The Right Scoop
The main thing with guns is that they are designed to kill. That is their sole purpose.
They are extremely dangerous and simple to use. People as a group are much too unstable to be allowed to have easy access to these items.
The whole discussion never seems to address the basic nature of guns and their purpose.
Richard Nixon had it right when he said "Guns are an abomination". So many presidents, political leaders, John Lennon, the list goes on and on..
Pratt got his information from this article in the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/5712573/UK-is-violent-crime-capital-of-Europe.html
The article directly contradicts other Telegraph articles claiming crime and specifically murder is down in the UK. The only issue Pratt had was that he misspoke and said there were 970 when it was in fact 927. While 970 is the wrong number it is at least close. That 927 is a far, far cry from the 30-50 that the lunatic Piers Morgan claims occurred.
After reading the thread. I want to say congrats to K-Bob and Nukeman60 for your systematic taking apart of Morrison's argument regarding gun control and murder rates etc. You guys did a really good job. It's been a pleasure to watch/read. Thanks guys!
Those wanting to bring Morgan to book should have a look at these blog posts:
http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/piers-morgan-lied-to-the-leveson-inquiry/
Those wanting to bring Morgan to book should have a look at these blog posts:
http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/piers-morgan-lied-to-the-leveson-inquiry/
The majority age group for all murders in 2011 was by people under age 22. We should therefore lock up all people until they reach age 22.
#LeftistStatistics
Anybody over the age of 22 who's raised kids would tend to agree with you (j/k - my kids were perfect, ahem). Plus it would bring down the unemployment rate, so I'm surprised Obama isn't onboard.
Oh, he's probably down with a late, late, post-abortion bill that would let you end the life of anyone under 22 who isn't "viable."
That goes right in there with death panels, and the Liverpool Care Pathway that lets 'em erase people over 65.
No tyranny here, folks! Keep moving.
The majority age group for all murders in 2011 was by people under age 22. We should therefore lock up all people until they reach age 22.
#LeftistStatistics
I live in the UK and can assure you that Morgan's figure of 39 homicides is correct. If there really were an additional 930 dead people with bullet holes in them, don't you think that people here would notice?
I'm afraid Morgan is correct, and Pratt is a liar.
I think Piers should go back to the UK so that he can enjoy government control of guns.
America needs to pay close attention to what is happening to the UK and not emulate the example. The citizens are suffering.
When Massacres Force Change: Lessons from the U.K. and Australia
http://world.time.com/2012/12/17/when-massacres-force-change-lessons-from-the-u-k-and-australia/
Gun Crime Soars in England Where Guns Are Banned
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typical liberal telling larry at the very end "you're no freind of mine" what haters. because larry's opinion doesn't align with his, he must insult him.
Larry Pratt's 970 figure refers to all homocides within a year (not just with guns). He also pointed out that the figures are massaged.
Not true - and it would appear that Pratt was referring to a claim made in the 1990's that figures for petty theft were 'massaged' by shifting the goalposts regarding definitions.
It's not so easy to do that with gun homicides. You just count up the number of dead bodies with bullets in them.
Yep, That's what you should do. But it appears in the UK, they don't count a gun murder unless there's an actual conviction. But that's not even the issue. Tell me how bad the gun murders were, per year, in the decade prior to the gun ban.
Piers tries to say that the gun ban is the reason for the discrepancy between the UK and the US and totally ignores the true causes of the violent crime problems, both in the US and in the UK. It appears, so do you.
If the numbers don't change for decades, but other violent crime escalates after your gun ban, then you can't use some event in the middle of that span to say it was the cause of the differences between our two countries (a difference that has been proven to be a false indicator of what the real problem is).
Face it, you don't like guns, you're afraid of them, and therefore you think banning guns from law-abiding citizens will stop the criminals from being criminals. It appears the decades of your own history hasn't taught you anything.
The 2nd Amendment gives us the Constitutional right to bear arms. You don't have that and I would think you would have learned the leasson of 1776 to understand it. I suppose, to some of you, it still burns.
