: > Last year the US suffered almost 10,000 wrongful or accidental
: > deaths by handguns alone (FBI statistics).  In the same year, the UK
: > suffered 35 such deaths (Scotland Yard statistics).  The population
: > of the UK is about 1/5 that of the US (10,000 / (35 * 5)).  Weighted
: > for population, the US has 57x as many handgun-related deaths as the
: > UK.  And, no, the Brits don't make up for this by murdering 57x as
: > many people with baseball bats.

: You just can't compare this way!  All homicides must be shown, per capita, not  
: just handguns.  The availability of them in the USA makes them the preferred  
: murder weapon, but ban them, and some other weapon will step in as the  
: favorite.

As a "favorite", sure.  As lethal, not likely.  A study of violence in
Chicago produced this table:

		Percentage of Reported Gun and Knife Attacks
			    Resulting in Death
			    
	Weapon				Deaths As Percentage of Attacks
	---------------------------------------------------------------
	Knives (16,518 total attacks)		 2.4
	Guns (6,350 total attacks)		12.2

	Source: Firearms and Violence in American Life
	
It might be contended that if gun murderers were deprived of guns
that they would find a way to kill as often with knives.  If this were
so, knife attacks in cities where guns were widely used in homicide
would be expected to show a low fatality rate, and knife attacks in
cities where guns were not so widely used (like Vancouver) would show
a higher fatality rate.  But the Nat'l Commission on the Causes and
Prevention of Violence Task Force analyzed the data and found this
not to be the case.  It appeared to them that as the number of knife
attacks increased in relation to the number of firearms attacks
(which presumably happened where guns were less available to assailants),
the proportion of FATAL knife attacks did NOT increase relative to the
proportion of gun attacks.  In fact, the reverse was true.

What was found was that most homicides did not show a determination on
the part of the assailant to kill.  Fatalities caused by knife tended
to show a single-mindedness on the part of the assailant to do grave
physical injury: multiple stabs wounds, wounds concentrated about the
head neck and chest, etc.  Most gun homicides did not show this
pattern.  Rather, more fatal attacks were committed during a moment of
rage and not the focused intent to kill the victim.

	Source: Report on Firearms and Violence

: Then, since England != USA (my ancestors left because of the oppression) you  
: must compare England before strict gun laws to England after strict gun laws to  
: be able to draw any meaning at all.  England has essentially legalized drugs,  
: so there are no drug gangs battling for turf, etc., there.  If you drop out the  
: drug related killings here, the USA would look a whole lot more peaceful.

There are a lot of factors which make a difference.  Actually, I'm not
fond of making ANY kind of social parallels between Europeans and
Americans. There are more cultural, beahvioral and economic
differences between us than similarities.  I just sort of found
myself backed into that corner over the last couple of weeks.  I
don't think we could ever attain the low levels of European violent
crime here in the US, whether we banned guns or required every
law-abiding citizen to carry a loaded Uzi.

On the other hand, we can draw lessons from neighbors who are more
culturally similar, namely the Canadians.  In fact, an exhaustive,
seven-year study has already been done of the respective crime rates
of Vancouver, British Columbia and Seattle, Washington... cities
with roughly the same population, urban economy, geography
and crime but with decidedly different approaches to gun control.

In Seattle, handguns may be purchased legally for self-defense.  After
a 30-day waiting period, a permit can be obtained to carry a concealed
weapon.  The recreational use of handguns is minimally restricted.

In Vancouver, self-defense is not considered a valid or legal reason
to purchase a handgun.  Concealed weapons are not permitted.
Recreational uses of handguns (target shooting, collecting) are
regulated by the province.  Purchase of a handgun requires a
restricted-weapons permit.  A permit to carry may be obtained in
order to transport the weapon to licensed shooting clubs.  Handguns
transported by vehicle must be stored in the trunk in a locked box.
In short, gun control but not unreasonably so.

Both cities aggressively enforce their gun laws.  Convictions for
gun-related offenses carry similar penalties.  The researchers
studied all cases of robbery, assault (simple and aggravated),
burglary and homicides occurring in Seattle and Vancouver from
1/1/80 to 12/31/86. In defining the cases, they used the same
standard: the FBI's Unified Crime Report.

Results: during the seven-year study the annual rate of robbery in
Seattle was found to be only slightly higher than that in Vancouver
(1.09 / 1.11).  Burglaries occurred at nearly identical rates (.99).
18,925 assaults were recorded in Seattle versus 12,034 in
Vancouver.  The risk of being a victim of a simple assault in
Seattle was found to be only slightly higher than Vancouver (1.18 /
1.15) and the risk of aggravated assault was also slightly higher
(1.16 / 1.12).  However, when aggravated assaults were subdivided by
weapon and the mechanism of assault, a clear pattern emerged.
Although both cities reported nearly identical rates of aggravated
assault involving knives and other dangerous weapons, firearms were
far more likely to be used in Seattle.  In fact, 7.7 times as often.

Over the seven-year study, 388 homicides occurred in Seattle
(11.3 per 100,000) vs. 204 homicides in Vancouver (6.9 per 100,000).
After adjustment for differences in age and sex among the populations,
the relative risk of being a victim of homicide in Seattle, as
compared to Vancouver, was found to be 1.63.

When homicides were subdivided by the mechanism of death, the rate
of homicide by knives and other weapons (excluding firearms) in
Seattle was found to be almost identical to that in Vancouver.
Virtually ALL of the increased risk of death in Seattle was due to
a more than fivefold higher rate of homicide by firearms.  Handguns
accounted for roughly 85% of homicides involving firearms.  Handguns
were 4.8 times more likely to be used in homicides in Seattle than
in Vancouver.

The authors of the report also investigated "legally justifiable"
homicides (self-defense).  Only 32 such homicides occurred during
the seven-year study, 11 of which were committed by police.  Only
21 cases of civilians acting in self-defense occurrred: 17 in
Seattle and 4 in Vancouver.  Only 13 involved firearms.  After
excluding these cases, there was virtually no impact on these
earlier findings.

-------

This is, I feel, a very fair report.  One might even make the
argument that it is biased against Canada as a whole because
Vancouver reports annual rates of homicide two to three times
that of Ottawa, Calgary and Toronto while Seattle reports
annual homicide rates only half to two-thirds that of NYC,
Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston.

Critics of handgun control always argue that limited legal access
to handguns will have little effect on the rates of homicide because
persons intent on killing others will only try harder to acquire a
gun or will kill by other means.  This report shows differently.
If the rate of homicide in a community were influenced more by
the strength of intent than by the availability of weapons, we
could expect the rate of homicides by weapons other than guns to
be higher in Vancouver than in Seattle.  However, during the study
interval, Vancouver's rate of homicide by weapons other than guns
was not significantly higher than that in Seattle, suggesting that
few would-be assailants switched to homicide by other methods.

As well, ready access to handguns for self-defense by law-abiding
citizens was not endorsed in this report.  Although Seattle did
experience a higher rate of firearm death for self-defense, these
cases accounted for less than 4% of the homicides in both cities
during the course of the study period.  And, as was reported,
Seattle apparently didn't enjoy relief from any crime category
over Vancouver because citizens may legally arm themselves for
self-defense.

	Heavily quoted source: Handgun Regulation, Crime,
	Assaults, and Homicide: A Tale of Two Cities.

	John H. Sloan, Arthur L. Kellerman, Donald T. Reay,
	James A. Ferris, Thomas Koepsall, Frederick P. Rivara,
	Charles Rice, Laurel Gray and James LoGerfo