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Murder Is Like a Disease (No, Really)
pigrabbitbear writes "With a homicide rate historically more than three times greater than the rest of the United States, Newark, N.J., isn't a great vacation spot. But it's a great place for a murder study (abstract). Led by April Zeoli, an assistant professor of criminal justice, a group of researchers at Michigan State University tracked homicides around Newark from 1982 to 2008, using analytic software typically used by medical researchers to track the spread of diseases. They found that "homicide clusters" in Newark, as researchers called them, spread and move throughout a city much the same way diseases do. Murders, in other words, did not surface randomly—they began in the city center and moved in 'diffusion-like processes' across the city."
My wife thinks it's the artificial hormones in beef.
If most murders are drug-related, this could be modeling the spread of drug markets by proxy.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Does the study take into account gang culture and revenge killings?
That's what is viral. And gangs.
Murder is not the "disease", per se, but rather it is a symptom or outcome of other processes; namely, economic downturns that manifests themselves in lost jobs, lost homes, broken families, substance abuse and the ensuing and inevitable upturn in desperation and violence,
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Bend over and get ready for the royal shoeing. You're right, but you're Not Allowed To Say That Around Americans.
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I always find it hailarious that you in the states cite the ability to own firarms as something that keeps you safe when your obscenely high murder rate points to the opposite in my opinion.
Many years ago, I visited the NRA office in Washington DC. They quoted a lot of statistics about other countries that had high gun ownership rates and low murder rates. My take-home message was that Americans shouldn't be allowed guns (and possibly sharp objects) until they are a bit more civilised, but I don't think that was what they were intending.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Or rather, the way American culture deals with economic downturns.
How else would you explain why Greece (which undeniably had a much worse economic crisis) has a lower murder rate than the USA?(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate)
Realistically though, I doubt murder rate can be so easily explained. There are many factors involved, one of which is economics.
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NO ONE said it is a disease, but it spreads LIKE a disease.
Learn to read properly.
Is there no better use for research funding than to study the self-evident and report the obvious?
It is obvious to you that murder acts like a disease? What is self-evident about it?
There might be some use in this if it led to an accurate predictive formula for preemptive intervention, but I see nothing about that in TFA or the summary.
Did you even read TFA?
..so that police might potentially identify problem areas as they are emerging—or perhaps, one imagines, before they emerge./quote/ Sounds to me like it might lead to an accurate predictive formula for preemptive intervention.
How is this "junk science." They don't say that murder IS a disease. Just that it can be analyzed in the same way a disease can be analyzed.
The problem is that they're right.
I'm a Brit, and a strong supporter of the firearms laws we have here that limit the spread of guns (as in making sure the legal owners secure them and keep track of them so that they aren't "lost" into the black market). This only works because we have a low level of gun ownership to start with.
In the US the situation is radically different, and not just because of the culture. There are almost as many guns as people there, with such a vast number untracked that disarming the entire country is simply not going to happen. If you tried to apply our laws to their country, all it would achieve is to annoy the legal owners of firearms without making the slightest difference on the availability of guns on the black market.
Once you already have so many weapons around, the damage is already done. It's too late to stop it. At that point, you might as well accept reality and let people try to defend themselves against it.
Yes this makes perfect sense. Look at all the places that ban handguns like Chicago, DC, and London. No murders going on there, that's for sure.
I'd believe it. I've seen enough mental illness up close and personal to believe that they are, against all reason, somewhat contagious under the right circumstances.
I am John Hurt.
all it would achieve is to annoy the legal owners of firearms without making the slightest difference on the availability of guns on the black market.
You make it sound as if smuggling weapons into the UK was somehow difficult.
Ezekiel 23:20
And hypocritically, you have to check your GE Minigun at the desk!
You make it sound as if smuggling weapons into the UK was somehow difficult.
It is.
A lot of the "gun crime" that happens here is with nonfunctional replica firearms, because the criminals can't get their hands on anything that actually shoots.
When a "real" gun turns up, it's quite often a replica that has been rebuilt in somebody's garage. Guns confiscated by the police are quite commonly pathetic things with no rifling, barrel much shorter than it appears from the cosmetic replica exterior, and which have to be dismantled after a single shot to reload.
Of MSNBC's race card.
Its more likely this is actually modelling the passage of a new batch of guns through the criminal underworld.
I always find it hailarious that you in the states cite the ability to own firarms as something that keeps you safe when your obscenely high murder rate points to the opposite in my opinion.
Check Vermont, you fucking idiot. It has quite possibly the most relaxed gun laws in the country, and is always in the top 5 states for least amount of crime, and usually top 3 for least amount of murders.
That pattern goes far beyond Vermont, too. Look at the Brady Campaign rankings of states by gun laws, and you see an almost perfect correlation between strong gun laws and violence. The states with the least restrictive laws have the least violence. Now, that could be because places with lots of violence react by passing strong gun laws, but the studies on the effect of shall-issue concealed carry laws (laws that require the state to issue concealed carry permits to anyone who doesn't have a criminal record) shows a fairly clear and consistent, if small, decrease in the crime rate when more guns are on the street in the hands of law-abiding citizens.
My guess is that the explanation for the results of this study is gang warfare, a cycle of revenge killings fed and funded by the illegal drug trade. But I've believed for years that the biggest thing we could do to reduce violence in this country is to end the useless, ineffective and counterproductive war on drugs, and I like guns (I'm a concealed carry instructor), so it's not surprising that my view tracks closely with my opinions.
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It's helpful to people planning morge, hospital, and police resources. Making sure that your manpower is ready for clusters of murders and have the tools to handle the dead, injured, and evidence is useful. It's also useful to the communities to realize and have hard numbers to back up their needs for containment of such dangerous events, and to help them innoculate against the outbreak spreading by education and community outreach.
CDC vectoring tools would seem to be potentially useful. What is the timetable of such "outbreaks" ? Are control efforts better spent on dealing on each outbreak, as it occurs, or on broader "innoculation" via employment programs and drug rehabiliation?
Many years ago, I visited the NRA office in Washington DC. They quoted a lot of statistics about other countries that had high gun ownership rates and low murder rates.
Did they say anything about correlations with other crimes? I've got a pet theory that most gun homicides are drug related and that if we took those out of the totals, the stats for the USA wouldn't be all that different from those in other countries.
But, so far, I haven't been able to find anywhere on the web that breaks down the number of gun homicides in a way that would lend itself to that sort of analysis. I've got a pet theory about that too - that the stereotypical NRA crowd is also big-time pro-war-on-drugs and the anti-war-on-drugs people are stereotypically anti-gun. So the two biggest groups on both sides aren't interested in seeing their pet causes in contradiction.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You're inferring a unanimity of opinion that doesn't actually exist. Only a vocal minority of Americans think guns keep them safer. I'm American and I can't imagine a scenario where I would want a gun in my house.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
oh who am i kidding no one under 35 still reads slashdot...
In the book "Connected" by Christakis and Fowler, it is argued that violence (but also hapiness, depression, etc) spreads through social networks. So if a friend of your friend was involved in either side of a murder, chances increase dramatically that you will, too. Your emotional states and their associated beliefs and actions are contagious, first and foremost to those around you that know you, then those who know them, and so on. The analogy with a disease, jumping from host to host through social networks, is quite adequate.
disclaimer: I am a you row pee'n
Yes this makes perfect sense. Look at all the places that ban handguns like Chicago, DC, and London. No murders going on there, that's for sure.
There are far fewer murders in London than similar sized cities in the US. This quote has lots of stats that all seem fairly accurate even though it is a shit source:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100128231404AAGurXl (I would find a better one but my lunch break is nearly over, so don't really have time)
Not sure about Chicago but the difference is that in Chicago you can just bring a gun into the city from outside as there is no border to speak of so it is probably still pretty easy for a criminal to get a gun if they want one. In the UK we do still have a border that is policed by customs who do their best to stop weapons being smuggled in. That does not mean we have no guns in criminal hands but it does make it harder to get hold of one, even if only marginally.
