(urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

Lane Haygood lhaygood at gmail.com
Wed Mar 18 01:41:20 PDT 2009


I know. My point is that ownership or non-ownership doesn't affect
violent crime rates.  This is one of the rare occasions where I think
both sides of the American gun control debate are off-base.
Preventing access to guns will likely stop firearm-killings from
happening, but I don't think it'd have a significant affect on the
overall violent crime rate.  If you walk home and catch your
significant other with another person, and you happen to grab a
kitchen knife before you get your gun, it doesn't matter.  Murder is
murder whether you do it with a gun or not.

So pointing to countries with low gun ownership rates and low murder
rates is pointing out a correlation but what is not likely a causal
relation.  If you look at other factors, I'm going to bet that you
find the countries with the lowest per capita murder rates have a high
general standard of living, significant federal support programs, a
well-balanced population, plenty of jobs and a relatively low-stress
living environment.  I'm also willing to bet that no significant
organized crime goes on in these countries/areas. Gun ownership (or
the lack thereof) is a non-issue.

-L.

On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 3:35 AM, Tim Walters <walters at doubtfulpalace.com> wrote:
> Lane Haygood wrote:
>
>> The sort of
>> crime that gun ownership is thought to prevent (where the criminal
>> rationally considers that there is a greater risk to his or her own
>> life because of the victim's chance of owning a gun) isn't murder at
>> all. [and a bunch of other stuff that I agree with, and which explains  >
>> quite well why I'm tepidly anti-gun-control]
>
> Quite so. But brunians' claim was that gun ownership reduces murder rates.
>
> --
>
> Tim Walters | The Doubtful Palace | http://doubtfulpalace.com
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