US 160 / UK 0 The score for murdered police officers last year.

Positive about the criminal classes liking the status quo - every time a policeman has been shot in the UK assorted mobsters showed up at police HQ to voluntarily assist police with their inquiries. The analogy was meant as a friendly warning to Fresco and meant to be understood by him alone.

Welcome back, btw.

I found some figures on the UK, there were less on duty deaths over the last decade there, than the last year in the US.
What I found interesting was that all causes were far less, not just gun deaths.
It's apparently far more dangerous to be a law officer in the US than the UK, we even had 1 guy drown last year.

We pay a price for our freedoms in America, no doubt.
I don't have any idea what it's like not to be able to own a gun, if one wishes.
Maybe it's better, or not. I am, however, quite content with the knowledge that I am free to own one if I so choose. My chances of dying in a car accident are far far greater and I don't lay awake worrying about that.

First of all, I've done some realtively quick searching and the death by gun statistics vary from one source to another.

The rate of US gun deaths (death per 100,000 people) varies from as low as 10 to as high as 15, and America's ranking ranges from 1st to 10th

Is suspect that if I searched long enough I could finds rates below 10 and above 15.

The following list reports rates of both 10.2 and 15.22 but only breaks down the 15.22 rate between homicide and suicide.

Firearm Relate Death Rate List

On this list South Africa tops the death rate at 74.57 per 100K which is 390% higher than the highest indicated rate for the US (15.22)

At the same time the following list ranks countries by guns owned per 100 people.

Gun Ownership

The US tops this list at 88.8 guns per 100 people. (With as many people as I know who do not own a gun this would seem to suggest that there are Americans out there who personally own hundreds - are there statistics that show how many people have been killed by persons owning 10 or more guns?)

In any case, South Africa is 50th on this list at 12.7 guns per 100 people. The US gun ownership rate being almost 600% higher than that of South Africa.

So with less than 15% of the guns owned (per 100) in the US, South Africans are murdering 400% to 950% more people (per 100K).

BTW the following "civilized" countries all have higher gun ownership rates that South Africa:

Switzerland - 46
Finland - 45
Sweden - 32
Norway - 31
France - 31
Canada - 31
Austria - 30
Germany - 30

There are other countries with similar ratios of gunownership to gun deaths.

And this doesn't even take into consideration the existing gun laws in each country. I am assuming the prior poster who indicated that Mexican gun laws are extremely strict is accurate, and yet with only 16% of the guns owned in the US they are murdering 40% more people.

Meanwhile, Sweden who is 1oth on the list of gun ownership with 32 per 100 people is 49th on the list of deaths with 2.36 deaths per 100K --- 2.09 of which are suicides.

Clearly there is more going on than simply the number of guns owned in these countries and the strictness of their gun laws.

I think it would also be intructive to see a list of countries based on a ratio of number of deaths and number of guns owned.



That is about as ridiculous a statement as has yet been made in this forum.

Bad science and hysteria focused attention and resources devoted to addressing autisim on childhood vaccines. The "proof" that the vaccines were to blame was non-existent at best, and forged at worst, but hey, what has proof got to do with trying to save kids from autisim?

You know, statistically speaking, Muslims have killed a lot of Americans. Maybe if we banned Muslims from our country we could save a lot of lives, and if it saved only one life, wouldn't it be worth that?

Proof?

What has proof got to do with trying to save lives?

It amazes me how many people there are willing to argue gun control in the US with absolutely no knowledge of the fact at all.
I live 60 miles from Dodge City, hell everybody around here owns guns. We don't run around shooting each other either. Urban areas have their own set of problems to deal with, but an armed citizenry isn't the cause.
I'll leave the urban situation to Omsig D. but you'll be takin the rural folks guns over their dead bodies, which ain't too likely.

Homework assignment.

With respect to vaccines, Muslims, and cars, list their non-lethal properties.

Now do the same with guns.

Sorry ..."cost-benefit analysis" ...that's the term I was looking for!

What about the social impact of massacres ?

It amazes Europeans that some Americans will argue that easy access to guns is unrelated to their high gun homicide rate. Your Dodge City scenario reminds me of the smoker's argument that Grandpa smoked like a chimney and lived till he was 99.

What you don't seem to understand is that this is part of our heritage.
It's been our right from the very beginning. The citizen soldier won our freedom in the revolutionary war. Pioneers fed themselves and defended thier homes. Like I said before, freedom costs us something. If gun control is so much better, please explain the problems in Mexico, rather than manipulate statistics. Everyone likes to point the finger at USers, but Europeans sure left Africa in a helluva mess. I think those are Chinese and Russian weapons there.

I don't see what my Grandpa's tobacco has to do with it, but he had that right too.

You know what kills our young people? Car crashes do, but I don't see any one talking about limiting automobiles.

Ok, now I feel better. Really though, too much of what it means to be an American is wrapped up in the right to bear arms. Our forefathers were Lions, and we're proud of that.

I think the main thing that Americans are anesthesized to, Fresco, is how the specific consciousness that being told they have the RIGHT to own a gun, because in other words they might NEED to own a gun, engenders or manifests itself in American society.

David is a perfect example. He apparently walks around in a state of high alert ready to protect himself from his fellow citizens. Why? Where does this belief that each of your fellow citizens may constitute such a threat to you to the point that you NEED to have a gun on you at all times come from?

I think part of it comes from the fact that our constitution seems to bolster this belief by assuring each citizen that they have the right to be armed. I know originally it was useful or necessary as a means to protect and battle invasion from outsiders - but now it's morphed into this belief that we need to always be on guard and ready to protect ourselves from each other.

