Sobering Article on European Crime

[hogdogs]

Even with many of the possible variables... the gun often levels that playing field...

As for my post... I was trying to be fair, civil and tactful... But it is getting tiring trying to defend our American laws, rights and way of life to folks who either do not understand or wish to see us change...

IMNSHO, it is no different than having a bunch of American people of the anti gun ilk on here trying to press their agenda... And I reckon Rich and the mods would stand for none of that...

Sorry if I crossed any lines or came close but arguing gun rights or the reversal thereof seems better suited to a different sort of forum than this one...

Brent

[tmlynch]

I mean no slight to Stanley Kubrick, because most of his films are true works of genius (make sure to seek out Paths of Glory).

However, the genius behind the vision of future British society in A Clockwork Orange was Anthony Burgess, who wrote that book, as well as many other novels. I am particularly fond of End of the World News, Nothing Like the Sun, and A Dead Man in Deptford.

Regards,
Tom

[BlueTrain]

Some of these statistics, which we are free to believe, disbelieve or ignore, might be more meaningful if we remember that all across the United States, where I live, those statistics will change every fifty miles in any direction, if you follow me. Sometimes surprisingly.

First of all, it isn't easy to run down the statistics, unless you go to a web site for some organization that has some agenda to pursue. I'm not sure that any are completely bias free. But a year or two I did just that, comparing the statistics for a few select places. Here were some of my findings.

There is more crime in my home town in West Virginia, population of about 7,500, than there is in the county where I live now, population about 1,1 million. I'm speaking of crime rates. There were more homicides in Birmingham, Alabama, than in El Paso, Texas. Who cares what it is in England, which seemed like a pretty peaceful place when I was there, though I was not there for a statistically significant period, apparently.

Here are some hard numbers about the county where I live. They are from the website of the county police department. I don't know if they are believable or not. The last numbers I found were for 2010.

Murders: 16
All other violent crime, including rape, robbery and assault: 2096

They didn't list any kidnapping and "home invasion" is not a legal term. I don't know. Do I live in a dangerous place? A murder every 23 days? Pretty bad, I'd say. The traffic's pretty bad, too.

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by hogdogs

But here in America I can use a gun with a .74+ bore firing a one ounce gob of lead at a man armed only with bare hands and ill intent and not face such prosecution..

Maybe and maybe not.

There are also cases that turn out to be legitimate self defense that are charged and prosecuted. And some of those are in gun friendly States with Stand Your Ground laws.

Our society takes a dim view of one person intentionally hurting or killing another. The law recognizes that doing so may, under certain circumstances, be justified. But unless and until your act of extreme violence against another human being is determined to be legally justified, your use of violence in claimed self defense is prima facie a criminal act and will be investigated and perhaps prosecuted as such.

[Pond, James Pond]

Your continued arguments against the American laws and way of life are as effective and entertaining as watching this puppy run himself ragged trying to catch his tail that is only one inch too short to catch...

Oh dear...

If that is all you've grasped from my posts, then you've clearly failed to understand any point I've made and more than likely you read my posts with your own preconceived notions of what was in them.

Neither entertaining, nor effective...

For your benefit: The point I have been making is that stating a case for a clear connection between a lack of gun control with low crime and a high degree of gun control with high crime is simply false.
There is more to crime levels than whether private citizens can own guns or not.
To say otherwise is absurd.
Why this point?
Because people keeping citing the UK and EU as proof that gun control doesn't work, by virtue of a simple correlation between whehter or not they have guns at home... If only social problems were that simple....

I have provided in other posts stats showing that US deaths by violence are higher than other western "gunless" nations.
I have pointed out that, despite the worlds highest private gun ownserhip levels, US crime levels are still far from low.
I have pointed out that my own country of residence has very generous gun laws by EU standards, yet probably the highest levels of violent crime in the EU.
I have repeatedly said that I disagree with UK gun control and given examples of that.
I have also repeatedly said that guns are probably only going to affect the outcome of a crime, giving the victim a more even playing field.

And yet, all you see is "arguments against the American laws and way of life".

If that is your view of me daring to suggest that perhaps guns are not the answer to crime...so be it...

[hogdogs]

Frank, while I respect your education and background... here in Fla... If The defender claims self defense and there IS NOT obvious evidence to the contrary on the scene, the defender cannot be arrested, held or otherwise harassed... That is what our SYG law does... if the report is investigated (and it will be) and no obvious "coverup" of a crime on the part of the defender is noted, then charges cannot be pressed even then...

Do your part to legally defend yourself... It don't matter who "takes a dim view" the defender is fully protected... at least that is how the law is written...

Brent

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by hogdogs

Frank, while I respect your education and background... here in Fla... If The defender claims self defense and there IS NOT obvious evidence to the contrary on the scene, the defender cannot be arrested, held or otherwise harassed... That is what our SYG law does... if the report is investigated (and it will be) and no obvious "coverup" of a crime on the part of the defender is noted, then charges cannot be pressed even then.....

Nope, you misunderstand Florida law. We had a lengthy discussion of Florida law here.

And the immunity statute (776.032) specifically provides at paragraph (2):

...(2) A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force as described in subsection (1), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful....

Probable cause is the general standard for arrest. So at whatever point in the investigation of a use of force in claimed self defense the police find probable cause to conclude that the use of force was not justified, you can be arrested and prosecuted.

And there seems to be a good basis to conclude that to satisfy the probable cause standard in Florida (City of St. Petersburg v. Austrino, 898 So.2d 955 (Fla. App., 2005)):

...The facts and circumstances, based upon reasonably trustworthy information, must be such that "would cause a prudent person to believe" the suspect has committed a crime....

That's a whole lot different from:

Originally Posted by hogdogs

...no obvious "coverup" of a crime on the part of the defender...

