Subject:
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Re: Sticking my gun where it doesn't belong...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 11 Aug 2003 11:06:21 GMT
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Viewed:
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357 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Laswell wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Scott Arthur wrote:
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Ah. But I don’t live in the USA; I live in Scotland (think Whisky, Haggis,
Great Scenery & Rain). Where I live only 1 or 2 home-owners are killed by
burglars each year. In 2000 there were a total of 64 (sixty-four) handgun
offences in Scotland.
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Okay... Let me toss out a few numbers to put this a bit more into
perspective:
Scotland Population (ca. 1991): 5,102,400
Population Density: 169/sq. mi.
US Population (ca. 2000): 281,421,906 (55x Scotland)
Population Density: 80/sq. mi. (0.47x Scotland)
New York City Population (ca. 2000): 9,314,235 (1.8x Scotland)
Population Density: 8,159/sq. mi. (48x Scotland)
Chicago Population (ca. 2000): 8,272,768 (1.6x Scotland)
Population Density: 1,634/sq. mi. (10x Scotland)
Los Angeles Population (ca. 2000): 9,519,338 (1.9x Scotland)
Population Density: 2,344/sq. mi. (14x Scotland)
As you can see, that’s three cities right there that each have almost twice
the population of the whole of Scotland, and range from 10x to 48x the
population density.
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Does that really surprise you? I expect every hamlet, village, town and city
on the planet has a greater population density than the whole of Scotland -
think about it. Heck, my office has a population density of 200,000 / sq.
mi... and there have been no reported murders!
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I couldn’t find any pages that show good stats on
violent crimes in all of those areas, but it’s a generally accepted fact that
the more densely populated an area is, the higher the per capita rate of
violent crime will be. Taking firearms out of the equation isn’t going to
stop that. It’s not the weapons that you should be looking at. It’s the
reasons for why the crimes were committed in the first place. When people
don’t have enough personal space, they’re going to get irritated,
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Your analysis above shows that the population density of the USA is less than
half of Scotland’s; take a look at the murder rates:
USA: 6.8/100,000
Scotland: less than 2/100,000
This is all irrelevant. My point was that in Scotland the risk of being killed
by a burglar is millions to one. I expect I’m more likely to get struck by
lightning.... I feel no need for either a lightning conductor or a gun to
protect myself.
Your argument appears to be that a high population density results in a high
murder rate. Think about Japan:
- The population density is ~1162 per square mile. (14.5 x the USA.)
- The murder rate is 1/100,000 (16.1% of the USA rate.)
Does Japan have “gun control”?
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and
eventually some of them are going to get violent (and with 80% of the US
population living in metropolitan areas, that’s a lot of cranky people).
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Why not show us that Scotland is different to support your argument?
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If
they don’t have guns, they’ll use knives. If they don’t have knives, they’ll
use blunt objects. If they don’t have blunt objects, noone will be able to
play baseball anymore and I can pretty much guarantee that won’t fix
anything.
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If handgun ownership were deregulated here, I expect both numbers would
rise.
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In the United States there are laws to prevent convicted felons from
obtaining firearms, but there’s enough of a demand for black market sources
that it doesn’t prevent it from happening.
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Do you think the black market is fuelled by the 500,000 guns stolen each year in
the USA? Do you think that the right to gun ownership should come with the
responsibility to protect the gun from theft or misuse? It does in the UK.
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The most hardened criminals would
likely not be affected by laws prohibiting ownership of handguns or even
firearms in general. Yes, crimes committed with a firearm would probably go
down quite a bit, but if potential burglers knew they had little to fear in
the way of gun-toting homeowners, I suspect B&E crimes would go up. I also
suspect that total murder rates wouldn’t change drastically, as various forms
of melee weapons would still be legal.
Anyways, last I heard, handguns were completely banned in the UK in 1998, so
the fact that you had a whopping 64 offenses involving “non-existent”
handguns is actually pretty bad. In fact, the BBC News
reported two years ago that
crimes involving handguns rose 40% in the two years following the ban.
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No, it sounds like research undertaken by the UK’s “gun lobby”. Do you think
some of those crimes were for illegal ownership of previously legal weapons?
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Sounds about as successful as our little stint with Prohibition.
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As I said, handgun crimes are lower now than they were 10 years ago.
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People
don’t usually like being told that they’re no longer allowed to do something
that they’ve been doing for all their lives.
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I live in a mature democracy that is able to make these choices.
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It’s a different matter
entirely if it’s something they’ve never considered doing before, but if
they’ve grown accustomed to it...
One other thing that you have to consider is that in the US, if the 2nd
Amendment is repealed, the entire Bill of Rights will no longer be seen as
inviolable,
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That comment is based on your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. ;)
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and there is a great concern that the 1st Amendment will be next,
and then the domino effect will set in.
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Tell that to:
- the parents of the >10 kids who are killed by guns in the USA each day.
- all those the USA is holding without trial or charge right now.
Scott A
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Sticking my gun where it doesn't belong...
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| (...) Okay... Let me toss out a few numbers to put this a bit more into perspective: Scotland Population (ca. 1991): 5,102,400 Population Density: 169/sq. mi. US Population (ca. 2000): 281,421,906 (55x Scotland) Population Density: 80/sq. mi. (0.47x (...) (21 years ago, 10-Aug-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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