This was on another blog yesterday, and I'll say the same thing I said there: I think there's more to this than the short blurb presented. FOUR sword thrusts. Did the robber keep coming? Did they flee when the sword came out, and the guy killed was the slowest runner? Were any of the sword thrusts/blow to the back? Were they chased?

Self defense is fine, but using it as an excuse to butcher someone with a sword is manslaughter. I'd want to see more info on this before building up a righteous frothy anger at the British justice system.

I would have to agree with you that we should know more before assuming.

However, this isn't the first time the Brits have locked someone up for self defense in their own home--the last time was a gentleman who killed an intruder with a hunting rifle--and given the number of stories wherein it has been relayed that the standard advice to Brits or tourists who get mugged is to instantly surrender, and lie down on the ground covering your face if need be, it's not surprising that they have this reputation.

It is interesting: four sword thrusts, four intruders in the middle of the night. Intruders who may well have been there to kill the man or his family. Unless circumstances are quite extraoridinary, it's hard not to sympathize with the man whose home was invaded.

A worthy sentiment, Stu. "righteous frothy anger" is rarely, if ever a worthy response. But I don't think it is too likely that the sentence implies the sort of depravity you describe. I seem to recall an elderly fellow convicted of murder in the UK not long ago under circumstances that would have not even warranted prosecutions in most US jurisdictions on self-defense grounds. Is there a pattern here? Hard to deny. Especially as the news from Europe lately, quite beside the police blotter stuff, seems to indicate a refutation of the concepts of self-defense itself, in law, politics and ettiquette. That bothers the hell out of me, as those who profit from violence find the pacifist atmosphere most congenial. Most congenial.

Well, this is a hard story to get news about, as the "This Is Lancashire" online edition doesn't cache well in Google.

However, I have some fragments. The convicted man appears to have been involved in some kind of drug use or sale, and he in fact grabbed the sword and chased the men after the robbers had left the apartment.

Fragmentary quote available through Google: " ... But Lindsay armed himself with a Samurai sword and chased the men, stabbing Mr Swindells four times in the back and thigh, Manchester Crown Court was told..."

Sounds like it isn't quite your average case of law-abiding quiet citizen railroaded for simply defending himself.

If that's so then you're quite right, Stu. If you can come up with a hard linke that would be cool, I'll post it.

I'll look some more, but the only fragments I can get appear in the Google text blurb underneath the URL. If you jump to the cached item, you get nuthin'. I'll try searching the paper, and the Manchester Court records.

Should be working for Snopes...

Whew. There are a disturbing number of psychopaths using samurai swords to commit crimes in Britain and elsewhere. Seems to be a common weapon of choice for thugs.

Beats guns, I guess. Still searching...

Swords are also on the list of items soon to be outlaw in Jolly Old and the Continent. If they ever manage to outlaw cricket bats we might actually be close to Utopia.

The currently incarcerated stabbed the deceased four times in the back as he was running away.
The incarcerated was also a drug dealer that apparently lost it.

Go here:

http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/lancashire/bolton/news/NEWS8.html

Good catch, Catch-22 (ha!). You're a better googler than I.

And justice is served.

"Swords are also on the list of items soon to be outlaw in Jolly Old and the Continent. If they ever manage to outlaw cricket bats we might actually be close to Utopia."

Much harder to kill a roomful of people with a sword or bat than an automatic weapon, or even a handgun. You get tired from swinging it, and the handle gets slippery. Which is the point, I believe. It's always possible to kill someone with a pointed stick. Just harder.

Even easier to kill a room full of people with a few gallons of gas.

Actually, Stu, it's quite a bit harder to kill people with most automatic weapons than it is to kill then with non-automatic weapons. And in a sufficiently crowded room, a samurai sword would be much more effective than most any personal firearm anyway.

Gun crime and the murder rate have been been skyrocketing in the U.K. even as their laws against people defending themselves have gotten steadily more draconian and oppressive toward the common people. Some of us see a connection there: when you take away so fundamental a human right as self-defense, you've created a recipe for disaster.

But I don't expect the anti-gun paranoids and the authoritarians to even try to understand that. Their respect for human rights are greatly diminished by their fear and misunderstanding of firearms. A shame, that.

