Myth: Britain has strict gun control and a low crime rate
Fact: Since gun banning has escalated in the UK, the rate of crime – especially violent crime – has risen.
Fact: Street robberies soared 28% in 2001. Violent crime was up 11%, murders up 4%, and rapes are up 14%.259
Fact: Comparing crime rates between America and Britain is flawed. In America, a gun crime is recorded as a gun crime. In Britain, a crime is only recorded when there is a final disposition (a conviction). All unsolved gun crimes in Britain are not reported as gun crimes, grossly undercounting the amount of gun crime there. 260 To make matters worse, British law enforcement has been exposed for falsifying criminal reports to create falsely lower crime figures, in part to preserve tourism.261
Fact: A continuing parliamentary inquiry into the growing number of black market weapons has concluded that there are more than three million illegally held firearms in circulation - double the number believed to have been held 10 years ago - and that criminals are more willing than ever to use them. One in three criminals under the age of 25 possesses or has access to a firearm. 262
Fact: Handgun homicides in England and Wales reached an all-time high in 2000, years after a virtual ban on private handgun ownership. More than 3,000 crimes 259 British Home Office, reported by BBC news, July 12, 2002 260 Gallant, Hills, Kopel, “Fear in Britainâ€, Independence Institute, July 18, 2000
261 “Crime Figures a Sham, Say Police “, Daily Telegraph, April 1, 1996
262 Reported in The Guardian, September 3, 2000
involving handguns were recorded in 1999-2000, including the 42 homicides, 310 cases of attempted murder, 2,561 robberies and 204 burglaries.263
Fact: Handguns were used in 3,685 offences in 2000 compared with 2,648 in 1997, an increase of 40%.264
It is interesting to note:
• Of the 20 areas with the lowest number of legal firearms, 10 had an above average level of "gun crime."
• Of the 20 areas with the *highest* levels of legal guns, only 2 had armed crime levels above the average.
Fact: Between 1997 and 1999, there were 429 murders in London, the highest twoyear figure for more than 10 years – nearly two-thirds of those involved firearms – in a country that has banned private firearm ownership.265
Fact: Over the last century, the British crime rate was largely unchanged. In the late nineteenth century, the per capita homicide rate in Britain was between 1.0 and 1.5 per 100,000.266 In the late twentieth century, after a near ban on gun ownership, the homicide rate is around 1.4.267 This shows that the homicide rate does not vary with either the level of gun control or gun availability.
Fact: The U.K. has strict gun control and a rising homicide rate of 1.4 per 100,000. Switzerland that has the highest per capita firearm ownership rate on the planet (all males age 20 to 42 are required to keep rifles or pistols at home) has a homicide rate of 1.2 per 100,000. And to date, there has never been a schoolyard massacre in Switzerland.268
Fact: "[T]he scale of gun crime in the capital [London] has forced senior officers to set up a specialist unit to deal with . . . shootings."269
263 “42 killed by handguns last year “, The Times, January 10, 2001, reporting on statistics supplied by
the British Home Office
264 “Illegal Firearms in the UKâ€, Centre for Defense Studies at King's College in London, July 2001
265 Ibid
266 Clive Emsley, Crime and Society in England 1750-1900, at 36 (1987)
267 Stephen P. Halbrook, “Where Kids and Guns Do Mixâ€, Wall Street Journal, June 1999
268 Ibid
269 Associated News Media, April 30, 2001
http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts ... Screen.pdf