No flame wars, Pete, just interesting discussions.
I will be the FIRST to say that statistics can always be made to say anything, but consider this independent study information. This seems to imply that guns do not directly correlate with the incidence of violence.
I am not picking on Australia - but this study points out that Australia has a generally higher crime problem without guns, than the US has with guns.
If you look closely, countries with strict gun control (i.e. Australia and Great Britain) show HIGHER crime rates. Coincidence or not??
So this study implies that a national restrictive gun ownership policy does not reduce the incident of crime. In fact, one might argue that gun ownership contributes to a lower national crime rate.
http://www.minjust.nl:8080/b_organ/wodc/summaries/ob187sum.htm
Criminal Victimisation in Seventeen Industrialised Countries
Overall victimisation
I will be the FIRST to say that statistics can always be made to say anything, but consider this independent study information. This seems to imply that guns do not directly correlate with the incidence of violence.
I am not picking on Australia - but this study points out that Australia has a generally higher crime problem without guns, than the US has with guns.
If you look closely, countries with strict gun control (i.e. Australia and Great Britain) show HIGHER crime rates. Coincidence or not??
So this study implies that a national restrictive gun ownership policy does not reduce the incident of crime. In fact, one might argue that gun ownership contributes to a lower national crime rate.
http://www.minjust.nl:8080/b_organ/wodc/summaries/ob187sum.htm
Criminal Victimisation in Seventeen Industrialised Countries
Overall victimisation
- The ICVS allows an overall measure of victimisation which is the percentage of people victimised once or more in the previous year by any of the eleven crimes covered by the survey. This prevalence measure is a simple but robust indicator of overall proneness to crime. The countries fall into three bands.
- Above 24% (victim of any crime in 1999): Australia, England and Wales, the Netherlands and Sweden
- 20%-24%: Canada, Scotland, Denmark, Poland, Belgium, France, and USA
- Under 20%: Finland, Catalonia (Spain), Switzerland, Portugal, Japan and Northern Ireland.
- Burglary
- The proportion of households who had a completed or attempted burglary was highest in Australia (7%), England and Wales (5%), Canada, Denmark and Belgium (all 4%).
- Thefts of personal property will be heterogeneous in nature, but the highest risks were in Australia, Sweden, and Poland (about 5%-6% of people were victimised).
- Contact crime
- An overall measure of contact crime was taken as robbery, assaults with force, and sexual assaults (against women only). The highest risks were in Australia, England and Wales, Canada, Scotland and Finland: over 3% were victims. This was more than double the level in USA, Belgium, Catalonia, Portugal, and Japan (all under 2%). In Japan the risk of contact crime was especially low (0.4%).
- Assaults and threats
- Taking all countries together, 3.5% were victims once or more of assaults or threats in 1999. Risks were highest in Australia, Scotland, England and Wales (about 6%) and Canada (5%). Risks were lowest in Japan, Portugal, (under 1%) and Catalonia (1.5%)
Safety on the streets- When asked how safe they feel walking alone in their area after dark, on average just under a quarter felt very or a bit unsafe. Those in Catalonia, Australia and Poland were most anxious (about a third felt a bit or very unsafe). Next highest levels were in Portugal and England and Wales. Feelings of vulnerability were lowest in the USA and Sweden, although there were several other countries with only marginally higher figures.
![[rofl]](/images/smilies/icon_smile_rofl.gif "ROFL [rofl]"){kind=icon}
