The FAST Approaching Gun Ban

I said more or less the same thing a few months back, I know, but here goes again.


Eight months and 560 posts since this thread started on the premise that those nasty Dems were going to take all your guns away.

So what do we have? Any hope that a tragedy as horrifying as Sandy Hook might finally see the start of a civilised and cool debate in the US about putting sensible controls on the availability and use of firearms has been drowned by the hawks in the NRA and a lily-livered congress.

It's enough to make you weep.

The title of this thread stands as a constant rebuke to America's inability to tackle this weeping sore in their body politic. I'm with RL in the desire to weep. (And of course I'll probably draw down the hatred of those here who tell me to shut up and fix my own country. Actually it is the world that is broken not just any one part of it... but that is another bigger story)

I would not be surprised to learn that PaulClifford is not a historian of the atrocities he listed but rather found these examples in one or two places as prepared talking points. This is significant because the list doesn't distinguish between those countries that used gun control measures in a sensible way to protect their citizens and those that did so to make their citizens defenseless. If, for instance, there are countries that passed gun control measures without then building torture chambers, these counterexamples would be useful points of discussion.

I am sure most of the regimes you listed limited individual rights in every imaginable way, from speech, to contract, to allowing the passage of laws that were facially discriminatory. In a completely free society, people would be able to own anything they want no matter how deadly. But we have a body of law that says that even fundamental rights can be curtailed for compelling reasons. So we have child labor laws, work safety laws, restrictions on the sale of illegal narcotics, licensing requirements to practice medicine.

As an example, if we did not distinguish between the curtailment of speech through laws that are subject matter neutral and those that are a prior restraint of only that speech criticizing the government, we would not be discussing the first amendment in a sensible way. Likewise, we should be able to distinguish between laws providing for the registration of deadly implements and wholesale confiscation of every type of weapon. The former allows us to police and discourage illegal behavior. The latter violates the second amendment.

Gun control laws are not a means of making our citizenry defenseless so they can be killed but rather part of a necessary compromise. Individual freedoms must always be balanced with public safety. Slippery slope arguments that compare registration of deadly weapons with genocide only make the pro-gun movement seem more detached from reality. I acknowledge that eliminating our bill of rights altogether would facilitate tyranny, but interpreting these rights so broadly that they are practically borderless precludes responsible governance.

Why is it that Republicans are willing to sacrifice civil liberties such as the 4th amendment's prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure when it comes to issues of national security, but not allow reasonable limits on the use of guns when it comes to public safety?

Terrorism is a very real threat and I supported some of the compromises made regarding the 4th amendment. Not all, but some. For instance, when FISA courts were created to allow for an accelerated process for authorities to get warrants for wiretaps, there was an initial compromise.

The compromise was that there would be a wall between national security operations and eventual criminal prosecution by the federal government. It turned out that this wall was breached and the abbreviated process for receiving wiretaps could be used not just to prevent imminent attacks but also to prosecute individuals. I think it was later ruled that this did not offend the 4th amendment.

But I don't remember Republicans being nearly as concerned about flexibility when it came to this civil right. Or about the possible erosion of first amendment freedom of speech and association protections that are implicated by material support statutes. These are statutes that literally prohibit certain types of speech and advocacy to designated terror organizations. They have not been ruled facially unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court said that their application in some circumstances could violate the first amendment.

Yet, all we hear when the government wants to place some limits on gun ownership is overblown rhetoric about tyranny and comparisons to Nazi Germany. Is the right to bear arms the most important civil right? All other civil rights should yield to extenuating circumstances except the right to own guns apparently. Don't touch that one or 1776 will rise again.

>>>Where would you place the UK in that context . . .?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...frica-U-S.html

The most violent country in Europe: Britain is also worse than South Africa and U.S.
By JAMES SLACK
UPDATED: 18:14 EST, 2 July 2009

Britain's violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it has been revealed.

Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world's most dangerous countries.

In the decade following the party's election in 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 per cent to 1.158million - or more than two every minute.

The figures, compiled from reports released by the European Commission and United Nations, also show:

The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.

It has a higher homicide rate than most of our western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU.

It has the fourth highest burglary rate and the highest absolute number of burglaries in the EU, with double the number of offences than recorded in Germany and France.

But it is the naming of Britain as the most violent country in the EU that is most shocking. The analysis is based on the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.

In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677.

[end excerpt]

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Regarding the above article from the DailyMail, see this:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...her-violent-c/

A critique of the 2009 DailyMail article, worth reading. Essentially, it says that the great discrepancy between the UK and US figures has to do with how the phrase "violent crime" is interpreted by the various official agencies tasked with compiling the data. Still, when the politifact writers compiled their own data by looking only at what they believed were "apples in the UK" and "apples in the US", they again found that the UK has over twice the rate of violent crime per 100,000 citizens as does the US: 775 per 100K vs 383 per 100K.

See:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...D2n6HAQ#at=182
Gun Ban in Britain caused 40% Increase in Gun Crimes

See:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=6nf1OgV449g
Mandatory Gun Ownership and Training: Why Switzerland Has the Lowest Crime Rate in the World

And finally, see:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr...tables/table-1

This last is the FBI website for crime statistics in the US. If you look at the 6th column from the left — "Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter Rate" — you'll see that the percentage rate (percentage per 100,000 citizens nationwide) goes from 9.3% in 1992 to 4.7% in 2011 (latest figures I can find); in other words, the murder rate per 100,000 citizens has decreased by about 50% in about 2 decades . . . while legal gun ownership in that same period has dramatically increased. See:

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

Legal gun ownership has increased in the US by about 70 million since the 1990s.

An increase in legal gun ownership in the US (including an increase in legal carry-and-conceal permits in many states) strongly correlates with a sharp decline in murders nationwide.

Conversely, according to the first YouTube video linked above, as well as many articles online, the decrease in legal gun ownership in the UK strongly correlates with a sharp increase in gun-related crimes including murder.

>>>For instance, when FISA courts were created to allow for an accelerated process for authorities to get warrants for wiretaps, there was an initial compromise.

The FISA court itself was set up by a Democratic president (Jimmy Carter) and a Democratic administration:

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was introduced on May 18, 1977, by Senator Ted Kennedy and was signed into law by President Carter in 1978. The bill was cosponsored by nine Senators: Birch Bayh, James O. Eastland, Jake Garn, Walter Huddleston, Daniel Inouye, Charles Mathias, John L. McClellan, Gaylord Nelson, and Strom Thurmond.

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Only two of the 9 co-sponsoring senators were GOP: Jake Garn and Charles Mathias.

I have no problem with the use of FISA courts even though they involve ex parte proceedings to get warrants. It's the way the information obtained from them has been used. They were originally thought not to offend the 4th amendment mainly because the warrants were to gather intelligence about the activities of an agent of a foreign power. This information would then be used for national security purposes.

I think it was not until the passage of the Patriot Act that gathering intelligence information went from having to be the "primary purpose" of the surveillance to a mere significant purpose. This was a significant change (I can explain below if need be) and was part of the bill called the Patriot Act signed into law by GW Bush.

My point is that Republicans have been much less concerned about these civil liberties threats than they have the second amendment issue. I think it was GW Bush for a while who believed that he could even circumvent the FISA courts in certain circumstances based on his inherent authority as the executive. As though an abbreviated process that almost never denied a warrant was not sufficient.

>>>If, for instance, there are countries that passed gun control measures without then building torture chambers, these counterexamples would be useful points of discussion.

My genocide list was in response to trish's previous post regarding the "fantasy" that individual ownership of guns can act as a firewall against a government becoming tyrannical. Clearly, the governments of the countries I cited didn't think it was fantasy, or they wouldn't have implemented strict controls or outright bans.

I certainly never suggested that IF a government implements strict regulations (or even an outright ban), THEN it would necessarily become tyrannical. It's the reverse: IF a government is tending toward tyranny, THEN it will necessarily implement strict gun controls or an outright ban.

The statistics in the US clearly show that the cities with the strictest gun control (e.g., Chicago, Washington DC) have the highest violent crime; while those with the least control — including the legal language " . . . WILL issue . . ." (instead of "MAY issue") in its laws pertaining to conceal-and-carry permit requests by gun owners, have the least gun-related crime.

Gun controls obviously only apply to the law-abiding. Those who are criminally minded will break the law anyway and acquire guns irrespective of what laws are in place.

The statistics internal to the US appear to be mirrored in statistics internationally, at least in the EU: e.g., as the UK tightened its gun control laws, violent gun-related crime increased; obviously because it made it more difficult for the law-abiding to acquire guns to protect themselves, while doing nothing to prevent those who would break the law anyway from acquiring them.

The unstated alternative in my previous post is that if intelligence information is not being used for national security purposes such as to prevent an imminent attack, it is being used to assist in future criminal prosecutions. More stringent process should be required for a search that is undergone to gather evidence in preparation for eventual prosecution than what is generally just called intelligence gathering.

The reason the wording changed from requiring intelligence gathering activities to be a primary purpose to a significant purpose is this. If intelligence gathering only has to be a significant purpose, then the primary purpose of the search could be to gather evidence for eventual trial. The use of the FISA courts could then be an end run around normal criminal procedure with intelligence gathering activities being used only as an underlying pretext.

Always a bit puzzled by those who join what is, in essence, a forum about the beauty and sexual allure of transgendered girls and other subjects around their lives, and yet only ever post in the politics forum. Wonder about their agendas.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by paulclifford

>>>

The statistics in the US clearly show that the cities with the strictest gun control (e.g., Chicago, Washington DC) have the highest violent crime; while those with the least control — including the legal language " . . . WILL issue . . ." (instead of "MAY issue") in its laws pertaining to conceal-and-carry permit requests by gun owners, have the least gun-related crime.

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Which is cause and which is effect? Are you sure gun control laws were not passed as a response to high levels of violent crime?

>>>and was part of the bill called the Patriot Act signed into law by GW Bush

And re-signed into law by Barack Hussein Obama (Democratic), as well as by congress — with a Democratic majority in the senate.

