23 August, 2007 | Leave a Comment
The major news story here right now concerns an 11-year-old boy who was shot dead outside a pub last night by a teenager on a bike. While this story is exceptionally horrific, the amount of violent crime in this country is shocking. One example of completely senseless murder: A few weeks ago a man was shot in a London nightclub, all because he tried to enforce the smoking ban. He told a couple of men to stop smoking and in response, they gunned him down. This was in Fulham, a rather nice area of London. Hmmm, I thought such things only happened in America?
Handguns are illegal here, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Such a statement may play into the hands of the gun zealots, but the truth is the truth. I am in favor of the handgun ban and wish America had one, but it’s obviously not a total solution to the gun problem. Criminals will always get guns, we all know that. But how do 14-year-old children in this country get handguns to shoot their peers dead? If the handgun ban can’t even stop that from happening, there’s something seriously wrong. The number of crimes committed by teenagers here is really surprising. Most of it doesn’t involve guns, but knives. Whenever I come across a group of teens out on the street, I feel mildly alarmed.
America is portrayed on the news over here as a lawless playground for savage criminals. After the Virginia Tech massacre, there was a pervasive attitude in the British media that said, “It’s too bad this happened, but America asked for it.” Well, I really don’t see the difference between the US and Britain. I’ve actually felt more threatened by weirdos out on the streets of London than I ever did in New York and I lived there for five years. Today I had a 73-year-old taxi driver who told me he is distraught over what is happening in this country. I could truly hear the heartbreak in his voice and it was sad.
To make matters worse, when criminals in Britain get caught, they seem to get a slap on the wrist to an extent that blows my mind. Here’s one truly sickening example just from today’s news. There’s a total focus on the criminal; the victims and their families are completely ignored and re-victimized by the “justice” system. I guess if there’s no deterrent to crime, it’s not surprising that crime is out of control. It will be interesting to see if the murder of an 11-year-old will change anything.
Anglofille said @ 7:28 pm | london & uk, news & politics |
- Comments RSS | TrackBack URI
-
Well, I really don’t see the difference between the US and Britain.
I absolutely do.
Gun crime represent less than half a percent of all crime in this country.
The number of gun deaths in this country stands at 6 this year. In a country of 60 million.
There’s no comparison *whatsoever*.
-
I don’t think that figure is correct. As per the BBC today, just looking at youth shootings alone, there have been 8 so far this year. That does not include adults.
Of course that number is nothing compared to the US. Perhaps my point wasn’t clear. I don’t see a difference between the US and the UK in terms of *violent* crime. Just a few days ago, a news report in the Times stated that Britain is the most dangerous place in Europe and that people in Britain are much more likely to be the victims of violent crime than Americans. Scotland has a higher murder rate than the United States. I fear for my safety here much more than I did back home. Just within the last couple months, I experienced incidents that made me fear for my own safety, as I wrote about.
Knife crime here is a horrible epidemic. If handguns were actually legal, heaven only knows what the murder rate would be.
