Guns,guns, and more Guns

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Yes, murder rate much higher here, though the statistic is a little strange for pittsburgh. The city of pittsburgh is only about 1/3rd to 1/4th of the county. Most of the murders are in the city, so the county rate....I'll fetch it (it's the assaults, and such that bring london in line with total crime - the US murder rate is not going to be equaled anywhere in England, though, even if the other violent crimes make the overall rate similar).

I guess you could say "well, if you don't mind getting shot, it's otherwise not much less safe here than many other cities!!" The pick pocketing and other petty crimes that occur in some places, especially tourist destinations, don't really happen here. I have no idea why not.
 
(I guess there's a chance that you could get shot pick pocketing someone with a concealed license).
 
Canada has something like .35 guns per person. The US has 1.2. The vast majority of shootings in the United States are drug related homicides are suicides. We tracked this down in a prior thread. I believe about 1/7th or so of gun deaths are not related to suicide or drug crime, meaning that unless you want to play unusual numbers games, getting shot here is generally avoidable if you stay away from the drug business and keep guns out of your own hands.

If I recall, the figure was around 6k deaths per year not related to suicide or drug trafficking or some other similar felonious activity.
The USA has double the rate of gun death compared to the number of guns than the Canadians, and a “getting shot here is generally avoidable” risk doesn’t inspire confidence compared to many countries “getting shot here is extraordinarily unlikely
 
2 chances in 100,000 in a given year or a little less if you're not offing yourself or in a gang. I tend to focus on the other 99,998. You can lack confidence at those odds because you watch too much tv, but I wouldn't ride in a car if those odds scare you.
 
Îv

Well a quick Google gives a murder rate of 18 per 100,000 for Pittsburgh, compared with 1.2 for London.
As I say, a quick Google. I could be wildly out.

9 for the county here since I said I'd look it up. Most young Male and most late at night, but a few unusual ones (brother and brother's girlfriend type thing).
 
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The OP is about violence conducted by the state, rather than by the general public. The state in all countries claims a monopoly on violence - they have the right to commit acts of violence, up to and including murder, but you don't. We, the sheep, have allowed this and agree to it, apparently. Should the state ever have the right to commit murder? There are a handful of cases in the UK where the police actively set out to commit murder rather than attempt an arrest - Steven Waldorph was the first that I remember, but I am sure there have been others before that, and a few afterwards. Luckily, being "shot whilst trying to escape" is not too common in most parts of the world.

https://theconversation.com/heres-w...hoot-under-a-new-policy-on-lethal-force-76666
Every country gets its own conversation about the right of the state to commit violence, but with the endless War on Terror most police forces have become more militarised, and less accountable.

This is actually a good time to have this conversation, as NATO tries every trick in the book to get a war going in the Ukraine - again, state sanctioned violence - should we agree to it? How do we stop it?
[Edited for bizarre autocorrect errors]
 
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Canada has something like .35 guns per person. The US has 1.2.
The US tops the list. 120 guns per 100 Americans, and 34.7 guns per 100 Canadians.

I think the difference with the Canadians, it's always cold and they have to take a glove off to shoot.
 
Îv

Well a quick Google gives a murder rate of 18 per 100,000 for Pittsburgh, compared with 1.2 for London.
As I say, a quick Google. I could be wildly out.


Hmm sounds quite a bit out just for London. It seems it's 11 per mil or 1.1 per 100k for England and Wales.

Office National Statistics:

'.. To put the raw numbers in context, incidence rates show the volume of offences as a proportion of the resident population. The incidence rate for homicide remains very low, with 11.7 (or 11.0 excluding the Essex lorry deaths) homicides recorded per million population during the year ending March 2020, a similar rate to the previous three years. ..'

and also makes a great cautionary point, which I'm sure applies to America also:

'.. Compared with other offences, homicides are relatively low-volume, and year-on-year variations need to be interpreted with some caution. This is partly because trends can be affected by single incidents involving multiple victims (such as the Grays lorry incident in 2019 and the Manchester Arena incident in 2017). ..'
 
Sad to say that while we do have some variation, I think the volume here makes the levels less affected by single events.

Couldn't say what causes the other crime levels to rise and fall (other violent crimes don't get that much press here - or really any, unless there's something unusual about them).
 
Pittsburgh is a moderate crime city, so for the county itself to be even with london, that's what I was guessing, that london was quite high crime. BUT, what I saw of violent crimes (not knowing much about England), the north east of England has a higher violent crime rate than london.

You have said several times that you don't know much about England yet regularly post statements you've found on google as if they were facts. Unfortunately unless you do a very full search you're misunderstanding.
I live in Northumberland, North of Newcastle so in the area you incorrectly state has a higher violent crime rate than London, I also have a friend who's been a serving armed policeman for 20 years and another now retired who was a senior training officer for Northumbria armed division so I hear first hand what they face on a day to day basis.

The year up to March 2019 saw a 4% increase in gun crime in the UK but that total was still less than 10,000 in a population of 60 million.

I suggest you look at the gov stats and other sources if you want the real picture as many other sources you will find combine overall crime which includes all the relatively minor stuff like pickpockets, shed break ins car thefts etc rather than serious violent crime and in the latter case you are far more likely to be stabbed with a kitchen knife than be threatened by a gun in the UK.

Firearm Crime Statistics: England & Wales - House of Commons Library (parliament.uk)

other snippets.

Gun crime remains rare in Britain.

In England and Wales in 2016-17, there were 31 fatal shootings - or one for every 1.9 million people. And there were 9,578 weapons offences that resulted in injury.
In the US, in contrast, there were 11,000 murders or manslaughters involving a firearm or one death for every 30,000 people.
There are particular hotspots in the police force areas that cover large urban centres.
London had the most firearms offences per head of population, followed by the West Midlands force area, covering Birmingham, West Yorkshire, covering Leeds, and South Yorkshire, serving Sheffield.
Last year: just over half of all firearms offences involved a gun actually being fired, in just under half of cases, a gun was used as a threat, in a small minority of cases, a gun was used as a blunt instrument

................................................................................................................
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that 9,787 crimes were committed with firearms in the year leading to March of 2019. The number of offences has risen by four per cent over the previous year and twenty-seven per cent in five years, the latest statistics available show.

Young people represented the majority of the victims, with 56 per cent aged between 15 and 34 years old. Most offences were committed in densely populated urban areas, with just five city police force areas representing 58 per cent of all recorded instances; the Metropolitan Police, West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside.

Thirty-three people were killed in firearm-related instances, three more than the year before, according to the ONS.


Gun seizures have dramatically risen in the UK, with The National Crime Agency (NCA) reporting that in the past ten months alone 425 guns have been confiscated, compared to 104 guns in 2017/18, per Sky News. The fourfold increase is attributed to smugglers from Europe bringing the weapons to the UK.
 
There have been 34 mass shootings in the US in April so far (defined as more than 4 people injured in one event involving guns). The in the UK there have been 3 in the last 25 years. I think it's fair to say that gun crime is more common in the US than it is in UK.
 
You have said several times that you don't know much about England yet regularly post statements you've found on google as if they were facts. Unfortunately unless you do a very full search you're misunderstanding.
I live in Northumberland, North of Newcastle so in the area you incorrectly state has a higher violent crime rate than London, I also have a friend who's been a serving armed policeman for 20 years and another now retired who was a senior training officer for Northumbria armed division so I hear first hand what they face on a day to day basis.

The year up to March 2019 saw a 4% increase in gun crime in the UK but that total was still less than 10,000 in a population of 60 million.

I suggest you look at the gov stats and other sources if you want the real picture as many other sources you will find combine overall crime which includes all the relatively minor stuff like pickpockets, shed break ins car thefts etc rather than serious violent crime and in the latter case you are far more likely to be stabbed with a kitchen knife than be threatened by a gun in the UK.

Firearm Crime Statistics: England & Wales - House of Commons Library (parliament.uk)

other snippets.

Gun crime remains rare in Britain.

In England and Wales in 2016-17, there were 31 fatal shootings - or one for every 1.9 million people. And there were 9,578 weapons offences that resulted in injury.
In the US, in contrast, there were 11,000 murders or manslaughters involving a firearm or one death for every 30,000 people.
There are particular hotspots in the police force areas that cover large urban centres.
London had the most firearms offences per head of population, followed by the West Midlands force area, covering Birmingham, West Yorkshire, covering Leeds, and South Yorkshire, serving Sheffield.
Last year: just over half of all firearms offences involved a gun actually being fired, in just under half of cases, a gun was used as a threat, in a small minority of cases, a gun was used as a blunt instrument

................................................................................................................
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that 9,787 crimes were committed with firearms in the year leading to March of 2019. The number of offences has risen by four per cent over the previous year and twenty-seven per cent in five years, the latest statistics available show.

Young people represented the majority of the victims, with 56 per cent aged between 15 and 34 years old. Most offences were committed in densely populated urban areas, with just five city police force areas representing 58 per cent of all recorded instances; the Metropolitan Police, West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside.

Thirty-three people were killed in firearm-related instances, three more than the year before, according to the ONS.


