January 7, 2004
From the desk of Jane Galt:A civilisation in decline
Young people today just don't care about their work the way they used to. The older generation stood for craftsmanship, professionalism, high standards through and through. All the young ones care about is sex, drugs, and making a fast buck.
As in accounting and furniture-making, so in armed robbery:
The pattern of offences involving firearms looks more and more like that in America: random, careless shootings have replaced the carefully-planned bank robberies of old.“Standards are down,” asserts Terry Smith, who carried out a string of security van robberies in 1980s London. “Most robbers now get caught up in drugs, and they don't plan properly. The professionalism has gone.”
This decline in standards has spillover effects on related industries:
The rise of unskilled robbery—junkies with guns and no previous experience—is bad news for shop workers, who are less well trained in dealing with guns than are bank tellers; it is also bad for the police, who tend to find ill-thought-out crimes harder to solve than planned ones.
Posted by Jane Galt at January 7, 2004 12:00 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links
One of the telling effect of the gun control law in England is the dramatic increase of the door-bell robbery. Since the robbers knew well in advance that the victim is not likely to be armed, it's much easier to just ring the door bell, punch out the victim and ransack the place rather than trying out an empty house.
Obviously what we need are vocational schools for the criminally inclined.
Oh wait, we have those, they're called penitentiaries (and, for advanced students, congress). I guess teaching standards really are down just about everywhere.
Myria
So the marginal return to thought by a robber is negative? (At least in his probability of getting away?) A curious result, no?
One of the telling effect of the gun control law in England is the dramatic increase of the door-bell robbery. Since the robbers knew well in advance that the victim is not likely to be armed [...]
Hold it right there. There has not been a period since the war during which it has not been the case that "robbers know well in advance that the victim is not likely to be armed". Firearms ownership has always been a minority interest in the UK (particularly in cities), and it has been the law for years and years that any firearm you do own has to be stored unloaded in a secure container.
I also question where you sourced the data from for your assertion that there has been a "dramatic increase in doorbell robberies", as "doorbell robberies" is not a category tracked by the Home Office or by any of the victim surveys. But this is secondary to the main point that your assertions about UK gun law don't make sense.
"[I]t is also bad for the police, who tend to find ill-thought-out crimes harder to solve than planned ones."
One must wonder how "ill-thought-out" it is to commit a crime which is harder for the police to solve, yes?
Pretty sad, even the dumb criminals are smarter and more dedicated than the police.
"One must wonder how "ill-thought-out" it is to commit a crime which is harder for the police to solve, yes?"
I'm not sure of the context in which that exact remark was made. If it was talking about bank robberies, then yes, clearly adding some randomness to your plan is the smart thing to do.
But it could well be that the cop meant crimes in general. A random drive-by shooting for the fun of it will have far less leads than a crime designed to net a profit, as following the money will provide clues.
On 'doorbell robberies'; quite apart from the point above - that legally held firearms have long had to be stored unloaded and locked away - are you seriously suggesting that , even if everyone in Britain owned a gun, they would answer the door every time with pistol in hand, cocked and locked, against the possibility of the person on the other side punching you? Do people habitually do this where BigFire lives? Do people, in fact, habitually do this anywhere on earth (except possibly Somalia)?
All I can say, Ajay, is that 60% of home robberies in Britain take place while the homeowner is at home, versus 12% for America. And criminals surveyed commonly site their fear of a firearm-wielding homeowner as the reason that they do not burgle houses while they're occupied.
For a while in the US, there was a spate of at-home robberies among Asian-Americans (Vietnamese or Cambodians, iirc).
The idea was that the homeowner could tell the robbery crew where things were hidden, saving them time.
It would be interesting (if this reporting was true), to see if Asian ownership of guns WAS higher or lower than average, and whether it went up in the wake....
My favorite bumper sticker..."Don't steal, the government hates competition!"
The figure for the UK is actually 54% of domestic burglaries taking place while someone was at home. Note that this does not mean that 54% of burglaries were "doorbell robberies". I'd also point out that this appears to be quite a volatile series; it was as low as 25% as recently as 1999.
I once read that there is a hieroglyphic graffitum in one of the pyramids bemoaning the lack of manners of the younger generation.
But crime statistics do at least seem to show an upswing in some types when firearms are outlawed/confiscated vs a downswing where own/carry is relaxed. Give it six more years or so and there should be a good base of stats.
Old fucks have been saying shit like that since Plato said nothing was worth a shit since Homer (not Simpson, another Homer).
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