Interesting data on British homicide rates before and after gun ban

Basically, the gun ban didn't seem to be of much help.

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Obviously....

Be careful with Tim Lambert... while he's good at some things, his gun research needs improvement.

For instance he says:

The homicide rate in England declined after gun control was introduced
in 1920,

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But fails to mention that the 30s, 40s and 70s all had higher homicide rates. He also fails to mention that the 80s and 90s had DOUBLE the homicide rates of the 20s. Lambert has a strange way of focusing on things. He's worth reading, but I'd balance his articles with someone else.


A few counter articles:

Gun Control's Twisted Outcome
Joyce Lee Malcolm|Nov. 1, 2002 12:00 am
http://reason.com/archives/2002/11/01/gun-controls-twisted-outcome/print

From The Sunday Times
August 26, 2007
Ministers 'covered up' gun crime
David Leppard
http://web.archive.org/web/20110716...ne.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2328368.ece



Source:
The Sunday Times August 26, 2007 Ministers ‘covered up’ gun crime, David Leppard

The Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 was the first significant piece of legislation introduced by the new Labour government of Tony Blair. …. this new (No. 2) act banned the private ownership of all cartridge ammunition handguns, regardless of calibre.
http://reason.com/archives/2002/11/01/gun-controls-twisted-outcome


Homicides, Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2005-06, Home Office
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/hosb0207.pdf
backup:



http://webarchive.nationalarchives....rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/hosb0207.pdf

Lambert's a very smart guy, but he's on the record as being anti-gun, so you would do well to engage your critical thinking skills when reading anything he's written.

It was the murder of children by a peodophile in Scotland that caused the end of hand guns in our country.

It had never happened before, but the government decided that it was "obviously" going to happen again, and thus we lost our pistols.

I need to tell you, in our country there isnt the same gun culture (if you will pardon the expression) that there is in yours. Open carry would have been ridiculed back in the day. And there was never anything to say you could defend yourself anyway. (There is now by the way). If you apply for a firearms certificate in this country citing self defence as a reason, you will certainly not be granted the licence, unless you live in Northern Ireland of course.

But anyway, the gun ban has made no difference at all, There is more gun crime now than there was then, and obviously 95% of it is with illegally owned firearms.

Here is something interesting I came across today written in 2002. When comparing murder statistics between the US and the UK, be aware that it is not an apples to apples comparison as they have vastly different ways of tabulating the statistics:

The murder rates of the U.S. and U.K. are also affected by differences in the way each counts homicides. The FBI asks police to list every homicide as murder, even if the case isn't subsequently prosecuted or proceeds on a lesser charge, making the U.S. numbers as high as possible. By contrast, the English police "massage down" the homicide statistics, tracking each case through the courts and removing it if it is reduced to a lesser charge or determined to be an accident or self-defense, making the English numbers as low as possible.

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It would be interesting to see how much of a difference this produces. The relationship is probably still US>>UK but how much so?

Lets not forget to keep in mind advances in medical technology that have greatly reduced death rates. I think it would be more realistic to look at ATTEMPTED homicides....

Both the decline and the incline in homicide rates happened independently of (gun control).

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Always the case. Availability of weapons and rates of violent crime are always separate. The only correlation is that the type of weapon most often used in violent crimes is the weapon most available.

The USA has a lot of guns, and most of our homicides are firearm homicides. We have a murder rate of 4.2 per 100,000

Mexico has far fewer guns, and most of their homicides are committed with edged and bludgeon type weapons. Their murder rate is 16.9 per 100,000

Crime of all types is a socio economic product, not a result of weapon type availabilty.

throdgrain said:

It was the murder of children by a peodophile in Scotland that caused the end of hand guns in our country.

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There's far more to the incident that has been published by mainstream media. I can't go into details publicly because most of the information is privileged, but the perpetrator, Hamilton, wasn't eligible for a firearm license but had no problem obtaining one because of his homosexual affair with the local police chief. There was massive political pressure to keep this fact from the public to avoid a scandal and outrage that would've undermined the left-wing labor government's firearm prohibition agenda.