We also have a law that means if you are caught with a firearm it is almost a certainty you will spend the next couple of years in prison. That seriously discourages gun ownership amongst all but the most hardened of criminals. In the US the social acceptability of gun ownership even in the cities you mention where it is ilegal is still a factor that you have to consider. Would a pot dealer in Chicago get an extra 5 years on his sentence just because the police found a unloaded gun in the back of a drawer somewhere when the raided him like in the UK?
I dont read
I suspect that in practical terms, a 'new' way of looking at violence yields nothing of any use. Oh there will be studies and commissions and pundits and people who write well reviewed books on Amazon that are variously touted on The Daily Show but as always it will suffer the same myopic failure of every other First World Problems Study.
As opposed to say South Africa, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Algeria or Pakistan which have murder rates that make the US look like Yoga class.
But you go right along and scream at the no shoes wearing cousin humping bible and gun waving redneck hillbilly you've smugly determined is in fact the reality of every last human being (except of course for all the illegal aliens who are christ like in their peacefulness and love) residing here.
The first step is admitting that you are powerless over your disease. Join Murderer's Anonymous today!
unless you're libertarian... but I doubt we'll find any of those around here.
The state of New Jersey requires one to have a permit to own firearms, and an additional permit to purchase a handgun. One needs to obtain a new permit for each handgun, there is a fee, a fingerprinting process.etc. Carrying a handgun in the state of New Jersey is effectively illegal, essentially requiring one to either be a retired police office, private detective, security guard, or politically connected.
Yet somehow criminals manage to get firearms anyway. It's amazing to me, because of the laws I mentioned above--it's almost like these criminals have no respect for the law, and are just circumventing it (which is a rather fatal flaw in the "you need more laws" argument).
That said, I agree with you that the murder rate in the US is abysmal. The sad truth is that we just seem to like killing each other--take away the guns, and we STILL kill each other at rates far exceeding the rest of the civilized world. Michael Moore touched on this in Bowling for Columbine, but instead of exploring the reasons, he decided to blame the whole thing on an old man with alzheimers disease instead.
So, given the following: 1. many americans are violent, and 2. many criminals have or can easily obtain firearms, I propose that the law abiding should also be free to arm themselves, so as to afford some measure of protection.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
It is.
How is that possible? An island country, complicated coast, lots of boats around... If an improvised large RC sub arrives to some secluded cove at the Isle of Lewis, launched from a yacht innocuously sailing miles away, with a few handguns and boxes of ammo in a watertight compartment, who's going to notice? Is everyone in the UK constantly being trailed by a bobby or what?
Ezekiel 23:20
the state of vermont has extremely lax gun laws and extremely low murder rates.
it's also got a small, mainly rural, fairly homogenous population.
you can draw your own conclusions
what obscenely high murder rates? your popular perception has little to do with reality. rates are down, and have been going down for years. crime, including homicide, in the US is at quite possibly the lowest point in the country's entire history.
but dont let that stop you from making your stupid american comments for an instant +5 insightful.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I agree. all the 10 people living there have guns. C'mon!
Trust me, I'm an engineer.
I never really thought that was not understood.
We want to save money, for example. In business, we want to lose less money so, in food production, they add preservatives or use ingredients with longer shelf lives. The consequence of this falls to the consumer and back to society as a whole as it deals with increases in health problems such as diabetes. The "blame" is on the individual but also on society but also on the suppliers who make these decisions... because they want to save money.
We want to earn a living, as another example. When the establishment doesn't wish to allow outsiders to participate in the market, markets of other colors are born and developed.... you know, like grey and black markets. ALL markets of all colors and tones require defense and enforcement. The white markets are supported, defended and enforced by the established government. The other markets use other means and most often, by gangs and the like.
The development of organized crime which I described above also has other negative impacts on society. Among these are the glorification of the lifestyle in art. We see it every day through our comical portrayal of pirates [the high seas, wooden ship variety] and we see it in more modern ways as well. But the crimes against people afftected by unregulated (and even regulated) killing and other violence takes its toll on the hearts and minds of the people who live among these events. As death and killing becomes more frequent and more expected, the notion of defending one's self with deadly force becomes increasingly more acceptable. And the very definition of "defense" also twists itself into convenient shapes to suit the motivations and interests of those doing the killing and violence.
We have all sorts of behaviors which require regulation. The restriction or limitation of market participation, for example, leads to crime. We saw it in alcohol prohibition. We saw it in religious freedom restrictions. We see it today with more contemporary drugs. But we are also seeing it in other markets as well. The content publication industry finds itself incredibly threatened by digital technologies in that there is no medium to hold the content and therefore they aren't exactly a publication in the classical sense of the word. But nevertheless, we see the same patterns... government support, defense and enforcement. And it most certainly stems from the few trying to hold onto their territory and to prevent others from participating in the markets they have controlled.
To say murder is "like a disease" is to fail to see the over-all pattern of human behaviors... the causes which lead to effects which lead to more causes and more effects. Of course that comparison begins to break down somewhat when you determine which disease(s) murder is most similar to and which it is not though the generalities tend to hold true. But the root cause of both disease and of murder is human behavior and human nature.
Human nature is best overcome by law and regulation. It is really as simple as that. If someone says "what about God?!" Then you are simply saying "religious law" instead of just law.
people in intense poverty, with no hope of escape, and virtually no access to mental health services are a little more prone to violence.
Man, I wish it was my job to gather pointless stats of the obvious.
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How else would you explain why Greece (which undeniably had a much worse economic crisis) has a lower murder rate than the USA?
-Vastly smaller population
-More homogenous population/culture
-Different culture
-Lack of gangs and drug cartels from around the world
-Fewer people in poverty and smaller gap between have/have nots.
But we're all exactly the same right? Cause differences dont matter....
that said, it has nothing to do with an economic downturn or cultural response to it. you people are extrapolating string theory from someones random observation about apples falling. it's a simple study of one city, one with a traditionally higher than average crime rate..it's Jersey. what do you expect? No one likes Jersey. Seriously though. We dont go grab our guns and kill people because of recessions. That's a BS line of thought. People with the economic means (or incentive like a job) to leave a bad place for a good place tend to do so. This leaves behind a population of people without said means. Said people have a disproportionately higher crime rate. It's like having a weak solution of acid, nearly harmless by volume, and concentrating it by evaporating off the water til a single drop will melt your face off.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Would a pot dealer in Chicago get an extra 5 years on his sentence just because the police found a unloaded gun in the back of a drawer somewhere when the raided him like in the UK?
Maybe not in Chicago because the Pot dealer is often a police officer.
There are states that had a mandatory sentencing laws along the lines of "use a gun, go to jail", like California before it descended into whatever you'd call it now. But the Dems have been able to repeal many of those laws under the guise of reducing prison crowding, etc. Most often, plea deals are made in an effort to secure "conviction " rates. So instead of working hard to put someone away for 10 years for using a gun in an armed robbery, it's a few years and probation.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
...And why does there need to be an NRA and not a NRPGA? Why did God give us the right to own rifles but did not give us the right to own rocket propelled grenades? After all, if you outlaw RPGs, only outlaws will have RPGs. And what about the NICBMA? To remind us that intercontinental ballistic missiles don't kill people, people kill people!
Doesn't the U.K. have a "knife crime" problem. Hence the seemingly ridicules laws about carrying edged weapons?
I carry my Buck Knife (3" blade) everywhere with me. It's a tool. But I believe that could land me in jail in the U.K.?
Please confirm or refute.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Really? So you're saying that if someone came along, and converted your basement into a kick-ass shooting gallery, so you could let off steam from time to time, or let friends use it for letting off steam and just having a great time, you wouldn't want a gun in your house so you can actually use it?
