UK homicide rate doubles since 1967

[krispos42]

I took the liberty of posting the UK homicide rate from 1967 to 2005 here. It is in murders per 100,000 people.

Keep in mind that the UK banned semi-automatic rifles ('deadly assault weapons') in 1989 after the Hungerford Massacre, and banned handguns in 1998 after the Dublane Massacre.

1967 0.73
1968 0.74
1969 0.68
1970 0.70
1971 0.83
1972 0.83
1973 0.80
1974 1.07
1975 0.90
1976 0.99
1977 0.85
1978 0.96
1979 1.11
1980 1.11
1981 1.01
1982 1.12
1983 0.97
1984 1.08
1985 1.07
1986 1.12
1987 1.19
1988 1.09
1989 1.03
1990 1.09
1991 1.23
1992 1.14
1993 1.11
1994 1.24
1995 1.30
1996 1.14
1997 1.19
1997/98 1.18
1998/99 1.25
1999/00 1.30
2000/01 1.49
2001/02 1.54
2002/03 1.82
2003/04 1.50
2004/05 1.55

In 1967, the UK homicide rate was a mere one-ninth (11%) of ours. Now it is one-third (33%) of ours... and our current homicide rate is down about 10% of 1967 levels.

Note the big jump since the 1998 handgun ban...

You can find the data on page 54 of this document. Please note I changed the format to be homicides per 100,000 per year, which is what the US DOJ uses. In the form, it is in homides per 1 million people per year.

[sandnsea]

1. Ours are 5-10 per 100,000

We're murderous people who clearly shouldn't be trusted with nukes. Or guns.




http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/hmrt.htm

[Benhurst]

2. Doubling a very low rate is regrettable, but hardly meaningful as a

comparison to the degree of carnage in our gun-toting society.

There may be many good arguments for allowing our citizens to carry guns; but this is not one of them.

The Second Amendment reflected the Founding Father's fear of a powerful central government and the desire to establish well-trained, independent state militias (no longer an issue since Bush has effectively snatched control of them), not the individual's right to carry a gun.

A better argument against gun control would be that the Founding Fathers never considered a ban on the ownership of guns.

The so-called "Patriot" Act allows the police to search homes of any "suspected terrorist" without a warrant or even telling the target it has done so. So much for Big Government's need for gun registration.

Gun ownership did not prevent a tyrant from taking over and ruling Iraq, where on average every household had a gun before our invasion. www.slate.com/id/2081185/

And in this country, gun ownership hasn't prevented the shredding of the Constitution and continued assaults on the Republic by the Junta put into power by a corrupt Supreme Court on January 20, 2001.

[mc jazz]

3. Yeah but...

I read recently there was something like 55 murders in the UK last year by guns
That is low, it's obvious is they were legal here that figure would be higher
It's simple logic, and if you say well, they won't use a gun they will use a knife... good I'd rather defend myself against a more primitive weopons!

[Benhurst]

5. Your figure sounds about right from what I have read.

The UK has around 60 million subjects.
We have almost 300 million citizens.

If we had their rate of murder by guns, an average of 275 citizens would be murdered by guns in the United States each year.

In my rural county of less than 19,000, we average more than one murder by gun per year. In fact several years ago, a most unfortunate year, we had more murders by guns than the whole of Metropolitian London.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

4. the 'big jump" was not related to the '98 handgun ban

it happened later, in 2000/01.

[krispos42]

8. My point is that it's been a steady climb upwards

If guns caused crime, if the fact that the mere ownership of guns made conflicts more deadly and robbery and rape easier, then the UK should have seen a dip after the 1989 ban and, since handguns are used most often to kill and rob, a bigger one after the 1998 ban. Or at least a leveling out.

It didn't happen, so that means that the socio-economic factors are almost certainly far more powerful than whether or not the population owns hardware.

[LeftishBrit]

6. Most people in the UK have never had guns!

Guns simply aren't part of our culture, certainly outside the countryside. The assumption that increases in gun crime here have anything to do with the 1998 gun law is incorrect. Most people here aren't even *aware* of that law - we didn't have guns before 1998 either.

There have been general increases in crime here: partly 'reaping the whirlwind' of the increasing social and economic inequalities that started under Thatcher; partly the gang-warfare associated with drugs and their prohibition. However, gun crime is still at a much lower level here than in America; and in most parts of Britain is very low indeed.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Footnote for year 2002/03: includes Dr. Shipman's 172 victims, from various years

(All put into that year so that the numbers for homicides in earlier years didn't need to be revised, I suppose, since it wasn't realised they were homicides at the time). Without him, that year would be 1.49.

For that matter, the 2000/01 figure would be 1.38 without the death by asphyxiation of 58 Chinese being smuggled into the country; and 2003/04 would be 1.46 without the 20 Morecambe Bay cockle picker drownings - but those did actually happen in the years they've been ascribed to.