"Some of us see a connection there: when you take away so fundamental a human right as self-defense, you've created a recipe for disaster."

Others of us believe that the more guns in a society, the easier it is for bad guys to get them, and the top source of illegal handguns is theft from legal owners. Restricting access to these weapons by everyone has resulted in a lower murder rate than that of the US in every country practising a ban or restriction on weapons, especially the UK, despite your claims about the crime rate climbing.

And tying access to handguns as a "fundamental right" is a bit off the mark. Is there a right to own explosives as well?

But I think I understand the other argument as well. I just wish that I'd hear someone say "Yeah, they cause more murders, but that's a price we're willing to pay for the freedom to own guns," rather than the continued tortured statistics that are trotted out to prove the opposite. Look at your homicide rate. Look at the number of people you have in prison. Then look at the same figures from nations that practice stringent gun control.

Heh. Just look at UK crime stats starting with the 1998 gun ban, and you'll see exactly what effect citizens with legal guns have on murders, burglaries, rapes, and home invasions: they prevent them. There is no escaping Heinlein: "an armed society is a polite one".

What is the homicide rate in Britain vs. the homicide rate in the US?

Number of murders caused by guns in the U.S. in the past 200 or so years: Zero.

Stu,

IIRC, the homocide rate in Britain was about ten times lower than the U.S. when both societies were armed with firearms (before gun control). It used to be that bobbies would borrow citizen's handguns when they needed one. Recently the gap has narrowed so that Britain now has one-third rather than one tenth as many murders, again according to my recollection. It would be reasonable to conclude, based on available statistics, that the combination of gun control, abolition of self-defense by adopting the reasonable-man standard, prohibition of carrying any weapons (including knitting needles) for self defense and general leniancy towards criminals has not benefitted Britain.

It is very difficult to compare homicide rates among countries due to legal differences, cultural differences and different methods for counting homicides. It is worth noting that gun control is stricter in South Africa than in the US, yet the murder rate is higher. Guns are absolutely forbidden in Russia, yet murder rates are also higher than in the US. A tiny minority of Americans commit most homicides. Want to cut homicides here? Figure out how to go after gangs.

Illegal guns are just as easy to smuggle as illegal drugs. In Britain (an island!) the street price of a gun is less than 50% higher than in stores here. Why does anyone think that making guns illegal will keep criminals from having and using them?

The best statistics available give either a one to four percent crime reduction from concealed-carry laws (relatively honest pro-firearms rights statistician) or a one to four percent crime increase (relatively honest anti-firearms rights statistician). We'd be better off making safer cars.

I recommend the following Kevin Baker sites for more discussion:

http://www.bakerboys.blogspot.com/
http://thecommentary.blogspot.com/
http://www.smallestminority.blogspot.com/

He is very educational on the subject of firearms.

See also: http://www.a-human-right.com/

Yours,
Wince

Stu:

1. Comparing murder rates of two different countries is silly. Why not instead compare Britain's homicide rate to Switzerland's, aside from the fact that doing so would "prove" the opposite of what you set out to "prove?" Better to compare the effects of gun control within a single country. At several points in time during the 20th Century, gun controls have gotten significantly sharper in the UK, each resulting in a more carnage than before. Meanwhile, significant loosening of concealed carry laws in many U.S. states over the past couple of decades have probably resulted in sharp reductions of violent crime;, and certainly haven't led to significant increases, as gun control advocates predicted.

The only meaningful data that can be gleaned from a comparison of the US to the UK is a general observation that a long term trend toward more gun control in the UK and less in the US has done wonders to decimate the "homicide advantage" long enjoyed by Britain over the U.S., while eliminating the gap outright in every other major category of violent crime. That, along with going from being the darling of the American gun control lobby only a decade ago, to Gun Lobby Exhibit A today.

2. What on earth does a "right" to explosives have to do with a right to own a common firearm? The former is useless for self defense; the latter prevents upwards of 2 million crimes in the United States every year. And no, it's not a stretch to talk of self-defense (not by this homicidal drug dealer, of course, but more generally) as a human right. If people don't have a fundamental right to defend themselves against those who would harm them physically, then what the hell IS a human right?