Oh wait, sorry, I was supposed to come up with a scenario where someone breaks in while you're asleep and overpowers you and your family, doing rotten things to you all, but it's all OK because there's a gun under your pillow that you won't actually get a chance to use.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I can't claim to be a shipping expert, but one of the reasons might be that our island is surrounded in many places by sandbanks and shallows of various sorts. This means the relatively few places that are deep enough for a sub to approach also tend to be well-policed shipping lanes ending in harbours and ports (or maybe estuaries which tend to have inconveniently large towns built on them).
Not to mention that we had this thing a while back where German U-Boats kept trying to sneak up on us, meaning there was good reason to make sure the authorities were well aware of all the places where this could happen.
Don't you wish you hadn't wasted 3 seconds of your life reading this sig?
Of MSNBC's race card.
There are white gangs too, lol
Americans aren't even particularly violent. We do have a high murder rate, but violent crime otherwise is fairly low. If you don't participate in high risk behaviors like street prostitution or the drug trade, and don't live with a violent, abusive SO, your chances of being murdered are almost nil.
I think you under estimate this so-called minority.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Stop selling bullets?
Doesn't the U.K. have a "knife crime" problem. Hence the seemingly ridicules laws about carrying edged weapons?
I carry my Buck Knife (3" blade) everywhere with me. It's a tool. But I believe that could land me in jail in the U.K.?
Please confirm or refute.
If it lock, yes. All fix blade are banned, they consider a locked blade to be the equivalent of a fix blade. Slip join are fine, under 3 inch. eg: Laguiole, sak, spyderco uk.
IANAL. If you travel, buy a knife locally and ask the shop owner about local custom eg: It may be legal but inappropriate. A locally brought knife also make a great travel souvenirs.
Well, that's the problem with stereotypes, isn't it? They have such little basis in reality.
While I'm not a member of the NRA, I've been around guns and owned guns all my life. My dad gave me my first shotgun when I was 12. Over the past 40-some years I've managed to collect a couple of pistols, 5 shotguns and 3 rifles without really thinking about it. I think I'm pretty typical of any guy who grew up in a rural area in a country with halfway sane gun laws.
I was also taught that the War on Drugs was a joke. My dad was a member of the Minnesota branch of the National Education Association (teacher's union for those outside the U.S.) and his district's perennial delegate to the annual state convention. He spoke in favor of a resolution backing the legalization of marijuana in the early or mid '70s. (The motion passed, by the way.)
He said then that the war on drugs (which was just heating up at the time) was a waste of resources. He didn't see the point in criminalizing an activity with such a demonstrably small impact on society. Instead, he advocated legalizing it and treating it the same as alcohol or tobacco.
His attitude was a fairly common one then, and I think still is up here in Upper Midwest. We like to party and we like our guns. Those of us who have been raised around guns know the two don't mix. ;-)
Another analysis might be that gun control laws are introduced in places that have problems with guns. There's room for any amount of discussion about why problems arise in some places but not others, but clearly the situation is very different in different parts of the country. It has also been noted that places with relaxed gun control laws are a significant source of the guns used to commit murders elsewhere. Why would you enact strict laws if you didn't have problems and your economy benefited from the sale of guns?
It's very similar to the problem of the single currency in the Euro zone preventing local economies from using monetary policy to deal with local problems.
The universe was intelligently designed. Unfortunately God was in a hurry so he coded it in Java.
Violent crimes, including violent crimes with guns, has been on the downward trend for decades in the United States. And during those decades gun laws have generally gotten *less* strict in that more and more states are legalizing concealed carry and some are even allowing open carry. Also, gun ownership is up. So, gun ownership and ease of purchase is either largely unrelated to gun violence or has a negative correlation. Generally, gun shot wounds, particularly from hand guns, are not fatal and the patient recovers. Of course that's not what makes the news. I don't have the statistics handy but something around 10% of hand gun shot victims die. Obviously we don't want anyone to die, but this isn't like a huge plague of death or something and things are getting better, not worse.
I've actually run the numbers on this based on race. I don't have them handy, but it's pretty easy to repeat.
Find a recent year murder rates. The year I looked at was about 6 per 100,000 people. By contrast, the rate in the UK for that year was about 1.2. If you then break down the US muder rates by race and gender, the murder rate for white males drops to just under 3 per 100,000 (in contrast it goes to about 18 for african americans). If we further assume that 1/3 of those murders have felony records (I was not able to get this info for the year that I looked at, but found other supporting evidence that said that roughly 30% of homicide victims were felons), we drop the murder rate for white males to about 2 per 100,000. That's still a lot higher than the UK, but astonishingly low given the number of firearms we have.
I think this is also one of the reasons that gun control doesn't really get a lot of traction in the US (not that I want it to). Gun violence disproportionately affects minorities. Mass shootings tend to make national news because they affect "normal white people". The number of murders in the US on the week of the Aurora theater shooting wasn't significantly different from a normal week of murders. I suspect that if a suburban white soccer mom had the same chance of getting shot to death as an inner city black teenager that America would have already banned most firearms.
Are there no machinists?
Cutting a rifled barrel and building a simple firearm are not exactly complicated.
Obscenely high relative to other civilized countries. For real, look it up. But blaming all that on our "gun culture" is where it goes wrong. If anything points to violence, it's poverty. Anywhere there's a lot of population density and a lot of poor people, you get violence, and gun violence. But you won't hear that on the 5 o'clock news.
It's almost immune to any gun laws, because most gun homicides are committed with illegally obtained ones in the first place. The only things gun laws do is make it harder for people who WANT to obey the law to do so. Within reason, anyway. Think NJ Assault Weapons ban (if it has two of these items, but one of these, and the barrel was made in 1982 but only during a full moon, then the weapon is legal--but only during the times of...)
The only thing your correlation shows is that low population density means low crime.
Places with low population have high gun ownership and few gun laws. Places with high population had high crime so they instated tough gun laws.
Or it could be that places in the Northeast have the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. That means that non-criminals don't have guns, while the criminals do.
What country do you live in, what are your gun laws, and what is your murder rate?
Or maybe you're just karma whoring with your anti-America comments.
21st Century Renaissance Man
Which lets me post one of my favorite quotes (although I can't remember who to attribute it to):
"Computers have enabled more people to make more mistakes, faster than any other human invention - with the possible exception of Tequila and Handguns"
or something to that effect :P
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I'm asking a question first about the knife violence and second about the laws. That's what all the "?" are for.
Chill out.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Also, if there is little or no market, there is little or no incentive to try to smuggle an item into a country. It is demand driven really. Why take tremendous risks just to increase your stockpile of items you can't sell ?
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I saw a frontline special not long back about an epidemiologist that put that same theory into motion. He thought if you could just stop the violence, these areas would economically develop because people wouldn't be so afraid to move their businesses there. He created a program that tried to be police neutral (as to gain the trust of the people on the street). The group basically walks the streets and tries to keep an ear to the street. When violence has occourred, they do what they can to stop that violence from turning into murder, which in turn would turn into several retaliatory murders. They've been very successful in bringing down the violence, not sure if his theory on economics has been fruitful yet.
"using analytic software typically used by medical researchers to track the spread of diseases" you miraculously discover that murder spreads like disease.
I'm betting that if you used analytic software typically used by:
(forestry) researchers that you would discover that murder spreads like (animal) populations.
(pick something) researchers that you would discover that murder spreads like (pick something) populations.
Yes, illegal possession of a guns, especially by a felon is punished severely in the US. Hard to do business or stay healthy without the "legal" backing of a gun though. Not sure how the English do it, perhaps the criminal organizations are more corporate? Perhaps living in a welfare state means that there is just less ambition, and if a dealer is pushed out of a territory he back to the "council estate" and watches football instead fighting for success?
The only thing your correlation shows is that low population density means low crime.
Places with low population have high gun ownership and few gun laws. Places with high population had high crime so they instated tough gun laws.
Not true. If you look at cities by size and correlate them with violence you see that big cities in states with little gun control have lower crime rates, for one thing. There are various other measures that dispute your claim.
