Wednesday, May 22, 2013

When seconds count, police are minutes away

Britain has tough gun control laws, unlike us trigger-happy Americans. Leave it to the authorities to keep us safe:

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/05/22/whoa-soldier-beheaded-by-radical-muslims-praising-allah-n1603743

http://news.sky.com/story/1094437/woolwich-assailants-filmed-hacking-attack

13 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Hi Steve,

    You're suggesting that if citizens in the street had had arms, then the beheading would not have taken place?

    That seems rather unlikely. The criminals appear to have deliberately chosen beheading, not in order to kill as much as possible, but for other political reasons. There's no particular evidence that the only reason they could perform the beheading is because nobody was able to shoot them before they had finished it. It appears to have been very swift.

    I appreciate almost all of what you post. But you seem to have made a snap decision to hitch this incident to the bandwagon here. I'd say that the evidence indicates that radical Islam and the UK governments' multi-cultural aims have more to do with anything we do in detecting a pattern here than gun laws. Remember than in the UK, school gun massacres are almost unknown (the last one was 17 years ago). So if the argument depends upon quick links and snapshots like this, then that would turn out badly for the side of the argument you're pressing. (Personally I haven't got a developed position either way at this point. I just think this post was badly thought through).

    David

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  3. The homicide rate in the US is 400% higher than in the UK, so the UK is a much safer place to be overall - it is a much less violent society

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    1. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/uk-violent-crime-rate-eight-times-higher-than-in-the-us/

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  4. Actually Mr Anderson, there is good reason to think that normal British subjects could have prevented this attack had they been armed, or at least prevented fatal injury to the man in question. The incident was not all that swift, the soldier was first run over and then hacked at then beheaded. It is entirely plausible that someone with a gun could have used the time to shoot and kill these two men.

    More importantly, the knowledge that the people around you could be armed would often be a sufficient deterrent to prevent these kind of attacks in the first place. So I think calling Steve's post badly thought through is hardly justified by what you have said so far.

    As for the homicide rate unless it can be demonstrated that this is a direct result of an armed citizenry then I'm not sure how that's relevant.

    In the past, as Peter Hitchens has ably reported, British gun laws at the turn of the century made Texas look effeminate, and the unarmed police actually borrowed guns from surrounding homeowners in one gunfight. And we did not have a murder rate then like we do now, I might add, and it was far lower than the US which had *stricter* gun control!

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  5. There are 8,775 Firearm Murders a Year in US, compared to 58 in UK (if you adjust for population that would come to 290 fimrearm murders in the UK). Maybe that's nothing to do with the fact that guns are much more easily available in the US than the UK, although you will have a hard time persuading anyone outside the US to believe that.

    Another interesting fact: more people commit suicide with guns in the US than kill other people with their guns. It seems that guns are most dangerous of all to the individuals who own them.

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  6. a) I live outside of the US, and I do not believe that they have a high murder rate because of their increased gun availability, although they undoubtedly have a higher gun murder rate because of that. But I think it unlikely that the violence would be broadly similar but done with knives if guns weren't available.

    b) The relevant comparison, as I pointed out, is between Britain with legal guns and Britain without legal guns. Britain with legal guns had a lower murder rate (including fewer firearm crimes) than Britain without, and a lower murder rate than the US with stricter gun control.

    c) Countries such as such as Russia with a higher murder rate than the US have stricter gun control. The US murder rate has much more to do with a historically higher rates of violence in that country than the weapons people are armed with.

    d) Guns have a useful deterrent effect for criminals. A rapist is far less likely to attack a vulnerable young woman if that woman might be armed. The same applies for murderers; guns have an equalising effect.

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  7. Come on, Thomas. The act was intended as political theatre. Do you think that if the citizenship had guns, then it would then be impossible to stage political theatre? e.g. Kidnap someone off a back street, and behead them in front of a camera in a house?

