British sense of time vs. American

Guest   Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:06 pm GMT
*to the guerilla war and drug trafficking

Ordinary people in these countries are probably no more likely to be murdered than ordinary people in any fully western country.
Skippy   Wed Jun 18, 2008 2:08 am GMT
The UK is not as diverse ethnically as the US. The UK is about 90% white/caucasian... The US is about 75% white/caucasian. The US "white" also includes many Roma and may Hispanics who are not white, so 75% is actually slightly high then reality.

Looks like your argument is "flawled."
Guest   Wed Jun 18, 2008 3:19 am GMT
The violence in america is related to gun violence and the legal and illegal use of guns. Buying a gun in the US is much easier than in Europe.

American violence is also the legacy of the Wild West.
Guest   Wed Jun 18, 2008 3:52 am GMT
Violence in America is due to armed rednecks.
Jasper   Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:40 am GMT
I suspect that some of the posters have underdeveloped skills of logic. To illustrate this point, all I have to do is re-post the title of the murder table. To wit:

SELECTED WORST CITIES MURDER (LATE-1990s) EUROPE AND USA

Does anybody see the flaw in this? The key word is "selected". They picked and chose which cities to include. London, for example, is not included in the city list, although it must indeed have a crime rate.

This just goes to show you that one must not trust his sources without examining them for possible bias.
Guest   Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:56 am GMT
But it's still a legitimate comparison between the ones that are on the list. It shows for example that Moscow is three times less dangerous than the capital of the United States of America.
Guest   Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:12 am GMT
<<But it's still a legitimate comparison between the ones that are on the list. It shows for example that Moscow is three times less dangerous than the capital of the United States of America. >>

But why use data from the "late 1990's" when data from the mid-2000s is available.

Here's a link to the "most recent" data, by country:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita

As you can see, the USA is still near the top of the list in murder rate.
Guest   Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:21 pm GMT
America is number one in the world for gun murders.

Why the idiots let people to have guns?
Guest   Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:14 pm GMT
I like when in the news they say a retarded American entered with a gun in a school and killed 20 people. It's funny.
Jasper   Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:25 pm GMT
<<As you can see, the USA is still near the top of the list in murder rate.>>

GUEST, thank you for the cite; it's far more informative than any other we've been given to date.

For those who haven't seen the chart:
Out of 60 nations, the US was ranked 24th in terms of murders.

GUEST, you're being sneaky, though: a 24th ranking is nearer the MIDDLE of the chart than the TOP of the chart. ;-)
Travis   Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:32 pm GMT
>>I like when in the news they say a retarded American entered with a gun in a school and killed 20 people. It's funny.<<

Mind you that stuff like that really is by far the exception and not the rule. Most of this stuff is largely things like inner-city violence which are more a matter of simple abject poverty combined with widespread social problems in inner-city areas than anything else.
Jasper   Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:26 pm GMT
<<Mind you that stuff like that really is by far the exception and not the rule. Most of this stuff is largely things like inner-city violence which are more a matter of simple abject poverty combined with widespread social problems in inner-city areas than anything else.>>

I don't think they'll listen, Travis; they already seem to have their minds made up, even though several of us have already told them we don't lock our windows and doors.

It would be perhaps more fruitful to try to learn why the anti-American sentiment is so rampant. I suspect that deep underneath the surface, it has more to do with cultural domination (McDonalds on every corner) and military imperialism than American murder rates and gun ownership; after all, how could Ronny Redneck owning a gun affect THEIR personal lives? By contrast, cultural domination probably effects every aspect of their lives, and they're fed up.
Travis   Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:44 pm GMT
>>It would be perhaps more fruitful to try to learn why the anti-American sentiment is so rampant. I suspect that deep underneath the surface, it has more to do with cultural domination (McDonalds on every corner) and military imperialism than American murder rates and gun ownership; after all, how could Ronny Redneck owning a gun affect THEIR personal lives? By contrast, cultural domination probably effects every aspect of their lives, and they're fed up.<<

Completely agreed here; such seems to be more an outlet for general resentment (much of which has a legitimate basis) than a real objective criticism in and of itself. Like with your example, even in this case the real problem is the social conditions in inner-city areas in the US, combined with things like the drug war and its fallout, and not gun ownership in the US in and of itself (I for one at least do not feel threatened by, say, "rednecks" in rural areas owning guns, for instance). If they banned private ownership of firearms here, that wouldn't take guns away from people in the inner cities, and even if we somehow successfully forcibly took their guns away, they would probably just use other weapons instead; in the end, the amount of violence would probably not decrease at all, and rather just the means used for such would change. However, though, it is harder to be self-righteous in criticizing the underlying causes of such problems from without, as in fact many other western countries do have similar problems to varying degrees.
TIME IS MONEY   Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:23 pm GMT
MURDER WITH FIREARMS
Crime Statistics > Murders with firearms (most recent) by country

#1 South Africa: 31,918
#2 Colombia: 21,898
#3 Thailand: 20,032
#4 United States: 8,259
#5 Mexico: 3,589
#6 Zimbabwe: 598
#7 Germany: 384
#8 Belarus: 331
#9 Czech Republic: 213
#10 Ukraine: 173

#20 United Kingdom: 62

LOOK AT THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE UK AND USA.

The USA has 133 TIMES!!! more GUN MURDERS than the UK.

133 TIMES MORE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Guest   Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:31 pm GMT
>>military imperialism<<

You got it.