London: a case study in the effectiveness of gun control. [View all]

[DanTex]

London, England has a homicide rate of 1.1/100K. Recently, I was engaged in a discussion with some "pro-gun progressives" in which it came to light that there are no cities -- zero -- in the US that have a homicide rate that low. That's right: every single city in the US with a population of at least 250K has a higher homicide rate than London, one of the largest and most diverse cities in the world. And, in almost all cases, the homicide rate is much higher.


All cities in the US. Not just the usual suspects, like New Orleans, which has a homicide rate of over 50X (fifty times!) higher than London. But also places you don't really associate with violence. For example, Portland OR, and Virginia Beach, VA both have over 3X as much homicide as London.

Virginia Beach! The homicide rate here

is three times higher than here!


Austin, Anchorage, Corpus Christi, Mesa AZ, all have between 3X and 4X as much homicide as London. Colorado Springs and Albuquerque, over 5X. Mobile AL and Tulsa OK, over 10X. And the list goes on.

Why would this be? Well, the NRA likes to blame anything except for guns, but the problem is, London has all of the other causes that the NRA likes to point to, and they have them in spades.

For example, NRAers like to claim that homicide is basically due to inner city gangs (which is, of course, false -- only about 12% of homicides in the US are gang related). But London has tons of gangs. NRAers like to point to ethnic tensions, or some of them put it, "black people". London has enormous ethnic tensions. Not only do they have black people, but they have tensions involving Muslims, and Eastern Europeans, Asians, etc. They have Bangladeshi gangs! Really!

London has poverty. London has crime. London has all of the social ills that go along with large, diverse, densely populated cities. And yet their homicide rate is tiny, compared to any city in the US.

Why? Because the gun laws in the UK are very tight. You might get robbed, but the person robbing you won't have a gun. People get into fights, but they don't shoot each other. And crimes involving guns are many times more likely to result in a homicide than crimes without guns.

Want to save lives in America, and get the homicide rate down in line with international standards? Gun control.