Not true - the figures for gun homicides are the total number of people killed with guns. Which ones are murders and which ones are manslaughter is sorted out after the event.
Our definition of 'Gun Homicide' is precisely the same as yours, and accepted by your and international authorities as such.
Sorry if the truth hurts.
As for the decades before the ban, we also had a lower numbers of homicides than you did then. But we also had very strict gun laws - it was almost impossible to get a hand gun for example, and if you did have one you had to keep it a gun range, and could only use it there. What we did in 1996 was to make even that impossible.
Yep, and the point is - who cares? Piers Moron would have you believe that being murdered with a knife is fine and dandy it's only being murdered with a gun that is to be feared.
I'm glad that Larry Pratt did not handle himself like Alex Jones. But, Piers continues to be an elitist idiot. If he likes gun control so much let him go back to the UK where gun control has increased the crime rate exponentially.
The Latest Murder Statistics for the World From the World Health Organization
Murders Per 100,000 Citizens:
Honduras 91.6
El Salvador 69.2
Cote d’lvoire 56.9
Jamaica 52.2
Venezuela 45.1
Belize 41.4
US Virgin Islands 39.2
Guatemala 38.5
Saint Kits and Nevis 38.2
Zambia 38.0
Uganda 36.3
Malawi 36.0
Lesotho 35.2
Trinidad and Tobago 35.2
Colombia 33.4
South Africa 31.8
Congo 30.8
Central African Republic 29.3
Bahamas 27.4
Puerto Rico 26.2
Saint Lucia 25.2
Dominican Republic 25.0
Tanzania 24.5
Sudan 24.2
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 22.9
Ethiopia 22.5
Guinea 22.5
Dominica 22.1
Burundi 21.7
Democratic Republic of the Congo 21.7
Panama 21.6
Brazil 21.0
Equatorial Guinea 20.7
Guinea-Bissau 20.2
Kenya 20.1
Kyrgyzstan 20.1
Cameroon 19.7
Montserrat 19.7
Greenland 19.2
Angola 19.0
Guyana 18.6
Burkina Faso 18.0
Eritrea 17.8
Namibia 17.2
Rwanda 17.1
Mexico 16.9
Chad 15.8
Ghana 15.7
Ecuador 15.2
North Korea 15.2
Benin 15.1
Sierra Leone 14.9
Mauritania 14.7
Botswana 14.5
Zimbabwe 14.3
Gabon 13.8
Nicaragua 13.6
French Guiana 13.3
Papua New Guinea 13.0
Swaziland 12.9
Bermuda 12.3
Comoros 12.2
Nigeria 12.2
Cape Verde 11.6
Grenada 11.5
Paraguay 11.5
Barbados 11.3
Togo 10.9
Gambia 10.8
Peru 10.8
Myanmar 10.2
Russia 10.2
Liberia 10.1
Costa Rica 10.0
Nauru 9.8
Bolivia 8.9
Mozambique 8.8
Kazakhstan 8.8
Senegal 8.7
Turks and Caicos Islands 8.7
Mongolia 8.7
British Virgin Islands 8.6
Cayman Islands 8.4
Seychelles 8.3
Madagascar 8.1
Indonesia 8.1
Mali 8.0
Pakistan 7.8
Moldova 7.5
Kiribati 7.3
Guadeloupe 7.0
Haiti 6.9
Timor-Leste 6.9
Anguilla 6.8
Antigua and Barbuda 6.8
Lithuania 6.6
Uruguay 5.9
Philippines 5.4
Ukraine 5.2
Estonia 5.2
Cuba 5.0
Belarus 4.9
Thailand 4.8
Suriname 4.6
Laos 4.6
Georgia 4.3
Martinique 4.2
All The Countries Above America Have 100% Gun Bans Or Are Close To It.
