Online Poll Shows 85% of Brits Want to Repeal the Ban on Hand Guns

Originally posted by SimonPeter

 

You have the highest percentage of your population in prison of the whole world .

US has over 4,5 times more people in prison...

US - 716 per 100 000

UK - 149 per 100 000

www.prisonstudies.org...

Originally posted by seabag

edit on 31-5-2013 by seabag because: (no reason given)

This is extremely unreliable statistics.

Violent crime in nearly any European country can not be compared to US. The definitions of violent crime are too different.

When Ben Swann brought out the statistics of UK having 4 times higher violent crime rate as US it was laughable and extreme misinforming of the public.

Debunked in this webpage: blog.skepticallibertarian.com...

The British Home Office, by contrast, has a substantially different definition of violent crime. The British definition includes all “crimes against the person,” including simple assaults, all robberies, and all “sexual offenses,” as opposed to the FBI, which only counts aggravated assaults and “forcible rapes.”

When you look at how this changes the meaning of “violent crime,” it becomes clear how misleading it is to compare rates of violent crime in the US and the UK. You’re simply comparing two different sets of crimes. In 2009/10, for instance (annual data is from September to September), British police recorded 871,712 crimes against persons, 54,509 sexual offenses, and 75,101 robberies in England and Wales. Based on the 2010 population of 55.6 million, this gives a staggeringly high violent crime rate of 1,797 offenses per 100,00 people.

But of the 871,000 crimes against the person, less than half (401,000) involved any actual injury. The remainder were mostly crimes like simple assault without injury, harassment, “possession of an article with a blade or point,” and causing “public fear, alarm, or distress.” And of the 54,000 sexual offenses, only a quarter (15,000) were rapes. This makes it abundantly clear that the naive comparison of crime rates either wildly overstates the amount of violence in the UK or wildly understates it in the US.

Even a small bar-fight is considered a violent crime in UK, owning a blade in public etc.

The statistics are uncomparable and this is just false information. One needs to dig very deep into statistics in order to compare real violence rates...


The easiest comparison would be intentional homicide rate.

In US it was 4.8 per 100 000 people
In UK it was 1.2 per 100 000 people

In UK intentional homicide rate is exactly 4 times lower.

en.wikipedia.org...


From the perspective of another EU country, where I am living:

I prefer nearly nobody having guns to everybody having guns. Criminals do not have it easy to get guns and it is very rare to even hear about a shooting, less than 5 fire arm murders a year in a country of 1.5 million. Gangs never have guns. Burglars do not have guns. Just knowing some marshal arts or having pepper spray is enough to protect oneself.

If somebody wants to rob you with a gun, you don´t have the time to pull your gun out of pocket, unless you are walking around being extremely alet all the time, which I would not want to be like.

If somebody wants to make a massacre, they find a way to do it. If everybody had guns, they would find another way of organising it... nothing more. It is nearly impossible to stop insane people.

I prefer not having a deadly weapon at my home. If everybody had guns, it would create a situation, where even people who do not want to have one, need to get one, especially if concealed weapons would be allowed. There would many cases, where trigger-happy people would use guns at any situation, they find justifiable by rationalising. A simple bar fight could end up with one being shot. That is absurd...

Controlling weapons is important for any country in my opinion. Making it very hard even for criminals to get one. I personally would have access to guns, any normal person would here, although a strong safety training is required for women (for men going to military service is requirement) with strong background checks (mental history,criminal history, associates (if many of your friends are known criminals in Facebook, you won´t get a gun) , drug tests) + a weapon safe is required. Any normal person gets one, if they want. Blue-collar criminals do not have it easy to get guns and I prefer it stayed so.

This statistics is too biased. In reality I highly doubt that is what UK people want. It would only create more problems, just as it would round here.

reply to post by stirling


Then why stop at guns?

What about RPGs and rocket launchers? im sure these prevent crime as well.

Imagine walking around with an RPG, i'm sure that will keep even the guy with a gun at bay.

Ok enough joke.

