rule the entire world is defunct.

I can't help but feel that some Americans are jealous about what Britain achieved throughout it's history.
For a nation the size of Great Britain, what we achieved is nothing less than remarkable.
Not forgetting also that "Britain's puny attempt" gave birth to what is now The United States.

reply to post by alldaylong


I tend to agree with both you and Freeborn. Thanks for posting..

reply to post by Antigod


Balderdash propaganda isn't a functional contribution without intellect behind it.I NEEDED more balls than the norm BECAUSE I mean't to be a soldier, you don't live in one of the most populated countries on the planet with millions to choose from without such accoutrements ,which is also why I did it.

Ever use the word Guv'nor? WHAT is the job of a lord ,or any royalty for that matter?
Tradition? Respect for ones passed? Yours is huge compared to ours. And of course we aren't the most humble people on the planet.
But most of what was done was accomplished with that same Testosterone AND GUNS. Some with your help after we came to an umderstanding about who owned America of course,no hard feelings you understand.
I have knelt in church,I have bowed in martial arts. But the president is not my ruler,I won't stand for such.They have lied because if we knew we would kill them or imprisoned them. Now that we know, the left and the vacuous have the floor and they have a bulwark of lies called laws they can hide behind and bend because money is king on this planet.


Our guns are all ,the ONLY thing they fear,which they are projecting onto YOU. If the US falls so will follow the world without us. We are not supposed to be doing that and be a world community? That well is poisoned too witness the DO NOTHING WITHOUT THE US,THE UN. I don't want to hunt brown people and they sure as hell better not hunt me or else...
I'll keep my "assault weapon" because I'm good with one and they may need me again. Thanks to intellectuals who only talk,a second civil war almost looks possible here,hell I have even heard some supposedly EDUCATED people expound upon who would win! No one is the correct answer but the unarmed and lousy led left probably ain't who would get the Vegas odds when the actual numbers are crunched.
I would love to hear about your opinion of wether or not the Chinese or the Russians would be more humane world leaders instead of us or even the bankers. If I lower my guard,there you are.

reply to post by cavtrooper7

Our guns are all ,the ONLY thing they fear,

With all due respect, just who 'fear's' your guns?

If the US falls so will follow the world without us.

Wow! Do you really believe that?
First of all, who alleges or even believes that that there is some sort of imminent collapse of the US?
And if it did the world would still turn and life would go on.
I'm sure that The Romans envisaged the demise of civilisation when their Empire collapsed, but guess what, it didn't.

I'll keep my "assault weapon" because I'm good with one and they may need me again.

Keep it, but please don't try and delude yourself that by doing so you are somehow safeguarding my freedom or anyone else's.

Gun ownership is part of the American psyche. Any attempt at revoking The Second Amendment would be disastrous for US society and would only result in mayhem.
But not everywhere is like the US....and the vast majority of us don't want to be like it.

That's not being anti-American; despite all the faults in our societies we all generally like things the way we do things in our respective countries.

Thanks to intellectuals who only talk,a second civil war almost looks possible here,hell I have even heard some supposedly EDUCATED people expound upon who would win!

I sincerely hope not - it would be devastating for the US and would have serious ramifications the world over.
I know there are issues in the US, same as everywhere, but surely things aren't quite that bad, are they?

I would love to hear about your opinion of wether or not the Chinese or the Russians would be more humane world leaders instead of us or even the bankers.

Personally I am of the opinion that despite making some colossal mistakes the world is a better place for the role the US has taken.

Would the Chinese or Russians be more humane leaders?
There's nothing to suggest they would.....but then again there's nothing to suggest they wouldn't.
But I suspect they would be more transparent in pursuing their own interests than perhaps the US are.

Wrabbit2000
reply to post by Antigod

 

You can't compare any of the nations in absolute terms the way you're attempting to. Per Capita homicide rates are symptoms as much as problems in their own right and a myriad of causes to that for one place vs. another. Are you any safer in the ghettos of London than you are in the South side of Chicago? I seriously doubt it and take it from people I know living there to give a local's perspective. How many urban ghetto areas for any race, exist to count? The US has 50 states and several times the population with MANY more urban areas to have many more ghetto or very low income/high crime areas. So in sheer High Crime area vs. High Crime area ...the US is starting with 2 strikes out for a comparison.

