CNN host is still ludicrously claiming that gun control made England safe, when it is the most violent country in Europe

Paul Joseph Watson

Infowars.com

January 10, 2013

Gun Owners of America head Larry Pratt re-appeared on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight and proceeded to school Morgan on his ridiculous argument that England, a country with the highest violent crime rate in Europe, was made safe by gun control.

Pratt savaged Morgan’s contention that gun control reduces violent crime and murders, labeling the CNN host’s position a “sham”.

Morgan’s argument that England, a country with a higher violent crime rate than even poverty-stricken South Africa, was made safe by gun control, is patently ludicrous and can be debunked in all manner of different ways.

For a start, Morgan’s claim of only 39 gun murders in England and Wales in 2011 has to be balanced against the fact that top police bodies in England have repeatedly warned that crime figures are being manipulated to reduce the number of recorded crimes and that, “the recorded crime level bore no resemblance to the actual amount of crime being committed.”

A 2000 report from the Inspectorate of Constabulary found that the way England records homicides is completely inaccurate in comparison with the American method and that, “With such differences in reporting criteria, comparisons of U.S. homicide rates with British homicide rates is a sham.”

As the Telegraph reported, “the true level of gun crime” (in England) is (still) far higher than the Government admits in official statistics.”



Source: EU Commission, UN

Crucially, the number of violent crimes in England per person compared to America is significantly higher. England is a far more violent place than America, despite having a total gun ban.

Figures from the EU Commission and the UN show that the number of violent crimes per 100,000 residents in England is around 2,000 compared to just 466 in America. For all Piers Morgan’s claims about the proliferation of guns leading to an increase in violence, it’s four times safer to live in America than England and according to the latest FBI statistics, America’s violent crime rate continues to fall.



Source: FBI

In addition, you are more than twice as likely to be a victim of knife crime in the UK than you are a victim of gun crime in the United States, but there is no media debate about banning kitchen knives.

Despite virtually all handguns being outlawed in 1996 following the Dunblane school massacre in Scotland, with law-abiding people rushing to turn in their firearms, over the next decade gun crime in the UK more than doubled.

England is routinely either number one or number two in the rankings of the highest violent crime rate in Europe. Switzerland on the other hand, with its almost universal gun ownership, is routinely ranked as one of the safest countries in Europe, again proving that gun control does not reduce violent crime.

Gun control has never reduced violent crime in Britain, nor has it reduced gun crime. Over the past decade, gun crime in England and Wales soared by 600 per cent in some areas. England’s gun murder rate did not drop after all handguns were banned in 1996.

While England’s violent crime rate continues to accelerate, America’s violent crime rate drops as more and more law-abiding people own firearms.



Source: TownHall.com

As Katie Pavlich documents, “the notoriously violent city of Washington D.C. just saw its murder rate fall below triple digits for the first time since 1963 and just four years after the Supreme Court overturned the city’s handgun ban in District of Columbia v. Heller.”

Figures from the US Department of Justice also highlight the fact that over the last 40 years, the amount of guns in America per 1000 people has increased, whereas serious violent crimes have decreased.



Source: US Justice Department

Meanwhile, in gun control “havens” like Chicago, banning firearms has only emboldened criminals and caused violent crime to rise. Since the handgun ban took effect, the number of murders in Chicago committed using handguns has been 40% higher than before the ban, and has spiked even higher in recent years, proving that the gun ban actually served to cause an increase in violent crime.



Source: JustFacts.com

“Does anyone actually believe that Piers Morgan is oblivious to the fact that the statistics he has been citing relentlessly in recent weeks are a notoriously unreliable “sham”?” asks TheEndRun.com.

These figures completely decimate Piers Morgan’s argument that gun control creates a safer, less violent society.

His primary example in making that argument – England – has one of the most draconian gun control ban policies in the world, yet is also routinely in the top two of the most violent countries in the developed world – and is a significantly more violent place to live than America – which is probably one of the reasons why Piers left in the first place.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

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