You’re right Steve - and the UK has some of the very toughest gun-control laws in the world.
Basically, it is only the criminals who are armed here…
For some more statistics that contradict the preceding here is an article comparing crime rates in Canada and the US.
Typically higher crime rates in both Canada and the US are more related to the socio-economic circumstances of certain minorities than the situation of either country as a whole. In Canada, the east is more peaceful than the west. Areas with high aboriginal populations tend to be more violent.
It is possible that the rise in violent crime in the UK is also related to the socio-economic circumstances of some strata of society there. I am not a criminologist. However, I am not convinced the gun laws have much to do with the rate of violence in a society. That being said I have no interest in owning a gun, but am quite sure that criminals are capable of acquiring whatever guns they need, legally or illegally.
The U.S has three gun homicides per 100,000 people. That’s four times as many as Switzerland, ten times as many as India, 20 times as many as Australia and England.
I don’t think a normal citizen can easily buy a gun in Germany, I have never researched that. I know of no-one of the people I know, friends or family who own one.
@Steve: “…but [I] am quite sure that criminals or capable of acquiring whatever guns they need, legally or illegally.”
Exactly right - this is the key point which is ignored by those who advocate tough gun-control laws.
In the UK law abiding citizens are not allowed to own hand-guns. Yet the criminal underworlds in London, Manchester, etc are completely awash with illegal weapons!
@Jay
Look at the record. The US has the most armed population and still has the highest rate of gun related homicides. The “pros” and the ones committed to causing harm will always have the upper hand in this guns arms race. Allowing grandma to carry a bazooka would not make the US safer or prevent the familiar shooting incidents in the US like the recent Colorado shooting.
Friedemann, why do you always describe things in such alarmist terms. Grandma with a bazooka? Typically most border states just south of Canada, have more or less similar gun violence rates. It is only in certain urban areas with high crime rates and in the US South, that the gun violence is higher. Why is this such a knee-jerk issue for all the US haters? How about recent shootings in Finland, Norway and Canada where there are stricter gun controls.
I doubt whether “grandma” would be a Swiss military reservist? (Not even Goebbels was insane enough to conscript people over the age of 65 in his Berliner Volkssturm!)
But if all regular guys between 18 and 60 carried a 9mm automatic at all times, and if they were trained how to shoot, would that be a good thing or a bad thing from the point of view of armed criminal thugs?
In my opinion the statistics are scewed by the fact that you have a small number of gun-enthusiasts who own a whole arsenal of weapons. Arguably what the US needs is for MORE good citizens to be armed, but maybe for there to be a cap on the number owned by each individual person.
Jay, Personally I find the idea of arming all citizens to be completely idiotic.
Then you personally find Switzerland idiotic, Steve. I respect your opinion, but I disagree.
(As regards the US and Canada, why allow anyone to have the right to be armed if you don’t like the idea that every citizen might avail himself thereof?)
Shooting incidents in Germany, Norway, Finland etc. do receive a lot of attention as they should but they do not change the homicide statistics: A lot less people (relative to total population) get shot in these other countries.
I am not sure you are suggesting I am a “US-hater”, I certainly do not see me as one. Bazooka grandma was not meant an alarmist statement but rather my feeble attempt of getting a point across.
As an illustration I give you an experience I had myself in a small village in Kentucky called Luttrell, the birthplace of US guitarist Chet Atkins. I was travelling with a US colleague and wanted to walk up to a mobile home to ask for directions and my US colleague ordered me immediately to come back to the car because he thought the way the home looked the person living there might actually shoot me trespassing on his property. I think many shootings in the US might actually be of that nature, like in families, domestic violence and not the movie scenario with the armed criminal. If guns are so pervasive the threshold is so much lower for tragic outcomes.
I wouldn’t see you as a US-hater, either.
I reckon you could actually be made into a very good American (maybe after a few years at the sharp end!)
