From: mark@unicorn.com
Date: Fri May 28 1999 - 10:29:40 MDT
Charlie Stross [charlie@antipope.org] also wrote:
>If widespread gun ownership deters crime, then one would expect the USA
>to be a crime-free zone compared to the UK
Not really; gun ownership doesn't deter crime if people can't carry those
guns with them. Crooks may decide not to break into people's houses
because they might be armed, but that's not really a problem since they
can just wait until their victims are out on the streets and disarmed by
law.
>-- or expect the UK to have
>much higher crime levels than Switzerland.
According to that DoJ report I posted a URL for, in some areas (assault
and property crimes) it has much higher crime levels than America; this
is probably one reason why the anti-gunners stick to murder rates. It's
possible the DoJ are fudging the figures to make America look better, but
they appear to have gone to some trouble to get accurate statistics by
looking both at official police reports and victim surveys... and they
would seem to have a vested interest in making it look worse to get more
funding.
Mark
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