FUCK THE NRA.

[LeftishBrit]

206. Church?

I mostly stay out of gun threads, because American gun laws are none of my business; unlike other American decisions, relating to foreign policy, war, banks, or the economy, they mostly don't affect the UK, or the rest of the world. And I am well aware that American and British culture and history are sufficiently different that British attitudes to guns may not be appropriate to another country.

But the religious right are nowadays in collusion everywhere, including some things going on pretty much in my backyard, and I have to speak out against the simplistic idea that going to church prevents murder and violence.

In the UK, according to recent statistics, 10% of people attend a religious service at least once a week, as compared with 43% in the USA.

In the UK, in 2010-2011, 0.07 per 100,000 people were victims of gun-related homicide as compared with 2.97 per 100,000 in the USA.

As regards all homicides, 1.2 per 100,000 people were victims in the UK, as compared with 4.2 per 100,000 people in the USA.

Of course, I don't for a moment suggest that churchgoing contributes to murder, any more than the lack of it does. Nor am I suggesting that the UK is somehow 'better' than the USA; there are doubtless plenty of other statistics where we do much worse, and I would certainly prefer Barack Obama as a leader to David Cameron. But the idea that if people don't go to church, this results in a violent society, is just wrong!