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Funny getting a concealed permit in NJ is next to impossible. In other recent news they're talking about the high crime rate in Chicago another city known for not allowing concealed weapons. Rather than study the problem, how 'bout letting the honest, law abiding citizens carry legally and watch the crime rate drop drastically as it has in other places? Places that allow private, honest, law abiding citizens that pass background checks to carry weapons have drastically lower crime rates. All the liberal, leftist, gun controlling areas that won't let someone have the right to defend themselves have higher crime rates. Statistics prove this. Stop wasting time and money researching murder as a disease and just let people exercise their rights and the rest will take care of itself.
Gun proponents would probably say that is beside the point. Other people misusing their freedoms is not a reason to take away mine. And they also would point out that those are illegal guns. Outlawing gun ownership by citizens wouldn't get rid of criminals with guns.
At least not immediately. And I think that while it's a compelling theory, I could also see it being the case that more legal guns contributes to more illegal guns through several pathways: theft, continued glorification of guns in society, and a very real arms race.
As far as the first point, I'm not entirely sure bearing arms is a "right" so much as it is "A good idea back when the US was founded." It's not true that today you need a gun to be safe, at least not in urban areas, and it's also not the case anymore that personal firearms can defend against government tyranny. That said, I see no real need to take away the second amendment or legal guns. Just crack down on illegal guns.
Arrange by population density not total population.
Please list these other various measures.
Before you get too defensive, I am a gun owner in a state with very restrictive laws that came about because we had very high crime rates in the city that hold most of the states population. Even compared to most of the world that city has a very high population density.
What, haven't you heard!!!!1 The only reason anything bad things ever happen is because there is not enough guns.
Any sane government would distribute AK47s and RPGs to every man, woman, and child in its jurisdiction. And then they could fire all the police and military and have a crime rate of absolute 0 and be impossible to invade.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
what obscenely high murder rates? your popular perception has little to do with reality. rates are down, and have been going down for years. crime, including homicide, in the US is at quite possibly the lowest point in the country's entire history.
Nearly but not quite - according to FBI uniform crime reporting data, the preliminary figures for 2012 homicides are around 4.2 per 100,000, which almost matches the lowest figures recorded - 4.0 in the late 1950's. While definitely trending in the right direction, it is still "obscenely" high compared to other comparable western democracies - which vary around 1 per 100,000.
Just as an example, the last time the UK homicide rate was as high as it is currently in the USA was at the end of the 17th century.
Are there no machinists?
Have you even driven a British made automobile ?!
No. There are no machinists in Great Britain.
I've got a pet theory that most gun homicides are drug related
You aren't the only one. In recent years Baltimore City tried that approach. Here is one article I found on the subject:
Baltimore’s Crime Drops As War On Drugs Becomes War On Violence.
I am sure there is a way to make a gun with flakey electronics and that leaks oil.
I bet lucas can do the first for a nominal fee.
Violent crime has been going down ever since video games came to the home. :-)
Say what? That people kill people with guns? Of course you can.
What we object to is trying to makes laws designed so criminals can have guns but normal people can't. Those don't make sense, and they don't work.
Some people are just asking to be killed and the only thing keeping them alive is this silly law that says you can't kill them. I think that maybe every 10 years or so we should just legalize murder for a month or two. Let's give everyone the opportunity to go out and whack somebody. I'll bet that 99.99% of the people who get killed will be people that the world will be better off without.
Its more likely this is actually modelling the passage of a new batch of guns through the criminal underworld.
And then... These new guns dissolve into sea-foam after three or four uses?
I think you greatly overestimate the difficulty of getting a gun in the US.
You can literally pick one up during your lunch break, if you have a clean record. If you don't have a clean record, you need to go through all the trouble of buying from a show, or a third party (ie, private resale) rather than a licensed dealer. FWIW, a five minute Google search turns up about 1500 guns available through private sellers in my area (and though I don't live in NJ, I live well within a half-day's drive of it).
And going even further, the US only considers the lower receiver the actual "firearm" for regulatory purposes - You can buy everything else totally unregulated. And for someone handy with a torch, you can build a receiver yourself out of some pretty crude starting materials.
So, your entirely premise fails one simple test - It depends on not having guns readily available, which simply doesn't hold true.
So when the invader comes you have to go get the gun out of the safe before he shoots you? I hope you remember the code under that kind of pressure!
By the same logic, a panic room would be much more effective.
You don't put guns in the gun safe. You booby trap the gun safe for when they beat the code out of you.
Are there no machinists?
Cutting a rifled barrel and building a simple firearm are not exactly complicated.
Chances are the typical criminal lacks that specialized skills in general (and machinist skills in particular.) It's not tongue-in-cheek, there is a deficit of education and skills among typical criminals. That's the type of statistics that pop up in all countries.
You are correct that the rate of homicide has been falling steadily since the 70s. This is not just a US trend though, its been occurring in Europe and other places as well. The end result is that the US still has very high murder rates compared to other countries. For example, you are 21 times more likely to be murdered as a resident of the United States than you are as someone from Hong Kong. You can go to this Wikipedia page and sort by column to see where the US places: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate . Don't let national pride get in the way of acknowledging that this is still an issue we need to work on.
It isn't that so much as...if you don't want them in your country, fine, but it really is none of your business if we want to continue to allow them here.
For the most part, gun laws only affect the law abiding citizen, the one you don't have to worry about owning a gun.
But really....if you don't live here, then its just really none of your business, right? Why are you concerned about it..?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The US non-firearm homicide rate is higher than other Western nations, which suggests to me that we have a general violence problem, not a gun-specific violence problem.
I could see how this could be seen as pattern. Justice is expensive, jobs hard to get, people are you have money. Your desperate. Unless the person is civilized and has sense of strong morality, it doesn't matter if they have a gun, knife or sword, their more likely do something they can do with bare hands.
A really sick and sad problem. People saying ban the gun should realize that gun owners generally are responsible people. They went though alot trouble to get a their weapon. These Licenced gun owners sometimes have to go through alot trouble paper work, background checks (some places) to own and maintain a these gun. Thugs on the street just steal them, buy in black market. Volience on the streets are done by the desperate, stupid or twisted.
People in the US, maybe more than Century ago, had more moral values and far more civilized than they are now. Killing unfortunately in this day and age is easy, we (generally) grew up in safe environments. Who going expect some thug or crazy attacking us and trying kill us?
Murder is a social disease, one that too easy get away with. Going jail (sometimes) makes those people become even more sick not wanting fit in society depending on where you go. Its a sad world.
I don't know about criminal homicides, but the pro-rata level of deaths of children and teenagers through gun accidents (i.e. excluding crime and adult accidents) in the US is the same as total gun deaths from all causes in the UK. (Figures NRA, Home Office). The NRA disregards this level of deaths as unimportant.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
He asked about knife crime, not knife murders.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
My first thought was about drugs, not guns.
XDInd
Not really...it is just a bit more intimate doing it with a knife....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
An RPG is considered a "Destructive Device" under the National FIrearms Act. It is legal to own as long as the city and county you live in does not have regulations against explosives (This, is why most people think they are illegal. They aren't, you just generally aren't allowed to have explosives, whether they are weapons, fireworks, or mining equipment, in most residential neighborhoods), you pass the background checks, pay the tax, and the BATFE approves it.
XDInd
Not sure how the English do it, perhaps the criminal organizations are more corporate?
There are more ways to threaten and carry out violence upon a person than to point a gun at them.
It is not so much that smuggling is difficult, it is that it is not very worth while. If you are caught with a gun except in very clearly licensed circumstances, you are guilty of a crime with significant penalties. So owning a gun, before you start doing anything good or bad with it. In the US, by and large, if you are standing outside a bank with a gun, you are a completely law abiding citizen. In the UK, if you have a gun in a public place and it is not inside a locked box, you have committed an offence even if your gun ownership is quite legal. Even air rifles have to be transported in a zip-up cover.