Stu,

You bring up the usual gun control arguments without considering all aspects of the issue.

1) Yes, America has a higher handgun homicide rate than England. But we have a higher non-gun homicide rate than England also. We always have. We are simply a more violent country than England. Also, the rate has skyrocketed since the banning of handguns in 1997, it may be still lower than the US, but that gap is quickly decreasing. Also, England's rate of "hot" home burglaries (where someone is in the house at the time of the burglary) is much higher than that of the US.

2)I don't have the link, but I read an article in an online UK newspaper which stated that since the above mentioned pistol ban in the UK, a rather large cottage industry has started up in England where criminals are making guns, and doing an okay job of it.

3)The reality is that banning guns does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals; by definition a criminal is one who breaks laws and passing laws against gun ownership simply prevents law abiding citizens from owning them.

4) You mention the death rate from guns, but you don't mention the lives saved in self defense from guns. The vast majority never actually use the gun, simply pulling it scares the bad guy away. I read in a local newspaper, San Jose Mercury news, awhile ago that the Justice Dept - under Janet Reno - estimated the defensive gun use as around 250,000 or 750,000 a year (can't remember which one). Other researchers, such as Prof Gary Kleck of Florida St put the number at much higher - around 2 - 3 million. I know several people who have done this, while carrying illegally. That's why you don't hear about it in the media. Even when it is reported, it's buried back on page 12, while any child being shot is always front page. Owning a gun for self defense means you're taking responsibility for your own protection, not hoping that you will be able to dial 911 and a cop will instantly appear. Trust me, this will not happen.

4) Gun control is like living in a small town and a small group of people keep racing through town at 90 miles per hour, when the speed limit is 25. Gun control advocates then lower the speed limit to 20, and wonder why the speeders have not stopped. If you don't get this, sit down with a gun owner sometime and ask them to explain it to you. I'm sure that any gun owner will understand this analogy.

Wince and Nod,

> abolition of self-defense by adopting the
> reasonable-man standard

I certainly agree that the UK is well on the way to abolishing self-defense, but it's not a "reasonable-man" standard that is at fault. Unless I'm just mistaking the terminology here, reasonable-man is what they had before (and fwiw, the same standard prevails throughout most of the U.S.) What Britain has moved to is what I'd term a "proportionate-response" system: if an attacker comes at you with a baseball bat, you're not justified in defending yourself with your gun.

Not sure I agree with you, Dean:

"Lindsay was in his Walkden flat at 9.45pm on February 27, 2003 when he answered the door to four men carrying loaded handguns."

Hrmmm... armed intruders. And...

"The court was told the men had gone to Lindsay's flat to rob him."

Poor goblins. They only wanted to rob him. *sniffle* And...

"They demanded cash and searched the dealer before Lindsay suddenly whirled round holding a 12 inch samurai sword at shoulder height."

Neck height would have worked better. And...

"The gang fled with about £200 but dropped half of it as they ran."

And incompetent armed intruders to boot. And...

"There was a scuffle in the hallway during which Lindsay stabbed Swindells four times"

Pointing a gun at me demonstrates a willingness to kill me that tends to render irrelevant any considerations of what direction the fellow's corpse was facing when I make it one. At that point, they've absolved me of any consideration for their welfare. Number of times stabbed is irrelvant also: you'd want to make certain. Anything worth doing is worth doing well.

But I'm admittedly a barbarian. ;)

Mitigating the murder charge to manslaughter sounds reasonable in a civilized society, even though I'd be tempted to call it pre-emptive self defense: they might come back, and they might shoot first next time. They're a proven threat at that point. *shrug*

But, since Lindsay's a drug dealer, I'll agree with calling it a Scumbag Kills Scumbag, No Humans Involved incident when I blog the update. *grin*

There's still too many incidents of Britian disarming and prosecuting home defenders rather than prosecuting criminals for me to give the Brit justice system a pass though.

