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Does the US have more violent crime than the UK?

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MLE (Emily Cotton)
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Does the US have more violent crime than the UK?

Post by MLE (Emily Cotton) » Sat January 12th, 2013, 10:27 pm


Helen_Davis

Post by Helen_Davis » Wed January 23rd, 2013, 6:32 pm

Thanks for posting, really intriguing!

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Justin Swanton
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Post by Justin Swanton » Thu January 31st, 2013, 9:16 am

Come to sunny SA. I've been mugged three times (once at knifepoint) and know people who have been through the same thing. House burgled twice.

When I walk the streets I 'case' them - check who might be potential muggers and where I could go if they come for me. It's a way of life.
Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus.

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Come visit my blog

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Margaret
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Post by Margaret » Thu January 31st, 2013, 4:19 pm

Well, the murder rate is lower in the UK, even if the violent crime rate is much higher. What that strongly suggests to me is that the violent crimes in the UK are less lethal because there are so many fewer guns. The guy on the video goes into a rant about how guns in the US aren't the problem, but his own statistics strongly suggest they're a big problem. It's good to know, though, that our violent crime rate here has dropped 50% over the last 20 years. He rightly points out that the media and US politicians don't make much of this. My own hunch about why is that the media loves to sensationalize crime, and politicians like to play on people's fears, and a lowered crime rate doesn't play into either of these strategies. In fact, the lowered crime rate may be due to a lower percentage of the population being under 30. I've read in a number of sources over the years that the percentage of young men in a population correlates with the violence rate. More mature men are less violence-prone.
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Madeleine
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Post by Madeleine » Thu January 31st, 2013, 4:32 pm

I think knife crime is more of a problem in the UK than gun crime, but I agree that the media loves to sensationalise pretty much anything these days.

Interesting comment about the percentage of young men and the rate of violence.
Currently reading "The Whitstable Pearl Mystery" by Julie Wassmer

Helen_Davis

Post by Helen_Davis » Thu January 31st, 2013, 4:54 pm

This is why I don't think banning guns will help in the long run because clever criminals 1. Do not obey laws and 2. even if they do, they will find other ways to carry out their henious deeds. To quote Einstein

"I don't know what WW3 will be fought with, but WW4 will be fought with sticks and rocks."

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LoveHistory
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Post by LoveHistory » Sat February 23rd, 2013, 3:32 am

I missed this whole discussion, but that's probably fine because I can only add that in theory we should have more violent crime than the UK because we have more people.

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