Message no. 1

From:	James Dening james@************.force9.co.uk
Subject:	Guns in the UK
Date:	Fri, 16 Jul 1999 17:22:30 +0100

Marc said
"Then why isn't that the case in England? Why is violent crime on
the rise there? Why is firearms use by criminals growing rapidly?
England has some of the most draconian firearms laws in the free world,
yet it hasn't stemmed the tide of illegal guns flowing into the country,
nor has it eliminated gun-related crime."

It is.
It isn't - it's declined over the last year, AFAIK.
It is??? Only in certainly socio-ethnic groups (the Yardies), and it's been
stamped on bigtime...

It may not have eliminated it, but it's *very* low...ISTR that there were only
16 firearm-related murders in the UK last year, as opposed to 10,000 in
the states - I'm sure someone will quote the exact figures, but the
rate per capita is about two orders of magnitude different!

Switzerland is completely different - despite there being loads of guns,
there's bugger all gun crime.

Hey, maybe this means that there's NO RELATION between guns being
available and gun crime - shotguns are readily available in rural england
FYI....

Anyway, mega-gripe (he says, packing his bag for a week in the Caribbean),
there's been bugger all SR content on this list for the last 4 days....and this
post hasn't helped....

J.