How many accidental deaths by firearms do you have in the US?
I would hate being in a country where the risk of my children getting involved with guns are so high!
Paroniod behavior by both criminal and victims is escelating the problem

H Laidlaw , Dunblane , Scotland

What are the chances of having your firearm to hand just as the bad guys swing into view ? This debate is ridiculous. Anyone who says that they are safer in a society of armed maniacs is simply delusional.

Scared, weird little guys with automatic firearms go on random shooting sprees in public places in the U.S. with depressing regularity and you people don't get the message.

Maybe evolution IS just a theory.

david, Brias bane, Australia

i'm armed. as we speak, a small pearl handled .38 special revolver lies within reach on my desk.

let us suppose a housebreaker, with evil intentions and no morals.

do you wish him to stop by my place before, or after, he goes to yours?

i rest my case.

mitch shrader, tulsa, oklahoma

Please - less emotional insult-trading and more thoughtful comment !
Will someone please advance a logical argument to support the proposition that disarming the victim (potential or actual) makes him or her safer from violent crime ?

Second point : what percentage of firearm murders in the USA are committed by criminals on other criminals ? Is this statistic of any significance whatsoever ?

James Burns, Scarborough, UK

Most comments by Americans tend to be by paranoid middle-class whites who actually haved experience nothing in the way of violent crime. I moved from New Jersey to Oregon, and could not believe the number of friends, in-laws, etc. who consider themselves "security-conscious." And yes, FYI, I've seen plenty of 'hoods that are actually dangerous, and have been threatened with guns.

Anectdotally, I'm trying to recall ANY instance of a reported shooting on the news in either state which involved a stalwart homeowner defending his castle against deadly intruders. What ARE the stats for such defensive killings? Do they outweigh the death-toll of the vast majority of criminal shootings? I know I'd prefer to have my psychopaths armed only with knives or fists rather than semi-automatic weapons;) How about you?

Michael Telafici, Eugene,

Toms Moncrieff, Kernan:

You're making the wrong comparison. Of course the USA will have more people killed by guns than the UK - that's because there are more guns there. [Incidently, that figure is misleading as it includes lawful killings and suicides.]

The comparison that you actually want to make is in the overall level of violent crime - muggings, burglaries, rapes, murders and so on.

The whole point of having a gun for self-defence in your home, say, is to shoot and kill someone who breaks in. That is it's function - the idea that you can wave your gun around and the intruders will happily lie on the floor and wait for the police is movie fiction.

If someone wants to beat me up, and I shoot and kill him, I consider that a success. Yes, if you look at the stats, there will have been one more death (assuming he was planning on leaving be beaten but alive), but I would far rather shoot and kill a criminal than have my family beaten and maybe raped/killed. What's your choice

Sam, Chicago,

For about six years now, I have spent countless hours researching everything that recognized “experts” from a dozen countries has said and done about crime, law, weaponry, military, psychology etc…etc… pertaining to police protection/self-defense. This included countless writings and speeches pro and con about armed/unarmed self-defense.
My wife and I are just average people with average jobs in an average apartment in an average city. However, over these six years my wife and I have spent around three thousand dollars on a broad spectrum of training/instruction including crime avoidance techniques like awareness levels, recognizing warning signs of impending attack by predatory criminals, verbal judo, empty-handed defense, various weapons use like pepper spray and baton to advanced tactical firearm deployment. We have even attended seminars to understand the complexities of the psychological requirements and costs of criminal violence to justifiable lethal force.
continued,

Louis W, New Hampshire, USA

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/hosb0207.pdf

“Table 1.03 Offences currently1 recorded as homicide by apparent method of killing and sex of victim: England and Wales 1995 to 2005/06″

gun murders:
1995: 66
1996: 47
1997: 58
1998: 52
1999: 46
2000: 61
2001: 72
2002: 97
2003: 75
2004: 68
2005: 75
2006: 50

So, yes, there are less fatal shootings in England and Wales than America. But there were even less the year BEFORE the '97 handgun ban. The rate was doubled in 2002. Is this spin from the NRA? Did they somehow infiltrate Home Office and muck with the numbers?

