OT: Americans love their guns

[Robin Becker]

In article <7xekytkhx0.fsf at ruckus.brouhaha.com>, Paul Rubin <http@?.cx>
writes
>Steve Lamb <grey at despair.dmiyu.org> writes:
>>     If guns were such a overriding factor why is it the UK has as high
>> if not higher rate of gun related violence than the US?
>
>Whaaat??  Where did you hear that the UK has anywhere near as much gun
>violence as the US??  I've always heard it's much lower.  Do you have
>a cite?
>
I believe Paul's right here, these pages may be of interest on UK stats
though they're not uniformly positive

        http://www.sourceuk.net/indexf.html?02937
        http://www.channel4.com/news/2003/01/week_2/9_crime.html

>> For that matter why is it in several other European nations
>> (Netherlands and Switzerland IIRC) where there is a legal
>> requirement for all males over a certain age to be armed (standing
>> militia) that there is so little gun related violence?
>
>Just Switzerland, and those guns are rifles and they take special ammo
>that is issued to you in sealed cans that you keep in your house in
>case you'er called up for service.  It's not a handgun that you can
>easily go mug someone with.  And as someone else put it, it's not your
>gun, it's the government's gun and every so often a government
>inspector comes to your house to make sure you still have the gun and
>ammo and that the ammo cans are still sealed.  I don't know what
>happens to you if they find the ammo they issued you is partly used up
>outside of official exercises, but it can't be anything nice.  It's
>nothing like the US where you can buy as many handguns as you want and
>shoot them whenever you want.

-- 
Robin Becker