Originally posted by Ushgarak
I don't think there's a useful comparison unless you can compare US knife crime to UK.
I agree. However, the knife crime stats are too low because the US people seem to get their jollies from guns. So the comparison may be more logical but as far as fairness, it probably is not a fair comparison.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
I also don't think general knife crime is anywhere near as high as you say there;
I'd like to note that it is not data that I made up: it was a survey conducted by the "Government's Offending, Crime and Justice Survey (OCJS)."
Originally posted by Ushgarak
the London rate in 2006 was 164 per 100000, and London is one of the higher areas.
That may be a more apples to apples comparison. That 164 number is representing crimes that come from law enforcement which is directly similar to the data the FBI pulls for the numbers I used. That number is still higher than the 89.29 gun crimes per 100,000 average for the ENTIRE US, but that's not based on city. I think the best "gun to knife crime comparison between the US and the UK" would be a Gun Crimes per 100,000 in New York City and Knife Crimes in London. I could do that if I have time later this evening: that should give us a better picture comparison.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
Regardless, the topic at hand was murders, not crime in general. SC's comment was about deaths, which is why I mentioned not to confuse the two.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Saying "no guns here" isn't very effective. If you want to stop gun violence either you cut off the supply so its harder to get them or you up the penalties for having or using a gun. Britain has crazy harsh gun laws and consequently there is not much gun violence since it just isn't worth getting a gun. That didn't drop murder to zero though, they have incredible levels of knife crime.
I don't know about that: SC specifically said "incredible levels of knife crime" not "incredible levels of knife murders". He also mentioned gun violence, not gun murders.
Maybe we should ask him for clarification?
But, if we do that comparison, I think the murder rate drops REALLY low for the UK?
Lemme check that.
"Homicides involving 'sharp instruments' - knives and bottles - have fallen since 1995 as a proportion of overall killings. There were 236 in 2004 - 2005."
That's REALLY low...but that is only for England and Wales.
Here's another question: is that 169,000 number from the OCJS a fair estimate if they only used England and Wales to pull their data? Are they assuming that Scotland and Northern Ireland have more (I believe they do) so they inflat?
I don't know.
So, I'm going to break down some numbers from this page:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/28/guns-ownership-around-the-world-graphic/
The graphic is huge but also fascinating, it lists nations by # of guns per 100 citizens, then breaks down the # of gun homicides per 100 000 citizens, % of murders done by guns, and total gun homicides for each.
From this, I will dispel what I am going to call "The Swiss Myth".
The Swiss Myth holds that, while gun ownership in America tends to be associated with violence, there is a large gun owning population in Switzerland, very little gun control, but subsequently very little gun crime.
The top nations break down like this in terms of guns per 100 citizens:
1 - US, 88.8/100
2 - Switzerland, 45.7
3 - Finland, 45.3
4 - Serbia, 37.8
5 - Cyprus, 36.4
6 - Uruguay, 31.8
7 - Sweden, 31.6
8 - Norway, 31.3
9 - France, 31.2
10 - Canada, 30.8
Ok, so, the first debunking comes from the idea that guns are, by a large stretch, more prevalent in Switzerland than they are in similar nations. Finland has .4 less per 100 people, while Sweden, Norway and France are very close, ~ 15 per 100 less. Switzerland has roughly half the number of guns per 100 people than does America. At the very least, if we were to divide the full list (or even the top 10 really) into segments of similar guns to civilian ratios, Switzerland would belong much more in a group with its European neighbours than it would with the United States.
The second part of the myth comes from the idea that Switzerland is a fundamentally safe society, in spite of such lax laws on gun ownership. If only compared to America, the rate of firearm homicides per 100 000 citizens for Switzerland is relatively low at 0.77, America having 2.97. But when compared to other nations in the top ten of gun ownership per citizen, they actually do not fare very well at all. Switzerland has a roughly 50% greater rate of firearm homicide than does Finland, Serbia, Cyprus, Sweden or Canada (ranging from .41-.51), in fact, besides America and Uruguay (2.8), Switzerland has the highest firearm homicide rate of these nations. Whats even more telling, France has a firearm homicide rate of .06 and Norway of .05, meaning that Switzerland has a greater than 1000% increase in firearm homicide than these nations. Remember, these are the nations with the greatest number of guns per capita, period. Clearly, when compared to relevant exemplars, rather than the US, Switzerland, in fact, does not fare very well in terms of gun safety.