PS: That was the long version of saying that I do agree with your comment farther up the thread that

"It is interesting: four sword thrusts, four intruders in the middle of the night. Intruders who may well have been there to kill the man or his family. Unless circumstances are quite extraoridinary, it's hard not to sympathize with the man whose home was invaded."

Color me undecided that the fact that Lindsay may have been a drug dealer should mean he should be unable to defend his home and his family from armed intruders. That just doesn't set well with me...

The rate of gun ownership in Canada is the same as it is in the U.S. yet their murder rate is lower.

In the U.S., the states with the highest rates of gun ownership and the loosest (i.e. most liberal, least restrictive) gun laws have lower murder rates than those with the strictest gun laws.

In Switzerland, firearm ownership is very nearly 100% of all households, much higher than the U.S. or any other Western nation, and their murder and general crime rate is very nearly the lowest in the world.

A clear trend has obviously been showing in the U.K. for some time: at one time, Brits held as many guns in private hands as in the U.S. but had a murder rate much lower than ours. Yet as Britain's gun laws have gotten tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter, her murder and general crime rate has gone up and up and up and up. Meanwhile, our laws have gotten more liberal (i.e. less restructive on everyday citizens) and our murder rate has gone down and down and down and down.

The simple fact is, Stu, that those of you who believe that "guns make it to easy to kill" strike those of us who have guns as being very paranoid, fearful people whose position is based more on fear and ignorance than a respect for human rights and free inquiry.

There is no need to torture statistics here. A basic human right is one of self-defense. It is a right that goes back as far as the Magna Carta. Guns are tools, nothing more, and most of us who take the time to gain familiarity with them generally stop fearing them and start respecting them instead.

I've been around guns for most of my life, Stu, and never shot a single person.

"The rate of gun ownership in Canada is the same as it is in the U.S."

Only 29% of households in Canada have guns, where you guys are closer to 50%. We have about 50 individuals in Canada who are licensed to carry a handgun for self-protection (not counting security guards, police, etc.)

An American is four times more likely to be murdered than I am. That's a pretty big difference, yet our cultures are practically identical, we watch the same movies, the same TV shows, listen to the same music, play the same video games, have the same cultural heros and villans. The biggest difference? Firearms.

And when I mentioned tortured statistics, I meant exactly what has appeared here in this comment section. Things like: "Yes, America has a higher handgun homicide rate than England. But we have a higher non-gun homicide rate than England also. We always have. We are simply a more violent country than England." I mean, please. While Britain recently completely banned certain weapons, it's always have much more stringent firearms controls than the US, and handguns were always rare.

And this: "You mention the death rate from guns, but you don't mention the lives saved in self defense from guns." I didn't mention anything about death rate from guns. I asked simply what the overall homicide rates were for the UK and the US. "Lives saved by guns" has to be one of the most bizarre arguments made by the NRA. How can you measure something like that, and why even mention it in connection to the homicide rate other than to clutter the argument? If America has a homicide rate ten times higher than Britain's, what on earth does "Lives saved by guns" have to do with anything? If so many lives are being saved, why isn't that reflected in the homicide rate?

And this: "The reality is that banning guns does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals;" The logic of that statement completely eludes me. The primary source of illegal guns is theft from legal gun owners. So eliminate ALL of the guns, and criminals have a much more difficult time accessing them.

Dean:

I think the point here is not that the killing seems to be unnecessary, BUT THAT THE NEWS REPORT MADE NO MENTION OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES.

If you are a citizen of Scotland and read this article with no prior knowledge of the case, what does it say to you?

"DON'T DEFEND YOURSELF - YOU'LL GO TO JAIL."

And that seems to be the culture being cultivated in the UK.

Stu:

If you're a young, urban, black American male you have a very high chance of being murdered. If you're a young, urban, hispanic American male, your chances are lower, but still quite high.

If you do not fit either of those demographics, your chances of being murdered are about the same as the average Canadian's. Perhaps lower, because young, urban black males in America die of homicide at six times the rate of the rest of our population.

In comparing the US and England, the homicide rate ratio between the two countries has always been in excess of 5:1 - even when neither nation had any gun control whatsoever. I believe the ratio is currently just under 4:1, but I cannot be sure of that at the moment.

