Alphecca

Weekly Check on the Bias

Welcome to the September 20th edition of the Weekly Check on Media Bias regarding guns and the 2nd Amendment. I'm often tempted to just refer everyone to all the posts I put up all week long but I realize that some of you only stop by on Tuesdays so this weekly gig is actually meant to re-cap what has gone on in the past seven days.

For me, the most interesting story broke yesterday (see my previous post) wherein a new UN report declares that England is the most violent country in the developed world. I use England collectively to include Scotland, Wales, etc. From the BBC:

Scotland has been named the most violent country in the developed world by a United Nations report.

The study found that, excluding murder, Scots were almost three times as likely to be assaulted as Americans.

Victims of crime in 21 countries were interviewed by the UN, but senior Scots police officers criticised the study.

The survey concluded that 2,000 Scots were attacked every week. That figure is 10 times the number recorded in official police figures.

The figure for Scotland dwarfs that of other developed nations such as Japan, where people are 30 times less likely to be attacked.

The study, based on telephone interviews conducted between 1991 and 2000, said 3% of people in Scotland had suffered an assault, while the figure for England and Wales was second highest at 2.8%.

Both Australia and New Zealand had the next highest proportion of assaults among their population at 2.4%, exactly double the level reported for the United States.

Now. There are some who will say that "-- yes -- things are rather violent in England but at least we're not talking about murder (the rates of which are also rising) where America is still ahead of us."

That's small comfort to a woman who's been raped, a man who has just been slashed with a knife, a teen who was shot or stabbed but didn't die. To me, violence is violence and according to this report, you are far more likely to be a victim of it in England than you are in the United States.

How that violence is committed is also irrelevant when you really get down to it. Does a victim really care whether they were shot, or stabbed, or beaten with a baseball bat?

One thing has struck me about this story. The nations experiencing the most violence are, in order:
1) Scotland
2) England and Wales
3) Australia and New Zealand

Here in the United States, the two cities that perennially rank near the top in violence and murder are Chicago and Washington DC.

What do those cities and countries all have in common? With the exception of New Zealand, which allows limited firearms ownership, the others have banned handgun ownership. The result has been that criminals have become emboldened because they know that it is unlikely their intended victims will be able to fight back.

It's interesting to note that while violent crime in general in the US has declined, the other trend in the US has been for states to allow greater freedom for citizens to conceal-carry firearms.

In the meantime, the disarmament in England and Australia has been somewhat a recent experience and there the trends are towards higher levels of violence. Folks, if it walks like a duck...

Aside from knives and guns and such themselves, there are two other factors to take into account. First, both in England and Australia, as well as many parts of the US, thugs are arrested, serve little if any time in jail, and are turned back out into the streets. My own feeling is that, regardless of the cost, more prisons must be built to hold all of these anti-social mutants and then there will be space enough to make them do real time. And it should be hard-time, not TV and gyms and all the other "fixin's" that in some cases actually represent a better life than on the streets.

The second factor I notice from the report, and this again applies to both England and the US, is that much of the crime is committed by gang members. Hence, you notice the age group of 15 to 25 as being the most represented of perpetrators. We have many more large, urban areas in the US so the problem is worse here. Gangs don't happen on their own. Kids are finding something in these gangs that they aren't at home -- structure, dicipline, and a sense of belonging. I've harped on this before but the simple fact is that in most cases, these kids come from homes lacking in parental supervision.

While poverty might play some part, it would be foolish to blame it for all of the gang proliferation. There are millions living (unfortunately) in poverty who don't turn to gangs and crime. When we saw pictures of looting in New Orleans recently, those looters represented a fraction of all the others remaining in the city who were not looting. And by the way, many of the victims of crime and looting in New Orleans were themselves impoverished.

Many gang members do not come from "poor" families, simply "bad" families where the parent or parents can't or refuse to monitor what their children are doing. The mutants who shot-up Columbine came from intact, middle-class homes but obviously their parents were clueless that they were actually building and storing bombs in their bedrooms!

I guess my point is this: If authorities and citizens are really serious about reducing crime in any place or country, then society needs to rethink what the role and responsibilities are of parents in raising children.

Lastly, society needs to get REALLY tough with gangs, regardless of age and size. A concerted effort needs to be made to target, break-up, and lock-up youth gangs. To that end, some localities are doing just that. From the Tampa Tribune (FL):

A sustained assault on street gangs in northwest Hillsborough County by a task force made up of federal agents and county deputies resulted in the arrest of more than 100 suspected gang members and the seizure of nearly $1 million in property.

[...]

In all, 105 suspected gang members were arrested, 52 of whom had confirmed gang affiliations. They faced a total of 325 criminal charges, some of which are federal. Deputies seized about $700,000 in illegal drugs, $36,600 in stolen property, $85,000 in vehicles and $9,500 in firearms.

Charges included attempted murder, robbery, theft, home invasion, drug possession and trafficking, assault and battery. Some were juveniles, but most were in their mid- to late teens and 20s.

Most of those named on warrants have been arrested, the sheriff said. Some were illegal immigrants and may be deported, he added.