All of which means that the only time UK criminals want guns is for a carefully planned big-time heist, or for turf wars with another gang. Most crime is, to some extent, opportunistic. And when opportunistic crime occurs, there are not guns in reach. The relatively small number of professional criminals who run organised crime know that having guns around every day is bad business. They may well have stored guns, but the stay stored against a special need.
The UK Police estimate that the total number of illegal guns in the UK is about 30-40,000.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
So when the invader comes you have to go get the gun out of the safe before he shoots you? I hope you remember the code under that kind of pressure!
And that is why people, even gun owners, should have more than a gun, say blunt objects that can be used as melee weapons, discretely placed across your home. I have my gun locked away (I have to, I have kids), but I also have things specifically located across home (where my kids can't reach, but that my wife or I can): a machete, a hand-ax, several rattan sticks (long enough to reach out, but short enough to use indoors), two carpet knives (plus a whole bunch of pointy-edgy tools in my home office/computer room), with exit paths always cleared out of objects before turning the lights off.
Call me paranoid, but that gives me much more peace of mind than my gun locked away on the most innaccessible corner of my master closet. That, and knowing that I live in a better neighborhood, in a fenced community with 24/7 surveillance, away from crazy crap, which makes a home invasion a rarer statistical event. It's more expensive, but it is always worth it.
By the same logic, a panic room would be much more effective.
Indeed. And barring that, a way to barricade yourself in a room. Having a gun out of fear of home invaders, but not thinking about any other counter-measures, that's a silly exercise IMO.
If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.
It should be obvious that if nobody was allowed to have a gun, then gun packing criminals would be able to target anyone who doesn't look like an undercover police officer. Just the possibility of someone having a gun probably makes them more cautious. I might not have a gun, but I would not like to advertise to the world that I do not have a gun. I might have one, or maybe not. If someone stops by your house and asks you to sign a petition against gun ownership, you might not want to sign it.
Jaguar Land Rover, British but Indian owned, are exporting very well.
Most cars made in Britain, of which there are quite a lot, are Japanese badged (Toyota, Nissan, Honda),
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
/me shakes head in disbelief.
I've lived in many countries, including the US, and ambition in "welfare states" is not lower: you get born with a fixed amount of ambition and your social circumstances have only a small effect on it.
What is lower in "welfare states" is misery.
From New Jersey you can easily drive to states where gun purchase is freer and easier, and drive back without passing any customs or checkpoints. Individual states cannot control guns within the contiguous states. The UK has an advantage as an island. Not to say that gun smuggling is impossible, but it requires a lot more effort than jumping into your car for a long drive.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
I'd still like to get a Boys anti-tank rifle one day (rechambered for .50 BMG). I got to use one in WWII reenacting (live fire contest with real ammo, not blanks) and it was sweet! My buddy won't sell me his, though. Keeps it in a state museum. FWProblems and all that.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Murder is caused by mental problems in the widest sense, which are caused by poverty, social conflicts, and "true" mental illness, etc. So it is not at all surprising that it works and spreads like a disease.
I always said: A murderer needs a *therapy*! Not prison! He/she needs *help*! Not hatred! The latter (prison/hatred) will only cause MORE murder to happen.
So: Your choice, fuckers! Do you want more murder? Hm? Because what you're doing right now shows that you clearly *love* for more murder to happen! (Or unfathomable stupidity and ignorance.)
In the hurricane belt, you can be cut off from law enforcement for several days, even weeks. Criminals do exploit this, and often it is the public who ends up detaining them until the police are able to get there.
I've been through several of these (Andrew was the worst) and I would not want to be unarmed when they come through.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
So... No dirks, daggers, sword canes, etc? I suppose my 16" WWI bayonet is right out, along with my Vietnam era Gerber, my Roman gladius (is sharp; I have the scars), my Italian rapier (not fencing type foil), and WWII k-bar?
I know that it's unlikely I could keep my gun collection in any other first world country but didn't know edged weapons were so controlled. Do chefs have to have a special license now or is everyone moving to straight razor one of knives that just flip around and such, for cooking?
I drank what? -- Socrates
I can't claim to be a shipping expert, but one of the reasons might be that our island is surrounded in many places by sandbanks and shallows of various sorts.
Oh my. I'm talking about an object that is less than half a foot in the vertical dimension. I'm not talking about captain Prien trying to sneak up on you in a Type VIIB U-boat.
Ezekiel 23:20
Of MSNBC's race card.
Its more likely this is actually modelling the passage of a new batch of guns through the criminal underworld.
I always find it hailarious that you in the states cite the ability to own firarms as something that keeps you safe when your obscenely high murder rate points to the opposite in my opinion.
Except that the criminals committing murders ALREADY aren't allowed to own firearms here. So banning guns would help how? Well, it would make life safer for criminals I guess.
... make me think of Redjac?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
In the sciences, writers are expected to be truthful about the limitations of their conclusions.
This gives know-nothings the opportunity to quote them out of context and misinterpret those statements.
Yes. I found it interesting when I was talking to the owner of a cannon at a Civil War recreation event about the legality of his cannon ownership. He explained to me that owning a cannon is perfectly legal as it's lack of rifling meant that it was not classified as a "gun".
I'm curious as to what state in which you live? I thought there was a federal law that required a 3-day wait to actually receive the firearm ... I know that I had to wait 3 days before I could complete the purchase (i.e. pick up my gun) even though I already had my FOID card in hand.
I know that the laws with respect to gun shows are different, but I also thought that you had to wait the 3 days with a private seller as well, that if you didn't the private seller was the one who was outside of the law by not enforcing the waiting period.
Most shooting deaths are suicides or "accidents" (most of those accidents are also suicides)
When New York City had a gun ban in the 1800's, its per capita murder rate was much higher than it is today.
Murder rates in the US are highest in areas where gun control restrictions are present, often going up after those restrictions are put in place, and going down after they are lifted.
America has a murder problem, but it is unrelated, or inversely related to the relative legality of firearm ownership.
Come on... this is Criminology 101 - Crime and criminal actions are the symptoms of anger, hopelessness, unmet expectations, and the lack of accessibility to comfort reasonable to the actor.
...And why does there need to be an NRA and not a NRPGA?
I'm glad you continued your comment after this line. I read "NRPGA" as a merger of the National Rifle Association and the Pro Golfing Association and immediately wondered:
The possibilities are fantastic!
I am going to take this joke seriously for a moment.
RPG's and ICBM's are much more indiscriminate than firearms. Their use in self defense is dangerous to innocent bystanders. A bullet fired from a gun goes (mostly) in a straight line, a line that can be made to intersect only the intended target more often than not. I would note that the indiscriminate use of a firearm is still a crime. Firing wildly into the air without regard to where the bullets fall recklessly endangers everyone within several hundred(or thousands for many guns) meters. And firing a highly penetrating rifle bullet through a robber inside an apartment complex would also be recklessly endangering to the people through many layers of wallboard and sheet rock.
This is also why fully automatic firearms should be (and are) more heavily regulated than semi-automatics. I would also note that muzzle loading single shot mini-ball muskets are available in many states without any of the restrictions reserved for more modern multi-shot firearms as well.
There's no NRPGA because it's not illegal to pretend to be a troll or hobbit. ... and because they'd have to compete with the already existing RPGA...
There are a lot of libertarians around here.
I myself am a libertarian in every aspect except tax/social service policy, which is unfortunately where most libertarians tend to focus their efforts.
In the US the situation is radically different, and not just because of the culture. There are almost as many guns as people there,
Yeah, bullshit. [citation required].
I love it when Europeans speak about our country - it doesn't take them long to open their pieholes before they show themselves to be profoundly ignorant. Like when Jeremy Clarkson gets up and talks about "fat americans" - except we have a lower obesity rate than the UK by a wide (pardon the pun) margin.
Gun ownership in our cities is extremely low because laws tend to be toughest in them, permits are hard to get ahold of, and people you share living space with, like roommates, tend to not appreciate having a gun around. Gun ownership tends to be highest in the least populated areas, and used mostly for recreation, hunting, or in some cases, protection from wild animals (bears, for example.)