I do not want to spend more time on this theme. The Swiss are not armed for the purpose of discouraging crime. If people want to buy sport rifles they should be allowed to do so. If the US has the tradition of selling fire arms, it does not bother me. I do not feel unsafe there. I think a policy of arming citizens as a crime prevention measure is ridiculous, and would not get any support in most countries.
I think a policy of arming citizens as a crime prevention measure is ridiculous
I think the policy, which makes it possible to have fire arms only for criminals (and those always will), while not allowing law-abiding citizens to defend themselves, is ridiculous. All throughout history the ban on weapons was either I sign of a totalitarian state, or a part of a slavelike status of some group of society.
As to statistics, homicide rate has changed to 50% less after introduction of civil fire weapons in both (and sadly enough only) post-Soviet states, where they were introduces (Moldavia and Estonia - counties, that don’t have much in common by any given criteria).
ad steve: (…) If the statistics here are accurate, the UK has more than five times the rate of violent crime of the US, Austria more than three times, and Canada two times. (…)
Are you honestly suggesting we have three times the crime rate of the US? lol
That is completely ridiculous. I know you said “If these statistics are correct …” and I have no idea where they got their data from. Anybody who has ever set foot on Austrian soil knows that this is total nonsense. Compare Vienna to ANY similarly sized city in North America, and you’ll know the difference. And Vienna is our “hot spot” when it comes to crime.
It is indeed difficult to compare statistics because the source of the data is not always the same and definitions of what is to be considered a “crime” differ as well. Still, what is quite easily comparable is the number of people getting killed by acts of violence and there are undoubtedly countries where you run a much higher risk of falling victim to such crimes than in others for some reason or another.
(…) How about recent shootings in Finland, Norway and Canada where there are stricter gun controls. (…)
I don’t think anybody said shootings only occur in the US. But I do think they are much more common there. It is not the “US haters” that say so, it is their own media and their own politicians (Bloomberg being one of them and I very much doubt he hates his country to the point of coming up with lies).
I’m not here to “hate” any country. I don’t hate the US, actually I spent some wonderful weeks there this summer. But why is it that people who try to raise critical questions are immediately called “haters”? Do I have to agree with everything they do? There are a lot of things that I criticize about Austria and I certainly do not hate my country.
And I thought that this and other forums serve the purpose of discussing different topics in various languages.
At the end of the day, we all have to make peace with the place we live in (if we have the freedom to choose that place). If people are happy with how things go in their country, great. No problem at all. But that is no reason for me not to have an opinion on what is going on in the world (and that includes a lot of unpleasant things occurring in my country).
Calling critical people “US haters” reminds me of people calling you antisemitic if you criticize the policy of Israel as a state. The minute you criticize their settlement policy, you are immediately antisemitic. The US reacted in a very similar way when some of their European allies did not want to support the war in Iraq - all of a sudden those were part of “ugly Europe” and Blair was portrayed as someone representing “good old Europe” (they actually used those expressions in discussions in the Senate).
Anyway, I think there is nothing wrong with discussing these issues. And if people actually believe Austria is three times more dangerous than the US, well, then they probably also believe in Santa Claus 
In fact US bashing is very common, including here in Canada. I would not want their gun laws here, but I don’t get worked up about their gun laws.
I did not invent these statistics, I just posted them, as well as others that contradicted them. You can look for other statistics. As to comparing Vienna to ANY city in North America with regards to crime, again the only thing to do is to look for the stats on line which I am not prepared to do.
@Steve: “…The Swiss are not armed for the purpose of discouraging crime”
The people who keep automatic rifles are (as I said above) military reservists. They are trained to kill foreign invaders. In my opinion most criminals would nevertheless be less inclined to attack a house where there is a good chance that there could be an armed military reservist at home.
@Steve: “…I think a policy of arming citizens as a crime prevention measure is ridiculous…”
For the record: I have certainly NOT said that being armed should be obligitory in the United States, or that actively arming citizens should be a matter of government policy there.