And finally, "'The reality is that banning guns does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals;' The logic of that statement completely eludes me. The primary source of illegal guns is theft from legal gun owners. So eliminate ALL of the guns, and criminals have a much more difficult time accessing them."

England has tried that. It made possession of all handguns illegal in 1996. All 156,000 legally-owned handguns were turned in, along with 750,000 rounds of legally possessed ammunition. Handgun crime has gone UP every year since. England recently had a "firearm amnesty" where people could turn in illegal weapons, no questions asked. The collected almost 200,000 firearms and over a million rounds of ammo - but in the violence-ridden areas of London and Manchester there was almost no response.

Banning guns makes it more difficult for criminals to acquire them, but it does not make it effectively difficult, as England demonstrates.

It is not physically possible to "ELIMINATE ALL OF THE GUNS" - and since violent criminals represent somewhere around 1% of a population, it doesn't require very many guns to service that population. And they will be served - the first rule of economics is that demand will be met with supply.

Banning guns ignores these simple and obvious facts. And all it does is disarm the people you DON'T need to worry about. The inability to see this logic is what eludes me.

"eliminate ALL of the guns, and criminals have a much more difficult time accessing them."
Hummm, maybe. But jsut how do we eliminate ALL of the guns? If you have a garage, I can almost guarantee that a very serviceable combustion/projectile weapon could be fabbed up from the detritus. In a climate of very rare guns, the incentives to do same increase dramatically (supply/demand). Even short of that, guns exist in the world and short of totalitarian methods, nothing is going to keep them from finding their market. I traveled in Russia a few decades back and half a dozen or so families were quite proud to show me their firearms, as I was American. Mostly they dated from WWII, pistols and rifles with meticulously horded ammo. I found it quite refreshing. The benefits of gun control are fully illusory. Dreams of a non-violent world are simply that.

Well, once again, I can only point to Canada. We have a number of illegal handguns floating about because of the open border we have with the states, and so some criminals are able to get guns. But just making them a bit harder to obtain gives a homicide rate that's a quarter of the US's. Even if you make the argument that firearms are needed for self-defense, wouldn't you then think that Canada's homicide rate would be higher because we don't have self-defense weapons? But we don't.

Britain, which doesn't have an open border with a weapon-heavy society next door, and consequently has fewer illegal weapons available (despite eager reports of illicit gun factories, etc from the pro-gun crowd), they have a tenth of the homicides that the US does. Again, the fewer the number of weapons available, the lower the homicide rate.

And yeah, Switzerland has a heavily armed population, but those are militia weapons, usually in storage, rifles, etc, not handguns. And I believe that they have some strict rules about carrying weapons and procedures for using them.

The rate of gun ownership in Canada is the same as it is in the U.S. yet their murder rate is lower.

Do you have a source for that? I bounced that question off Gary Kleck and Gary Mauser some years ago. Kleck had never heard of that claim before. Mauser had, but expressed considerable skepticism as to whether it was true. Both cautioned more generally against drawing international comparisons.

Kevin: "If you're a young, urban, black American male you have a very high chance of being murdered. If you're a young, urban, hispanic American male, your chances are lower, but still quite high."

Chopping up demographics in this way is what I meant when I said "tortured statistics". Unless you're saying that this group doesn't count, or something.

Kevin: "In comparing the US and England, the homicide rate ratio between the two countries has always been in excess of 5:1 - even when neither nation had any gun control whatsoever. I believe the ratio is currently just under 4:1, but I cannot be sure of that at the moment."

Britain has had what would be considered to be tight gun control (in comparison to the US) since 1920. And the overall homicide rate ratio is 10:1

Kevin: "England has tried that. It made possession of all handguns illegal in 1996. All 156,000 legally-owned handguns were turned in, along with 750,000 rounds of legally possessed ammunition. Handgun crime has gone UP every year since."

And the homicide rate?

Stu:

That's not "chopping up demographics" or "tortured statistics" - it's explaining that homicide is not homogenous throughout a society. Handgun ownership, for instance, is largely concentrated in the white male population, but homicide is heavily concentrated in the young, black, urban male population. You are attempting to make the case that "more guns = more homicide" yet that conclusion cannot be logically drawn given the facts. In the United States approximately 1 million handguns and two million long guns are added to the private market each year, yet we've had ten or more years of declining homicide rates.

