When there are reports of a mass shooting, and many politicians and mainstream media pundits respond by pushing for gun control, it is important to take a moment to look at the statistics and whether there is evidence that the proposed laws would make an impact—and in the United Kingdom, that impact is painfully apparent.
The UK has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, putting the burden on its citizens to prove to the government that they are worthy of owning a specific firearm, and their intent for its ownership.
As The BBC reported, “Getting a license is a long and complicated business. Every stage of the process is designed to reduce the likelihood of a gun falling into the wrong hands. It starts with an application form which asks specific questions about why the individual wants a gun, telling them they need to show ‘good reason.’”
The latest calls for gun control in the United States have come as a result of a mass shooting at a high school in Florida, in which suspect Nikolas Cruz has been accused of using an AR-15, which he purchased legally, to shoot and kill 17 people.
As a result, gun control supporters are arguing that if Cruz had not had access to an AR-15, then the massacre would not have happened. Now, ignoring the fact that Cruz could have committed murder by setting off a bomb at the school, driving his car into a crowd of students, or coming to school armed with the knife collection he showed off on social media—the question remains as to whether stricter gun control laws would have prevented this suspect from committing mass murder.
In the UK, where it is highly unlikely that Cruz would have been able to legally buy a gun, his knife collection would have remained legal. And if he chose to go on a stabbing spree with those weapons, he would have joined thousands of others who have brought stabbings in the UK to a staggering high in recent years.
There were 37,443 recorded knife offenses in the UK—12,980 of which took place in London—between September 2016 and September 2017, which was a 21 percent increase from the year before, according to records from the Office for National Statistics.
The increase in knife crimes is affecting a variety of ages, and on Dec. 31, 2017, four individuals ranging in age from 17 to 20 were stabbed to death, bringing the total number of stabbing deaths in London to 80 in 2017. The Independent reported that the number of teenagers murdered in the capital is now at its highest in nearly a decade.
Despite the strict gun laws already in place, the Office for National Statistics also found 6,694 recorded gun offenses in the year leading up to September 2017, which was a 20 percent increase from the previous year.
As The Free Thought Project has reported, Cruz made his desire to become “a professional school shooter” public when he posted about it online, and despite the fact that he was reported to the FBI more than once in the months leading up to the shooting, the agency—which received more than $9 billion in taxpayer funding in 2017—did nothing to stop him.
While gun control advocates may argue that if Nikolas Cruz was barred from purchasing an AR-15, it would have deterred him from committing mass murder, the fact is that even if he lived in the United Kingdom where strict gun laws are already in place, he still would have had a number of opportunities to contribute to the increasingly high rate of violent crimes.
Cruz killed 17 people in 3 minutes shooting plus wounded many others.
You could not have done that with a knife in 3 minutes (or at least I hope not).
A bomb is a different story - but he might have blown himself up making it.
exactly - It staggers me that proponents of gun rights don't seem to realise this. If 1 guy is carrying a knife, it takes 1 other guy to overpower him - and that person doesn't even need to be armed.
if 1 guy is carrying an assault rifle, then pretty much everyone else is fucked unless somebody else is also carrying an assault rifle.
I hope it is ok - but I just added a link to this post to another article I wrote comparing USA to UK. Your thoughts on knife crime makes a nice addition
I believe the main point is, that this problem is not being addressed correctly. You have insane people who are willing to kill school kids, so banning guns would not lead to a decrease of the number of insane people, who would simply use different tactics. If we don't take care of the mental problems those people face, we will just subsequently ban everything. Look at the UK: over the last few years, they had thousands of acid attacks and now they want to regulate basic household goods, because of a relatively small amount of potential perpetrators.
And when it comes to guns: Cyprus, Uruguay, Norway, Canada, Austria, Iceland, Switzerland and Finland all have an estimated 30 to 40 guns per 100 residents, but we almost never hear of any major incidents in those countries, even though some of them don't make it hard to obtain a gun license.
If insane people are the problem - then we need an effective solution to deal with them.
To date we have not had an effective solution - now is the time for action to make sure we do.
Civil liberties will make that very difficult.
Yes, indeed. It will probably take generations to properly deal with this.
Former Barack Obama attorney general Eric Holder said that "you should never let a good tragedy go to waste", and that we should use school to "brainwash" young people about guns. After every mass shooting in America Democrats, some Republicans, celebrities, and the mainstream media call for gun control or the outright banning of guns. For those of us with a rudimentary historical education or any awareness of how corrupt the American government is, this is a very scary proposition. Turning the conversation to gun control also achieves another objective, it prevents a conversation about mental health in America; specifically related to prescription drug use. Big pharma is in the pockets of both the politicians and the mainstream media. In this short parody video, I attempt to shed light on the connections between big pharma and mass shootings in America. See Below:
Very well said, thank you for your comment!