What I find most revealing, however, is the statistic about the percentage of all murders committed with firearms. Switzerland, in fact, leads the top 10, with 72.2% of all murders committed by firearm. In America, this number is only 60%, for the rest of the top 10 this number is under 50%, generally around 30%, with both France and Norway under 10%. 70% puts Switzerland in the same range as nations like Panama (75), Venezuela (79.5), Jamaica (75.6), Brazil (70.8) or El Salvador (76.9). These are among some of the worst in the world (though not the worst by far).
Obviously there are some problems with the % of all homicides number, but I think it is fair to say, the accessibility of firearms probably facilitates a lot of that crime, and it is much easier to murder with a firearm than with other methods. Further, it suggests that Swiss society is not nearly as violent as the gun statistics suggest. Obviously any speculation on how great of a reduction would be seen without firearms is specious and largely subjective, I don't think it is unfair to say the trend would be less murders overall, or to suggest that many murders would not occur with less ready access to guns.
So, as a caveat, I am not trying to make specific policy arguments here. Columbia has a gun ownership rate of 5.9 per 100 persons but a firearm homicide rate of 27.09 per 100 000. Clearly the context of the nation is important. However, the point here was not to say, "Policy X is the best form of gun regulation", but to point out that the argument suggesting Switzerland is a gun owning Utopia is blatantly false. In fact, looking at comparable nations in terms of geography, wealth, gun ownership, etc, they have astonishingly high levels of gun violence, and a large portion of their violence as a direct result of guns. It is strange, as I've used the Swiss Myth before in arguments about gun control, but looking at the numbers, it doesn't add up at all.
Also, these stats are based on 2007 numbers. I don't think it was a specific choice of the author, but post 2007, possession of ammunition in Switzerland has become highly regulated, with only some select group of spec-ops allowed to own the government issued rounds. I can only imagine this has skewed the numbers from what are presented here, but that type of gun regulation itself destroys the Swiss Myth, so I don't think there is a confound in using this data.
Similar things can be said of the Swiss gun suicide rate:
From 1996 to 2005, 3,410 suicides, or between 24 and 28 per cent of all those in Switzerland, were committed using firearms.That percentage trails the United States, it is true, where 57 per cent of suicides involve a gun. But few European countries come anywhere near Switzerland.
And of other English-speaking countries, the highest rate is in Canada, where 19 per cent of suicides were by firearm in 2000. In England and Wales the figure stands at 2.8 per cent, and in Scotland at 1.8 per cent.
Guns are highly efficient: experts say that 90 per cent of suicide attempts involving firearms are successful.
...
From 1996 to 2005, 3,410 suicides, or between 24 and 28 per cent of all those in Switzerland, were committed using firearms.
That percentage trails the United States, it is true, where 57 per cent of suicides involve a gun. But few European countries come anywhere near Switzerland.
And of other English-speaking countries, the highest rate is in Canada, where 19 per cent of suicides were by firearm in 2000. In England and Wales the figure stands at 2.8 per cent, and in Scotland at 1.8 per cent.
Guns are highly efficient: experts say that 90 per cent of suicide attempts involving firearms are successful.
...
The Zurich University study found that suicides by firearm dropped sharply in countries – including Britain, Canada and Australia - where gun control legislation reduced the number of weapons kept at home. Could the same thing work in Switzerland? Or would people simply resort to other methods?
“We know that people turn to alternatives that are similar,” Ajdacic-Gross said. “If someone thinks of committing suicide using drugs, they are unlikely to resort to a firearm as an option.”
But a suicide who for some reason is prevented from using a gun, may decide instead to hang themselves, which is also a highly efficient method.
Switzerland has the 16th highest suicide rate in the world, the greatest in Western Europe, South America (except Guyana) or North America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate