6th Grader Shoots Potential Rapist

[BiscuitTrouser]

That was not I, I don't generally compare two cities. You can compare the same place over time(like the UK's murder rate climbing unaffected by stringent gun control laws, or similar occurances in US cities that have banned hand-guns). And also, a large number of relatively similar data points can help adjust for uncontrolled variables. That's the whole point behind many psychological and sociological surveys that use random sampling, a large enough number of data points shows a trend despite uncontrolled variables.

Can we even do that? The economy has got a LOT worse with unemployment up in England over that time period. Surely you can agree that the UK is bound to see an increase in crime over this period reletively speaking due to differing socio economic circumstances. Also population spread can change, benefits can be cut or changed to improve/worsen peoples living standards. Also being brutally honest you need to check HOW these people died. We have a GIGANTIC murder spike in 2003 due to a terrorist attack and a psychopathic doctor taking over 1/3 of all murders for that ENTIRE YEAR. When statistics can be changed so violently like that by situations obviously outside the control of guns (Who just randomly shoots their doctor or shoots a bomb to disarm it?) can we even trust that all those murders were preventable by guns?

http://www.usak.org.tr/istanbul/files/bcs25.pdf

This is the kind of thing we need. The statistics are VERY relevant. It showed for example a minority of crimes are commited by a stranger in a snatch and grab or "Guerrilla" style robbery making the whole glorified "defending your home!" scenario applicable only in a few situations. It also showed that crime increase at the same rate as our population increased but only marginally. We had a huge peak in the 90's but now we have a similar violent crime rate as back before the gun ban.