Make sure you exclude military and police weapons, by the way.
Please help metamoderate.
It's worth noting that Newark, New Jersey already has pretty strict gun control laws. They just don't work. It's the same story for any US city with high murder rates, and always has been. Very strict (often unconstitutional) gun laws, zero benefit.
If anyone actually cared about solving high murder rates and other violent crime they'd deal with issues of poverty. But that's a hard problem without an easy, obvious legislative fix. That's not the sort of difficult message that gets people [re]elected. Voters want to hear that you've got a complete fix, on paper, that will make their problems go away, at no cost to them.
It's little more than security theater as a political game, with unfortunate side effects.
Consider gun ranges. Everyone is armed, yet no one is killed.
The problem is the image guns have; (my opinion respectfully disagrees with yours, unlike many gun nuts who get pissed off at statements such as yours) many people see them only as dangerous and tools to destroy. I see them as dangerous and tools to protect as well. Guns are so entrenched in American culture (what little culture we have) that they are quite ubiquitous. Gun control efforts simply remove guns from law-abiding citizens, and those who would do harm with them don't care, because now those whom they would harm are disarmed.
Cite? No sources. Just my opinion. What's overall gun ownership in Newark like?
Google found this: http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-jersey/1141975-crazy-nj-gun-laws-these-laws.html It appears they have somewhat strict laws, which can tend to "scare" law-abiding citizens into now owning/carrying guns. This, however, has no effect on the criminals, and now they know their targets are not armed.
Now if guns were much easier to get, criminals would get more, definitely, and crime would probably spike, but as responsible citizens got armed as well, crime rates would probably settle down to lower than what they began at as criminals start getting shot back at.
All conjecture. I'd like to see someone with the resources study this more thoroughly and properly, but there is so much bias in gun control that it'd likely be done by gun nuts like the NRA (I'm a part of, I believe they are a necessary evil in our times, but they are hugely sensationalist) or anti-gun nuts like the Brady Campaign.
Guns are enablers. As authority (from whomever) increases due to increased weapons (guns), then our ability to say "no" decreases unless we similarly escalate. Some other countries don't have such problems, I think, because it is SO much more difficult to get guns into the country, so very few criminals are even able to get guns.
Indeed. It is only the children of fools, and the friends of children of fools, who get killed. But it is still children from your community being punished for the mistakes of their parents. If you can stop fools harming themselves with drugs (even though some could use drugs responsibly), can you not stop fools harming their children with guns (even though some could use guns responsibly)?
I care for all children, not just my own.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Guns are used every day by citizens to defend themselves without hurting others around them. The same is not possible with an RPG.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
The per capita homicide rate of the US was 4.4per in the last count, which sounds extremely high. For most Americans though, the "experienced" rate is much closer to Europe at 2.2per (same as Finland). You see, ~6% of the US population (African american males between 18-40) commit over half of all homicides (55% according to the 2010 FBI uniform crime report). If you scale down the rate at which black males commit homicide to be more in line with the percent of the population they represent, you're looking at European-level homicide rates. Now obviously there are a number of contributing factors to why this is occurring, most of them based on poverty, gang-related activity, and broken families/social structure for example. For the lion's share of the US population, our homicide rate is on par with Europe - it's only for tiny pockets of our population that the rate is extraordinarily high.
"Drug related how?"
disputes arising from the sale, distribution and possession of illegal drugs which cannot be settled in court.
If you really did visit, you would have known that they're located in Fairfax, Virginia (I used to drive by it every day for many years). That may be nitpicking since the two locations are relatively close, but then maybe you should compare the difference in murder rates between those locals. You'll notice a very significantly higher rate of murder in Washington, where there was for many years a prohibition on handguns.
Just another day in Paradise
no, but I've heard lurid stories about an older generation of bikers on british motorcycles.
something about "lucas prince of darkness"
and "brits don't enjoy drinking warm beer, lucas makes refrigeratos"
Most gun crimes are not committed by professional outlaws that tap overseas suppliers for weaponry. The vast majority are just guys who got pissed off and / or drunk while a gun was handy.
Considered? Certainly.
I would probably even allow the RPG in some cases (most likely requiring a rigorous safety test before purchase). But an ICBM? Nope, there isn't a way you can use an ICBM without harming innocent civilians.
Capitalism.
Every country has a drug problem, of course, but England isn't top on the list of places the Mexicans and Columbians are piloting their mini-subs to.
Why should they, when the US is a far more lucrative market?
Also it is a hell of a lot easier to run a mini-sub from Central/South America to North America via the gulf of Mexico. They are not exactly designed to cross the Atlantic.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I suspect that if a suburban white soccer mom had the same chance of getting shot to death as an inner city black teenager that America would have already banned most firearms.
I assume that your scenario involves the suburban crime rate rising to match the inner city rate rather than the other way around. So, Why are these white soccer moms all of a sudden being killed? Is it because crazies are walking into movie theaters? Or is it because the criminal elements are bleeding into new areas?
There simply aren't that many crazies so I think that problem will take care of itself in short order. In either case I believe that if that time you describe came about the citizens in that area will become even more likely to carry - including the soccer moms. I also believe those societies that make it easier to own and carry will find a sudden drop in criminal activity involving violence against "innocent" citizens. The fact is that criminals aren't stupid AND they are rational beings. They don't walk into the police station of their own free will causing a stir... and they don't walk into other areas acting out where they know their behavior won't be tolerated.
The day that group of people is just as likely to be killed is the day that the inner city criminals will find that there is price to be paid for your behavior even if the "criminal justice" system doesn't do its part to handle it. Of course, some police apparently do get it. I just now read another comment as I was typing this one (http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3295209&cid=42191645) about some police who apparently do get it. Their war is a war on violence.
The fact is that there are enough rednecks (and I say that fondly) living both in the rural areas and in suburbia who try to just live their own lives and let others do the same. They aren't afraid... they just don't see a reason to get involved in someone elses fight. This group, I am confident, will have no problem saying "enough" when the time comes. They will quickly root out any violent criminals in their midst and they'll do it in such a way that will likely make any other potential criminals think twice before acting out in such an area. Criminals can watch out for the police, but when they have to assume that anyone can end them they will choose to find a weaker area in which to play their games.
My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
Are there no machinists?
Cutting a rifled barrel and building a simple firearm are not exactly complicated.
Who needs a machinist when you can just print a rifle. Now they are a ways off from a fully functional weapon. (the printing was only the lower receiver, and was only able to fire 6 shots before failing) However it is naive to think that downloadable fully functional weapons are more than a decade away. Forget about copyright laws, how are the gun laws going to deal with that?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
... and some are even allowing open carry.
Someone correct me if I'm mistaken, but "open carry" has always been legal by default, except in locations that ban guns in general. Washington D.C. for example.
Just another day in Paradise
And going even further, the US only considers the lower receiver the actual "firearm" for regulatory purposes - You can buy everything else totally unregulated.
Actually that would only be for AR-15 style weapons, not all weapons. Typically it is the receiver but for AR-15 style ones where there is a multi part receiver the choice was made to put the serial number on the lower instead of the upper. Also there are some other strange things that crop out of the law like classifying some Mosin-Nagent rifles the most strange being the 7.62 Tkiv 85 rifles as an antique firearm
Time to offend someone
Argh! Slashdot ate my first try at a response here.
.50 caliber (with exceptions for shotguns), no short-barreled rifles or shotguns (not sure why a rat-shot pistol doesn't violate that), no ownership by convicted felons or self-identified drug addicts. Beyond that, just about anything goes.
Anyway, I live in Maine, but it doesn't exactly count as an outlier in this regard - About a third of US states follow the basic minimum set of federal firearms regulations, and nothing more (though some have "more" in the opposite direction, such as "shall issue" requirements for CCWs).
The three day limit comes entirely from state law... So too does the need for any sort of permit (such as your FOID) just to own/use a firearm. You also don't need to "register" firearms by federal law.
