From: Craig Dibble (craig@slob-squad.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Thu May 27 1999 - 15:26:35 MDT
This was a response by me to a message I rather foolishly didn't realise was
off list, and hence has points I was addressing to the list at large - or
those embroiled in this thread at least -
(apologies to Jon):
Jonwill wrote
----------
> Are you from England?
Yes I am
> If so are guns banned there? I am curious as to the
> statistics because it is my understanding guns are at least severely limited
> in England, and that gun deaths are extremely small. If this is true, the
> death from crime statistic in such an environment would be dispositive of the
> debate as to whether gun ownership increases death rates. Any information you
> have on this would be helpful toward the debate.
>
> Cheers,
> Jon
> http://www.erols.com/jonwill/
>
Sorry, I don't know the relevant statistics and haven't had time to check as
unfortunately I somewhat killed my computer this morning and have spent all
day repairing it. I'm sure they're available on the web. What I will say
though is that shooting incidents are rare enough that they can still make
national headlines, even if they result only in injuries (however minor/
serious) and not deaths. Obviously we too have had our occasional massacres,
the last of course being Dunblane, but these are *very* rare. So much so
that after the first of these occured at Hungerford in the 80's, by self
styled Rambo, Michael Ryan, it was greeted almost by sheer disbelief, by
people saying "But this isn't America; things like this just don't happen
here". And when a song was released after the event ('Lightening Strikes' by
The Seers - I shouldn't imagine anyone's ever heard of it but it's actually
pretty good) pointing out the hypocrisy/ knee-jerk reactions provoked by
both sides of the argument in such cases, it was immediately banned in a
typical knee-jerk reaction by those who automatically assumed it was
glorifying the event (which it most definitely wasn't), without ever
actually listening to it. And worse, perhaps, than the reactions to such
events in the USA are the calls not simply for guns to be banned, but for
violent films to be banned, violent computer games to be banned, violence in
TV shows to be banned, songs which allude to violence to be banned, and no
doubt, books with descriptions of violence to be immediately burned. I'm
sure you get the picture. Maybe in a less violent society our knees have
further to jerk (or our jerks have bigger knees) but the consequences for
personal and societal freedom can be far more horrific.
One interesting question has occasionally occured to me:
If the population of the UK was scaled up to match the population of the USA
would we find that the levels of violence or crime in general would be
similar despite our different systems of laws, or would there still be a
disproportionate level of crime in the USA (ie: are such statistics a
product more of the systems under which we live, or a product of large,
economically and socially diverse or disparate populations)?
Also, just to clear the air: I do not have a problem with the debate on
property rights, what I was objecting to in my original post on this thread
was the increasing level of vitriol. I'd like to reiterate Greg Burch's
request for civility and - for now at least - letting the matter rest as far
as the guns side of the debate is concerned.
Craig Dibble
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