Eh, I've been doing this for a while on this board. I'll check further, though, for more info.
Also, just for background, I don't own any guns myself nor have I ever used them nor am I planning to in the future. Not based in personal bias in the sense that I want to keep my pistol, I just prefer not to remove rights once they've been granted.
Edit: One thing that's been mostly ignored are efforts to increase the safety of firearms. From mere safety training to gun locks, to this new concept of designing a gun that can only be fired by a specific person. The latter especially would serve as an efficient counter to a number of the situations you mentioned.
Also, hard figures for the UK. (Crime figures in the UK since '98 are counted by financial year, not calendar year, thus the date span.)
Number of Firearm incidents in England and Wales 1999-00: 16946 (
www.statistics.gov.uk/STA...?vlnk=7347 )
Number of total crimes commited same interval: 5261437 (Number of incidents of crime per 1000 people: 101.1 [
www.statistics.gov.uk/STA...?vlnk=3552 ], Population of England and Wales according to 2001 census: 52041916 [
www.statistics.gov.uk/cen...ase_uk.asp ])
Theoretical number of violent crimes same interval: 1157516 (Violent crimes composed 22% of all crimes in 2003; assuming this figure is relatively true overall [
www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds...lr1804.pdf ])
Percentage: 0.3% for total crimes, 1.5% for theoretical number of violent crimes
This result is almost definitely skewed, but I was unable to find definitive rates of violent crimes alone for any interval that overlapped for the firearm incident survey. Thus, the fudged value
Edit2: Results for Canada.
Number of robbery attempts involving a firearm, 2001: 3833 (
www.research.ryerson.ca/S..._JY04.html )
Number of robbery attempts, 2001: 26406 or 27414 (88 reported incidents per 100,000 population [
www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/legal02.htm ], 2001 population 30,007,094 [
www12.statcan.ca/english/...ble-PR.cfm ])
The first given latter value conflicts with the value given in the first cited page, but the math doesn't work out for the 27414 figure, and in this case the rate was definitely taken from the statistics and not the number of incidents, which I can't confirm for the former or I would similarly give a calculated value based on the listed rate for it.
Percentage: 14.5% for 26406, 14.0% for 27414
(Same cites.)
Number of homicide attempts involving a firearm: 171
Number of homicide attempts: 540 or 554 (1.8 per 100,000 population)
Percentage: 31.7% for 540, 30.9% for 554
Kay, I did those two because they were specifically mentioned. Now, can someone name a country with gun control rights equal to the US that I can check?
Also, just remember Magnus: Someone that's right of a liberal might be a centrist, not a conservative. :D
Edit3: Just realized something that might be influencing points of view all around. Where are you from, Magnus? Like, what general area? Because I'm from Eastern Oregon, where though you might not meet a bear, you could very easily meet a cougar. And honestly, you _couldn't_ take one of those down with anything you mentioned before getting...well, wounded enough to require a serious hospital visit at least. Dead easily. And this is just by being there, not even threatening them or anything. Cougars are nasty. And honestly, a lot of people in this area to regularly hunt for meat. FD's from Alaska, where I can imagine the same is easily true for the meat hunting, and I can believe he'd very easily come across a bear. And Shini and Bes are both from...Eastern(?) Virginia, which though I don't know the wildlife, given what little I know of the ecology there I can imagine hunting is a fairly popular pasttime there as well.
Also, though anecdotal evidence completely sucks for anything in a debate, I will say that I only know of two homicides in the last 7 years in this entire county. One was with a hatchet, and one was someone getting bashed with a blunt object and having a fire set in their apartment. So that's also somewhat of an influence on my opinion.
Why doesn't anyone ever call for the banning of hatchets?! >: <p>
"Never let your morals get in the way of doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
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Edited by: Idran1701 at: 7/15/05 12:46