Either way, comparing the UK to America is apples and oranges.

As for John Howard gloating that his sweeping ban prevented any more massacres: How does he reconcile this with the fact someone walked into a university in Melbourne six years later with five handguns, then murdered two people and seriously injured five? The only thing stopping the shooter from killing more people was being tackled by another student..

Bee, VA, USA

After Tim Reid's article on Sheryl Crow and her spoof toilet paper write up. I have my doubts in his objectiveness.

Paul Marglin, Salem, Kentucky

Fight fire with fire that's the American Way!!!

Don't solve the problem, there is no point, that costs time and money, no, make it law that every citizen, as homocidal as they may be, has to carry a firearm.

And Anna from Australia, yes America is concerned with the state of fear, if they didn't have it no one would buy stuff and the American economy would collapse (yes, that is hyperbole but basically the situation).

And Mr Knox from Virginia, I am an Australian, I've lived in America and I gotta tell you, gun control does work, I feel safer here than what I did in America. At least here, I know I can go to school without the possibilty that a classmate will kill me.

So, go on believing that you are safe in America with your gun under your pillow, if it makes you happy that you would have to defend yourself and have the means to do so, good luck to you. At least here, our criminals have motive for crime. (Might sound bad but it's better than the cold killers of the USA)

Lazlow Verroccha, Adelaide, South Australia

Virginia Tech Tragedy Happended Because:

1. Students and Teachers licensed to carry concealed guns, thereby able to respond to emergencies such as Virginia Tech, were prevented from doing so by Virginia Tech policy.
2. Students and Teachers were not effetively warned even though there was a TWO-HOUR gap between the first and second shooting episodes.
3. Official policy prevented Cho's name from being entered into the database of those not legally able to buy guns.

This tragedy should correct the above problems and encourage the banning of GUN-FREE ZONES (which only invite tragedy).

Butch Eastman, Youngstown,

First, you made owning handguns illegal, then semi-auto rifles and shotguns. Then you criminalized stun guns, carrying knives, pepper spray and anything else that you can EFFECTIVELY defend yourself with. As if the UK‘s “Subjects” are inferior minded children, in an easily controlled environment, just take away the scissors and every one in class will play nice, how insulting.
You can not possibly believe that you can prevent persons moving about, coming in contact with others and transferring something at all in a society, much less with the law which is designed to punish behavior, it can NOT act as a physical barrier. If someone is willing to commit heinous criminal acts like kidnapping, rape, brutal assault and murder why would they obey weapons laws? Do you think Jack the ripper cared about the legality of his knife?
Wave a magic wand and eliminate every gun in the world that will work oh that’s right, the dark ages, medieval times, right.
continued,

Louis W, New Hampshire, USA

We go to the range at our club and practice what we were taught sometimes once a month some times every two or three months and oh yes its fun!
Our instructors and fellow trainees range from basic safety to high-ranking police/ officials, from degreed professionals to combat experienced military specialists. My wife being a former police officer/paramedic can attest (and others) that our training has far exceeded what the typical “cop on the street” gets.
Why tell you all this? So that you take what I am about to write with more validity than mere uninformed opinion or even worse, meaningless political bias.

I have read so many well intentioned carefully thought out statements on how more social programs, more police and more government involvement would affect crime. Well you are right, it made it worse.
continued,

Louis W, New Hampshire, USA

Think about that next time you eat Mexican. In the United States, there are about one hundred million gun owners and as you may know, we are 50 states that balance power between their state governments and the federal government. So you have some states like Washington D.C., California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Louisiana with Moderate to strict gun and weapon control like the UK, Australia, the Netherlands, China, Germany, France, Mexico, Canada and South Africa. Of course, it is Just coincidence that these states and countries have crime rates correlating to these types of laws. The more restrictive the laws, the higher the crime rates. Don’t believe me?
continued,

Louis W, New Hampshire, USA

"U.S. Gun Lobby Blames Dunblane Gun Law for Big Rise in Shootings"

And you in the U.K. can tell me that, in all good conscience, do NOT blame said law?