Now on the other hand, get outside the Murder capitals of this nation like Chicago, Detroit, St Louis and others ...and you can walk down the street day or night with no serious problems in far more places than you cannot do so. In my entire time trucking across the lower 48 states, I only feared for my safety in overnight street parking a couple times... NYC, Birmingham, Alabama and Hialeah, Florida top the list ...with very few other examples.

The image of the United States as some wild, free for all crime fest is B.S. and ignorant...fueled by a wild media that feeds off the motto "If it bleeds, it leads" and they live it, daily. Keep that in mind while looking at coverage of events and places you can't personally experience to know by direct observation. We DO have high crime, oh very much so...but it's by NO stretch of the imagination, what the Media or some here make it out to be as a factor of daily life.

edit on 26-1-2014 by Wrabbit2000 because: (no reason given)

Yes Wrab, but you can say that about most cultures and countries. Ghettos/ honest working class, middle class and the rich.
What is bothersome about that is making definitions where there should be none. But this is about guns, and stats, and somewhat vague at that. You could include here Monaco, who at some stage had/have no deaths by guns, and little crime yet everyone is supposed to have a weapon. is that a case for the gun lobby, I don't think so, however it's there in the stats.

Antigod

ArcAngel
I firmly believe that when google glass or some derivative of such, society will become much safer. Look what the dash cams for the police did? Sure there are some events of the police behaving improperly, but they are way down. Why? Because they are being watched. If a thug approaches you and you are wearing google glass, it will all be recorded. Like my dropcam, the video will be stored on line. So even if the thug destroys them (glasses or people), the video is still available for criminal prosecution.

At the beginning of this technological revolution, there will be horrendous things captured and posted online that governments will be forced to address. Everyone will be held accountable for their actions. Just like the wild west when everyone was armed.

An armed, or surveilled society is a polite society. Welcome to "1984" or Orwellian times. Your safety will come at a cost of your freedom!

I rather be watched and watching than have to watch out for guns.

Thats because you can't make adult choices for yourself. I can't believe you posted such nonsense, you do realize how pathetic govt, kiss ass you sound?!! I, in no way feel sorry for you

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

The UK is 1.2 and the US is 4.7.

Also, whats the % of those numbers that are criminal on criminal?

Im trying to find the real numbers for criminal on criminal, and so far here's what Ive found for the US side. The data below lists the percentage of victims with prior criminal records. Of course, not everyone with a criminal record is always engaging in criminal activities, but this could be a good statistic to take into consideration. All I can find are pieces from a few cities, but no nationwide data.

Wilmington, Delaware

www.delawareonline.com... =1

During the last 20 months, Wilmington has had 158 shooting incidents. Of the 183 people struck by bullets, 42 were killed.

More than 90 percent of the shooting victims since January 2011 have criminal records, city police records show. Both gunmen and their prey have averaged about two dozen arrests and 50 charges. Nearly half qualify as “career or habitual criminals,” police said.

Milwaukee, WI

city.milwaukee.gov...

19. Of the 2011 homicide victims, 76% (65) had a prior arrest and/or citation and of known 2011 homicide suspects 90% (74) had prior arrests/citations. Similar trends are found for nonfatal shooting victims and suspects.

Newark, NJ

www.politifact.com...

Booker said "if you are shot in the city of Newark, you have over an 80 percent chance that you've been arrested before an average of 10 times."

The mayor should have said shot and killed, but the rest of his statistic is on point -- and backed by the research of a Rutgers-Newark criminal justice professor.

Baltimore, MD

articles.baltimoresun.com... mes

Murders: 217

(Known) suspects with criminal records: 79.1 percent

Victims with criminal records: 82.3 percent

Im not too big of a fan of WND, but they compiled a somewhat similar list as above.

www.wnd.com...

In Philadelphia in 2011, of 324 murders, 81 percent (263) of the victims had at least one prior arrest; 62 percent (164) had been arrested for a violent crime prior to their murder.

