From: arc@cco.caltech.edu (Aaron Ray Clements)
Subject: Re: Gun Control (was Re: We're Mad as Hell at the TV News)
Article-I.D.: gap.1ppu9hINNl0v
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Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
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manes@magpie.linknet.com (Steve Manes) writes:

>hambidge@bms.com wrote:
>: In article <C4psoG.C6@magpie.linknet.com>, manes@magpie.linknet.com (Steve Manes) writes:

>: >: Rate := per capita rate.  The UK is more dangerous.
>: >: Though you may be less likely to be killed by a handgun, the average
>: >: individual citizen in the UK is twice as likely to be killed
>: >: by whatever means as the average Swiss.  Would you feel any better
>: >: about being killed by means other than a handgun? I wouldn't.
>: 
>: >What an absurd argument.  Switzerland is one-fifth the size of the
>: >UK with one-eigth as many people therefore at any given point on
>: >Swiss soil you are more likely to be crow bait.  More importantly,
>: >you are 4x as likely to be killed by the next stranger approaching
>: >you on a Swiss street than in the UK.

Killed by handgun, or killed?  If I'm dead, I don't much care if it
was by being shot or stabbed to death.

>: You are betraying your lack of understanding about RATE versus TOTAL
>: NUMBER. Rates are expressed, often, as #/100,000 population.
>: Therefore, if a place had 10 deaths and a population of 100,000, the
>: rate would be 10/100,000.  A place that had 50 deaths and a population
>: of 1,000,000 would hav a rate of 5/100,000.  The former has a higher
>: rate, the latter a higher total.  You are less likely to die in the
>: latter.  Simple enuff?

>For chrissakes, take out your calculator and work out the numbers.
>Here... I've preformatted them for you to make it easier:

>			handgun homicides/population
>			----------------------------
>	Switzerland :	24 /  6,350,000
>	         UK :    8 / 55,670,000

>... and then tell me again how Switzerland is safer with a more
>liberal handgun law than the UK is without...by RATE or TOTAL NUMBER.
>Your choice.
>-- 
>Stephen Manes					   manes@magpie.linknet.com
>Manes and Associates				   New York, NY, USA  =o&>o

I don't think you can get an accurate indicator of how safe England is
compared to Switzerland by concentrating only on handgun murders and  
completely ignoring murders by other weapons, not to mention the rate of
other violent crimes.  If there are more guns in circulation, if follows
that more people will be killed with them 'cause they are available to
the person intent on committing a crime _regardless_ of whether they
have to do it with a gun, knife, or bare hands.  

The gun control lobby doesn't seem to understand this point.  If people
are intent on committing a crime, they will do it with whatever means
are available to them.  

aaron
arc@cco.caltech.edu