R.J., Lake Arrowhead, California

ted, Georgetown, Ky USA: The study you refer to derives from feedback on telephone calls - yep, that's right - telephone calls. The data the study uses is not based on any official figures therefore quoting them as if they were is vasting misleading. For example, the data from Scotland (which fared the worst in the study) involved figures 10 times greater than the actual number of crimes reported to the police.

Even the UN department that produced this report has the following: "Disclaimer: anything that is published that contains ICVS data, is the responsibility of the author of that publication. UNICRI does not take responsibility for errors made in data analysis and presentation or errors as a result of inconsistencies in the database."

Doesn't sound as if the UNICRI believes it themselves. You did, because it fits in with what you wanted to hear. Hopefully you now know better.

By comparison, dead bodies are rather more solid facts. Refer to previous posts for those.

Dan, Hampton , UK

What’s The Swiss crime rate. You know the country with Full auto machine guns in the majority of homes with people age 21 to 45, right. To my understanding, the UK has this “class of responsible elites” form of government. It has been ten plus years since your crime rate went up so high that one out of every forty people a year are victims of violent crimes. When are your “elites” going to act responsible? When are people going to realize that your life and lives of your precious loved ones are YOUR responsibility?

Louis W, New Hampshire, USA

ted, Georgetown USA: The study you refer to derives from feedback on a telephone poll - yep - a poll. The data the study uses is not based on any official figures therefore quoting them as if they were is vasting misleading. For example, the data from Scotland (faring worst in the study) involved figures 10 times greater than the actual number of crimes reported to the police.

Even the UN department that produced this report States: "Disclaimer: anything that is published that contains ICVS data, is the responsibility of the author of that publication. UNICRI does not take responsibility for errors made in data analysis."

Doesn't sound as if the UNICRI believes it themselves. You did, because it fits in with what you wanted to hear. Hopefully you now know better.

By comparison, dead bodies and bereaved families are rather more solid facts. Refer to previous posts for those.

Oh, Howard. There are armed UK police units and the IRA - funded by US citizens no longer bombs.

Dan, Hampton , UK

Leave weapons to the “Professionals”.
Really now, do you need a barber’s license to style yours or your child’s hair?
Do you need a Masters degree in the culinary arts to cook a holiday meal?
Do you need a PhD in horticulture to have a garden or mow your own lawn?
Are you so irresponsible you cannot be trusted with a can of Cayenne pepper spray to protect your own life? You do realize it is the exact same stuff on your spice rack right?
continued,

Louis W, New Hampshire, USA

I like the boldness of the hypocrisy of some of the posters. They claim that anyone who wants the right to self defense is paranoid, but that a government that preemptively disarms its citizenry is merely prudent.

Brooks, New York, USA

People are only looking at the murder rate aspect of the argument. Yes, the murder rate is higher in the US, but there is more violent crime per capita in the UK than in the US. Also, nothing is mentioned about how many crimes are stopped in the US by a law-abiding gun owner. This is statistic is somewhere in the millions, but hard to know because a gun doens't necessarily have to used, just brandished and the crime will cease. Criminals, by definition, do not obey the law. Gun control laws only hurt law-abiding citizens. If guns cause crime then pencils cause misspelled words - they are inantimate objects. Bringing people out of poverty will lower crime, not taking away guns. I get tired of hearing this "gun culture" term about the US. 99% of gun owners are law-abiding citizens that own guns not only to protect themselves, but as a hobby and competition as well.

Bill, Fairfax, VA

we have 60000000 yes 60 million people in the uk
and only had 50 murders in the UK
I THINK THE FIGURES SPEAK FOR THEMSELVE

george william taylor, HULL, UK

If anyone is seriously interested in studying this issue instead of just trading insults, I highly recommend reading "Guns and Violence, the English Experience" by Joyce Lee Malcom, a history professor.

You will find out, I think, that comparisons between the two countries are almost useless due to differences in culture and history. However we Americans should thank our English friends for conducting a noble experiment in civilian disarmament.

I have been reading with great interest a few recent articles by UK journalists admitting that strict gun control hasn't been a success. Yet they can't bring themselves to come out and say that gun control is wrong or should be scaled back. We live in interesting times.