    My point is not for or against tighter gun controls, which is what you focus on. My point is that Steve has lowered his usually very high standards of logical analysis with this post in order to make a cheap point, and that the same kind of cheap points can be made in either direction. One side can post a link to a gun massacre, as a quick point in favour of more gun controls. The other can do what Steve just did. *Neither* advances the case of intelligent argumentation.

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  8. Would it be impossible to stage political theatre? No. But it would be much harder. This piece of political theatre in particular would have been very difficult, as the best way they had of getting to a member of the armed forces was by waiting outside a barracks on a public highway. Even kidnapping is harder and more risky when they might have a concealed weapon.

    You said: You're suggesting that if citizens in the street had had arms, then the beheading would not have taken place?

    That seems rather unlikely. The criminals appear to have deliberately chosen beheading, not in order to kill as much as possible, but for other political reasons. There's no particular evidence that the only reason they could perform the beheading is because nobody was able to shoot them before they had finished it. It appears to have been very swift.


    But it is precisely the case that in a counter-factual version of this with an armed citizenry, it is plausible that the man's life would have been saved. I don't think Steve has "lowered his standards", I think it's responsive to a certain type of (normally British, sadly) anti-American snobbery which views them as barbaric for carrying guns.

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  9. Brian Barrington said:

    The homicide rate in the US is 400% higher than in the UK, so the UK is a much safer place to be overall - it is a much less violent society

    Once you take out inner city gang related violence, the comparison becomes less favorable.

    You also have to account for how "violence" is defined. These kinds of statistics are often misleading. As with most political discussions, people come to the table with preconceived ideas and values, and find facts to bolster and confirm them.

    There are 8,775 Firearm Murders a Year in US, compared to 58 in UK (if you adjust for population that would come to 290 fimrearm murders in the UK). Maybe that's nothing to do with the fact that guns are much more easily available in the US than the UK, although you will have a hard time persuading anyone outside the US to believe that.

    Again, take out inner city related gang shootings, and the comparison is much less favorable. (Would you be in favor of searching for and confiscating guns from inner city residences?)

    Successfully claiming that the availability of firearms is a direct cause of increased gun violence requires a robust argument. The fact that people "outside of the US" don't want to do the work necessary to make this argument, and would rather adhere to their preconceived notions on the subject, doesn't change this.

    All this is moot anyway; 3-D printing is on course to greatly increase the supply of firearms. Increased legislation will do little to stop this.

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  10. "The homicide rate in the US is 400% higher than in the UK, so the UK is a much safer place to be overall - it is a much less violent society"

    Brian, you are being dishonest.

    You must know that places like Chicago, with > 500 deaths due to gun violence last year, have the strictest gun control laws in the nation.

    And yet you are implicitly trying to put that as the norm in the US. In fact, crime rates are lower in areas that have less restrictions on gun ownership.

    You are a living example of "lies, damned lies, and statistics".

    Why do you do it? I honestly do not understand the liberal mindset...

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  11. The figures are for homicide, which are less open to “interpretation” than other forms of violence – and the homicide rate in the US is 400% what it is in the UK, and higher than anywhere else in the developed world – and the US also has the most lax gun laws in the developed world. So people are correct to be sceptical that liberalising gun laws would decrease homicide or violence – it would be mostly up to pro-gun people to prove that making guns easily available decreases homicide and violence. The evidence that it does so is fairly shakey. Although I admit that conclusively proving anything in relation to this is difficult since there are so many factors that go into determining homicide rates.

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  12. Brian, why would you restrict your statistics to "homicide" and not to all forms of crime?

    Do you think that people have the right to protect themselves against being mugged or having people invade their homes?

    Many cases of foiled muggings because someone merely shows they are armed go unreported.

    It sounds like you think that law abiding citizens should be at the mercy of criminals as long as that brings the "homicide rate" down, which you admit you cannot even determine.

    You also repeat your hasty generalization with "the US also has the most lax gun laws", without acknowledging that the highest rates of homicide take place in the areas with the strictest gun control laws.

    Brian, only people who are already indoctrinated into your groupthink could possibly fall for your dog and pony show.

    Will you at least acknowledge that you are not taking all the facts into account?

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