You know, that's such a sad way to look at your fellow citizen and it impacts the society all the way around.

I know my behavior here is much more open and less constantly guarded against my fellow humans than it was in the US. As a woman, I would never walk alone at night or get in a stranger's car in the US - NEVER!!!
And it didn't matter whether I lived in the city or the countryside.
When I lived in a small town in Maine and people found out I was walking in the woods alone - the locals warned me against it- too dangerous they said.

Here, I walk wherever I want whenever I want. The other day when I fell and broke my arm in the woods, I got in a male stranger's car when he offered to drive me to the hospital without a second thought. It was only afterward that I thought, 'Geez - I would NEVER have gotten in that guy's car if this had happened in the US.' And if I'd been alone and helpless in the woods and some lone guy walked up to me - I'd have been terrified in the US.
Here, I was relieved there was someone to help me.
My whole instinctive and psychological response was entirely different.
And I think that's a lot to do with the sort of self-protective stance people in the US walk around with on a day to day basis without even realizing it.
And I think being told you NEED to have a gun and have a RIGHT to own a gun reinforces that self-protective stance.

Yeah - the genie is out of the bottle in the US - and we've all walked around our whole lives being told we HAVE to be able to protect ourselves from each other as a constitutional right.
Psychologically and philosophically, it's a very, very different attitude of community and relationships with one's fellow citizens and that manifests itself in very different behavior.

I have no issue with hunting guns - but handguns only serve one purpose- and that's to destroy human life.
Why should we have the right to carry such a tool? Why should we need that right?

It's not quite that simple. Gun ownership is woven into American society in a complex manner. Hand guns are more than a weapon. We Americans are fond of finely made tools. Hand guns are often some of the most finely crafted mechanical contrivances around. We love to go to the shooting range with our friends. There is a truly American respect that comes with outshooting your friend. Guns are an investment, they always keep thier value.

Those dangers, of which you speak, have little, if any, to do with legal gun ownership in the US.

It's easy to look to gun control to solve social ills, but it ain't so.
More than 50% of gun deaths in the US are suicides, that's simply because it's the most effective means.
The American gang sub-culture accounts for a large share of gun deaths, they once used switchblades even though we outlawed those.

Yeah, I guess what I'm talking about is the fact that guns are so plentiful and available to those who would acquire them illegally for nefarious purposes.

I'll be honest with you, I haven't kept up with the laws and the lobbies, etc.- the point I'm making is that the whole gun ethos/mystique/whatever you want to call it- IS woven so emphatically into the American psyche that it does color or taint the way in which we look at our fellow citizen and the way in which we go about our daily lives with each other- and the way that people around the world look at us.

And I think it's sad. It feels so much better not to constantly have to be on -guard.

And if someone wants to collect guns for the craftmanship like they collect dollhouses or quilts - yeah fine - but do they have to carry them around with them everywhere they go?
And if someone uses a gun for sport like target shooting or a hobby - yeah fine - but you know do you carry your knitting needles or bow and arrow or roller blades around with you wherever you go?

It's the spectre of America as an armed society or populace that is worrisome and unfortunate to me.
If we live in a developed and civil society - why do people NEED to have the right to bear arms against their fellow citizens?
I think it says something about how civil our society really is.
I just do.
And it doesn't say something positive about what we believe about each other.

I know what you're saying. I think America is a big country, and where you're at has a lot to do with whether or not you feel it necessary to be on guard.

I've had the experience of being in the same room with an armed drug dealer, a few times, and I can't say I was particularly worried about getting shot, although I was certain to mind my Ps and Qs.
On the other hand, I've eaten lunch with an armed plain clothes law officer a few times too, I always tend to think how peculiar it feels to be eating lunch with a guy with a gun on his hip. I've minded my Ps & Qs then too.
In both cases it comes down to knowing the guy with the gun has the power to order you around a bit, if he chooses too.
I guess I kinda think that as long as ANYONE gets to have a gun, I want the same right myself. But I've never felt the need to carry one.

At the urging of the UN fully supported by the US who wanted to break the back of Empires and Colonialism, especially the British Empire, so they could negotiate better contracts with corrupt officials. It is one of the main reasons why the USA has done nothing to help Africa.
After Australia secured its zone in South Vietnam, it was safer to send a young men to fight in Vietnam then it was to give him a drivers licence and leave him at home. People still debated what to do about Vietnam though. The war toll in Iraq for the USA is about the same as they would lose if the troops stayed in the USA. People still discuss the war though.More than Africa or Australia, or Canada where people also carried arms and were pioneers too?

Yes, America was founded upon Individualism, libertarianism,
hedonism n laissez faire free enterprize,
rather than on collectivism.

The right to defensively bear arms gives rise to
radical self reliance, as distinct from reliance on the collective.

The Individual needs to keep his child, society, on a short leash,
and to carefully control its henchman, government.





David

Oh here we go again. Empires and Colonialism broke it's own back, but it's more fun to blame the US. And somehow, we should do more to clean up the mess.

As far as Canada & Australia I couldn't say, Americans though pride themselves on the individuality of which the right to bear arms is part.
The last I knew, Africa was a continent.

A glib dodge.

I'll take as a compliment !

Good post Aiden. Nobody is implying that reform is simple.

There are only two simple issues: ( 1) guns kill easily and (2) more guns kill more.
If Americans are happy to live with those facts, fine. But if they try to deny point (2) by statistical gymnastics or analogy with peace via nuclear proliferation, they are deluding themselves.

Dishonesty is in the eye of the beholder. "Some" of the things you post are fact but most is just your hatred of the U.S.. How about a little bit of that honesty from you. My issue is wether one can trust your judgement and I for one dont.