Posted: 9/10/2007 12:44:25 PM EDT
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Someone with some common sense talking about firearms in England. Link Many of the responses make interesting reading too. |
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Code, Violent crime is chronic in the UK. Most people are prisoners in their own homes after dark. And even in the day, it's quite dangerous. While it is true that murder and gun death is quite low, overall violent crime, assault, muggings, hot burglaries, etc are off the charts compared with the USA. Criminals are emboldened by a number of factors: 1) Unarmed cops present little deterrence to a knife-wielding criminal. You can simply run away if spotted. Seldom any need to engage the officer to effect an escape. 2) Disarmed victims. Even in your own home, preparing to defend yourself by having the means to do so is often a criminal offence in it's own right. Hence, hot burglaries are quite common. A group of thugs will merely kick down the door, beat up the occupants, and ransack the house. The police come along later, give you a crime number for the insurance, and make sure you didn't hurt any of the criminals. This "state certified defenseless victim" mentality is even more important to understand when out in public. For example, women have been arrested and prosecuted for having a can of hairspray when they have a short haircut. Premeditated possession ofa dual-use offensive weapon. Same goes for combs and hairbrushes. God forbid you have any kind of locking blade (of any length) or a non-locking blade over 3" total length. And even then you will need to be able to demonstrate "need". So we have the survival of the fittest, with mob rule among the serfs, while the lords of the land are protected by heavily armed mercenaries. 3) The justice system offers little more than a slap on the wrist, so time served is just an occupational hazard. Assuming you get caught, which isn't likely given the high crime rate. The UK is a cess-pit of low-level crime and violence. It's safer to be a drig dealer in the UK than it is the US, but it's safer to be a law abiding citizen in the US than it is in the UK. Cheers 7.62 (Escaped the UK in 2001) |
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www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9641 London has approximately 7x the overall crime rate of New York City. "New York and London have populations of 8 million and 7 million respectively and comparable police budgets, though New York has about 40 percent more police actually on the beat. British papers retail many incidents of British police, rather than preventing crime, being kept busy "celebrating diversity" and prosecuting politically incorrect remarks and behavior (large amounts of money and court time have been spent by the Crown Prosecution Service on cases of children who have made politically incorrect remarks in school playground fights, for instance)" "In 2002 a study found that 11 million crimes had been left out of British government figures, including hundreds of thousands of serious crimes involving woundings, robberies, assaults and even murders as well as thefts." As an aside, in 2003, there were 24,334 street robberies in New York – while in London, 38,490 people were robbed in the street. So you truly are more likely to be mugged in London than you are in New York. |
But, that is still a bad comparo. Both cities do not allow handguns. |