They also have another report from Baltimore, from a few years before the above reference,

Though data is no longer published in Baltimore, USA Today reported in 2007 that 91 percent of the then-205 murder victims in the city between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, 2007, had criminal records.

Some from Chicago

Of the victims of murder in Chicago from 2003 to 2011, an average of 77 percent had a prior arrest history, with a high of 79 percent of the 436 murdered in Chicago in 2010 having arrest histories.

From the information available, it seems a majority of victims have prior criminal records.

Freeborn

But not everywhere is like the US....and the vast majority of us don't want to be like it.

That's not being anti-American; despite all the faults in our societies we all generally like things the way we do things in our respective countries.

Are you sure it's not because these people were conditioned from the very start of their lives to believe in the things they were told, as opposed to looking at US culture from an unbiased perspective? Here's an example, do you think it's only a coincidence that 99% of children of religious parents turn out to believe in that same exact religion themselves? Do you really think they made that choice for themselves or that their parents brought them up to believe in it? The answer should be obvious. People think they can think for themselves but really it's all coming from the way they were conditioned to think from the beginning of their lives.

I have only lived in the USA so I've no basis to speak for other countries. If they wish to have or not have guns, I wish them well either way.

Comparing any country that has had guns banned for eons vs. one like the USA where they are omnipresent seems unreasonable, since at this point, you can only ban guns from the law-abiding people who most need to have them. It's too late.

Most the ghetto shooting deaths are of course local vs. local. There are a lot of issues there and this isn't the thread for that. However, someone mentioned in a previous post that the US has a lot of space and the police don't show up until after the fact so you have to defend yourself, which is always true; they are not there for defense, they are there to protect and restore the peace, which is not the same thing. And then there was a mention after that, that this "lots of space" theory didn't work for the cities, like the ghetto where most the gun crime is found.

Actually, it's even worse there, but for different reasons. Often calling for authorities never leads to anybody coming at all. Many emergency services won't even enter a neighborhood until there are a certain number of squad cars available, and there usually aren't, and this goes even for decent neighborhoods if there is a claim that a gun is involved and possible gang behavior (have some experience with this); and after some period of time either the problem resolved itself (need bodybags or nevermind) or it didn't. The idea that the police exist to "protect" anybody is completely deluded for the USA -- no idea what it's like elsewhere. Unless they live with you they're not gonna be in time to help anyway.

If you want to be competent to defend yourself and your family, you arrange that competence, that is the responsibility of an adult. If one doesn't want to arrange that competence, then hopefully they are not an adult responsible for other people, and if they are, then hopefully they are living in an area miraculously free from crime. There is probably an island... somewhere...

reply to post by 727Sky


60 Minutes last night showed just how bad mental health care has become the past 10 years or so .

Point being most all shooting's now a days other then gangs and drug related crime seem to be perpetrated by mentally unstable people and the system does not seem to care.

Are the anti gun people saying that if the mentally ill types don't have a gun then they will just not do what the voices tell them to ?

Kind of like saying, pencil's misspell so why educate anyone.

its amazing the sentiment in this thread from particular UK residents.

"getting robbed, raped, or violently attacked is acceptable so long as you dont die from it"

that seems to be the jist of what im reading

i guess thats why you folks live over there, and i live over here.

i for one will enjoy living my life knowing none of those things will ever happen to me....due to.....*drumroll*......GUNS!

how does that old emiliano zapata quote go again....?....anyone?

Solve the MENTAL HEALTH crisis in America and you solve the irrational shooting of children in school and shoppers at the mall. It is NOT the guns stupid, ITS THE MENTAL ILLNESS.

Agree with me, or do not agree with me, but it is the truth. America suffers from an inability to help those that suffer from mental illness and that is the root of mass shootings. Don't even get me started on the criminal element in our country but MENTAL ILLNESS is where the problem lies. "Normal" people do not shoot other people while they are shopping or in class at school.

I quite frankly do not care what people from other countries think about the laws I live by. I don't expect you to care what I think about the laws in France or Britain either. I wish you well and I mind my own business. By the way, I am carrying a concealed handgun on my hip right now. I hope I never need to use it but I certainly will if the need arises. The life I save just might be yours.......your welcome.

reply to post by buni11687


Star for you.

