From mpollak at panix.com Sun Apr 25 19:41:52 1999
> 'Kids in Glasgow' do not shoot each other over football games.
They don't because they don't have guns.
Er ... no. They don't because most kids aren't criminals.
Whereas in this country we shoot each other over schoolyard
basketball games all the time. It's barely news in my city.
Of course, NYC has much stricter gun laws than Glasgow. The difference, I suppose you're saying, is that all the criminals in NYC play basketball, and they always play 'for keeps' ...?
If I didn't know better, I'd say that's the most racist thing I've heard all week. And it's only Sunday!
The numbers I can find quickly on the web (largely from anti-gun groups) say that about 5,000 teenagers and younger are killed every year in the US, with suicide taking the lion's share: about 3,400. Another 700 or so are accidental. So what's left: about 900 per year. In the 14 and under crowd, about 1100 drown and 3000 die in car crashes.
Heloooo? This is a crisis?
Here's what I think, Michael Pollak: I think you exaggerate.
/jordan