Gee said some larger communities across the nation have let the gang problem get out of hand and it has overtaken them.

The number of members fluctuates because of the turnover, he said. Recruitment remains a concern, he said, with gangs appealing to disaffected youths, offering them acceptance and companionship.

"We're seeing some as young as 13 years old," Gee said. "When you're seeing members this young, it's a serious problem for our country."

Gang membership is up across the country, he said.

"We've gone after it here," he said. "We're trying to get in front of the issue before it gets any worse ... before it becomes unmanageable."

Mostly, local gangs deal in illegal drugs or robbery, and many of the assaults are on members of opposing gangs, such as an incident this month when four members of the Norte 14 gang attacked a rival gang's house, abducted a pregnant woman and raped her.

And then there's this:

More than 350 people have been arrested by Tucson police in a three-month series of crackdowns that targeted violent crimes, juvenile offenders, guns and drugs.

Police also seized more than 160 firearms in the effort, which targeted the South Side.

The deployments, between May 27 and the first week of school, focused on stopping juvenile crime, reducing violent crime and enforcing laws against offenses like curfew violation, to prevent young people from becoming suspects or victims of violent crime.

Locations targeted by officers were areas known for disturbances, places frequented by youths and party locations, according to the Tucson Police Department.

There are similar actions being taken all over the country. They help, and more are needed. The fact is, though, you can't eliminate all of the gangs, the criminals, the thugs that prey on the law-abiding. What you can do, and what the UN report shows, is that by allowing the law-abiding to arm themselves properly, the "job" of gang members becomes all that much harder. It is clear to any honest person that this UN report indicates that countries that have taken away their citizens' rights to defend themselves have seen a dramatic increase in violent crime. The US, where in many places the opposite has happened, citizens CAN arm themselves, sees a drop in violent crime. If it talks like a duck...

Some in the media are coming to realize the value of firearms for self defense. Another piece I mentioned a few days ago was this Detroit News editorial:

...But for days, there was no law in New Orleans and no government to speak of. All rules were off.

While the politically correct version of what happened is that desperate people looted stores for food and water, that's only part of the story. Bands of armed hoodlums roamed the city, smashing their way into businesses and homes, carting off jewelry, liquor, televisions and other goods that had nothing to do with survival.

People were murdered, raped, stripped of their meager provisions.

Those with the best chance of surviving were the ones who had shotguns, rifles and pistols stashed away in closets and drawers.

Homeowner John Carolan ran off a mob of young men armed with knives and machetes and intent on stealing his generator by firing a few rounds from a .357 Magnum over their heads. "They scattered," he told reporters.

After looters poured into a nursing home and carted off the food, water and medicine, administrator Peggy Hoffman told the Associated Press, "we'll have to equip our department heads with guns and teach them how to shoot."

Lots of Americans are thinking about shooting lessons today.

The tiresome question, "Why does anyone need a gun?" now has its answer.

Order can deteriorate in this country to the point where nothing stands between the law-abiding citizen and the marauding mob except blue steel. It happened in New Orleans. It can happen anywhere else in America at anytime.

It will be harder now for the anti-gun lobby to convince Americans to dismantle even more of the Second Amendment.

The editorial writer, Nolan Finley is correct. And, in light of the report from the UN, many in merry old England and Scotland must be asking a similar question, "Why can't we have guns to defend ourselves?"

As I've pointed out many times, one reason a person needs to take some responsibility for his own defense is that the police can't be everywhere and response times can be as much as 20 minutes. Turning back to England, sometimes you can't even reach them:

A TERRIFIED worker who dialled 999 when masked gunmen burst into a post office today was told that police lines were busy.

The woman locked herself in the back room when the raiders crashed through the ceiling next to the counter at the post office in Bolton Road, Pendlebury.

She was instead put through to the fire brigade when she dialed 999, who spoke to the police for her.

She had dialled 999 from a phone in a safe room and whispered to a BT operator who tried to connect her to the police.

It is believed the woman retreated so fast into the safe room the robbers did not know she was there.

But all lines to Greater Manchester Police were engaged and instead the operator connected her to the fire service control room at headquarters less then a quarter of a mile from the post office on the same road.

The call was taken by operator Jan Finch.

She said: "The BT operator said could we handle a call as all lines to the police were unavailable. The woman told me that she had opened up the shop just before nine o'clock and was setting up the computer system when two men had crashed through the ceiling. She had heard rubble falling then saw one man in a black mask with a gun. She crawled into the safe room and locked the door.

By locking herself in the safe, she probably saved her own life. The "Fire Department" acted as a relay to police, so a cop would tell the fireman what questions to ask the woman, she would answer and he would relay that back to the cop. Sounds like a Rubic Cube way of protecting citizens, huh? It took the cops 15 minutes to arrive at the crime scene from their headquarters 1/4 mile away on the same street. Quack, Quack.

I'll be on Cam's NRA News this afternoon and as always: Thanks for stopping by!

Posted by Jeff Soyer at September 20, 2005 10:52 AM