Again...The U.S. has more gun crime...but Britain has twice as much violent crime...and almost absolute gun control...
Not really. Britain considers a punch in the nose a violent crime. You`re comparing apples to oranges.
Here's something to
chew on:
Thanks to strict criminal laws, working conditions in Great Britain are the safest in the Western world—that is, if your profession is burglary. On the other hand, if you’re a law-abiding citizen quietly staying at home, you’re at much greater risk in the nearly gun-free United Kingdom, than in the gun-happy United States of America.
In late October, teacher Robert Symonds, who lived in the London suburb of Putney, was stabbed to death in his home by a burglar. Last week, in Halifax (near Manchester), 71-year-old priest Father Ingwell was stabbed several times by a burglar. The same week, burglars in the fancy London neighborhood of Chelsea stabbed banker John Monckton to death. Terrifying home invasion burglaries are not rare events in England. Overall, Great Britain has a higher violent crime rate than the United States, and a higher burglary rate. Significantly, only about one-eighth of American burglaries take place while the victim is home, whereas over half of all British burglaries do.
One reason that British burglars are so much bolder than their American cousins is that only about 4% of British homes legally possess a gun, whereas about half of American homes do. British police administrators require guns at home to be stored unloaded in a safe, and that ammunition be in a separate safe. No American jurisdiction has such extreme “safe storage” requirements. As a result, an American burglar who breaks into an occupied home faces a significant risk of getting shot.
Here's a bit more to
chew on:
It is axiomatic in the United States that burglars avoid occupied homes. As an introductory criminology textbook explains, "Burglars do not want contact with occupants; they depend on stealth for success." [FN8] Only thirteen percent of U.S. residential burglaries are attempted against occupied homes. [FN9] But this happy fact of life, so taken for granted in the United States, is not universal.
The overall Canadian burglary rate is higher than the American one, and a Canadian burglary is four times more likely to take place when the victims are home. [FN10]
In Toronto, forty-four percent of burglaries were against occupied homes, and twenty-one percent involved a confrontation with the victim. [FN11] Most Canadian residential burglaries occur at night, while American burglars are known to prefer daytime entry to reduce the risk of an armed confrontation. [FN12]
Research by the federal government's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention found that, based on 1994 data, American youths 10 to 17 years old had much higher arrest rates than Canadian youths for every category of violent and property crime. The lone exception was burglary, for which Canadian youths were one-third more likely to be involved. [FN13] In cities such as Vancouver, home invasion burglaries aimed at elderly people have become endemic, and murders of the elderly during those burglaries all too frequent. [FN14] Unfortunately, help from the government is not always available. In Quebec, the provincial police (Sureté du Québec) are under orders from their commander to reduce arrests for burglary, because the jails are full. [FN15]