Democrats are no great supporters of the 4th Amendment.

Thomas Menino, Democratic mayor of Boston, had no problem violating the 4th Amendment rights of Bostonians during the police manhunt of the marathon bombers several months ago.

And if I remember correctly, the only person to filibuster the senate until he got an answer from Eric Holder regarding whether or not drone strikes on American citizens on US soil was considered within the the just powers of the president and the DoJ, was a Republican — ideologically a libertarian — i.e., Rand Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky. I haven't heard a peep of protest about infringement of privacy from drones by Democrats.

With the Boston Manhunt, I would not be surprised if they were using the special needs exception to the fourth amendment warrant clause. But I suppose that is my point. In certain contingencies, both parties recognize that compromises need to be made. It helps that the 4th amendment has the word unreasonable built into it which allows for a certain amount of flexibility in its application.

You say that the Democrats have not been friends of the 4th amendment. I don't doubt that as I haven't read anything that looks at the issue from a partisan perspective. Nor am I saying Republicans are necessarily worse offenders. My point is that there were plenty of excesses under the Bush administration that continued under Obama.

But if anything it was organizations like the ACLU warning about tyranny and about the erosion of civil liberties. But the rhetoric from the GOP then was not anything like the echo chamber we hear now.

>>>Are you sure gun control laws were not passed as a response to high levels of violent crime?

???

Why would hamstringing law-abiding citizens from owning firearms reduce violent crime?

Obviously — like most government regulation — gun control laws have the exact opposite effect from the one intended.

If the gun-control lobby were really interested in reducing violent crime, they wouldn't be so interested in making it more difficult for those who don't commit crimes to acquire firearms.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by paulclifford

>>>

Why would hamstringing law-abiding citizens from owning firearms reduce violent crime?

.

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Law-abiding citizens don't telegraph that they are going to commit a future crime with a firearm. Probably because they don't know they will lose it one day when driving in their car or when arguing with their spouse.

In fact, every felon had a period in his or her life when they were not a felon.

>>>there were plenty of excesses under the Bush administration that continued under Obama

That's why many have claimed that the Obama administration is better understood as the 3rd term of the Bush administration . . . except with lots of ex-Clinton administration people in office, and with a similar kind of "out-of-touch" mentality as the 2nd Nixon administration.

The main difference appears to be that Nixon didn't need a teleprompter.

>>>Law-abiding citizens don't telegraph that they are going to commit a future crime with a firearm.

Neither do habitual criminals, and neither did the nut-jobs who illegally obtained firearms anyway before they committed mass atrocities.

Not sure what your point is. It appears to be, "Since even a law-abiding citizen might, possibly, some day, suffer from road-rage and discharge his Glock that he carried legally in his glove-compartment, let's make it real difficult for all law-abiding citizens to obtain legal permits to buy a gun."

OK. Let's do the same to law-abiding citizens regarding car ownership (they might lose it one day and intentionally drive it through a storefront window); let's do the same regarding the purchase of knives (including cutlery, of course), which is already being discussed seriously in the UK; let's do the same regarding rope, string, yarn, and dental floss (could be used as a garrote); and let's especially do the same for baseball bats — because according to FBI data, the #1 weapon of choice in the US for murdering someone is a bat.

By all means, let us do everything we can to prevent law-abiding citizens from committing violent crimes. This way, the only people who will actually have access to guns, knives, cars, garottes, and baseball bats will be the non-law-abiding citizens. And when the violent crime rate soars, we can look for a suitable scapegoat: George W. Bush, perhaps, or maybe even Global Warming.

A baseball bat has more than one use. Some objects are dangerous not by design but because the features that make them useful in one hobby make them dangerous in another. I am not saying we should turn our lives upside down in order to get rid of every conceivable risk. Let's start by trying to minimize the risks associated with articles designed to kill and with a great potential to do so.

And if you want to blame George Bush for any problems I'm on board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ted_death_rate

List of countries by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Trish's statistics show that the United Kingdom has a much lower death rate with guns. Your objection might be that because fewer guns are available, people in the UK must just be committing murders in other ways. So, this demonstrates, unless I read the numbers incorrectly that they also have a lower homicide rate.

So, they have fewer deaths per capita with guns. AND fewer homicides per capita.

Let's combine PaulClifford's post on the last page and the statistics we have here. He said that the UK has a very high violent crime rate. Trish's article shows the UK has relatively few gun deaths per capita. I showed, they also have about one quarter the homicide rate of the U.S.

So if we accept PaulClifford's statistics then maybe the message is this.

In a country where a lot of violent crime is committed, the relative dearth of available weapons means that fewer of those violent acts will result in a homicide.

Edit: PC's post is now two pages back, and Trish's one.

So, again PaulClifford. A higher violent crime rate than the U.S and yet the U.S has a homicide rate four times greater? How do you interpret that?

Edit: If you disagree with the inference in my last post, let me know. Violent crime committed without guns are less likely to lead to homicide.

