[Vanders9]

“You missed the point I was trying to make. If we as a society concentrated on arming ourselves so that we are not victims of crime and punish those harshly who commit crimes then we don’t have to get into this naval gazing of why the criminal does what he does. That does not mean some type of re-creation of the movie Midnight Express. What it means is that the death penalty should be used properly. It means that if someone commits a crime with a gun they should automatically get years tacked on. In most cities, the gun charge is the first thing thrown out in the plea bargain!! I don’t care to know the mind of violent criminals or child rapists. I just care that they are locked up never to prey upon the public again.”

Ah I see what you are getting at now. Sorry I misunderstood.
See here in the UK, where guns are traditionally very rarely used, crimes committed with guns “stand out” very much. Gun crime is NEVER taken lightly, and people who use guns to commit crimes are always punished to the full extent of the law, which of course acts as a significant deterrent. A criminal with a gun knows that he will be hunted down, he knows that “all men are against him”.

Now, I sense that is changing, which I personally regret. Can you see that in a society where most people are not armed, an increase in gun crime, (or even the numbers of police carrying guns), is seen as a sign that the war against crime is being lost?

I digress. I wasn’t wanting to get into the rights and wrongs of guns.

I don’t think of this as “navel gazing”, I think of it more as good tactics. Harshness of punishment does act as a deterrent (although increasing the likelihood of being caught is significantly better) but if we can stop people becoming criminals in the first place then that surely must be better than having to go through all the effort of catching them, prosecuting them, suppressing them, imprisoning them, etc etc. It would be far cheaper for us a society. It would even be better for them.

“From how you talk, it appears that you are not an American citizen. If that is true, you probably have a distorted view of crime in America.”

LOL. No doubt!

“Crime is no worse here than in places like Britian.”

Probably not.

“The only difference is that over there, criminals use baseball bats and knives to carry out their crimes. I don’t think it’s a morally superior position to say that crime isn’t as bad in Britian because their criminals just beat people to death instead of shooting them.”

I dont think I ever actually ascribed to a “morally superior position of saying that crime isn’t as bad in Britain”, but anyway..if I as a UK citizen have a distorted view of crime in the US (which is certainly true...I have spent some time in America but most of my knowledge is still determined by TV news, Jerry Springer and Hollywood) then the same applies to you as a US citizen with your viewpoint of crime in the UK, and that statement pretty much proves it. Violent crime in Britain isn’t as bad because criminals beat people to death rather than shoot them, it isnt as bad because there is simply less of it (although we are catching you up).

There is another factor. Violent crime gets all the attention, but the fact remains that the majority of crime is committed against property (shoplifting, theft etc).

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"I dont think I ever actually ascribed to a “morally superior position of saying that crime isn’t as bad in Britain”,"

I didn't mean this statement to be against you as an individual, but more or less people that believe this in general. To be sure, they don't put it this way, but they believe that societies such as Britian are safer and better because of handgun bans.

"Violent crime in Britain isn’t as bad because criminals beat people to death rather than shoot them, it isnt as bad because there is simply less of it (although we are catching you up)."

Actually stats don't exactly bear this out. For one thing, the way each country reports crime is a little different. For instance, shootings such as suicides and justified killings (such as someone being killed while trying to burglarize a home) are reported as violent crime stats. A suicide has nothing to do with the tool you use. It's more cultural. Japan has a very strict handgun but a high suicide rate. Switzerland on the other hand has very high gun ownership but low suicide rates.

If we in the U.S. reported crime stats the same way Britian does we would be very similar per capita in commission of crimes. Personally, I believe that when these gun bans in large cities start falling by the wayside, we will have less crime than Britian. John Lott's research has proved this out. In the cities with the strictest gun control is where the crime is highest. In the majority of these cities, I believe the relaxed gun control measures that are going to be forced on them is either going to have no effect or reduce crime with the net impact of less crime throughout America.