Federal law really doesn't restrict much at all, and mostly just military-like functionality - No fully-automatics, no actually-effective suppressors, nothing over
Cannons only become a problem if you try to fire explosive rounds from them, since the explosive round itself is considered a destructive device under the NFA
XDInd
I believe that changed with the instant background check they do now. I haven't had to wait to purchase any of my firearms that were purchased from a real store (I did buy one rifle from a friend of mine who is a cop who I have known for 15 years) and that includes the pistol that I purchased earlier this year. To buy the pistol I had to get a permit to purchase but that was fairly simple and took about a week and that was in Minnesota. My other rifle and shotgun were purchased without a wait the same day I decided to buy them. I think now it is basically handled at the state level.
Time to offend someone
Doesn't the U.K. have a "knife crime" problem. Hence the seemingly ridicules laws about carrying edged weapons?
I carry my Buck Knife (3" blade) everywhere with me. It's a tool. But I believe that could land me in jail in the U.K.?
Please confirm or refute.
If it lock, yes. All fix blade are banned, they consider a locked blade to be the equivalent of a fix blade. Slip join are fine, under 3 inch. eg: Laguiole, sak, spyderco uk.
IANAL. If you travel, buy a knife locally and ask the shop owner about local custom eg: It may be legal but inappropriate. A locally brought knife also make a great travel souvenirs.
No locking blades are allowed? So the very thing that keeps the knife safe for the operator is what makes it illegal to carry? It's official, your country has now proven it self to be too stupid to comment on American laws. Thank you for wasting our time.
Wait. Unrifled artillery is civilian-legal?
So I could get a T-72 tank with a smoothbore 125mm gun, and it would be legal to keep armed?
Man, if only those things were street-legal...
Have you ever been to the US? There are enormous rural areas where you shouldn't expect the police to arrive for 45 minutes or more. Having a gun becomes a necessity.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Also, if there is little or no market, there is little or no incentive to try to smuggle an item into a country. It is demand driven really. Why take tremendous risks just to increase your stockpile of items you can't sell ?
I few years ago a newspaper tried to investigate this and sent someone out to buy as many guns as they could in London. Within a few hours, not only had they bought several guns, but the news had spread that someone was trying to buy guns and the price had already doubled.
Since gun ownership is so low, committing a crime in the UK using a gun means every single cop is trying to get you. In other words, using a gun is a stupid move for a criminal.
It should be obvious that if nobody was allowed to have a gun, then gun packing criminals would be able to target anyone who doesn't look like an undercover police officer.
And if they did try that in the UK, that would be the quickest way to go to jail for a long time. Or in Germany, where committing a theft while being armed is automatically "armed robbery" with a severe sentence. (No use of the weapon, or intent of use, needed).
Any sane government would distribute AK47s and RPGs to every man, woman, and child in its jurisdiction.
No, that would be stupid and pretty much everyone agrees that it would be stupid.
And then they could fire all the police.... and have a crime rate of absolute 0...
The police are important for a number of reasons that wouldn't require guns. But the fact that they are useful for those circumstances doesn't automatically mean that they are the be all and end all to every problem (kinda like guns!).
And then they could fire all the ... military ... and be impossible to invade.
How'd it work out the last time someone tried to invade the US or even Texas? It wasn't just a standing army that made those wins possible. The fact is that due to its very nature the army is often like the police... they're minutes away when seconds count. They're still important and the people who do those jobs with the right heart should be commended for what they do. Having a well trained army will certainly increase one's capabilities, and it can be a deciding factor, but to put all your eggs in one basket is shamefully lacking in foresight (and hindsight for that matter).
My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
But there are WAY more law abiding citizens, should we limit their rights just because a much lower number of the population are criminals or nuts?
I mean, we are already doing more and more to base our laws and society catering to lowest common denominator as it is....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Do chefs have to have a special license now or is everyone moving to straight razor one of knives that just flip around and such, for cooking?
It's carry for no other reason then 'it may be useful' that is banned. Edged tools are not illegal to possess. You can carry chef knives to your cooking class or a machete to the woods, but if you carry a blade for every day task it has to be non-locking and under 3 inch as I understand it. eg: You may not carry your sword to the pub.
Doesn't the U.K. have a "knife crime" problem. Hence the seemingly ridicules laws about carrying edged weapons?
Non-sequitor. We wiped out all our knife laws in NH a couple years ago. No sudden surge in knife crime. The two are not correlated.
Then again, we have a low crime rate overall, about on par with Switzerland (which has a massively high gun ownership rate). Still, we have a big incarceration problem - not as bad as the US overall, but worse than Mexico, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
And yet if you compare the statistics from my state to Hong Kong I get:
Hong Kong citizens are 150 times more likely to be involved in a violent crime.
I am 5 times more likely to have a theft than someone from Hong Kong.
I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that our statistics need to be viewed by someone that understands how things are being reported and what it means. I find it hard to believe that Hong Kong has had no Burglary in the last three years with a gun. I also find it hard to believe that violent crime is so prevalent in Hong Kong when theft is so rare. It could be I am just culturally unaware, but one would assume people that have 15000% more violent crimes per capita would have at least similar if not more theft.
http://newarknj.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm
It bothers me for my black friends and I hate to be one of those guys, but when I watch the news it's often black male youth committing the crimes around my town. If you look at this Newark's demographics, it is over 53% black, less than 27% white, with other races mixed in at small amounts. Is this more of the poor black on black crime problems?
I'm a librarian, and guns aren't allowed for a reason. Silencers are generally not allowed without undue expense. Libraries as you know have to be quiet. Non-silenced guns are simply unacceptable.
You may not carry your sword to the pub.
What if you checked it at the door?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
So I could get a T-72 tank [wikipedia.org] with a smoothbore 125mm gun [wikipedia.org], and it would be legal to keep armed?
No. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destructive_device for more information. The reason you can have a muzzle-loading smoothbore cannon (i.e. Civil War era) is mentioned at the end of the article. Your tank gun is not muzzle-loading.
Actually, you can sometimes buy functional tanks as a civilian, but they weld the barrels of the big guns shut :-(
http://cltracker.net -- powerful craigslist multi-city search
Your assertions are debatable. You don't need to defend yourself in urban areas? Maybe not from wildlife, but I guarantee you, I wouldn't step foot in Detroit w/o some kind of protection. How about during emergency situations? There's been lots of looters after Sandy.
As for self defense against government tyranny, we've seen that argument here many times. Hopefully, it would never come to this point, and I'm not talking about little things like Waco, or Ruby Ridge. The military would never be used on the populace here, and even if it came to that, most of the military wouldn't obey an order to do so...volunteer forces shooting Americans?...don't think so.
Just another day in Paradise
So... if someone murders me, I'm then more likely to go on and murder in the future? D:
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
From Wikipedia:
Currently, 92% of Brady background checks through NICS are completed while the FBI is still on the phone with the gun dealer.[2] In rare cases, a gun purchaser may have to wait for up to three business days if the NICS system fails to positively approve or deny his/her application to purchase a firearm. If a denial is not issued within those three days, the transfer may be completed at that time
Just another day in Paradise
Open carry is hit and miss depending on the state.
Even in states where it's completely legal it can be a big pain in the ass. People are conditioned to fear the sight of any gun and call police right away. You will be stopped and questioned. If you get a cop who is 'cool' it's probably not an issue but of course you might not and then they'll go out of their way to make your day difficult. Best case you get the 'cool' cop and he sends you on your way. Ten minutes later another cop shows up because of someone else who called.
Generally open-carry isn't worth the trouble, hence the reason for an explosion of concealed-carry license requests.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
You make a good point about Detroit. Tyranny though, even the police have drones these days, and other toys which make guns civilians can own non-competitive. If we had a tyrannical government, and a civilian uprising were causing any real trouble, I have no doubt that the national guard at least would be called in to put it down.