And United States 4.2
http://www.cfr.org/public-health-threats/world-health-organization-/p20003
What you failed to mention is that the rate for the UK is 0.01 - and if instead of comparing the USA to third-world countries and war zones; you compare the USA to Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan you won't find a country where the gun homicide rate is as much as a tenth of yours.
If you wish to compare the US to other countries this is a useful tool funded by the Swiss government - which gun advocates are usually a fan of because it has a 'well-regulated miltia':
Thank you for the link.
I am very sorry for the citizens of the UK and Australia, the crime rate is soaring since their governments took away their guns, and the people of these great nations are suffering.
So, if the UK has about 63 million people today and the murder rate is 0.01 per 100,000 people, that would mean there are a little over 6 total murders per year in the UK (source- simple math). So if there are 39 gun murders per year and only 6 total murders (your stats), that would mean all other types of murder add up to a minus 33 per year. Nice job. How does that work, by the way. We certainly could use a minus number of homicides everywhere.
Try to keep your facts consistent. Don't fall into the Piers Morgan mode.
What you dimly forget is that most gun related murders happen in large urban communities where the UK has 30 and the US has 180 such communities so save the cooked numbers.
I love the UK and have personally seen what has happened to the good citizens of the UK since the gov't has taken away their guns. You do not stop crime by taking away the guns of the citizens. We need more armed citizens to stop crime, not less.
Our forefathers were insightful they insisted that the citizens be armed and have the right to form a militia- to keep them safe from oppressive governments. Look at the mass murders of unarmed citizens under dictators Hitler, Stalin and Mao.
Hitler's count is over 25 million people. 6 million Jews. 14.2 million Soviet civilians (excluding Soviet Jews, already counted in the previous figure), 3.3 Soviet POW deaths, 2 million Poles, etc.
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/17815.aspx
Will Banning Guns Stop Homicides? Stats from England and Australia Show…
Disarming citizens serious
http://www.times-herald.com/opinion/20130102Harrison-Letter-Wed-MOS
Please put this information together intelligently. Do you really think the American people will really be safer if the only people that had guns are the criminals and the UN dominated government?
New Warning About Muslim Brotherhood’s Influence on White House From…Liberal Marxist Muslim
The Muslim Plan For World Dominance
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/pages/iran/muslims_plan_for_world_dominance.htm
Why Does the U.N. REALLY Want Your Guns?
http://survivalist.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/why-does-the-u-n-really-want-your-guns/
Yes you have six times our population and six times the number of large urban centres.
You have 282 times the gun murder rate.
Was Sandy Hook a 'large urban community'.
The majority of your gun killings - the 20,000 or so gun suicides - happen away from your urban centres, and are mostly by middle-class white men.
If you own a gun, the person it's most likely to kill is you.
That's another problem we don't suffer from.
Sorry if the truth hurts.
"Now to be fair, I’m not sure where Pratt got his number of 970 gun murders in England/Wales for 2011. He said it was in the Telegraph after his last interview with Morgan but I couldn’t find it after several Google searches. But regardless,..." NO!!! NOT "regardless"! That number is the basis of Pratt's argument! Whether you're s strong supporter of the 2nd (I am) or not, TRUTH is paramount for EVERY American as we attempt to prevent 20 small children - and plenty of adults - from getting their brains blown out. Polarization on the issue is literally KILLING us, because GUARANTEED, plenty of pro-gun folks are getting murdered as well as a result of insane policies coupled with lousy enforcement of existing laws.
You sound like a whiny schoolgirl Piers go back to AGT more suited to your lack of ability
Hmmm, 150 yard shot with a pistol?????? Just watched the clip. The man says 65 yards, but that too was a very good shot! He didn't say type of gun but did say magnum round, maybe 357?
Really have no clue as to why anyone would waste any of their time to even so much as give this fool Piers Morgan the time of day. Oops, just wasted 60 seconds.
