Does the report say how Dutch crime figures compare in the European context?

Great blog by, the way.

Thank you for your kind comment about the blog.

There was no information on the European context in this report. Even the wider crime statistics were not mentioned, but I wonder whether the Statistisches Bundesamt might not have something online. You would think that Eurostat would have the data aggregated on a European basis, but they don't, and you have to pay for access to most of their stats anyway. Very annoying.

Just one problem: Correlation does not necessarily equal causation. In the U.S., there are areas with low gun ownership and low crime (New England), high gun ownership and high crime (most of the South), and every permutation in between -- including, of course, high gun ownership and low crime, and vice-versa.

Besides, there are many other factors that might account for the disparity in crime rates. Among those often cited are: the welfare state (surely you don't disagree?), the huge number of unassimilated immigrants (ditto?), the tolerant attitudes toward drugs and prostitution -- not to mention simple population density, for as your own figures show, densely-populated urban areas have far more crime than rural ones.

vaara,

I do agree with much of what you say. The numbers I have presented certainly don't even come close to proving any causal link between the two, either way. There is a widespread perception here in Europe that America is an extremely violent place, and that this is due to in no small part to gun ownership.

The high crime rate here in the Netherlands is also partly due to pathetic law enforcement as the problems that you listed. However, the British experience with completely banning hand guns and the subsequent rapid rise in gun crime does point to the futility of trying to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. The high rate of gun ownership in Switzerland for instance has not resulted in high gun crime, although the type of military weapon the Swiss reservists keep in their homes is not something you'd be able to carry around.

On fundamental grounds, I think the right to own a gun for your own defense is a good and necessary thing, although it will never happen here in Europe. Moreover, even if it happened, I have a gut feeling that people would make much use of it. Europe lacks the strong distrust of authority that America has, and the culture is one of dependency on government and the state.

What nobody in the US wants to talk about for fear of being branded a racist is the rate of violent crimes and especially murder committed by blacks in particular, and minorities in general.

Murder is a "cultural thing". In the US, blacks make up 15% of the population, but account for over half of the murders. If you discount black murders and the black population from the US data, you get a murder rate right on par with most of Europe.

If you take just one US city with high black murder rates, Detroit Michigan, and somehow "give it to Canada", Canada's net murder rate would *equal* the US...that's how much the stats can get skewed by the murders in just one town.

Now, I'm not a racist. I don't believe this issue is caused by anything "innate". Rather, it's the result of "cultural damage" going on over 200 years - and continuing.

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Gun control in the US has always been directed primarily at minorities, especially blacks. Until fairly recently (1950s forward and even then spotty), black-on-black crime wasn't taken seriously at all; so long as no white bodies turned up, racist inner-city cops didn't care. The actual police slang term for violence in the black areas of town circa 1890 to well into the 20th century was "just another niggertown Saturday night" which is where the gun-banners get the term "Saturday night special" for low-end handguns. NOT an accident, that.

While gun control laws appeared to be written in a race-neutral fashion after the passage of the 14th Amendment of 1868, the reality was different. As Justice Buford of the Florida Supreme Court noted in a 1941 case involving a white guy *freed* despite packing without a carry permit put it:

"I know something of the history of this legislation. The original Act of 1893 was passed when there was a great influx of negro laborers in this State drawn here for the purpose of working in turpentine and lumber camps. The same condition existed when the Act was amended in 1901 and the Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers and to thereby reduce the unlawful homicides that were prevalent in turpentine and saw-mill camps and to give the white citizens in sparsely settled areas a better feeling of security. The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population and in practice has never been so applied." - Watson v. Stone, 4 So.2d 700, 703 (Fla. 1941) from Clayton Cramer's "Racist Roots Of Gun Control":
http://www.law.ukans.edu/jrnl/cramer.htm

(Note: Buford partially lied. What happened in 1893 was that a Klan raiding party tried to hit a black township just outside of Gainsville. The "brothas" shot the bejeezus out of 'em with leverguns and revolvers (yea!). Guess which guns were specifically targeted for permits in Florida in 1893? Yup. Leverguns and revolvers.)

So here's what's happening today: the cities with the highest black populations also have the heaviest gun control: New York, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, Los Angeles and similar, and until very recently (2001) Detroit. The cities with the least gun control such as Dallas, Seattle, Portland OR and similar have the lowest minority populations.

You think this is an *accident*?

When gun control is enforced in a poverty-stricken area, the result is to provide criminals with easy LOCAL access to unarmed victims. When Florida reformed their gun control in 1987 and allowed anybody able to pass a background check and training to pack on the street, the state average percent of such "packers" was the typical 3% or so, but in inner-city Miami people locked'n'loaded at a greater rate, up to about 15% in some areas. That drove the criminals out and for a while they preyed on tourists until renta-car bumper stickers and other insignia was outlawed. (Got that? They protected the tourists by blending them in with the armed population. Other than that one issue, crime has dropped steadily in FL since '87.)

Want hard stats? Here's a breakdown of the number of gun carry permits issued in each California county in 1997, and a racial breakdown of the counties. The data is crystal clear: if you live in a county with less than the state average black population (6.7%), your odds of having a permit in your pocket and a gun legally concealed is FIVE TIMES HIGHER than the residents of the "blacker counties" (regardless of your race). A five to one disparity ain't accidental: http://www.equalccw.com/ccwdata.html

Or take Fresno County: in 1995, the Fresno Bee newspaper got ahold of the list of all 2,500 permitholders. They sorted out what percent had Latino surnames: 3%. The county is FOURTY FOUR PERCENT HISPANIC per US census data!!! The unedited article:
http://www.equalccw.com/fresno.html

Gun control isn't the solution. IT'S THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM. Well, admittedly, one core - the other is the idiotic "drug war", see also the movie "Traffic" for all that needs to be said on that one. The various drug bans ALSO started out as "minority control" in the 1930s plus they needed to give the former Revenuers something to do (sheesh).

End the drug war, you yank the money to the gangs and remove the "greed factor" (turf wars, etc.). End gun control, you allow the honest people still in the "hood" to complain about crime, work with the police and in general help restore order as responsible adults, instead of the "I didn't see 'nuthin" of scared sheeple.

Jim March
Equal Rights for CCW Home Page
http://www.equalccw.com

Thanks a lot guys! This helped me in my article for a major issue in the Netherlands! Thanks a lot, of coarse i cited the site...