Note the proximity of Chicago to Wisconsin and Indiana. Even Iowa's only a 120 minute drive. Most definitely the gun laws in Chicago are a reaction to violent gun crime, not the cause. This is not to say that guns are the cause of Chicago's violent crime (we can blame a whole range of social factors for that), but firearms do contribute to making crime more deadly. They also contribute to accidental deaths and increased suicides. Again, suicides aren't caused by firearms, but a readily available firearm increases the risk of suicide.

"Edit: If you disagree with the inference in my last post, let me know. Violent crime committed without guns are less likely to lead to homicide"


Oh, I get it. It's a much nicer type of violent crim. WTF?!?!

My new favorite sign at a gun show:

The conservative republicans for decades have built up the U.S. military, refused to cut its budget one iota, forced it to accept planes and ships it doesn't even want and then says that civilians need the right to carry weapons without restraint or regulation of any kind, 'cause we might have to fight our own military to maintain our liberty (presumably to carry lethal weapons into playgrounds and bars). Firearms manufacturers are playing you for the idiots you are. Talk about stupid!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 95racer

"Edit: If you disagree with the inference in my last post, let me know. Violent crime committed without guns are less likely to lead to homicide"


Oh, I get it. It's a much nicer type of violent crim. WTF?!?!

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I don't know how much clearer it could be. If they don't have guns at their disposal but they still commit a violent crime, including forcible rape, burglary, assault, it is less likely to result in a death.

The criminals are absolutely not nicer. The crimes are less likely to result in someone dying.

>>>Trish's statistics show that the United Kingdom has a much lower death rate with guns.

Which by itself proves nothing.

Let's see: The UK has a lower gun homicide rate than does the US; the UK also has more fog than the US; and in the UK they drive on the left side of the road, not the right. THEREFORE, we conclude, that the reason the UK has a lower gun homicide rate than does the US is because 1) it has more fog, and 2) its drivers drive on the left, not the right.

Prove me wrong.

This is what happens when you simply cite "raw" data.

The actual facts are these:

Even in the 19th century (when crime statistics were first starting to be compiled by many countries), when neither the UK nor the US had any constraints on gun acquisition and ownership, the UK still had a lower rate of gun homicide (as well as a lower rate of all homicides) than the US. The reason? Because cultures and peoples differ, and English culture was simply never as violent as American culture. Period. Therefore, to claim that the UK has strict gun control and that it also has a lower rate of gun-related homicides than does the US, is irrelevant: the UK always had a lower rate of gun-related homicides — indeed, it always had a lower rate of all homicides — than the US, with or without gun controls and handgun bans. Since this was always the case, it cannot be attributed to some recent bit of legislation. The reasons are cultural, historical, and demographic.

The relevant question is not whether gun controls and handgun bans in the UK make it a less violent place than the US (because, as just explained, even in the absence of all controls and bans, the UK was always less violent than the US). The relevant question is whether or not gun controls and handgun bans in the UK, instituted in 1996, have made the UK safer for its own inhabitants than it was before the 1996 ban.

And the answer is "no". The UK is, in fact, more violent and more dangerous — including gun homicides — after 1996 than it was before 1996. In fact, there has been about a 40% rise in violent crime overall in the UK, including a rise in gun-related crimes.

See:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...446855466.html

December 26, 2012

Joyce Lee Malcolm: Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control

After a school massacre, the U.K. banned handguns in 1998. A decade later, handgun crime had doubled.

"Within a decade of the handgun ban [NB: in 1998, as a response to a 1996 school massacre in Dunblane, Scotland] and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time. Moreover, another massacre occurred in June 2010. Derrick Bird, a taxi driver in Cumbria, shot his brother and a colleague then drove off through rural villages killing 12 people and injuring 11 more before killing himself."

Joyce Lee Malcolm
author of "Guns and Violence: The English Experience"
Harvard University Press

See:

Guns and Violence: The English Experience: Joyce Lee Malcolm: 9780674016088: Amazon.com: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41bkFf4BXFL.@@AMEPARAM@@41bkFf4BXFL

One reader review of the above-listed book from 2002:

"Americans I know tend to think of Britain as a peaceful, crimefree place. My British friends tend to think of America as a crime-ridden Hell. Statistical data published in the last couple of years, amusingly, reveals that they're both one hundred eighty degrees wrong. This book explores what happened on the British side of the pond.

Historically, of course, Britain has had low crime rates. One aspect of the story that Malcolm traces is the evolution of gun ownership (stimulated by invention and ever cheaper gun prices and restricted, over the course of the 20th century, by ever harsher government regulation)and the relationship of gun ownership to crime. The skinny is this: Britain had low crime rates as long as it had high levels of private gun ownership. As the state has made private ownership illegal, crime has skyrocketed.

Another strand Malcolm illuminates is the changing nature of British law enforcement. Britain only acquired policemen in the modern sense in the middle of the nineteenth century, under the leadership of Sir Robert Peel (hence the nickname "Bobbies"). Prior to that time, the general public was expected to -- and did -- assist in the apprehension of lawbreakers. The general public was, of course, armed to the teeth. And (see above) Britain had low crime rates.