Larry Pratt quoted the Telegraph as his source for murders in the UK, so I went looking for it. Is this what he meant? (He must've been reading upside down.)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9411649/Graphic-how-the-murder-rate-has-fallen.html
Unless it's that wretched man (piers) being led off in hand cuffs, being put on a leaky boat back to the land he deserted and was spawned....I can't bare to watch it.
So the slimy git is looking 'for some sense of humanity' - does that mean that if Mr Pratt and the NRA would have been on TV weeping and wailing, the British tosser would not have been clamouring for people control?
Yeah, pull the other one.
Happy to oblige, Wolfie!
A git is a:
"Total and utter tosser who is incapable of doing anything other than annoying people, and not in a way that is funny to others."
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=git
A tosser is ... lookit here: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=A%20-%20Tosser
(don't want to sully the innocent eyes of our younger scoopers!)
:-)
Britain's violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it has been revealed.
Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world's most dangerous countries.
The Tories said Labour had presided over a decade of spiralling violence.
In the decade following the party's election in 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 per cent to 1.158million - or more than two every minute.
The figures, compiled from reports released by the European Commission and United Nations, also show:
The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.
It has a higher homicide rate than most of our western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU.
It has the fourth highest burglary rate and the highest absolute number of burglaries in the EU, with double the number of offences than recorded in Germany and France.
But it is the naming of Britain as the most violent country in the EU that is most shocking. The analysis is based on the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.
In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677.
The U.S. has a violence rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 residents, Canada 935, Australia 92 and South Africa 1,609. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'This is a damning indictment of this government's comprehensive failure over more than a decade to tackle the deep rooted social problems in our society, and the knock on effect on crime and anti-social behaviour.
Sorry - an opinion piece by someone in the Daily Mail (the nearest thing we have to Fox TV) is not the official record. We don't have the worst crime rate in the European Union - and as far as gun murders are concerned Switzerland has by far the highest rate - which is hardly surprising since their citizen army are required to keep rifles at home.
You can check out the official statistics for yourself here:
Here are figures from a more respectable conservative source - all crime has been dropping, and total homicides have been dropping in the UK from shortly after we started to introduce gun control legislation in 1996:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9411649/Graphic-how-the-murder-rate-has-fallen.html
You haven't uttered a shred of "truth".
Let's try some facts;
US Violent Crime Rate: 475 per 100,000 citizens
(Year: 2003 http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html )
UK Violent Crime Rate: 4,100 per 100,000 citizens
(Year: 2003 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs04/rdsolr1804.pdf )
And here in the US, it is estimated that 2-2.5 million cases of gun defense have successfully occured (most without firing a shot). Without guns, the criminals are vastly more successful, which you appear to want, seeing that it's exactly what happened in England and Wales after your gun ban.
They've got a long way to drop if you want to get the number of gun murders down from 11,000+ a year to 39.
Sorry if the truth hurts.
They've got a long way to drop if you want to get the number of gun murders down from 11,000+ a year to 39.
Sorry if the truth hurts.
That Telegraph report is based on official figures. Figures for crimes such as homicide are not based on survey - that would be plain silly (have you been shot and killed in the last twelve months?). They are based on counting dead bodies with bullet holes in them.
Minor crimes are measured by survey - this is in order to capture all crime, and not just that reported to the police - some people just don't bother to report petty crime like mobile phone theft. These give higher figures than police reports, and is hardly evidence that we are trying to massage the figures downwards.
That Telegraph report is based on official figures. Figures for crimes such as homicide are not based on survey - that would be plain silly (have you been shot and killed in the last twelve months?). They are based on counting dead bodies with bullet holes in them.
Minor crimes are measured by survey - this is in order to capture all crime, and not just that reported to the police - some people just don't bother to report petty crime like mobile phone theft. These give higher figures than police reports, and is hardly evidence that we are trying to massage the figures downwards.
I thought you said to only use statistics and official records. Your article only shows surveys taken. Is that because if the facts don't fit your agenda, you decry them as false, but if they look good to you, they are spot on? That's a lot like our polls over here. Do we trust them any more than your idiotic numbers? Nope.
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