You have to remember that statistics are generally a load of arse though.
In fact, one of your website links explains it perfectly ...
"The rise is mainly due to a new method of counting crimes reported by the 43 police forces in England and Wales."
i.e. Crime rates have skyrocketted, because now we count crimes differently.
Also the media and the government agencies display their statistics in totally different ways. Governments want to make crime seem low, and the media love to make it seem like we're all gonna die.
But forget all that. You need to get out onto the streets to see what it's like for yourself. Obviously you can't do that in the US, because you're likely to die of old ages before you make it across the country, but in the UK I travel around a lot, and it's just aint as bad as all that.
It's hard for us not to think of the US as much worse than us though. Don't know about other crime, but gun related crime?? We never have high-school shootings. We don't have sniper attacks. We get gang related crime, and the odd farmer shooting trespassers with his 12bore.
EDIT: Btw, there's no way legalised guns would prevent any of the gun crime in this country. I can't think of a single case where someone has been shot in their own home in this country. It's always on the street (where you obviously can't carry).
Insiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!