You think you need gun for protection, while 90% of the world doesn't think so.

Bringing a tool will make it worse. If its open sale for everyone, it would just increase the amount of burglaries with a gun as well.

In fact, an average Joe might think of becoming a burglar just because he has a gun and a situation presented to him. Or a guy gets made because someone cut him off in the traffic(it has happened before) If it was a ban, he might not have one and will find a another way to solve his problem.

Its tough for you guys(people who needs gun to live) to imagine a day without gun because you have been brought up with it... for you guys, taking the gun away or putting restriction on it is like taking away your arm or an leg.

reply to post by seabag


I think sensible, stable citizens of the UK SHOULD be allowed guns.

However they should not be allowed to be owned by drug addicts or people with mental health problems or anyone who drinks heavily and causes anti social behaviour.

That eliminates about 40 % of the population !

Originally posted by seabag
reply to post by AndyMayhew

 

Edit: to say that the thread name is totally misleading, because 85% of Britons do not want a repeal. Obviously .....

It’s not misleading. You’re missing the first few words; Online Poll Shows 85% of Brits Want to Repeal the Ban on Hand Guns. That IS what the poll showed.

Yes that is what the poll showed. You have yet to address the fact that anyone on the planet can vote on that poll. Including gun advocates from ANY country.

How many people voted on that poll = 15,472
How many people in Britain 62+ Million
That isn't really 85% of Britain.

I think if everybody in Britain were asked, the majority would be against a change in the law.

reply to post by Cabin

When Ben Swann brought out the statistics of UK having 4 times higher violent crime rate as US it was laughable and extreme misinforming of the public.

Is it?? According to the UK government site, there were 1.94 million violent crimes in the UK during 2011.

According to the FBI, there were 1.2 million violent crimes committed in the US during 2011.
Crime in the US 2011

There are almost exactly five times as many people in the US as in the UK (314 million vs 63 million). The violent crime rate in the UK is 3,100 per 100,000 and in the US it is 380 per 100,000.

What were you saying?

Originally posted by DISRAELI
reply to post by seabag

 

85 percent of the people who bother to fill in an online poll is not the same thing as 85 percent of the country.
The process of asking "what different thing do you want to happen?" is automatically skewed in favour of those who want something different.

No but there is such a thing as statistical significance.
It depends on the group [ sample] being surveyed and If this poll was statistically significant - if it is , then it can be extrapolated to state that 85% of people in the UK want guns.

reply to post by WhatAreThey

I think we're agreeing with eaxh other.
At least we're making the same points, while expressing them in different ways.

If somebody wants to make a massacre, they find a way to do it. If everybody had guns, they would find another way of organising it... nothing more. It is nearly impossible to stop insane people.

The best way to stop an insane individual intent on malise is by the same method employed by every government, police force, military, or body gaurd service in the world..... You shoot them

I grew up with guns, I got my first 12g shot gun when I was 12years old, I am now nearly 30. I have probably shot fewer than 300 rounds of ammo from that gun in 20 years. I own a few hand guns which I have also used only at a range. I own an "assault rifle" as well and have recently picked up a clip load shotgun that I have a 30 round drum on, none of these tools were purchased with any other intent than self defense. This aparently makes me a criminal these days.

I don't use these guns to hunt anything, I go target shooting with them about once every 3 months. I would not give up my guns even though they have never had a direct impact on my life in anyway. I understand the nature and value of an armed populace. You can bet the russians/chinese etc do as well.

A great general of WWII once said: Invading America would be impossible, there would be a rifle behind every bush.

There is another quote: A gun is just like a condom, I'd rather have one and not need it, then need it, and not have one.

Background checks for gun purchases I have no issue with, there must be some checks and balances, when populations of millions are concerned. But rest assured my limey friends, the majority of your nation wants thier guns back, and the need is ever rising.

reply to post by HelenConway

I think sensible, stable citizens of the UK SHOULD be allowed guns.

However they should not be allowed to be owned by drug addicts or people with mental health problems or anyone who drinks heavily and causes anti social behaviour.