[hogdogs]

Only due to my use of lay person terminology... otherwise your official wording in quote is what I was trying to say... PC has to be sufficient to cause a question of legal use of force (justified)... so lacking the obvious PC... i am correct in my statement...

Dead unarmed man half in half out of my window with a brain shot oozing gore on my carpet... ??? No PC there... he tried to break in and died trying...

Dead man in front yard of elderly woman and shot in the back by male neighbor who heard the threats and came to her rescue... Proven legal use of force even though shooter was 100% safe in his own home... NO PC THERE!!!

Person i am known to associate with, especially under nefarious conditions found dead in my living room... PC and subsequent investigation to follow...

Brent

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by hogdogs

Only due to my use of lay person terminology... otherwise your official wording in quote is what I was trying to say... PC has to be sufficient to cause a question of legal use of force (justified)... so lacking the obvious PC... i am correct in my statement...

Except in this world dealing with these sorts of issue accurate terminology and a clear understanding of the concepts matter a great deal.

Originally Posted by hogdogs

...Dead unarmed man half in half out of my window with a brain shot oozing gore on my carpet... ??? No PC there... he tried to break in and died trying...

Dead man in front yard of elderly woman and shot in the back by male neighbor who heard the threats and came to her rescue... Proven legal use of force even though shooter was 100% safe in his own home... NO PC THERE!!!...

Maybe yes, and maybe no. The devil is in the details, and in each case there might or might not be more to the story that might or might not make a difference. Jumping to conclusions is a bad idea.

But we've gone too far afield already. Let's end this hijack and get back to the subject of this thread.

[hermannr]

Here in WA we do not have a law that states you may stand your ground, but we do have court precident that effectively gives the same.

I know of a case in Spokane a couple years ago where a woman claimed abuse and self defence when she murdered her husband...probably not as the husband was shot in the back...woman tried and convicted of premeditated murder.

No one here likes to only go on what is in the newspapers, but in this case, I think the jury did right, at least per the information that was made public..

[KyJim]

When I did a quick read of the article, one point seemed to stand out -- longer terms of imprisonment correlated with lower crime rates. The article also pointed out some socio-economic factors that correlated with lower crime rates. The point is that there are a multitude of factors that can effect crime rate and I think the best we can confidently say is that there is no evidence to suggest higher gun ownership rates increase violent crime.

[B. Lahey]

If our homicide rate is higher, I'm not sure we're on the better side of this comparison.

I have been beaten and robbed, and it was not fun, but I much prefer it to having been killed.

[Jim March]

Right, but the directional trends on murder is going well - in other words, dropping in the US and increasing in Europe. Esp. Britain. We're still "ahead" of them for now, but that won't last at current trends.

Now...the reality is, the murder rate in the US is driven largely by prohibition (err, the "War On (Some) Drugs"[tm]). End THAT and whoa...it'll be interesting about five to ten years later.

When the earlier prohibition ended there was a brief spike in violent crime as a small chunk of the rum-runners turned to bank robbery and kidnapping. Didn't last though.

[Tom Servo]

Didn't last though.

Nope, but it was just in time to justify the NFA...

[Jim March]

That, and it explains why the FBI is involved in kidnappings and bank robbery cases. The FBI is descended from the revenuers tasked with stopping illegal booze. When one of the drug prohibitions ended and a few of the rum-runners went into violent crime, the FBI was re-tasked with chasing the same guys they'd been tracking as rum-runners.

Mind you, the VAST majority of the rum-runners did something other than violent crime. Some still stayed in crimes like "vice", a lot went clean.

One group went to Hot Springs Arkansas and opened up a huge gambling den - all illegal of course. Post-WW2 there was an anti-corruption wave across the South - the most extreme being the Battle Of Athens TN that most of us know about, but Hot Springs got cleaned out too.

What was left of those gangsters went to a place nobody had ever heard about, way the hell out in the desert...yeah...Las Vegas .

Anyways. When we end the rest of prohibition, some of the dealers and importers will go to violent crime. I predict that some of the big Mexican cartels will try Somali-style piracy. The inner-city gangs, God knows...bank jobs for a while I suspect. None of it will last that long...the profit-to-risk ratio is nuts compared to dealing coke or whatever.

It'll also be a damn good time to have a CCW permit.

[manta49]

The law regarding self defence in the UK is similar to the USA. The force used should be proportional to the threat. You can use lethal force if required.
Of course if lethal force is used just like in America then their is going to be a investigation that's just common sense.
In the case of the man that stabbed the burglar its wrong to say he was found not guilty it never came to trial.

Their is a lot of rubbish BEING POSTED AS REGUARDS THE RIGHT TO DEFEND YOURSELF IN THE UK.

Edit: Removed unattributed, but copyrighted material. Al.

[manta49]

Originally Posted by SamNavy

It's well known that the amount of violent crime per capita in many Western Eurpoean countries is far greater than that of the US. Britain, despite the marketing by the various tourism agencies, is a cesspool of crime. They have massive social welfare dependency and huge cultural and social problems that have been self-perpetuating for years. You won't see this on the Olympics, but it's the cool/hip thing in Britain to be an unemployed loser and commit petty crime to support your drug habit.

That's a sweeping statement. That a bit like someone in the UK saying Americans are all gun nuts. Which is of course rubbish a bit like the post above.

[manta49]

In Northern Ireland (part of the UK) firearms were and still possible to get for self defence. And have being used for self defense the authorities wouldn't be issuing them if you were not allowed to use them.

Edit: Removed unattributed, but copyrighted material. Al.

[BlueTrain]

The FBI isn't descended from the revenuers. BATF. Treasury agents: T-men, not G-men. Both federal, though, and briefly the BATF was part of the FBI.