Gun Control vs. Violent Crime, is there a link in UK?

[doran]

UK has strict Gun Control laws, but also has the highest violent crimes rate in all of Europe and has 5x higher violent crime rate than the US (per 100,000. UK has 2000+, US has 400+).

Is this because criminals are afraid to get shot in US?

[francisco]

I am not an expert but I am sure gun laws are not the only contributing factor when it comes to crime. For the UK, It could be the result of a higher living cost and lack of jobs that make people turn to crime. Also I know first hand that when you get your hands on a gun for the first time, you feel empowered and if you are allowed to have guns then maybe its less of a big deal than having a gun illegally and knowing that the average citizen will not have one to use against you.

[curran]

No. Offenders of most violent crimes do not think about consequences when committing.
Your use of stats and comparison is also wrong.
The UK is not the only strict gun control country in the EU.
What it is is the one of the least homogeneous countries. When you hae lots of different cultures and when many of the newer groups coming in are poor and on the average young you get more violent crime until those groups acclimate themselves to the local culture.
Problem is in a lot of the UK the flow is constant so the poor and young groups do not acclimate. Most violent crime worldwide is committed by males ages 14 to 24.

You can see the numbers in France & Germany, both have strict gun control, as examples. France also has a fairly large grouping of new, young and different cultural background people coming in. They have a higher violent crime rate than Germany who have very few coming in.

On top of that your numbers are skewed as to the type of violent crimes. Crimes with weapons are much lower in the UK than the US. Murder per capita in UK, 1.23, in the US 4.8 in Germany 0.84.
The numbers for UK(England & Wales) according to Eurostat is 150 per capita (100,000) with France coming in at 100. The US rate in 2010 was 403.6.

But statistics like that still do not show what is going on. In the UK & all of the EU all assaults of any sort is counted as violent crimes but in the US only serious assaults (aggravated meaning they where assaults that could cause great bodily harm) were counted.

So a hooligan brawl after a football match is counted or every victim but in the US you actually gotta hurt the other party to be counted in the statistics.

[salvadore94]

Gun Control Laws, don't stop criminals from buying guns illegally. They do stop law abiding citiznes from being able to protect themselves. Its so obvious.