But since the introduction of professional police, the British government has increasingly tried to grant itself a complete monopoly on the use of force. Not only has it progressively made private gun ownership illegal (no one here can own pistols anymore, and it's pretty difficult to get a permit to own a rifle, even for sport), it has also eroded, almost into nonexistence, the traditional British right to self-defense."

However, there's something else, probably more disturbing, since it touches on the very essence of Big Government, whether in the UK or the US:

I mentioned in a previous post on Britain's NHS, that the UK health bureaucracy regularly lies in its published statistics regarding things like waiting times for medical care; recent newspaper articles mention that this had been going on for some time in Scotland, in order to make things less embarrassing for the government, which could brag that it was "improving" the NHS (in fact, patients on waiting lists simply disappeared! They were redefined as "unavailable for appointments", and voila! there are suddenly fewer people waiting for medical care). Guess what? Same thing has been going on for some time with UK police departments and their reporting of crime statistics. Below are some links you can look at, but the essence is this: for a long time, UK police (and the bureaucracies above them) have been seriously under-reporting crime — including violent crime with various kinds of weapons including guns — for the purpose of making it seem that "the police are doing a fine job of controlling crime!" Additionally — shockingly and sadly — many people in the UK are actually afraid to report a violent crime to the police for fear of reprisal by criminals; something which, again, would contribute to serious under-reporting of the actual crime rate.

See:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...e-figures.html

Police force 'tricks' to 'fiddle' crime figures

Police forces are using a series of tricks to manipulate crime figures to give a false picture of their performance, a former senior detective has revealed.

The techniques – dubbed "gaming" – are used to create the illusion that fewer crimes are being committed and that a bigger proportion are being solved.

Rodger Patrick, a retired Detective Chief Inspector, claimed that the methods are tacitly approved of by senior officers, police watchdogs and the Home Office.

The claims will reignite the debate about the validity of crime statistics after recent figures suggested that crime fell four per cent in the second quarter of this year, and following the admission by a police watchdog that some forces are failing to record violent crime properly.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...es-710742.html

Police fail to report 1.4m crimes

TUESDAY 01 AUGUST 2000

An estimated 1.4m crimes are going unrecorded by the police every year partly because officers bend the rules to exaggerate their success, government inspectors have discovered.

Police officers have been found grossly to misrepresent and massage crime statistics to improve their detection rates while downplaying the number of offences committed.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...l-figures.html

Gun crime 60pc higher than official figures

The true level of gun crime is far higher than the Government admits in official statistics, it can be revealed.

By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent 11:58AM BST 18 Oct 2008

Figures to be published by the Home Office this week will massively understate the scale of the problem.

Data provided to The Sunday Telegraph by nearly every police force in England and Wales, under freedom of information laws, show that the number of firearms incidents dealt with by officers annually is 60 per cent higher than figures stated by the Home Office.

Last year 5,600 firearms offences were excluded from the official figures. It means that, whereas the Home Office said there were only 9,800 offences in 2007/8, the real total was around 15,400. The latest quarterly figures, due to be released on Thursday, will again exclude a significant number of incidents.
The explanation for the gulf is that the Government figures only include cases where guns are fired, used to "pistol whip" victims, or brandished as a threat.

Thousands of offences including gun-smuggling and illegal possession of a firearm - which normally carries a minimum five-year jail sentence - are omitted from the Home Office's headline count, raising questions about the reliability of Government crime data.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: "These alarming new figures not only highlight the appalling state of gun crime in this country, but also remind us just how poor the Government's statistics actually are.
"Crime statistics must also be compiled and published independent of the Home Office, and crime mapping rolled out so that people can have confidence in what they are being told about the state of crime in this country."

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http://web.archive.org/web/200807061...cle2710596.ece

Government figures 'missing' two million violent crimes

By David Barrett, PA Home Affairs Correspondent
Tuesday, 26 June 2007

An extra two million violent crimes a year are committed in Britain than previously thought because of a bizarre distortion in the Government's flagship crime figures, it was claimed yesterday.

A former Home Office research expert said that across all types of crime, three million offences a year are excluded from the British Crime Survey (BCS).

The poll caps the number of times a victim can be targeted by an offender at five incidents a year.

If anyone interviewed for the survey says they have been targeted more than five times a year, the sixth incident and beyond are not included in the BCS.

The authors of a report by think-tank Civitas said the five-crimes limit is "truly bizarre" and "misleading".

Professor Graham Farrell of Loughborough University and the former acting head of the Home Office's Police Research Group, Professor Ken Pease, calculated that if the cap is ignored, the overall number of BCS crimes is more than 14 million rather than the current 11 million a year estimate.

Violent crime is 82 per cent higher at 4.4 million offences compared with 2.4 million in the BCS, the survey claims, including a 156 per cent rise in "acquaintance violence" from 817,000 incidents to 2.1 million.

Domestic violence is 140 per cent higher, up from 357,000 incidents a year to 857,000, the authors said, while there are nearly three million common assaults a year rather than the 1.5 million estimated by the BCS, a rise of 98 per cent.