Homicide in England has trended - slightly - UP since the handgun ban. The proportion of homicides committed with handguns has gone UP since the ban.

This suggests that guns are not the cause of homicide, yet gun bans treat them as though they are.

"Britain has had what would be considered to be tight gun control (in comparison to the US) since 1920. And the overall homicide rate ratio is 10:1" That is incorrect. The U.S. homicide rate in 2000 was 5.64/100,000. England & Wales had a rate of 1.61/100,000, for a ratio of 3.5:1. The firearm homicide ratio is 10:1. What you consider to be "tight" gun control may differ somewhat from mine.

Dean's comment section is not an appropriate place to hold this discussion IMHO. I have a blog that I set up specifically for discussions of this type. Would you be interested in debating this topic with me there?

Kevin:If you're a young, urban, black American male you have a very high chance of being murdered. If you're a young, urban, hispanic American male, your chances are lower, but still quite high.

Stu: Chopping up demographics in this way is what I meant when I said "tortured statistics". Unless you're saying that this group doesn't count, or something.

"Or something." Any data that doesn't control for demographics is utterly worthless. Meaningful comparisons can be drawn between the odds that a given Brit will kill or be killed vs. the odds faced by the average American of British extraction. Similar comparisons may be possible on a per capita basis between British Muslims vs. American Muslims, or perhaps other sub-populations, as well. But throwing everything into one big pot proves nothing beyond the obvious fact that ... gee, who'da thunk it? ... America and Great Britain have different demographic make-ups.

Kevin: In comparing the US and England, the homicide rate ratio between the two countries has always been in excess of 5:1 - even when neither nation had any gun control whatsoever. I believe the ratio is currently just under 4:1, but I cannot be sure of that at the moment.

Stu:Britain has had what would be considered to be tight gun control (in comparison to the US) since 1920. And the overall homicide rate ratio is 10:1

The ratio may have been that high in the past, but I'm not convinced it's anywhere close to that now. Regardless, Britain's traditional homicide advantage goes back a lot further than 1920.

Kevin: "England has tried that. It made possession of all handguns illegal in 1996. All 156,000 legally-owned handguns were turned in, along with 750,000 rounds of legally possessed ammunition. Handgun crime has gone UP every year since."

Stu:And the homicide rate?

Also steadily increased, though the overall violent crime rate is a more meaningful figure.

"Dean's comment section is not an appropriate place to hold this discussion IMHO."

I disagree. This is what the comments section is for.

Why did you just post the homicide rate for England and Wales, and not include those of Scotland and NI? Even so, what would attribute the higher homicide rate in America to?

And yeah, Switzerland has a heavily armed population, but those are militia weapons, usually in storage, rifles, etc, not handguns. And I believe that they have some strict rules about carrying weapons and procedures for using them.

Prior to the 1999 laws that were passed to placate the EU, Switzerland hardly had any such laws. IIRC, roughly half the cantons had a shall-issue policy for permits to carry concealed, while the other half didn't require such permits at all. By contrast, only one U.S. state, Vermont, allowed concealed carry without a permit at that time (Alaska has since joined them).

Stu:

It's inappropriate because it's his bandwidth, and it's an awkward place to make extended points - which a discussion of this type requires.

I excluded Scotland and Northern Ireland because they are not normally included in the general comparison between the U.S. and what most people here think of when you say "Britain." If you average England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the rate is about 2.25/100,000. Both Scotland and Northern Ireland have higher homicide rates than England & Wales. That would bring the ratio down to about 2.5:1.

Homicide is a largely cultural thing, but it is exacerbated by the illicit drug trade and consumption of mind-altering substances, both of which are concentrated in specific demographics in both the U.S, the UK, and Canada. The culture of the U.S. is still relatively young compared to Europe, and it is historically violent. Europeans seemed to prefer engaging in killing wholesale (with war after war after war) we tend to do it retail. Canada seems to be more European in nature.

