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Prior to enacting any gun control laws, Britain had a very small violent crime rate. In fact, pistol permits were first required in the 1920s as a means of denying weapons to "anarchists and Bolsheviks", who were considered to be dangerous political dissenters. Control of street wasn't even used as a selling point, being; English streets were virtually crime free. Policemen didn't even have to carry firearms. (they do now)
As gun controls have become more stringent, violent street crime has increased.
Is gun control the answer? Not if you compare Britain to Switzerland, where guns are common: Swiss per capita homocide rate is 1.2 per 100,000 pop.
Why the higher rates in the U.S.?
That's something that Moore claimed to be trying to answer in BFC, but never really did.
100 years ago, when the U.S. had virtually no restrictions on private firearms ownership, the homocide rate was 1.2 per 100,000 persons...just like currently in most western European nations. In the past century, we have gone from being primarily a homogeneous agraraian society to becoming urbanized. Most crime occurrs in Urban settings, with some of our large metropolitan areas being home to more people than many countries. Combine that with the rise of the illegal narcotics trade over the past thrity years and you have a crime cauldron in our inner cities.
Also, more criminals equals more crime. Three quarters of our violent crime is committed by repeat felons who have been released from prison.
In the 1960s, the courts and justice sysmtem began to follow an enlightened fad which stressed rehabilitation and release, rather than punishment of criminals.
This resulted in much higher crime rates because of a hard core of criminals
being released into society.
There are many causative factors to explore;
"Bowling for Columbine" mentions none of them.
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