Burglary is 20 per cent higher than currently estimated, at 877,000 a year, and vandalism is 24 per cent higher, the report calculated.

Robbery is 7 per cent up on the official estimates, or an extra 22,000 crimes bringing the yearly total to 333,000.

"If the people who say they suffered 10 incidents really did, it is capping the series at five that distorts the rate," the authors said.

"It is truly bizarre that the victimisation survey, based as it is on the assumption that people will by and large tell the truth about what happened to them, ... suddenly withdraws its trust in their honesty when what they are told does not chime with their own experience.

"Yet the reality is that some people are very frequently victimised, and that frequent victimisation is what they suffer rather than being an invention or exaggeration."

The cap of five crimes for repeat victims has operated ever since the inception of the BCS in 1981.

Ministers claim the survey - which now polls 40,000 people a year about their experiences of crime, is the most reliable indicator of crime levels,

The authors said: "The unwillingness to believe the facts of chronic victimisation means that crime control, police training and criminal justice action are now substantially misdirected."

In particular, the system means that the most vulnerable people in society may not be getting the police protection they require from repeat offenders, the report said.

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http://www.civitas.org.uk/press/prCivRevJun07.php

British Crime Survey omits three million crimes

Violent crime increases by 82% when all crimes are counted

The public are being misled about the true volume of crime by the British Crime Survey which omits three million crimes, according to a report published today by independent think-tank Civitas.

The report, ‘Crime in England and Wales: More Violence and More Chronic Victims’, is written by Graham Farrell, professor of criminology at Loughborough University, and Ken Pease, visiting professor at Loughborough and former acting head of the Police Research Group at the Home Office.

It reveals that, ever since its inception in 1981, the British Crime Survey (BCS) has omitted many crimes committed against people who have been repeat victims. If people are victimised in the same way by the same perpetrators more than five times in a year, the number of crimes is put down as five. The justification for this was ‘to avoid extreme cases distorting the rates’, but, as Farrell and Pease point out, ‘if the people who say they suffered ten incidents really did, it is capping the series at five that distorts the rate’.

By recalculating the figures without the arbitrary cap of five crimes, Farrell and Pease have revealed that there are over three million crimes omitted from the BCS:

In its most recent published sweep, BCS estimated an annual total of some 6.8 million ‘household’ crimes (covering burglary; theft in a dwelling; other household theft; thefts of and from vehicles; bicycle theft; and vandalism to household property and vehicles). It estimated some 4.1 million ‘personal’ crimes (which covers assault, sexual offences, robbery, theft from the person, and other personal theft). Our re-analysis reveals that, if we believe what the respondents tell us, there would be 7.8 million household offences and 6.3 million personal crimes. Thus, removing the arbitrary five offence limit, over three million extra offences come to light… Household crime is increased by 15% and personal crime by a staggering 52%. As the sum of personal and household crimes, total crime would have been understated by 29%.

The increase in the number of crimes is not evenly spread across all types of crime. For example, theft of vehicles is not increased at all, but levels of vandalism are almost a quarter more than reported, and there are 20 per cent more burglaries. Violent crime of all types increases by 83 per cent. Violence perpetrated by an acquaintance increases by 156 per cent and domestic violence by 140 per cent. As Farrell and Pease say, ‘these are not minor differences’.

Not just a quibble about numbers – the police have been encouraged to neglect the protection of repeat victims

Farrell and Pease believe that ‘crime control, police training and criminal justice action are now substantially misdirected’. In particular police attention has been diverted from protection of some of the most vulnerable people in society. Separate incidents may be dismissed as trivial but if each one is an episode in a long-running feud or vendetta the consequences have sometimes been fatal. For example, on 12 January 2006, a house in Wythenshawe, Manchester, had petrol poured through its letterbox and ignited. The two adults in the home, Mr and Mrs Cochrane, died, and their daughter Lucy was burned. It emerged that a hostile family, the Connors, were responsible:

‘The 18-month feud began after schoolgirl Natalie Connor developed an obsessive hatred of her classmate because of an apparent slight. The dispute between the two families, in which Natalie falsely claimed she had been bullied by Lucy, came to a head when Michael bought two litres of petrol and poured it through the Cochranes' letterbox. A heavy drinker, he was goaded by his wife, who plied him with alcohol before the attack early on January 12 this year. Five days earlier, Mrs Cochrane discovered what appeared to be a flammable liquid on her front door and found that someone had tried to uproot a tree from the garden. She called the police but no sample of the liquid was taken. Connor and his wife were convicted last week on two counts of murder. Their daughter was found guilty of manslaughter and attempting to cause grievous bodily harm to Lucy. Alistair Webster QC, prosecuting, had told the jury during the six-week trial that Natalie had developed an obsessive enmity towards her classmate that eventually led to her and her mother inciting Connor to start the fire.’ (Guardian, 21 December 2006)

They could have mentioned the case of Peter Woodhams, the young father from East London who was shot dead despite pleading for police protection from a gang of youths who had already slashed his face after he complained about them throwing stones at his car. In May this year, the Independent Police Complaints Commission found that the police had failed him.

