How many people are seriously afraid of firearms?

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I used the available stats from the UN for 2002, that was the year the other poster had provided.

I thought if it had gone down from around 10k to say a comparable 0.1k I might have heard (well 14 for that year but yes sadly the UK will have gone up).

More importantly, I'd like to point out that, if you're only looking at the number of murders, of course the US will be higher, they have a significantly larger population. You've got to look at ratios.

You can't pick newspaper reports and claim they represent things! What the hell? That's NOT HOW IT WORKS. This is where I learn about other aspies being different because I can't imagine not understanding how statistics and logic work.

UK population is about 1/5 of the US so I should have been comparing the 2002

9,300 figure with 70, not 14

I'm sure there are lots of other corrections but its ballpark.
Most people I know are astonished by the ballpark figures.

I know how statistics work, and that's how I know they're easily manipulated. I'd much rather look at individual real world examples of something than some chart, and I've just been able to find 12 separate shootings that have happened this month alone.

Seems to me you're just IN A RAGE because I've shown evidence for my point that isn't easily manipulated stats.

yeah, your right but I didn't need to I could get sense of scale without that

UK population is about 1/5 of the US so I should have been comparing the 2002 '9,300' figure with 70, not 14

I'm sure there are lots of other corrections but its ballpark.
Most people I know are astonished by the ballpark figures.

Sorry Asp-Z but before we go into correcting this admittedly flawed ballpark, dont the scales astonish you?

Lets say with more accurate and fair data, this unintended exaggeration (UK figure will go up a bit and wonderfully US figure will come down a bit) becomes more precise, cant you see the scale is totally mindblowing?

"The scale" is meaningless unless it's adjusted to the massive population difference.

To fight stats with stats, let me show you this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... a-U-S.html

You missed this: "In Britain, an affray is considered a violent crime, while in other countries it will only be logged if a person is physically injured."

Always read the smallprint.

At this stage I can't tell if you're joking to keep the topic going for some reason.

errggh???? I just adjusted it .

As I said the population of the UK is 1/5th of US, so I multiplied the UK number by 5

Can explain how thats not adjusting it?

Assuming that the number of murders would increase at the same rate if the population was five times bigger isn't reliable at all.

People always make this mistake. Guns are not illegal in the UK. Many law-abiding people own and keep guns, and more law-abiding people shoot them regularly. The difference is that the guns in question are utilitarian weapons, shotguns and hunting rifles and target guns - ones whose created purpose is recreation, pest-control and hunting - whereas in other places one can also own weapons whose created purpose is killing people - handguns and military rifles.

People make another mistake. Handguns and military rifles are not illegal in the UK because of concerns about "ordinary" criminals. They're illegal because Michael Ryan killed a lot of people in Hungerford. Link.

Anecdote: the other day I had the opportunity to take a (non-functional!) air rifle into the school where I work to use as a theatrical prop, and I got to wondering what proportion of our kids handle real firearms on a regular basis (as I did when I was their age); I reckoned it to be about one in ten (mainly between clay pigeon shooting, cadets, farming and in some cases the sheer murderous joy some people round here take in the local wildlife - though they prefer using dogs for that end.) Not high, but you should see why statements to the effect that the UK is a magical gun-free zone (with either the hidden implication that everyone is deathly afraid of guns, or that there is no place at all for guns in our society) annoy me.

And another mistake. The police here have guns, plenty of them. Ordinary police don't carry guns, but there are police who do, when they are needed.

I trust the UN stats.

I dont trust a Daily Mail story because thats been written with the sole purpose of selling papers.

Fair point, farmers and police do indeed have guns legally.

The article is based on EU stats.

And you ignored the fine print, which I already pointed out. Are you trolling?