Are you a football player by chance? Or are you just being obstinately stupid? "Might potentially" and "perhaps, one imagines" means "more study is warranted".
Free Martian Whores!
In recent years Baltimore City [wikipedia.org] tried that approach.
...except, of course, they didn't try any such approach. People in Baltimore are still getting into gunfights over drug-selling disputes in exactly the same way that corner-store owners aren't getting into gunfights over grocery-selling disputes.
Focusing on violence is great and all, and I'm glad to see it had a positive effect, but the root problem remains: a fucking huge high-demand market, that will never, EVER go away, in which there is no legal way to settle disputes.
Jaguar Land Rover, British but Indian owned, are exporting very well.
Does its engine make a sound like: "WHOOOOOSH"?
What is this world coming to when University of Michigan students have to go to Newark to study murders? We used to rock the murder numbers! - HEX
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There might be some use in this if it led to an accurate predictive formula for preemptive intervention, but I see nothing about that in TFA
TFA says
..so that police might potentially identify problem areas as they are emerging—or perhaps, one imagines, before they emerge.
I never said that it was a scientific conclusion. But it sounds like this stud could, potentially, lead to an accurate predictive formula. Of course it might not. But it seems to warrant further study. My point was TFA indicates it could lead to a prediction, something the OP fails to see in TFA.
Well, that's the problem with stereotypes, isn't it? They have such little basis in reality.
So.... You've cited yourself and your friends who are not members of the NRA as examples of stereotypical NRA members? I must be completely insane because I don't see how what you wrote contradicts anything I said much less how the hell you got a +5 for such a completely off-point post. Is it because some people can't tell the difference between the NEA and the NRA? Really WTF?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Interesting,
The right to bear arms has a lot less to do with hunting and personal defence, as it has to do with keeping an opressive government at bay. Of course, none of the weapons that we are allowed to have come close to what our modern millitary posesses. Even though, I do not want my neighbor to own a nuke, there should be a limit to the quantity of any certain type of weapon that the millitary can have, and after that quantity is reached then non millitary people should be allowed to purchase them. This would have the added benifit of giveing the millitary a natural incintive to limit the quantity of nukes and icbm's that they possess.
"For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice" -- God
Perhaps you aren't aware of this, but crimes committed with guns in the US do indeed come with harsher penalties and sentences. Legally allowing civilians to carry weapons does not mean you are treated lightly when you misuse that right in the committing of a crime.
Just as an example, the last time the UK homicide rate was as high as it is currently in the USA was at the end of the 17th century.
That's true, but I don't think it shows what you want it to show. It rather tends to prop up the anti-gun-control position. After all, the UK murder rate in the 1800's was generally less than 2 per 100,000, even though gun control was non-existent. The first real gun laws were passed around the end of that century, and even then, there was no control on the sale/purchase of firearms - they simply started requiring that you have a license in order to carry a weapon in public.
Those numbers tend to suggest that there are other factors which are responsible for the high rate of homicide in the US.
Also, it's interesting to note that the homicide rate in the US has pretty much mirrored the rates in Europe. In the 1600/1700's it was around 40 per 100,000, and has declined over time, with some hiccups here and there.
I don't know about criminal homicides, but the pro-rata level of deaths of children and teenagers through gun accidents (i.e. excluding crime and adult accidents) in the US is the same as total gun deaths from all causes in the UK. (Figures NRA, Home Office). The NRA disregards this level of deaths as unimportant.
I went looking for confirmation of your claim, and I could not find it. Perhaps you can provide links.
What I did find were these numbers:
USA 2002 Unintentional firearm deaths of children: 214
With a population of roughly 287,000,000 that puts the rate at 0.07 per 100,000
UK 2002 Total Firearm death rate: 0.46 per 100,000
So, it looks like the pro-rata level of firearm deaths in the UK is actually much closer to 7 times higher than the accidental firearm deaths of children in the USA.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I just realized it is probably incorrect to calculate deaths across the entire population instead of just children under the age of 18. Census seems to say that roughly 25% of the US population is under the age of 18 , so that works out to 0.30 per 100,000. Still significantly less than 0.47.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
My "good reason" for carrying a knife is that I might need to cut or pry something. I don't typically know in advance when I'm going to need it... but actually it's a rare day I don't pull the knife out for some reason.
But, then, I also think that "because I might need to stab someone to defend myself" is another perfectly valid reason for carrying a knife. I've never needed a weapon to defend myself, but it's a good idea to be prepared.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
So I can bring my 20 gauge shotgun on the airplane with me? It's not rifled, so not a 'gun'?
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
I told you so.
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
Have you ever been anywhere outside the US? There are enormous urban areas where you shouldn't expect the police to arrive at all!
Of MSNBC's race card.
Its more likely this is actually modelling the passage of a new batch of guns through the criminal underworld.
I always find it hailarious that you in the states cite the ability to own firarms as something that keeps you safe when your obscenely high murder rate points to the opposite in my opinion.
When I just got emailed the moderation for this post it looked more like I had posted somethign about religon than about gun ownership. No doubt anyone posting anything about gun ownership being bad for society must be a troll in most readers minds not making a serious point.
Either that or the vast majority of slashdot readers can't grasp the moderation system not including "-1 disagree" for a reason.
I dont read
It did an excellent job of missing the point, if that's what you were going for.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
It's funny, but slashdot seems to have a strange attraction for exactly that mindset. Me one too. Must have something to do with being rational and smart.
Social Credit would solve everything...
They can tell you no for things that are not classified as a gun.
Choo!
Don't get too close, it's catchy!
THINK! It's patriotic
Parts of Detroit are warzones the police won't enter, and India has a horrific murder rate. It's just not tracked in the lower castes. The world is a far, far worse place than you think it is...
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So let me clarify a bit. My best friend, his wife, his sons are all lifetime members of the NRA. One uncle, two cousins, and I don't know how many neighbors when I was growing up were members. Most of us who weren't members of the NRA were either too cheap or too poor to join. We certainly were fully behind the NRA's agenda. And yet, many of us were and are fully behind the legalization of marijuana.
Another example: Take a look at the two states that have legalized pot first; Washington and Colorado. Both states have concealed carry permits available, which leads me to believe that both states have strong pro gun lobbies. And who leads those lobbies nationwide? Oh, yes, the NRA.
Your thesis just doesn't hold water. THAT's the point I was trying to make.
I have an idea, a modest proposal really. How about, since the worry is criminals getting guns that "honest citizens" can't get, we just get rid of all, i mean all as in every since gun-like thing, projectile weapon, for ten years. In that time, every weapon discovered in any situation is destroyed, gun manufacturers are shut down and military weapons are set to individual recognition so that they can only be fired by their "owner" who is probably a robot.
After ten years manufacturers are allowed to manufacture weapons that are: taxed at 100%, fire only with individual recognition as proven to work by the military, and available only to citizens who have passed both an intensive background check and a mandatory safety and use education and certification program.
That might make me feel safe going out of my house at night again.
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
yes, yes we should
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
(A) So now you've got examples who are members of the NRA. How convenieeent. Maybe you were thinking it in your head and you just didn't write it, either way you didn't write it.
(B) The plural anecdote is not data. I said "stereotypically," I didn't say "always." A handful of counter-examples only contradicts a claim of "always."
(C) Nearly all states have some form of concealed carry licensing nowadays. Linking beliefs simply by state of residence is far more tenuous than anything I've said. Hell, Texas didn't even have concealed carry until the 90s and they still don't have open carry.
Your thesis just doesn't hold water. THAT's the point I was trying to make.
If you want to actually put me in my place for stereotyping (which, ironically my use of the term "stereotypical" contradicts, but that's probably too meta for you), you have to do a better job with the data than I did. Ideally -- poll results of NRA members on the specific question of drug legalization. If you can't find that then you might be able to do it by proxy - like age distribution of NRA membership and then age distribution of pro-legalization types. Or maybe ethnic distrbution, or education levels, or even political party affiliation. Something with more correlation than the place they live.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.