[Dan from Michigan]

127 murders - population around 577,869
The Glasgow Murder rate is only slightly lower than Flint which has a population of 124,943 and had 28 murders. Flint and Saginaw usually battle for 2nd place in the state behind Detroit.

Comparison to other American Cities and areas.
Michigan:(Source Michigan state Police)
Detroit - 366 murders(2003), 925,000 people
Grand Rapids (2nd largest city) - 11 murders(2003), 197,800 people.
Saginaw - 16 murders(2003), 61,799 people (2nd in state and higher than Glasgow and Flint)
Southfield(Majority black) - 2 murders, 78,000 people

Other Cities (FBI report, includes non-negligent homicide as well - 2003)
Tuscon AZ - 47 murders, 514,618 people
Denver CO - 63 murders, 565,909 people
Washington DC - 248 murders, 563,384 (Total gun ban)
Jacksonville FL - 92 murders, 776,417 people
Indianapolis - 107 murders, 800167 people
Baltimore MD - 270 murders, 644544 people
Charlotte NC - 66 murders, 668003 people
Columbus OH - 109 murders, 726151 people
Oklahoma City - 49 murders, 521,681 people
Portland OR - 27 murders, 545271 people
Memphis TN - 126 murders, 653,858 people
Nashville TN - 74 murders, 554,888 people
Austin TX - 27 murders, 682,319 people
El Paso TX - 21 murders, 586,392 people
Fort Worth TX - 57 murders, 576339 people
San Antonio TX - 85 murders, 1,212,789
Seattle WA - 34 murders, 576,296
Milwaukee WI - 109 murders, 594,269
There are others with both higher (Philly) and lower rates(San Jose). I mostly stuck with those cities about the same size as Glasgow.

And my "gun infested" (6000+ NRA members) Livingston County - 0 murders(2004), 178,000 people

It's not the guns. It's the people. Else Washington DC wouldn't be worse than Detroit, and Glasgow wouldn't be five times higher than El Paso TX which is about the same size.

Now that's not to say that we don't have our own problems here. Detroit, Baltimore and DC for example all have higher rates. There are several factors in each area.

[FreeKeys]

"70,000,000 gun owners in America behaved peacefully today..." -- relayed by Shonda Ponder

-- found at http://freedomkeys.com/r2kba.htm (quotes on gun rights)

[Dead Corpse]

Wow. Good info Dan. Bumped and Bookmarked.

[Lorianne]

How many butter knives did they conficate?

How about ice picks?

[Lorianne]

''Too many of these cases result when either the accused or the victim is drunk. Most occur at the weekend and involve young men.'

Hmmm. How about banning weekends?

[appeal2]

You have to distinguish between murders and homicides. Murder means the intentional taking of a life. Homicide includes justifiable (self-defense), manslaughter, negligent manslaughter as well as intentional murder and a few other meaningless categories.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

This is sad as I order my Cambridge KJV Bibles from there.

[dennisw]

My guess is these murders are done by Scots on Scots, not by any kind of immigrants. Which is how London-metro is.

[School of Rational Thought]

If is seems rather queer to speak about confiscating knives as a suggestion that the police are doing something.

Confiscated a couple hundred knives? I probably have that many. How would these dreamers prevent access to a knife? Close down the restaurants? The prisons can't keep knives (shanks) from prisoners who have 24 hour surveillance and random searches. Who are they kidding?

[David Hunter]

Dan, are the Michigan state Police statistics and the 2003 FBI homicide data report on the web? If so, please could you post links to them, because I wish to pass these stats onto some British liberals who will not believe that the murder rate in Glasgow (where they are trying to ban the sale of sporting and combat knives), is over 5 times higher than the murder rate in Austin, Texas (where there is CCW) - unless I cite official reports. Thanks for your help.

[wellididntknowthat]

Sorry you had to use misleading info to bolster your case Dan. Even quoting your own source there were 40 murders in Glasgow. The 127 you quote was for the whole of Scotland. Do the math Dan. Changes your comparison figures somewhat.