Statistics are such funny things. In this case you have to remember that in a lot of gun violence data self defense shootings and suicides are also included.

en.wikipedia.org...

In fact the #1 cause of gun related death in America is due to suicide.

www.forbes.com...

Then you have to factor in which murders were gang/drug related.

In my experience as a police officer in America a vast majority of gun deaths are gang/drug related.

While it obviously does happen, the chances of you being a random victim of gun violence is actually slim.

Antigod

lonegurkha
reply to post by Antigod

 

Since we should learn from the mistakes of history, the next time someone talks in favor of gun control, find out which group of citizens they wish to have exterminated.

Since you are clearly anti gun I really need to ask the question. Which group of people do you want exterminated?

Idiots who think allowing my moron neighbours access to guns is a good idea. Just kidding.

I come from one of the few families that owned handguns in the eighties, know many current gun owners. I have some perspective on this one.

I agree with the guy who says constant surviellance is the answer. I'd loved to have actual footage of when they shot Mark Duggan. Would have saved a lot of grief all round.

1). Surveillance does not stop anyone form being killed, it makes apprehending the criminal alter easier.
2). You would seriously prefer an Orwellian society where everyone is watched, all of the time?

reply to post by BugOut


No doubt. Our mental health system in America is a joke.
Deinstitutionalisation is a major factor as to why we may be seeing an increase in mass shootings. en.wikipedia.org...

I experience it on a regular basis. I Baker Act individuals that are a threat to society and they are back on the street in less then three days.

We have one mental health facility in our county with a population of 1 million+. They have like 50 beds. If they are full when I take someone in they either set them up with out patient care, or I take them to the county jail under the Baker Act (not criminal). The jail doesn't really have the capability to help these people so they sit there for up to three days and are then released. No help is received.

IMO there are probably thousands of potential mass shooters that have been Baker Acted by law enforcement more then once freely walking the streets. Ticking time bombs.

As far us other shootings that are not mass shooter type incidents I believe that the entitlement/thug culture is mostly to blame. Poor parenting is obviously an issue as well.

So if we tackled the mental health issue and we changed this ghetto culture I think we would see a huge decrease in gun violence.

reply to post by NavyDoc


Exactly.

Surveillance may be a deterrent for a shop lifter (then again if that was true, why am I constantly arresting shoplifters at Wal Mart?), but not for someone that wants to do great bodily harm against another person.

Being caught, or the threat of a prison sentence is the last thing on the mind of a mentally unstable person that wants to commit a mass murder.

Being caught is of no concern to a career criminal that is seeking retaliation for a drug deal gone bad.

I thought this was common sense.

blaming gun violence on mental instability is a slippery slope.

weak gun advocates seem to be settling on this as some sort of agreeable middle ground as whos to blame for all of the "shootings". why must we blame anybody other than the perpetrators of the crimes?

why must we open the door to "potential" perpetrators?

who decides who is stable and who is not? i can tell you who WONT decide, and that is YOU. the decision will inevitably come down to a person who does not want you to own a gun.

incremental-ism at its finest... good luck.

727Sky

monkeyluv
There are many factors that affect gun-related crimes, if not crime in general.

That is true however the article correlates restrictive gun laws with an increase in crime and murder rates.

A larger data set might reveal varied results. For example,

www.nytimes.com...

reply to post by smurfy

You could include here Monaco, who at some stage had/have no deaths by guns, and little crime yet everyone is supposed to have a weapon.

We could have compared a lot of nations in many different ways..and this is precisely why I don't use per capita numbers as anything but a starting place to find more. Never as an end point to offer into a discussion. They are simply metrics, taken in isolation and without consideration for a truck load of factors that actually define a violent nation from a less violent one.

People love dumping on the US though (It's a near sport to some lately), which is what I was replying to. Someone thought comparing the UK and US purely on annual per capita homicide rate was productive. I didn't choose that comparison...and in fact, my whole point has been how out of place and worthless that specific number IS to draw such a conclusion with.