Gun seizures have dramatically risen in the UK, with The National Crime Agency (NCA) reporting that in the past ten months alone 425 guns have been confiscated, compared to 104 guns in 2017/18, per Sky News. The fourfold increase is attributed to smugglers from Europe bringing the weapons to the UK.

Total violent crime is what I stated, not gun crime. I don't know why that's so hard to follow.
 
There have been 34 mass shootings in the US in April so far (defined as more than 4 people injured in one event involving guns). The in the UK there have been 3 in the last 25 years. I think it's fair to say that gun crime is more common in the US than it is in UK.

That's correct. I have no idea why my comment about total violent crime rate keeps being turned into a comment about gun crime only.
 
That's correct. I have no idea why my comment about total violent crime rate keeps being turned into a comment about gun crime only.

I believe you have to be careful comparing violent crime statistics because the UK uses a much broader definition of violent crime than the US. You can compare when you get to things with a defined outcome (like death) but things like assault that result in injury have a much broader definition. This is why you will find it so hard to find official or academic comparisons and why comparisons keep coming back to things that are measurable - like deaths from guns.
 
I think unless you're in a violent area where crimes aren't reported, assaults and such things are reported the same here as there. This county's rates are divided between grievous things and non-grievous (the latter being assault that's not determined to be aggravated assault - the latter being in the first class more or less including stabbings, beating with intent to kill or permanently injured, etc).

The total tier 1 crime rate (Which includes personal robbery) is about 4.7 per thousand. Adding the non-aggravated assaults is another 7.5 per thousand.

I see that the assault with injury rate in England by itself is about 9.5 per thousand. Somewhere in the 4.7 + 7.5 above would be a group comparable to that 9.5.

I don't know, just looking at it, the overall violent crime rate looks similar. What's absolutely not is the murder rate. There are certain things that we don't have here (what's moped crime? purse snatching?...and the acid attacks). Every geography has their specialty, I guess.

My point above still stands - if you're afraid of gun crime, it's statistically not that difficult to avoid in the US. It's certainly, in my opinion, not a reasonable fear to have if you're in a geographical area where it's prevalent (it's hard to land in those places, stake your tent and be surprised suddenly) - certainly, i think having a gun in the house is more dangerous than the folks outside of the house having a gun. If someone comes in, rather than standing your ground, I'd leave - you like the stuff in my house that much? You can have it, I'll wait outside.
 
Total violent crime is what I stated, not gun crime. I don't know why that's so hard to follow.
Dead easy to follow - you're wrong!

You said "what I saw of violent crimes (not knowing much about England), the north east of England has a higher violent crime rate than london" The North East of England ( I suggest you look up where that is and exactly which counties it includes). It does not have a higher rate of VIOLENT CRIMES than London or in fact some other areas. Get your facts right instead of firing off unsubstantiated cr*p.
The North East like the rest of the UK and many other countries certainly does have a high rate of total crime but the vast majority of that includes everything from anti social behaviour, drunkenness to burglary and that's what I said, violent crime is a small percentage of those figures.

I know nothing about the USA apart from what I saw when visiting so wouldn't dream of contradicting your comments about your country because I've read some misleading stuff on the internet it doesn't seem to bother you the other way around though.
 
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13292111/most-dangerous-places-england/
And from statista....


With a rate of 93.6 crimes per 1,000 people, London's crime rate was actually lower than in North East England, North West England and Yorkshire in 2017/18. Once it is put in perspective, it is clear that London's recent surge in violent crime has not occurred in isolation from the rest of England.Jul 10, 2020
 
Nobody is, everyone in the UK knows the UK police have an armed division.
There is a permanently armed branch of the UK mainland police - the Civil Nuclear Constabulary.

Whilst there are a decent number of licensed FAC holders in the UK, the process of acquiring a licence or getting a renewal (every 5 years) is onerous (amongst the most stringent in the world) and requires quite serious vetting, including a doctor's certificate - if you're an FAC holder, that's on your medical record and doctors are required to notify the police of changes in mental health etc. FAC licencing in the UK

The UK FAC also specifies the number and types of weapons and the calibres and quantity of ammunition you are allowed to hold at any time. Serial numbers of all guns and (where available) moderators (see below) are recorded. Also, how and where the guns and ammunition are stored is inspected and required to be a certain standard of security. It's a serious criminal offence to breach any regulations around an FAC. Moderators (silencers in the USA) are also regulated and licensed and individually mentioned on your FAC - you have to separately justify the need for a moderator.

As far as I'm aware, the last time a civilian FAC holder committed a crime involving a firearm in the UK was over 10 years ago (June 2010, Cumbria). The problem, if there is one here, is not with licensed firearms, but with illegally held and fake-but-authentic-looking weapons.
 
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