. England and Canada's murder rates were ALREADY LOW BEFORE enacting gun control. Thus, their restrictive laws cannot be credited with lowering their crime rates. 1142. The murder rates in England, Canada and Japan have risen tremendously since passing their gun control laws.115 And most crime rates in England have now surpassed the rates in the U.S.: * In 1998, a study conducted by a British professor and a U.S. statistician found that most crime is now worse in England than in the United States. "You are more likely to be mugged in England than in the United States," stated the Reuters news agency in summarizing the study that was published by the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ). "The rate of robbery is now 1.4 times higher in England and Wales than in the United States, and the British burglary rate is nearly double America's."116 * The murder rate in the United States is higher than in England, but according to the DOJ study, "the difference between the [murder rates in the] two countries has narrowed over the past 16 years."117 3. United States: Take away the guns, and there is still more murder. United States' NON-GUN murder rate is higher than the TOTAL murder rates in England, Canada or Japan.118 In other words, Americans kill each other more often with weapons other than guns -- such as with knives, fists and feet. * It is absurd to claim that the U.S. has more murders because it has more guns. If one were to "magically" make every gun disappear in the U.S., the hard fact is that Americans would still kill each other-without guns-more often than the citizens of England, Canada or Japan kill each other will ALL types of weapons. * The problem is not the type of weapons used, but rather, the failure in America to keep violent criminals off the street. (See point 2 under Myth #2 above.)