* * * * * * * * * *

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6157944.stm
Last Updated: Friday, 17 November 2006, 17:55 GMT

Crime statistics 'need overhaul'

Former home secretary Charles Clarke commissioned the report

The way crime statistics are produced needs a "radical overhaul", a Home Office review has concluded.

The report says the current system misses out significant groups of victims and some definitions of crime are "confusing and misleading".

It urges a "shift in emphasis" in the way figures for England and Wales are presented with greater focus given to local rather than national statistics.

The figures come from the British Crime Survey and recorded crime data.

The independent review, commissioned by former home secretary Charles Clarke, says recorded crime data - police crime figures - ignore the 60% of offences that go unreported.

Yet the British Crime Survey, which sets out to measure the extent and nature of crimes the public have experienced in the last year by surveying 50,000 adults, also misses some offences.

Just two pages back, you posted an article that said that Britain has a higher rate of violent crime than the U.S. Now you are saying they are inherently less violent.

More violent crime

Lower homicide rate

Lower gun death rate

The argument that they are less prone to violence seems somewhat foreclosed by the fact that they have more violent crime.

What you are referring to is the fact that correlation does not equal causation, which you might have mentioned in some of your previous posts when it was inconvenient for you.

>>>Just two pages back, you posted an article that said that Britain has a higher rate of violent crime than the U.S. Now you are saying they are inherently less violent.

You can have a higher *rate* than the US, but lower total numbers in absolute terms; it depends on how you want to look at the data. If you adjust for population size (US is more than 5x larger), and adjust for differences in definition of crime categories, it certainly is true that the UK has a higher crime rate than that of the US. My point is: so what. The important point you're trying to make, but have not proven, is that gun bans and gun control are responsible for making the UK "less violent" than the US. Wrong. The UK was already "less violent" than the US with or without gun bans and gun control, even going as far back as the 19th century. That's apples and oranges. You have to compare crime rates *within the UK* before the gan ban, to crime rates *within the UK* after the gun ban. Now you're comparing apples to apples. That will show whether or not gun bans and gun control made people safer in the UK.

I've provided lots of data indicating that guns bans in the UK have had the opposite effect of the one intended: they have increased crime rates (including violent crime with guns) in the UK, not reduced them.

You have provided a lot of data and it's commendable. But you can run into the same problems with time series data that you do comparing different cultures. The only way to be sure you are isolating the effects of gun legislation would be a more sophisticated analysis, perhaps using regression analysis to find out exactly how much each variable contributes to homicide rates. With time series data, you still have changes in law enforcement effort, social changes, economic changes, demographic changes such as average age of the population. These can also contribute to changes in murder rates over time.

>>>The argument that they are less prone to violence seems somewhat foreclosed by the fact that they have more violent crime.

Wow! I'm not sure I can explain this any more clearly than I have already done. Once more, and that's it:

>>>The argument that they are less prone to violence . .

Less prone to violence than whom??? Answer: Less prone to violence than the US? Possibly true. This first sentence of yours compares the UK to the US.

>>>they have more violent crime. . .

More violent crime than whom? Answer: More violent crime THAN THEY, THE UK, HAD BEFORE THEIR GUN BAN. This second sentence of yours is no longer comparing the UK to the US, but is comparing the UK to the UK at two different points in time.

"they again found that the UK has over twice the rate of violent crime per 100,000 citizens as does the US: 775 per 100K vs 383 per 100K."

No, I took this from the article you posted on page 57. It says UK has more violent crime per capita than US

"For England and Wales, we added together three crime categories: "violence against the person, with injury," "most serious sexual crime," and "robbery." This produced a rate of 775 violent crimes per 100,000 people.
For the United States, we used the FBI’s four standard categories for violent crime that Bier cited. We came up with a rate of 383 violent crimes per 100,000 people"

This was comparing similar violent crimes in the U.S and U.K. The discrepancy was wider but apparently the crimes were not the same so they adjusted the data. Did you read the article you posted?

"More violent crime THAN THEY, THE UK, HAD BEFORE THEIR GUN BAN. This second sentence of yours is no longer comparing the UK to the US, but is comparing the UK to the UK at two different points in time"

The only thing that matters are rates. So throw out the stuff about absolute numbers on the last page, because quite frankly, we should only be discussing violent crime rate if we are discussing proneness towards violence. My second sentence was saying that the UK is no less violent than the U.S, as they have a higher VIOLENT CRIME RATE.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by paulclifford

>>>The argument that they are less prone to violence seems somewhat foreclosed by the fact that they have more violent crime.
.

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I see what threw you. Since I was only talking about comparisons between the U.S and the U.K and why they are more apt than you think, I was only ever discussing rates. I did say more violent crime, but I assumed that you would understand this to mean more violent crime per capita, since I was comparing two countries of very different sizes.