Michael Brown, Vancouver, Washington, USA

From 1991 to 1995, crimes against the person in England's inner cities increased 91 percent. And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled. Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York. England's rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America's, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police. In a United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations published in July, England and Wales led the Western world's crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people.

ted, Georgetown, Ky USA

the NRA argument is ridiculous. Taking the population of the US as 280 million (a guess) and the UK as 60 million then the kill rate in the US from firearms is 45 times greater than the UK. The main factor that separates our countries is the availability of firearms.........enough said? So effectively because of the availability of firearms in the US you will have a 45 times greater chance of being killed by one there. I know where I'd rather live as someone who doesn't want to increase their chance of being shot. The US do have a major problem in ridding its culture of guns, we here in the UK are lucky as we never had the gun availability that the US have, once they are there it's not a simple solution to remove them. The first step the US need to do to begin firearm reduction is acknowledge their availability is directly attributable for their attrocious murder rate.

jack, cardiff, UK,

yes its true, more people are killed in US with firearms,but in the UK police dont carry !! This is BS that the police deaths are included and not defined,Also The IRA and bombers are more active in Spain,UK and other Euro-Asian countries. Most GUNS for terrorist are smuggled into the US under DIPLOMATIC immunity. Lets address the real issue if I want some one dead I'll hijack an aeroplane and slam into the world trade center..Thank God that will never happen with the illegals screening passengers at Boston airports.killing 4,000 people....Remember it was pressident Clinton who said "we are removeing the air marshals from aircraft they are not needed anymore" or God forbid a criminal escape from jail and gun down a NY Sstate Ttrooper

Howard Heaney, Grand Island, NY

But do these figures for the US include people killed trying to break in or being burgled. If you look at the US burglary statistics they are about half the UK's, at least people in the US are allowed to protect themselves. Maybe the NRA have a point.

Tom, London, UK

Izaak got to it before I could. Typically nauseating use of a tragedy by the NRA for their own ends. Mark - Please see Izaak's post as well. Guns or no, there is a higher per-capita murder rate in the US than the UK.

Apparently it doesn't matter how many pistols you have under the pillow or how many copies of guns'n ammo on the coffee table. Bumper stickers aren't helping and executing criminals doesn't appear to be much of a deterrant either.

I don't claim to have all the answers, but putting more guns into the general US population is a facile argument at best. It is patently a cause, not a solution to the problem.

Dan, Hampton , UK

Comparing crime in different countries is useless. National attitudes, demographics, police powers, and numerous factors make such comparisons pointless. What must be done is to look at the crime rates (NOT just "Gun-Crime") and see where it was trending before major changes in the laws and where it trended after major changes in the laws and then factor in other variables such as major demographic shifts, etc.
In the US in the past ten to fifteen years, firearms restrictions have been being rolled back, firearms sales have boomed, legal concealed carry of firearms has become much easier in most states, and the violent crime rates have fallen dramatically. Is the drop in violent crime due to the increase in guns? Probably not, but it makes it clear that more guns does not equal more crime.
At the same time, Australia and the UK enacted strict firearms restrictions and their violent crime rates have increased.
Gun control does not work!

Jeff Knox, Manassas, Virginia, USA

I heard a spokesman for the Virginia Citizens Defence League on the radio arguing the case for more guns, and what struck me most in his diatribe was the sheer hysteria in his voice, driven by pure fear. It seems that Americans are crazed with fear of the other. How can you argue logically with people whose worlds are defined thus? I can only assume that fear is such a large part of the American psyche because when you're living on stolen soil forcing stolen people to work for you while trying to get more than the next man you must always be looking over your shoulder. I guess one big difference with Australia is here we have gun control.

Anna, sydney, Australia

What you will witness is a shift from guns being used for crimes to other weapons. No real decrease in violent crime has occurred. Sinful human beings are simply using other weapons to deliver their rage. What will the next ban be? Kitchen knives? Oh, yeah, you are trying to ban them as well. Guns are the great equalizer, empowering the weak against totalitarian forces, whether a thrug on the street or a corrupt government. Britains seems full of sheep willing giving away their rights of self-protection!

