Guess who has the highest crime rate in the world

[baldeagle]

This is an old article (2002) that has recently received renewed attention. Among the civilized nations, England and Wales, where the government has not only disarmed its law-abiding citizens but finds them guilty of a crime if they attempt to defend themselves in other ways, have the highest crime rate in the world. The law is so distorted in England now that "a sandbag, a pickaxe handle, a stone, and a drum of pepper" have been found by the courts to be illegal weapons possessed by law-abiding citizens. The banning of guns in England has had the opposite effect of what was intended. "In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent."

This is how insane it has gotten in England.

In 1994 an English homeowner, armed with a toy gun, managed to detain two burglars who had broken into his house while he called the police. When the officers arrived, they arrested the homeowner for using an imitation gun to threaten or intimidate. In a similar incident the following year, when an elderly woman fired a toy cap pistol to drive off a group of youths who were threatening her, she was arrested for putting someone in fear. Now the police are pressing Parliament to make imitation guns illegal.

You can't make this kind of stuff up. No one would believe you. Yet it's reality in England.

The article is quite lengthy but well worth the read. It will force you to think about how much you care about your rights and what you are willing to do to defend them.

[Broncrider]

And believe it or not, Australia is following their example with the same kind of nonsense laws.

[A-R]

That was a fascinating (and sobering) article. Thanks for posting it.

I looked up current stats and they're about the same as this eight year old article http://www.nationmaster.com/cat/cri-crime&all=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Great ammunition for debates with antis too.

[VMI77]

This is an old article (2002) that has recently received renewed attention. Among the civilized nations, England and Wales, where the government has not only disarmed its law-abiding citizens but finds them guilty of a crime if they attempt to defend themselves in other ways, have the highest crime rate in the world. The law is so distorted in England now that "a sandbag, a pickaxe handle, a stone, and a drum of pepper" have been found by the courts to be illegal weapons possessed by law-abiding citizens. The banning of guns in England has had the opposite effect of what was intended. "In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent."

This is how insane it has gotten in England.

In 1994 an English homeowner, armed with a toy gun, managed to detain two burglars who had broken into his house while he called the police. When the officers arrived, they arrested the homeowner for using an imitation gun to threaten or intimidate. In a similar incident the following year, when an elderly woman fired a toy cap pistol to drive off a group of youths who were threatening her, she was arrested for putting someone in fear. Now the police are pressing Parliament to make imitation guns illegal.

You can't make this kind of stuff up. No one would believe you. Yet it's reality in England.

The article is quite lengthy but well worth the read. It will force you to think about how much you care about your rights and what you are willing to do to defend them.

This is exactly what the supposed anti-gun crowd seeks here, not the actual elimination of guns, and certainly not the removal of guns from criminals, but the extermination of the right to self-defense.

[Mastodon]

This is an old article (2002) that has recently received renewed attention. Among the civilized nations, England and Wales, where the government has not only disarmed its law-abiding citizens but finds them guilty of a crime if they attempt to defend themselves in other ways, have the highest crime rate in the world. The law is so distorted in England now that "a sandbag, a pickaxe handle, a stone, and a drum of pepper" have been found by the courts to be illegal weapons possessed by law-abiding citizens. The banning of guns in England has had the opposite effect of what was intended. "In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent."

This is how insane it has gotten in England.

In 1994 an English homeowner, armed with a toy gun, managed to detain two burglars who had broken into his house while he called the police. When the officers arrived, they arrested the homeowner for using an imitation gun to threaten or intimidate. In a similar incident the following year, when an elderly woman fired a toy cap pistol to drive off a group of youths who were threatening her, she was arrested for putting someone in fear. Now the police are pressing Parliament to make imitation guns illegal.

You can't make this kind of stuff up. No one would believe you. Yet it's reality in England.

The article is quite lengthy but well worth the read. It will force you to think about how much you care about your rights and what you are willing to do to defend them.

Amazing!

and scary.

[flintknapper]

That was a fascinating (and sobering) article. Thanks for posting it.

I looked up current stats and they're about the same as this eight year old article http://www.nationmaster.com/cat/cri-crime&all=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Great ammunition for debates with antis too.

Love the "play on words" and I wish this type of report would resonate with the anti's.

But the sad fact is: Most antis are persuaded more by their feelings/emotions.... than they are by facts and logic.

So, don't be surprised if your efforts end in futility.

[VMI77]

That was a fascinating (and sobering) article. Thanks for posting it.

I looked up current stats and they're about the same as this eight year old article http://www.nationmaster.com/cat/cri-crime&all=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Great ammunition for debates with antis too.

Yeah, and note, burglaries per capita are highest in Australia, a rate three times the rate in the US. New Zealand and the UK come it at over two times the US. Note also that the UK, New Zealand, and Australia are also way below the US in perception of safety (walking in the dark and burglary).

But I don't necessarily believe a lot of these numbers. For one thing, I simply don't believe the statistics coming from any of these countries. All of them have incentives to falsify the data in one way or another. We also have no idea what the incentives and disincentives are for reporting crimes of various types in different countries --on every level, from victim to police to government officials. Reports like this simply do not provide enough data to make objective and meaningful conclusions since they don't state things like exactly how the data was collected in each country and how cultural and legal system differences are accounted for in the data.

[baldeagle]

But I don't necessarily believe a lot of these numbers. For one thing, I simply don't believe the statistics coming from any of these countries. All of them have incentives to falsify the data in one way or another. We also have no idea what the incentives and disincentives are for reporting crimes of various types in different countries --on every level, from victim to police to government officials. Reports like this simply do not provide enough data to make objective and meaningful conclusions since they don't state things like exactly how the data was collected in each country and how cultural and legal system differences are accounted for in the data.

That was one of the things pointed out in the article. America reports all firearm deaths as homicide even if it was justifiable and regardless of whether or not any charges were ever filed. England reports homicide deaths only for those cases where someone is found guilty of the crime. That alone will skew the statistics dramatically.

I don't know the source of the numbers in the cited link, so I have no idea if the numbers are normalized in some way or not. And you're absolutely correct that nations have an incentive to under report or misrepresent crime statistics.

[Skydivesnake]

England reports homicide deaths only for those cases where someone is found guilty of the crime. That alone will skew the statistics dramatically.
.

That is true. The crime 'clear up rate' in the UK is about 15% so you need to apply a 6.6x multiplier to normalize and compare the UK numbers to, say, US numbers, which are reported (rather than 'solved') crimes.

In addition, there are several crimes that in the UK are not classed as 'violent' whereas they are in the US. I don't remember which ones precisely (and I realize comments like that are somewhat dubious without providing the link) but one that rings a bell is brandishing a knife but without actually causing injury is quite a low level crime in the UK but classed as aggravated assault in the US.

Also there exists consolidation of multiple crimes into one reported event - like if a burglar breaks into several apartments in one complex in one 'session' they are classed as a single incident. I'm guessing the same happens with other (violent) crimes too.

So a lot of differences that make simple comparison of country vs country data very tricky.