--- Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:
> Dennis Claxton writes:
>
> > Switzerland is another frequent counter-example.
>
> I'm always troubled by 'counter examples' to flawed
> points. There's no
> counter-example to the claim that the combination of
> American "culture"
> and millions of guns and gun owners results in
> 10,000 murders/year.
>
> It's just bad statistics.
To what do you attribute the high firearm-driven murder rate in this country, then? Which, statistically speaking is off the scale for any advanced country with a roughly similar per capita gun ownership rate. If it isn't the culture, the prevalence of guns, and (I mentioned) the economic conditions?
Mind you, I'm not speaking from an anti-gun agenda -- I'm happy to support everyone's right to pack heat, and I would never want to pry your gun of your cold dead fingers. Citizens in poor neighborhoods whose kids are murdered in drive-bys may see things differently, but one has to pick one's battles, and I say, if you want to own .45s, Nines, Mac-10s, Uzis, rocket launchers, mortars, be my guest.
Nonetheless it is an interesting sociological question why the per capita gun homicide rate in this country is so high. You probably explained your hypothesis before, but I must have missed it.
>
> > Again, Archer says Australia, New Zealand, and
> Canada had similar
> > frontier stories, but currently have comparatively
> low homicide
> > rates.
>
> Do you realize how dumb this sounds? Looking at
> historical artifacts
> from over a hundred years ago, about countries that
> were tiny fractions
> of the size they are today with very little
> resemblance to the modern
> version, and trying to suss out reasons for
> differing homicide rates!?
Do you realize how dumb that sounds, Jordan? Really. "Historical artifacts from 100 years ago" are irrelevant because? At what point does the past become causally inefficacious? Maybe I'm sensitive on this subject because I'm from the South, where "the War" is the War Between The States, and as Faulkner put it, the past isn't over. It isn't even past.
Moreover, why is it per se a mistake (dumb-sounding) to compare small with large countries? Political scientists and sociologists do this all the time. Obviously you have to control for size and look at things like (in this case) per capita gun ownership and murder rates,nor absolute numbers. It's a brute statistical fact that when you do that, the US is so far off the chart that if it weren't such an important question, you'd eliminate the data point as an outlier.
>
> > Not to mention there's a pretty big difference
> between a single
> > action revolver like those used in the old west
> and the weapons
> > available now.
>
> Actually very little difference, especially in the
> way that they are
> used that you are talking about.
Well, I didn't say anything about this, but there may be some reason to think otherwise. As you know, automatic weapons were introduced into the military in this country after studies that showed that only a small proportion of combat soldiers ever fired their weapons, and it was thought that if they had arms that fired continuously they would be more willing to use them, which I believe appears to have been shown to be true. The same might be true for civilians. On the other hand, probably most murders involve domestic conflicts and the household revolver or automatic pistol, in which case it might as well be a Colt .45 Peacemaker circa 1880.
> Next?
>
Indeed, Jordon, next? Enlighten us. Bearing in mind that politically I at least am on your side or at any rate not opposed to you on this point.
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