Kevin, Rather than editorialize on vague generalities and speculations, you might spend your time to better advantage by reviewing all advailable facts and circumstances. The deceased:

"Mr Swindells had four main wounds, all inflicted FROM BEHIND. An artery was severed causing massive blood loss and death" by the assailant who was no longer defending himself but ATTACKING one of the robbers from behind after leaving his flat.

The court found that the defendant was indeed guilty of manslaughter and his actions were not defensive in nature. The court examined all the facts and made the correct judgement. Guilty of manslaughter.

http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/lancashire/archive/2004/03/09/NEWS7ZM.html

http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/lancashire/archive/2004/03/10/NEWS6ZM.html

Catch:

None of that information was available in the piece that spawned the original post. All that piece said was that a man who had been attacked by three others, one of whom was armed with a firearm, had grabbed a sword and killed one attacker, and he was being sentenced to eight years in prison for it.

What conclusion was the reader to draw from this?

In a similar vein, a shopkeeper in NYC who shot a man attempting to rob him is being prosecuted for not having a license for his firearm. Somehow I doubt the robber had one either. It costs over $350 to apply for a premise permit in New York, and at least two days of your time, and there is no guarantee you'll get a permit, either. It would appear that the City of New York would prefer its shopkeepers to be unarmed victims rather than armed defenders, would it not?

"What conclusion was the reader to draw from this?"

A reader of minimal intelligence would have included the fact that the defendant was found guilty of manslaughter following a three week trial. And also would have mentioned that the Detective Chief inspector said, "I believe the sentences passed today reflect the severity of the circumstances.” That's in the original post.

A reader of minimal intelligence would have realized that a shortened news feed, hardly contains the factual data to make specious argument for or against the second amendment in another country.

You're first comment above suggests that the NEWS REPORT is to blame for the conclusions you wish the scotland reader to presume. The fact is the Scotland reader on the Lancashire website would have been exposed to news reports on March 9 and 10 concerning the case.

And the City of New York, desires that its citizens act within the law, particularly if it involves handguns. If you don't like the laws, then get them changed. And one is permitted to defend onesself as long as you don't do a crime.

Really? A reader of "minimal intelligence?" That must be my problem, then. Having more than minimal intelligence I'm tempted to draw conclusions based on prior evidence.

Oh, and I don't believe I even mentioned much less made "specious argument for or against the second amendment". (Hint: The Second Amendment is about the right to arms, not the right to self-defense.)

I keep hearing this argument that guncrime has rocketed in the UK since the gun ban.

Now, as Scotland is part of the UK can someone explain this please?
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00276-05.asp

Coincedence?

Or is the rise in guncrime in England and Wales due to something else, rather than the simplistic trash of "the gunban has caused guncrime to rise".

You decide. I know i have...........

There is some interesting discussion on this topic at Winds of Change. The short answer:

Someone with a gun, and four others break into your home and attack, you have a sword. The man with the gun starts to run.

The question is:

Is he trying to get out of the sword's range, turn and shoot?

or

Un-assing the scene, never to return.

You have little time to decide. Do you err on the side of caution and finish him off?? After all, he (and his friends) came into your home in the first place with intent to do harm.

If I'm in his position, I slice and dice. WOuld I be wrong? Maybe. No way to tell. As they say, better to be judged by 12 then carried by six.

I'll take a shot at answering your question, at least as I understand it...

Scotland, as evidenced by the statistics you provided, has never had a significant problem with firearms used in crime. Except for one heinous act committed in 1996, guns just weren't used much in the commission of crimes, particularly murder. The amounts, in fact, were so low that very small numerical changes represent fairly large percentage changes.

Did the handgun ban affect the gun crime statistics in Scotland? It's possible, even probable. I've said in other places that gun control makes it harder for criminals to acquire guns, but not effectively hard, if they really want them. The total number of homicides in Scotland in 2002 (125) was above that of 1996 (115, including the Dunblane massacre,) for example, even if the number committed with firearms was 3, compared to 11 in 1995 (out of a total of 132 homicides in 1995.) Is it possible a ban on handguns prevented three, six, or even ten deaths a year? Yes. Did the handgun ban prevent anyone from defending themselves? No. That option has been precluded in the UK for quite a while. The ban was just the icing on the cake, so to speak.