I agree! There should be reasonable laws, yes. But "sensible, stable citizens” should definitely have the right to defend themselves with a firearm. The criminals have them so why can’t law-abiding citizens have them? It’s not getting more peaceful….is it? Why should politicians and government officials be allowed to protect themselves with firearms while the rest of you have to resort to primitive defense?

Originally posted by HelenConway
No but there is such a thing as statistical significance.
It depends on the group [ sample] being surveyed and If this poll was statistically significant - if it is , then it can be extrapolated to state that 85% of people in the UK want guns.

2 problems with that. One I have already pointed out. The fact that any human can vote on this poll. Two- who reads this paper? IDK. Not my area. That said, here we have the Toronto Star and the Toronto Sun. Their readership is pretty much diametrically opposed. So you would get different results from their prospective readers. Yeah, the poll means nothing.

reply to post by intrepid

Yes that is what the poll showed. You have yet to address the fact that anyone on the planet can vote on that poll. Including gun advocates from ANY country.

What do you want me to say? It’s not a scientific poll by any stretch.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t a growing number of UK citizens that want to see this change. How did it make it on the list in the first place?? The Telegraph didn’t put it on there…citizens did.

reply to post by HelenConway

If you read on to my later replies in the thread, you will see that I expanded the point.
The answers in that poll were LIMITED to people who were interested in one of the six options mentioned.
So the "85 percent" figure is 85 percent ONLY of that particular portion of the population.
For all we know, they might have been heavily outnumbered by people who wanted none of the options available, and had no way of expressing their lack of interest in them except by not voting at all.
That is what makes the poll sample unrepresentative.

And also, as others have pointed out, there is a very real possibility that the "we want guns" figure has been artificially boosted by the voting of "We want guns" Americans and other non-British internet users,who would have no interest at all in the other five options on offer.
That, too, would make the figure meaningless as a measure of British opinion.

Forget the internet, for a moment, and try the real world.
Just walk down the street and see if 85 percent of the passers-by want to be allowed hand-guns.

Originally posted by seabag
That doesn’t mean there aren’t a growing number of UK citizens that want to see this change. How did it make it on the list in the first place?? The Telegraph didn’t put it on there…citizens did.

The citizens made the poll, not the paper?

reply to post by intrepid

Seabag is mistaken, here.
The readers of the newspaper suggested possible changes, but the journalists then admit that they themselves selected six "which caught our eye".
So the inclusion of hand-guns on the short-list was a journalistic decision.

reply to post by intrepid


The citizens submitted the ideas for bills to introduce. I quoted this in the OP.

The readers of telegraph.co.uk/politics did not disappoint, and provided us with a raft of ideas. These are the six that caught our eye.

Yes, anyone can vote on the Telegraph’s poll but the ideas didn’t come from the Telegraph, they came from citizens. That means there are obviously some in the UK who want this.

So the poll was set up with an editorial bias. Not surprising. Everyone does it.

reply to post by seabag
The other 15% must be on ATS ragging on Americans about why they want to keep there's.

I wondered if there were any realist's left in the UK, by the way, how are the air guns working for ya?

Originally posted by DISRAELI
reply to post by intrepid

 

Seabag is mistaken, here.
The readers of the newspaper suggested possible changes, but the journalists then admit that they themselves selected six "which caught our eye".
So the inclusion of hand-guns on the short-list was a journalistic decision.

I'm not mistaken...misunderstood maybe...but that's not my fault.

Hopefully my post below yours cleared it up.

Clearly the idea to repeal the gun ban came from a British citizen and not the Telegraph.

Originally posted by intrepid
So the poll was set up with an editorial bias. Not surprising. Everyone does it.

Where is the bias? Looks like several choices to me.

A ten-year term limit for Prime Ministers

A flat tax

A law to encourage the 'greening' of public spaces

Abolish the loophole that leaves student parents exempt from paying child maintenance

A ban on spitting in public

Repeal the ban on hand guns and re-open shooting clubs