Mark Helburg, St. Louis, USA

Er sorry, the US population is not 200 times that of England and Wales, Divide the number of gun deaths stateside according to the article, about 10,000, by the 50 in England and Wales, then divide this by six (the US population being about six times larger than England and Wales) and you get a figure which suggests you are thirty times more likely to die from a gun in the US.

John May, Dorset, UK

Izaak got to it before I could. Typically nauseating use of a tragedy by the NRA for their own ends. Mark - Please see Izaak's post as well. Guns or no, there is a higher per-capita murder rate in the US than the UK. Apparently it doesn't matter how many pistols you have or how many copies of guns'n ammo.

Dan, Hampton , UK

Fair enough Nick. The population of the UK is about 60million so for 2005-06 that works out at 0.833 gun deaths per 1 million people. The population of the US has just gone past 300 million so let's assume that in 2004 it was about 275 million that then works out 38.742 per 1 million people.

So, to put it bluntly, the US population is about 4.5 times larger than the UK, but gun deaths per 1 million people are 46 times higher in US than in the UK.

Gordon, London, UK

Yes of course having 5,000 armed students running round looking for a gunman who's identity is not known at the time of the shooting is possibly the stupidest idea ever. What are the chances of the right person getting shot? As opposed to say all the students shooting at each other in the confused, ensuing bloodbath?

30,000 americans are shot dead by americans every year. Ten times as many as died in 9/11. Get your priorities straight and stop trying to defend the indefensible!

phileas fogg, London, uk

British gun control = a disarmed populace ripe for invasion. This is why your grandfathers were welding bayonets to pipes as they awaited shipments of American firearms and ammunition.

A good thing our "violent" society came through and kept you free at that time so people could play games with statistics and politics today, huh?

Chris, Michgan, USA

The right to bear arms for self defence obviously helps in all the situations where a nut case decided to shoot up their school because invariably the nutcase shoots themselves saving all that nasty court stuff. More guns I say.

Oliver, Dorset,

I'd really like to know how many Americans (percentagewise) actually carry their guns around with them alll the time in order to be able to defend themselves. Do they feel somehow defenseless if they don't have their gun with them?

alan, cologne,

Yes - the important figure is how many people are murdered.
In the UK about 14 people in a million are murdered per year,
in the US about 42 people in a million are murdered per year.
America's murder rate is 3 times worse - end of story.

John, Manchester, UK

Utter twaddle! Even before the idiotic laws enacted in the wake of the Dunblane tragedy, regulations in this country were so strict that the opportunities to use one's firearm in self defence were vanishingly small.

This 'right to bear arms' is more about paranoia and the profit motive than anything else.

John Lockett, Burnley, Lancs.,

The United States' murder rate, excluding murders by firearms, is still 20 times that (per capita) of the UK. Furthermore, only counting murders by firearm is misleading -- what about armed robbery? Does it not matter?

The famous quote by (author of the US Declaration of Independence) Thomas Jefferson sums it up: ""God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
..... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time. It is its natural manure."

Izaak, New York, USA

Er sorry - statistics at work here - the U.S. population is slightly(!) larger than the U.K. population. Let's see kill rate per capita.....it might be rather more alarming....

Nick, Penzberg,

The NRA has a real cheek saying Scotland, England and Wales are the most dangerous countries in the developed world. Unless of course they consider the USA not to be in the developed world. The stats speak loud and clear for themselves - 10,654 people in the USA killed by guns in on year. Pro-rata i.e. multiply by 5 and the English figure comes out at 250. If the NRA believes British people are more likely to turn to violence then the figures actually prove gun control works - and they are shooting themselves in the foot.

tom moncrieff, London, England

The important figure is how many people are murdered in each country. The U.S. has far more people per capita killed by guns but the U.K. has far more people beaten to death per capita.

Mark, Brisbane, Australia

One statistic sweeps away any agruement by the NRA

"In UK fifty people were killed in 2005-06 by guns, compared with the US figure for 2004 of 10,654."

The rest is just spin and very, very costly spin at that.

Tom Kernan, Camberley, UK/Surrey