As I said above, homicide is a largely cultural thing. So is violent crime in general. In answer to your question regarding England & Wales, it's apparent that the criminals there have found guns, and the use of them, to be far more attractive than criminals in Scotland, yet they still don't commit homicide (regardless of weapon) at the same rate as Scots.

And when I mentioned tortured statistics, I meant exactly what has appeared here in this comment section. Things like: "Yes, America has a higher handgun homicide rate than England. But we have a higher non-gun homicide rate than England also. We always have. We are simply a more violent country than England." I mean, please. While Britain recently completely banned certain weapons, it's always have much more stringent firearms controls than the US, and handguns were always rare.
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So Stu, since England has had these stringent gun controls since 1920, why has gun crime in general, and the homicide rate, gone up since the pistol bank went into effect.

And this: "You mention the death rate from guns, but you don't mention the lives saved in self defense from guns." I didn't mention anything about death rate from guns. I asked simply what the overall homicide rates were for the UK and the US. "Lives saved by guns" has to be one of the most bizarre arguments made by the NRA. How can you measure something like that, and why even mention it in connection to the homicide rate other than to clutter the argument? If America has a homicide rate ten times higher than Britain's, what on earth does "Lives saved by guns" have to do with anything? If so many lives are being saved, why isn't that reflected in the homicide rate?
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Well Stu, actually it is reflected in the homicide rate. Read books by John Lott and Professor Gary Klect to see how it has saved numberous lives. If people hadn't had guns, they would have been crime victims and shown up in the statistics. Also, look at Vermont, which has had very loose gun restictions for over a decade (you can carry a concealed weapon without a permit if you are over 21 and have no history of mental illness). There crime rate is a fraction of Michigan or CA. Why is that? If you say that it is because Vermont is a smaller more rural state, then you shold take back your comment on "tortured statistics" about the post on black inner city males who have a much greater chance of dying.

And this: "The reality is that banning guns does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals;" The logic of that statement completely eludes me. The primary source of illegal guns is theft from legal gun owners. So eliminate ALL of the guns, and criminals have a much more difficult time accessing them.
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Stu, your logic eludes me in this one. Just how do you plan to remove all guns? and even if you somehow did, it still places women, the elderly, and people alone in danger of being attached by groups of males with knives, baseball bats, etc. Drugs like cocaine, heroin, etc. have been illegal for years and that hasn't stopped anyone, including children from getting them.

I see you didn't understand my traffic analogy on gun control.

Kirk,

You are quite right. My bad.

Stu,

Why can't we go to one of Kevin's blogs? He debates very politely on them, and it is always a learning experience.

Yours,
Wince

After learning that the homicide rate ratio between the US and Britain is 3.5:1 (or 2.5:1 if you include Scotland and Northern Ireland) rather than his asserted 10:1, Stu seems to have abandoned the field.

I hope that he's doing research on some "tortured statistics" and will re-engage.

My invitation remains open.

"Really? A reader of "minimal intelligence?" That must be my problem, then."

Kevin, You've gotten it correct. No need for statistics here. The original post on Dean's World was a story about a gent with what was later described as a 12 inch samurai sword being
impaled on the backside of a run-away robber not less than four times.

Somehow the comments section has morphed along lines about things other than the original story.
i.e. statistics, homicide rates, references to your blogging place which apparently cannot generate its own viewer interest, handguns, homocide and culture (whatever that means), shopkeepers who apparently are too cheap to pay the registration for their own weapons which they seek to use in emergencies, and most importantly the notion that:

"Dean's comment section is not an appropriate place to hold this discussion."

So I have only one question:

When you do get the message will you hang up the receiver ?

Catch:

You obviously consider yourself clever. Well, that makes one of us who does.

The discussion morphed long before I became involved, and my blog does just fine for traffic, but I really don't need yours. My invitation was to Stu, who seems a reasonable sort, amenable to a polite discussion on an emotionally charged topic. That's why I invited him to engage in one.

You do not.

Get the message?

(Sorry, Dean.)