I am all for people protecting themselves in their homes. Blame the burglar, not the homeowner.

"My home is my castle"

Thank you for that info. I actually didn't refer to "more civilized" countries. People on this forum seem to like attributing quotes to others even when they didn't say what was quoted!

Anyway, I read the articles from your first 2 links and the 3rd seemed like a dead link. Thank you for them! One thing that really makes it hard to get accurate stats across countries is that we count them differently in different countries, as was pointed out in your first link above.

I tried to find some recent crime stats online (as I noticed your articles from from 6-7 years ago). Unfortunately, the most recent hard stats I could find date to 1998-2000 and are from the Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems.

So during that period (and we should probably assume a large margin of error due to things like countries counting stats in a wide variety of ways, etc.), here's Assaults per capita (http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/cri_ass_perc ap-crime-assaults-per-capita&int=20):
1. South Africa: 12.0752 per 1,000 people
2. Montserrat: 10.2773 per 1,000 people
3. Mauritius: 8.76036 per 1,000 people
4. Seychelles: 8.62196 per 1,000 people
5. Zimbabwe: 7.6525 per 1,000 people
6. United States: 7.56923 per 1,000 people
7. New Zealand: 7.47881 per 1,000 people
8. United Kingdom: 7.45959 per 1,000 people
9. Canada: 7.11834 per 1,000 people
10. Australia: 7.02459 per 1,000 people
11. Finland: 5.32644 per 1,000 people
12. Iceland: 4.66406 per 1,000 people
13. Tunisia: 4.02561 per 1,000 people
14. Jamaica: 3.95943 per 1,000 people
15. Portugal: 3.59445 per 1,000 people
16. Chile: 3.32476 per 1,000 people
17. Norway: 3.2064 per 1,000 people
18. Netherlands: 2.68964 per 1,000 people
19. Ireland: 2.47037 per 1,000 people
20. Mexico: 2.40275 per 1,000 people

Burglaries (http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/cri_bur_perc ap-crime-burglaries-per-capita&int=20):
1. Australia: 21.7454 per 1,000 people
2. Dominica: 18.7892 per 1,000 people
3. Denmark: 18.3299 per 1,000 people
4. Estonia: 17.4576 per 1,000 people
5. Finland: 16.7697 per 1,000 people
6. New Zealand: 16.2763 per 1,000 people
7. United Kingdom: 13.8321 per 1,000 people
8. Poland: 9.46071 per 1,000 people
9. Canada: 8.94425 per 1,000 people
10. South Africa: 8.89764 per 1,000 people
11. Montserrat: 8.24323 per 1,000 people
12. Iceland: 8.11156 per 1,000 people
13. Switzerland: 8.06303 per 1,000 people
14. Slovenia: 7.93734 per 1,000 people
15. Czech Republic: 7.24841 per 1,000 people
16. Hungary: 7.15849 per 1,000 people
17. United States: 7.09996 per 1,000 people
18. France: 6.11634 per 1,000 people
19. Ireland: 5.73755 per 1,000 people
20. Netherlands: 5.55531 per 1,000 people

Firearm homicide rate per > 100,000 population (http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/cri_gun_vio_ hom_fir_hom_rat_per_100_pop-rate-per-100-000-pop&int=20):
1. South Africa: 74.5748
2. Colombia: 51.7683
3. Thailand: 33.0016
4. Guatemala: 18.5
5. Paraguay: 7.3508
6. Zimbabwe: 4.746
7. Mexico: 3.6622
8. United States: 3.6
9. Belarus: 3.31
10. Barbados: 2.9963
11. Uruguay: 2.5172
12. Lithuania: 2.2463
13. Slovakia: 2.1659
14. Côte d'Ivoire: 2.068
15. Estonia: 1.534
16. Macedonia, Republic of: 1.2802
17. Latvia: 1.2648
18. Portugal: 0.8488
19. Bulgaria: 0.7714
20. Slovenia: 0.6036

Non-firearm homicide rate per > 100,000 population (http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/cri_gun_vio_ hom_non_hom_rat_per_100_pop-rate-per-100-000-pop&int=20):
1. Colombia: 62.74
2. South Africa: 51.3901
3. Guatemala: 25.4737
4. Mexico: 14.1112
5. Paraguay: 12.0451
6. Estonia: 10.4456
7. Belarus: 10.13
8. Latvia: 10.0337
9. Lithuania: 10.0135
10. Ukraine: 8.9253
11. Thailand: 8.4679
12. Moldova: 8.127
13. Barbados: 7.4906
14. Zimbabwe: 7.2381
15. Poland: 5.6072
16. United States: 5.5
17. Uruguay: 4.6149
18. Côte d'Ivoire: 4.0688
19. Bulgaria: 4.0652
20. Azerbaijan: 2.8078

So anyway, yes, Becky, your articles definitely match what these stats say! I find it depressing that the US is in the top 20 for both the homicide stats listed above.


I'm kind of surprised at everyone's reaction here. I know the idea of practicing non-violence isn't as... accepted in the US as the idea of the right to bear arms, but I'm hardly the only person in town who feels this way!

To reiterate:
* Of course the burglar should have done time for burgling, had he not been shot and killed.
* No, of course the homeowner/renter shouldn't be sent to prison for shooting the burglar (uh, it's legal in this country), and God only knows why Yarb Hammstein suggested that I thought he should be sent to prison.
* No, Yarb Hammstein, I am not the kind of person who would "be begging someone- armed- to save" me in this type of situation. Well, actually, on second thought, I don't know what I'd do. It's kind of hard to predict if it's never happened to you. But I know I would not kill the person. I'd hope that I would use intelligence to try to get out safely and if that didn't work, I would stay put and hope to get out safely.

And now it is time to go watch the game. Go Memphis!

Have a good night everybody!

Having been burglarized over eight times last summer, repeatedly vandalized, my car stolen, electric wires laid across my roof without my permission, trash constantly dumped in my yard, peeping toms and repeatedly treated like I didn't matter by the police, ward leader, city and community groups changed my mind about being a pacifist.

madmags

Amen..
I guarantee, if you wanna break into my house at say, 3AM, you're gonna leave in a body bag..... Period!
With all this crime happening around the city and subways, I'll be damned if I'm gonna allow it in my home.
The criminals obviously have no consience towards others, so why should I?
This age of crime has made many people much more "coldblooded and indifferent". I'm indifferent.

__________________
"Accept the fact that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue"

Originally Posted by MayfairMeat
"As if somehow if I find Geoff Jenkins attractive, then I'd also f__k a necrotic dog on the side of Cottman Ave."

Originally Posted by MayfairMeat
"......home drinking wine in a box and hauling on Parliaments." (and running up the damn gas bill)

It works well here, too, just look at Washington,DC. The citizens are unarmed, and the criminals run free. As the recently departed Charlton Heston stated: From my cold, dead hands!! For the record, I am NOT a member of the NRA, but I am a gun owner with a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
I think the unarmed should be made to place signs on their homes stating that there are no weapons inside. This way, we won't have to hear people cry when some burglar gets shot or killed by a homeowner protecting his or her home or life.

The ABC story reported the shooting as happening in E Mount Airy, but isn't E Stafford 8 blocks below Washington Avenue in Germantown? Regardless, it is awful and my thoughts are with the victim and his loved ones.

You guys are nuts. Anyone robbing any home, particularly in philadelphia, is asking to be shot, plain and simple.