
American Guns Are Fueling U.K. Crime - bmcn2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/world/europe/handguns-smuggling-murder-us-uk.html
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mensetmanusman
Heh, they almost immediately say most of the guns come from the E.U.

Why don’t we just ban gangs?

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benwad
Because coming up with a legal definition of a 'gang' is tricky without
criminalising a lot of innocent people.

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dangus
I wish people would stop focusing on crime as something to stop after the fact
and focus on preventative measures.

There wouldn’t be demand for illegal firearms without gangs.

Why do people join gangs? Probably because of a lack of career and education
opportunities, and family problems because of a lack of career and education
opportunities.

Of course, I’m only guessing. I’m sure some very smart people know exactly why
people join gangs.

I think the entire reason the UK voted for Brexit and the US “voted“ for Trump
is because of increasing wealth disparity and decreasing standard of living
for the bottom half of the ladder. People want to “shake things up” when
they’re backed into a corner like this.

Until governments start thinking about working for making the life of the
common person better, crime and gangs is what they’ll get.

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DanBC
It's a shame you got downvoted, because we know that treating violent crime as
a public health issue works.

Here's a UK link that talks about serious violent crime that happens in public
spaces: [https://www.local.gov.uk/taking-public-health-approach-
tackl...](https://www.local.gov.uk/taking-public-health-approach-tackling-
serious-violent-crime-case-studies)

There's quite a lot in there and it's hard to pull out anything that feels
powerful enough to describe the work. But there are lots of examples of people
and organisations who are slowly, gently, making a difference.

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dangus
That’s exactly what I was trying to get at.

And of course, it doesn’t mean that we _shouldn’t_ try to stop smuggling. It’s
just that we might find that it’s less effective and/or cost effective than
treating the underlying causes.

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joeclark77
If the UK allowed its citizens to bear arms, then the headline could be
American Guns are _Reducing_ UK Crime...

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lucioperca
Lol sure, as we all know giving a firearm to everyone works perfectly in the
US.

