"Tom" wrote in message
...

[Ed said]:


Tom, it isn't that simple, and there's always some argument over
crime-rate
comparisons. It's very difficult to compare them across countries.

For example, the US violent crime rate you quote above, 23/1000, breaks
down
into 7.6/1000 "completed" violence and 15.6/1000 "attempted or
threatened
violence." That's in the actual "Bureau of Justice Statistics National
Crime
Victimization Survey August 2003, NCJ 199994, Criminal Victimization,
2002,"
which is the source from which that 23/1000 rate is extracted.

Do you know how the UK records attempted/threatened violence in each
category? It appears to be a complicated thing to extract from the data,
because attempts are classed as individual types of crimes in some cases
and
not in others. Whether that means that attempts are lumped together with
completions in those other cases, I don't know. You also want to take a
careful look at which data are reporting crimes actually reported to the
police, and which are estimates of total crime, reported and unreported.

Anyway, be cautious in making those claims.

Oh, BTW, among all crimes of violence in the US, only about 7% of the
victims faced an assailant armed with a gun. No guns were involved in
93% of
violent crimes committed in the US, in other words.

Ed Huntress

It's never that simple, it's bad enough putting up with
Gunner posting crap without some pedant posting some
mealy-mouthed quibble.

Listen up then, Tom, I'll keep it simple: You have no idea what you're
comparing. It's well known that comparing international crime stats is a
loser, because there are a lot of differences in the way they're reported,
in the percentage of crimes actually reported to police, and even in the
definitions of some crimes.

If that's "quibble" to you, then we can only assume you don't care what the
facts are, only whether you can dredge up some data that appears to support
your position. That isn't enough, particularly in this department.

Ed Huntress