Psychologist Bemoans U.S. Gun Ownership, Admits Higher Level of Rape in Gun-Free U.K.

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Dr. Rowell Huesmann criticized private gun ownership while speaking to President Donald Trump’s Federal Commission on School Safety. Afterward, he released written notes in which he admitted the level of rape in gun-free U.K. is higher than in the U.S.

Huesmann, who works of the University of Michigan, appeared before the commission alongside Stetson University’s Dr. Christopher Ferguson.

Polygon reported that Huesmann saw problems with children’s exposure to violence on screen, reaching back as far the 1977 airing of Charlie’s Angels. He also focused on the violence in video games, but Ferguson countered him, arguing that youth in other countries play the same games without resorting to shooting up a classroom.

Huesmann and Ferguson found common ground in pointing fingers at widespread private gun ownership in America.

Huesmann did not get to finish all his points during testimony, so he turned over hand written notes afterward. In those notes he argued that the very sight of a gun sets wheels to spinning in the minds of certain youths.

He wrote:

A comparison of the frequency of types of violence in the United States and the United Kingdom is illuminating in this regard. Contrary to what many think, well done studies have shown that the risk of being violently victimized in the United Kingdom has been higher than in the United States for most years since about 1995. That is true for assault, robbery, rape, and many other violent crimes, but it is not true of homicide, of firearm assault, or school shootings. Obviously, weapon availability makes a difference.

There are a number of points that need to be made here. First, notice the U.K. has led the U.S. in “assault, robbery, rape, and many other violent crimes” since approximately 1995. (The U.. issued a virtual ban on handguns in 1997.) Secondly, concerning levels of homicide, firearm assault, and other means of violence, a side by side comparison between the U.K. and U.S. is not a comparison of apples and apples but of apples and oranges. This is because the the British changed their method of categorizing many crimes after their 1997 gun ban, in an effort to make the ban look like a success.

On October 18, 2013, Breitbart News pointed to a report showing that  “the Brits…freely admit to massaging crime figures” and “are vigorously and openly beating their statistics to a bloody pulp, as they have created a stunningly large bureaucracy to deal with crime figures.” The report, published at AmmoLand, further explained that bureaucrats decide “how…crime will ultimately be reported.” This means someone behind the scenes decides which crimes will be reported and which will not.

The Independent likewise reported this means there are bureaucratically-designated thresholds a given crime has to meet to even be labeled as “crime” in the first place. As an example, they noted that “just about every single reported theft of a mobile phone is recorded as lost property,” and very few attempted burglaries are recorded as “attempted burglaries because they all get recorded as criminal damage.”

This method of reporting means crime is reported at lower levels, when reported at all.

Perhaps it makes the 1997 gun ban look effective, but it does not change the fact that the number of murders in London this year has surpassed the number of murders in New York City.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

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