So again, to summarize:
U.S has higher homicide rate. U.S has higher rate of gun deaths. But U.K has higher rate of violent crime.:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by broncofan

...So again, to summarize:
U.S has higher homicide rate. U.S has higher rate of gun deaths. But U.K has higher rate of violent crime.:)

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Good set of posts, bronofan. Summary: If you value your life, it's much better to live in the U.K. Less chance of being killed plus a civilized heath care system. Guns may not be the cause of crime, but they do increase the chance of death or injury during the commission of a crime, whether you're the perp, the victim or a bystander. If you or others around you are carrying guns, your risk of death and injury is increased. If there is a gun in your home the risk of accidental death, injury and suicide are increased.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by trish

the risk of accidental death, injury and suicide are increased.

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This is another dimension I didn't even address (thankfully you have), but every bit as significant. Anyone who has ever known someone who has committed suicide knows it can be an impulsive act; not always but can be. Unimaginably tragic in all scenarios.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by paulclifford

The actual facts are these:

Even in the 19th century (when crime statistics were first starting to be compiled by many countries), when neither the UK nor the US had any constraints on gun acquisition and ownership, the UK still had a lower rate of gun homicide (as well as a lower rate of all homicides) than the US. The reason? Because cultures and peoples differ, and English culture was simply never as violent as American culture. Period. Therefore, to claim that the UK has strict gun control and that it also has a lower rate of gun-related homicides than does the US, is irrelevant: the UK always had a lower rate of gun-related homicides — indeed, it always had a lower rate of all homicides — than the US, with or without gun controls and handgun bans. Since this was always the case, it cannot be attributed to some recent bit of legislation. The reasons are cultural, historical, and demographic.

The relevant question is not whether gun controls and handgun bans in the UK make it a less violent place than the US (because, as just explained, even in the absence of all controls and bans, the UK was always less violent than the US). The relevant question is whether or not gun controls and handgun bans in the UK, instituted in 1996, have made the UK safer for its own inhabitants than it was before the 1996 ban.

And the answer is "no". The UK is, in fact, more violent and more dangerous — including gun homicides — after 1996 than it was before 1996. In fact, there has been about a 40% rise in violent crime overall in the UK, including a rise in gun-related crimes.

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For someone who deals in 'facts' it is a pity you don't check them before exposing yourself to ridicule, eg:
Even in the 19th century (when crime statistics were first starting to be compiled by many countries), when neither the UK nor the US had any constraints on gun acquisition and ownership
--The Vagrancy Act 1824 -brought in as a consequence of men who had returned from the European (Napoleonic) Wars with weapons gave the police to power to arrest any person with any gun, pistol, hanger [dagger], cutlass, bludgeon or other offensive weapon ... with intent to commit a felonious act.
--The Night Poaching Act of 1828, again in 1844 and the Game Act of 1862 were all designed to prevent the use of firearms in illegal hunting, ie hunting without a licence.
---The Gun Licence Act 1870 was introduced to prevent people from carrying firearms outside their homes without a licence.

A survey of crime statistics in Europe from the 13th Century to the 20th century establishes an ever decreasing record of homicide; it has nothing to do with gun control being present or absent, and everything to do with the changes that have taken place to society -the drift from rural to urban life, the changing nature of work; above all, the increasing powers of the state and its control of the means of violence. You can throw in to the mix a general decline in the consumption of alcohol, superior surveillance in public places -and believe it or not, welfare, which by providing a safety net for some people removes an incentive to crime.
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/h...lent-crime.pdf

Thus:
The UK is, in fact, more violent and more dangerous — including gun homicides — after 1996 than it was before 1996. In fact, there has been about a 40% rise in violent crime overall in the UK, including a rise in gun-related crimes
Is not based on reliable evidence, which shows that violent crime is at its lowest level for 30 years -and this is from the Daily Mail which one would expect to take a more hysterical approach to the subject:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...rn-Europe.html

Thank you Stavros for doing the fact-checking. The lesson is that anything PaulClifford says that is counter to intuition and un-cited is likely to be false.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/data...exual-offences

Here is a link to a Guardian article that has information that correlates with the Daily Mail link. I think it's based on the same report.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

This is an article listed by the CDC on the number of homicides in the U.S and the method of killing. Over 11,000 out of approximately 16,000 murders per year are committed with guns in the United States. In the U.K, deaths caused by firearms are something like the 5th or 6th most common method of committing homicide. The other causes of death are strangulation, kicking and hitting, sharp objects, blunt objects etc.

It didn't occur to me how inefficient all these other methods of killing are until you actually see the other options spelled out. Would all 11,000 people who were killed by guns in the United States have been killed with one of these other methods if not by firearm? What about the individuals who were killed at some range?

And if a lower availability of firearms is not the cause of the U.K having a significantly smaller proportion of homicides committed with firearms, what is? Are Brits much better at strangulation? One would have to be a fool to look at these statistics, and not attribute the lower homicide rate in the U.K to the lower availability of firearms. According to a rough calculation firearm deaths are the cause of over 68% of U.S homicides. Are we to assume that if you lower this number, it just re-distributes homicides by method with no net change in total number? It stretches credulity.