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