Awe you didn't even touch on all of the recent attacks using acid.
Thanks for mentioning it! It's absolutely horrifying. The UK (and London in particular) is now "rivaling" with countries such as Bangladesh and India in terms of acid attacks per capita. The Brits are even considering ID checks when one wants to buy certain household goods from a drug store!
That is just pathetic. Classic case of trying to cure the result and not the symptoms.
I have always said that bans do little to stop violence. I think that there are cultural issues in the U.S that cause our mass killing problem. I say this because there are other countries that have high rates of gun ownership but very low rates of violent crime. If guns were the cause we would expect to see countries with more guns have more violence but the facts don't bare that out.
Guns are a political issue because they get people all fired up to vote for whomever they agree with on the topic and nothing more.
I wrote a piece on the shooting on my page that covers my thoughts on school violence in more detail than I can provide here.
*the wrong hands= the poor and minorities
The thing about background checks in the US is they are a joke, nothing happens if you fail one, so if you have ill intentions you are free to go buy one from the black market, and if you don't have ill intentions who cares?
no, the wrong hands generally means anybody that is not law enforcement, or does not need a gun for hunting or agricultural purposes.
I live in Australia - nobody i know owns a gun. Nobody. Even the black market for guns in Australia is nearly non existent.
Even my close friend that is a police officer - his gun stays at work and he comes home unarmed every day. And law enforcement very rarely discharge their weapons - he hasn't yet.
The problem is there are already more then 300 million guns in the USA and they are not going anywhere.
By comparison John Howard's gun buy back only covered 700,000 guns and still left about 2 million guns in circulation. This video gives some interesting info on how the Australian Buy-back would work in the USA
no doubt that is a problem.
but the answer to that problem isn't just to stick your head in the sand and not do anything ever.
Very true - they just need to do things that work.
your solution didn't work.
how many Mass shootings have there been in australia since the Gun Buy back?
how do you define "mass shooting'?
So local cops have discretion about who may legally have a gun and there is no racial or gender discrimination in issuing permits? That sounds hard to believe, especially in a country as racist ass Australia.
For sure in America when police are given the power to discriminate in issuing permits they always discriminate by race and gender.
Here in America all of our gun laws are designed to prevent the poor and minorities from legally being able to defend themselves. They are an extension of Jim Crow laws.
And I have talked to Australians that own guns, you are wrong. There is a vibrant community of shooters down there.
anyhow your draconian laws did not reduce homicide suicide or mass shootings in a statistically significant way. During the same period after you stripped the law abiding of their weapons the gun homicide rate in America fell more sharply.
no local cops don't have the discretion. local cops just enforce the law, gun licensing is handled by a government department.
If you're going to make ridiculous claims like our laws not reducing homocide or mass shootings, how about you show some actual statistics? because the statistics has been well and truly shown the opposite of everything you say.
Australia had 13 mass shootings in the 18-year period from 1979 to 1996 but none since, when the gun buy back happened.
A 2008 study on the effects of the firearm buybacks by Wang-Sheng Lee and Sandy Suardi of University of Melbourne and La Trobe University studied the data and concluded "the NFA did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates."[53]
In 2009 another paper from the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention at Griffith University also studied suicide in Queensland only. The said "No significant difference was found in the rate pre/post the introduction of the NFA in Queensland;
Subsequently, they compared the incidence of mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand. Data were standardised to a rate per 100,000 people, to control for differences in population size between the countries and mass shootings before and after 1996/1997 were compared between countries. That study found that in the period 1980–1996, both countries experienced mass shootings. The rate did not differ significantly between countries. Since 1996-1997, neither country has experienced a mass shooting event despite the continued availability of semi-automatic longarms in New Zealand. The authors conclude that "if civilian access to certain types of firearms explained the occurrence of mass shootings in Australia then New Zealand would have continued to experience mass shooting events."[45] In 2012, McPhedran and Baker found there was little evidence for any impacts of the gun laws on firearm suicide among people under 35 years of age, and suggest that the significant financial expenditure associated with Australia's firearms method restriction measures may not have had any impact on youth suicide.[46] Head of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn described the Baker and McPhedran article as "reputable" and "well-conducted" [47] Weatherburn noted the importance of actively policing illegal firearm trafficking and argued that there was little evidence that the new laws had helped in this regard.[48] He also stated that the 1996 legislation had little to no effect on violence saying the "laws did not result in any acceleration of the downward trend in gun homicide."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Australia#Research