B E B E R E

Musings on violent crime.

Interesting article on the increase in violent crime (and violent gun-related crime) in Great Britain, which has a 'total' gun ban. (Here's a bit more on the subject.)

Generally, when I've brought the question up in the past, I've not gotten straight answers - only assertions of my ignorance and mention that I'm still more likely to get killed in the US by a gun than in the UK, and what could be worse than death? (I can think of a few things, actually. I'm not going to elaborate here, but ask me sometime.) General observations and the application of Occam's Razor would lead me to believe the problem might possibly be with the ban itself (along with a few other cultural factors).

I live in an urban area, not far from gang territory, in fact. I regularly walk around after dark (sometimes after midnight) and have never been harassed, nor do I fear anything happening. For that matter, and I've been living in this same city for 17 years now, I've never had any aggression against me, in spite of the conventional wisdom that states I live in one of the most violent places in the world and some stats I found here stating that I'm 27 times more likely to be a victim of gun violence here than in the UK. Who knows? Maybe I'm lucky? I honestly don't have any answers to this.