@Eugrus: “…As to statistics, homicide rate has changed to 50% less after introduction of civil fire weapons in both (and sadly enough only) post-Soviet states, where they were introduces (Moldavia and Estonia - counties, that don’t have much in common by any given criteria).”
That’s a very interesting statistic, thanks.
“But if all regular guys between 18 and 60 carried a 9mm automatic at all times, and if they were trained how to shoot, would that be a good thing or a bad thing from the point of view of armed criminal thugs?”
– Terrible for society. There are already enough instances of people resorting to fists when they have a dispute, having that gun there on one’s person would just add an option that really does not need to be there.
@ Ilovelanguages
Thanks for the many tips. I will make sure I deliver the verb early on! What I meant by saying things slowly was that you give people in the audience a chance to at least understand part of it from the source (ie me in this case) rather than having to hear everything through an interpreter. Most people in my target group will understand simple sentences. You comments however made me think that I need to move away from the consecutive interpreting. Sometimes it is a cost issue, sometimes it is because simultaneous interpreters are hard to come by.
@ Steve I must admit I chuckled when I saw you quoting figures from the Daily Mail. That paper is just the most narrow-minded, conservative with a small c, self-righteous paper in the UK. Its readers are outraged who want to read outraged views….(and also on a side note it is the paper most read by women). When they write a story they will quote figures to fit the story. If you look closely at their compiled figures (coming from several sources convniently), it seems they are absolute figures, which makes no sense with a country the size of the UK. Also UK is mostly 4th or 5th on the items they quote.
That being said, UK probably figures high up on the crime rate list. There seems to be a correlation with low taxes and subsequent low public. spending.
Peter
I agree. If I am drunk I tend to be aggressive and I cry that I will kill everybody I hate. I don’t want to imagine consenquences if I had opportunity to get the gun easily. Here in Czech republic you have to have “gun passport”. To get it you must pay a lot of money and do tests, including psychological one I think.
(…) In fact US bashing is very common, including here in Canada. (…)
Well, basically I think there is a major difference between “bashing” and “criticism”. But I do think the US probably is criticized more often than other countries. This is quite natural though, since after all it is the only “superpower” left and it is a very active country worldwide. The more you expose yourself, the more likely you will be criticized by people. That is the same with individuals. Just take yourself. If you were just sitting at home and studying languages, not telling anybody about your ideas, you’ll probably not be getting a lot of response from other people.
But you are very active on the Internet, encouraging people, offering advice, saying what you believe in. You get a lot of positive feedback (and rightly so, I think) but sometimes you are also heavily criticized. This may have many reasons but one of them certainly is your massive presence on the Internet as compared to other language learners.
It’s the same with the US. It’s a country that is involved in almost all armed conflicts in this world. Its arms sales have tripled over the past few years and it accounts for more than 50 % of the world’s arms sales (mostly to war-waging countries). Besides, the US are quite good at dishing out (axis of the evil etc.), so I guess it is just fair to ask them to be not that thin-skinned.
Personally, I think the US have done a lot of good. I don’t have to tell people what an outstanding example of political wisdom and humanism the Marshall plan (officially named the European Recovery Program) was in post-war Europe. The Americans helped stop the war in former Yugoslavia while European countries failed to assume their responsibility. American private organizations help people all over the world - thousands of American citizens risk their lives to better the lot of others. This list is long but so is the list of the “darker side” of America’s interventionism. And I hope people will keep talking about these things as well. I am also pretty sure that anybody truly believing in the values the US bases its constitution on, will not want people to simply nod and say yes to everything and anything the US do. They want people to be critical and outspoken.
On a completely different note, I wish you all the best for your upcoming trip to Prague. I look forward to hearing what kind of results short-term immersion can produce. I tend to believe that it is not so much the length of your stay but the intensity of your studies or the amount of time you actually spend using the language during your stay that is decisive. If you ever make your way to Austria, let me know. It would be nice to meet in person and talk (hopefully in various languages :-).