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This is a normal post Compare the UK and US.
Reported rape figures are slightly higher over here. But it doesn't follow from that that the availability of guns has anything to do with it. For one thing, we don't know how many rapes actually do take place: noone thinks that reported numbers are a good guide. It's even possible that lower rates of reported rape indicate an environment that's more hostile to women, on the basis that the more comfortable they are reporting it, the more likely they are to do so.

Still, there's a number of questions that need to be asked, and they aren't all easy. Suppose wider availability of guns did reduce rates: would the price in terms of an increase in gun-deaths in other contexts be worth paying? Could we guarantee that only the bad guys would get shot? Would we want guns as a deterrent anyway? After all, that'd seem to open the way to shooting people on the basis of a suspicion that they might be about to rape you - which is not obviously desirable. Neither is it obvious that we'd want people to take the law into their own hands anyway.

The idea that the dip in gun safety is mitigated by an increase in safety in other respects is a crock. But it needs to be countered head-on.
 (I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Jan 2013, 20:39, , Reply)
This is a normal post But there are studies from Yale and Harvard that indicate that an increase in gun ownership has an effect on reducing crime because criminals don't know who is armed.
Compare that to crimes that happen in places like Chicago and New York, where firearm ownership is all but prohibited: the number of homicides, assaults, hot burglaries and sexual assault are higher.

As for rape, I suppose you would have to ask a woman if her sanity and security are worth it. I would not want it to happen to any woman I know.
 (I helped save b3ta! BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Mon 14 Jan 2013, 20:45, , Reply)
This is a normal post Beware of any study that cites some statistics
and then uses the word "because".

Crime rates correlate more strongly to poverty than to anything else. Chicago and New York are big cities in which poor people have easy access to middle class neighbourhoods.
 (I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Mon 14 Jan 2013, 20:55, , Reply)
This is a normal post You're poisoning the well by implying that I'd want it to happen to anyone at all.
Of course I don't. It doesn't follow that I have to accept everything that might possibly reduce its rate. If women weren't allowed out without a chaperone, that'd doubtless reduce the rate, too; but that's not the proper response to the problem, and it'd be absurd to think it was. It's not obvious that arming people'd be the proper response either.

There's a lot of things that might be supportable to reduce violent crime of all sorts; but not everything is. It's a long way from being obvious that firearms are the way to go.

You're conflating, too, the number of reported crimes with the number of actual ones. LIke I said: a higher rate of reporting might actually indicate a better environment, inasmuch as that people are more willing to take the effort to go to the police in the first place.

The fact that a study is from Yale or Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge tells us nothing about its credibility. It a quick look at the news will show that homicide rates are much, much higher.

With what are we supposed to be comparing NYC and Chicago, by the way? It's hardly surprising that crime rates are higher in cities than elsewhere. It's hardly a mandate for guns.

And there's any number of studies showing that, if you really want to reduce crime, it's going to require all kinds of social intervention in terms of welfare, education, and so on. There's even a public health aspect: there's a very close fit between a drop in the use of leaded petrol and, about 20 years later, a drop in the rate of violent crime. Implication: exposure to lead in the developing brain makes it more likely that the owner of that brain will be violent in later life. And violent crime around the developed world has been falling since about the 70s.

The point is that there's all manner of ways in which you can explain patterns of crime and crime prevention without having to mention guns once. All of which makes your belief in the redemptive power of the pistol look, at best, ill-founded.
 (I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 14 Jan 2013, 21:05, , Reply)
This is a normal post I liked this
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20536201
 (I helped save b3ta! gingerfreak Why? Why not., Mon 14 Jan 2013, 21:14, , Reply)
This is a normal post Remind me to never engage you in an argument...
*Doffs cap*
 (I helped save b3ta! wheresthefish Partly filled with wrong, Mon 14 Jan 2013, 21:22, , Reply)
This is a normal post The ol'...
...jumping-out-of-a-bush-with-a-knife-and-a-raging-boner style rapes are in the vast minority, I should imagine. Therefor gun ownership would make very little difference to incidence of rape as perpetrators are more often than not known to the victim, even trusted by them. Certainly in the western world anyway.
 (Megamoss, Mon 14 Jan 2013, 22:36, , Reply)
This is a normal post Pro-tip about those statistics
The guns got banned in urban areas like New York and Chicago BECAUSE of the increasing murder rates. It's a response to the issue, not the cause. Perhaps you'd like to speculate how much lower or higher the crime rates would be without the added gun control - but it would only be speculation.

On the flip side, the locations with lower gun crimes and lax gun control tend to be more rural; with sparse populations, less poverty, better education etc. (confounding variables which greatly influence crime rates as well).
 (I helped save b3ta! maninahat Too many cocks spoil the brothel., Mon 14 Jan 2013, 23:52, , Reply)