MASSIVE Elementary School Shooting in CT *12-24 Maybe be dead

[Scout101]

gturner wrote:

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I am from the deep hills of Appalachia.

Explains almost everything you've ever said.

[cooleddie74]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around his assertion that African-Americans and natives of the Caribbean region are naturally more prone to criminal activity and are thus "naturally" more dangerous and likely to commit murder than most persons of European descent.

I'm not really sure I want to.

[Gov Kodos]

SantaEddie74 wrote:

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I'm still trying to wrap my head around his assertion that African-Americans and natives of the Caribbean region are naturally more prone to criminal activity and are thus "naturally" more dangerous and likely to commit murder than most persons of European descent.

I'm not really sure I want to.

He couldn't be implying that there is a genetic predisposition to failure?

[Hound of UIster]

SantaEddie74 wrote:

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I'm still trying to wrap my head around his assertion that African-Americans and natives of the Caribbean region are naturally more prone to criminal activity and are thus "naturally" more dangerous and likely to commit murder than most persons of European descent.

Likely no connection though it's possible equatorial regions have higher crime rates than temperate ones.

[JarodRussell]

It's all because of global warming. Makes people more aggressive.

[RJDiogenes]

Tora Noel wrote:

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Yeah. That was my take on it, but I was curious what others would think. I expect better of the NYT.

It sounded more like an amateur blogging than professional journalism; although standards certainly have fallen in recent years.

[Data Holmes]

UK certified as most violent country in Europe, more violent than USA or South Africa.

In the decade since 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 per cent to 1.158million - or more than two every minute.

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

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

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

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

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

But it is the naming of Britain as the most violent country in the EU that is most shocking.

The analysis is based on the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.

In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677. The U.S. has a violence rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 residents, Canada 935, Australia 92 and South Africa 1,609.

Link.

Little older, but...

AUSTRALIA: MORE VIOLENT CRIME DESPITE GUN BAN

In 2002 -- five years after enacting its gun ban -- the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime. *In fact, the percent of murders committed with a firearm was the highest it had ever been in 2006 (16.3 percent)

Even Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:

In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent.

Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
Moreover, Australia and the United States -- where no gun-ban exists -- both experienced similar decreases in murder rates:

Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America's rate dropped 31.7 percent.

During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.

Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent.

Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.

At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.

Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.

[Starkers]

The scariest thing about those assault figures is how much Scotland skews them!

Anyway some other random statistics...

"Crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales fell by 6.1% between the years ending June 2011 and June 2012, according to the latest crime statistics.
9.1m crimes were reported in 2011/12, down from 9.7m the previous year, and 27.2% lower than ten years ago."

Stats are only as good as the information that's recorded though, and what's actually counted and how it's counted.

Take the hyperbole that Australian women are raped over three times as often as American women. That isn't necessarily what the figures say now, is it. Now it could be true, or it could be the case that Australian women are three times more likely to report being raped? Or maybe that what's classed as rape by the police in Australia differs from what's classed as rape by the police in the US? After all if we just went with the statistics Sweden's the European country where a woman is most like to be raped but that doesn't really tell the whole story.

Love the fact that Australia and Canada are kidnap capitals of the world!

Also...did you know 38% of recorded gun crime in Scotland relates to air rifles?

Anyway I think we can all agree that the facts show you're more likely to be punched in Britain, but shot in America. I know where I'd rather live...

[MacLeod]

^^All very nice stats, but both the UK and Australia while having a higher crime rate, have a lower murder rate per capita than the US.

So using those stats (as well as others that have been posted) despite the UK with 4 times the violent crime rate than the US, you are around 4 times less likely to be murdered.

So which would people rather have, a higher chance of being a victim of a crime, or a higher chance of being murdered?

And no you can't answer neither, which we would of course all want.

And of course, you have to ask are crime figures recorded differently now, are people more willing to report crime now etc...

[JarodRussell]

I like how they stress the increase of rape in an article about gun bans.

[Data Holmes]

MacLeod wrote:

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^^All very nice stats, but both the UK and Australia while having a higher crime rate, have a lower murder rate per capita than the US.

So using those stats (as well as others that have been posted) despite the UK with 4 times the violent crime rate than the US, you are around 4 times less likely to be murdered.

So which would people rather have, a higher chance of being a victim of a crime, or a higher chance of being murdered?

And no you can't answer neither, which we would of course all want.

And of course, you have to ask are crime figures recorded differently now, are people more willing to report crime now etc...

Us gun murder rates are skewed by the war on drugs and the resulting violence associated with it. If you legalized all drugs, regulated and taxed them just like tobacco and alcohol, and treated addiction as an illness and not a crime, you would drastically cut down the numbers of gun related crime.

[cooleddie74]

I don't think rates matter as much as the actual lives lost. Parents, children, family and friends don't mourn numbers and statistics. They mourn actual lives that have been cut short.

Data and other likeminded apologists can post all they want about this nation or that country having a greater overall per capita crime rate, but even if all of the numbers were reliable and weren't manipulated or skewed it doesn't get in the way of the raw numbers of human lives lost to gun murder in America.

11,000 versus just 35 or 100? Yeah, forgive me for not giving two flying farts about the "rate." Cleverly used statistics are used in attempts to lessen the impact of and make apologies for a lot of bad things in this world so we'll stop thinking they're significant enough problems to actually do something about.

[Squiggy]

NightmareB4Holmes wrote:

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Us gun murder rates are skewed by the war on drugs and the resulting violence associated with it. If you legalized all drugs, regulated and taxed them just like tobacco and alcohol, and treated addiction as an illness and not a crime, you would drastically cut down the numbers of gun related crime.

Or we could do what every other industrialized nation on Earth has done to great success.

[Data Holmes]

SantaEddie74 wrote:

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I don't think rates matter as much as the actual lives lost. Parents, children, family and friends don't mourn numbers and statistics. They mourn actual lives that have been cut short.

Data and other likeminded apologists can post all they want about this nation or that country having a greater overall per capita crime rate, but even if all of the numbers were reliable and weren't manipulated or skewed it doesn't get in the way of the raw numbers of human lives lost to gun murder in America.

11,000 versus just 35 or 100? Yeah, forgive me for not giving two flying farts about the "rate." Cleverly used statistics are used in attempts to lessen the impact of and make apologies for a lot of bad things in this world so we'll stop thinking they're significant enough problems to actually do something about.

You are talking about emotion. Laws should be devoid of emotion, and not passed because of it. Emotion is both irrational and illogical. To attempt to run a nation on it is a first class ticket to failure.

[Data Holmes]

Festivus Toad wrote:

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Or we could do what every other industrialized nation on Earth has done to great success.

That's what I said...