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Re: High rates of incarceration hit black America hard
2003-06-25 20:06:52
On 23 Jun 2003 09:10:10 -0700, cpk197@aol.com wrote:
>Peter H. Proctor >> Evidently, in NYC you have to be pretty well connected to get a >> concealed carry permit > >No you just have to meet the criteria As I have already explained. New Yorkers must be savage, irrational beasts compaired to Vermonters right next store, not subject to _any_ concealed carry restrictions. >> The particular study you describe was discredited years ago. And >> didn't even say what you seem to think it did. > >Says the gun Lobbyist, the NRA, the NFA etc. The latest brady briefs >say different, and the NSW Coalition for gun control says different, These folks are true believers on a mission from God, which justifies all their frank medacity. Don't get me started.... Hell, as a toxicologist, "risk" and the statistics thereof are my bread and butter. Almost nothing put out by the antigun "researchers" withstands close examination. >the figures may vary now form say 1998 but that doesn't discredit the >study. The FBI's UCR which gathers this information listed only 154 >"Justifable" homicides in 1999. I can also go on posting about the the >3 and 4 year olds who were killed with legal guns in 2002. The old "its for the children" arguement. Which puts all our liberties at risk from the most fraidy-cat neurotic whiner. If saving children's lives are the real issue rahter than culture war, lets outlaw swimming pools and bathtubs, responsible for many more child's deaths than firearms. Nobody needs a swimming pool and showers get you just a clean. Or the >lawsuits brought about on Smith & Wesson, Beretta U.S.A. and now the >current one by the victims of the shootings in the D.C.area. Firearms are inert lumps of metal. Do you, as a police officer really believe that the instrument, rather than the person, is responsible for the crime? What about someone who uses an automobile to commit a crime ? Is General Motors responsible ? >> This goes way back. Graunt's pioneering statistical work >> from the 1630's notes that there were only 7 "murthers" in London in >> 1632, contrasting this with Paris, where there was a murder about >> every night. He even assigns this to cultural differences, >> crediting the Brits "natural and customary aborrence of that inhumane >> crime and all bloodshed by most Englishmen" ( Quoted in "Against the >> Gods, the Remarkable Story of Risk", p 80 ). There is nothing new >> in criminology. > > >But the point is the Brits still have less of a stockpile of guns, and >how about Austrailia where the stockpile increases, the homicide rate >increases 4 times and even moreso in the U.S. where we have an >estimated 193 million guns some say as high as 250 million (one for >every person in the US) it increaes 11 times. And Law enforcement is >keepng those statistics down but it hardly has anything to do with gun >ownership. For complex cultural reasons, we Americans are much more bloody -minded than those nice Brits. It is cultural factors that matter, not the availability of firearms. E.g., among my rural relatives, firearms ownership is essentially 100%, a gun being just another farm tool. Yet their violent crime rate is very low. >> People do die from crack. I've seen 'em. Just like they >> die from alcohol or tobacco, though a lot less. If this doesn't >> scare people off, how is some silly law going to work ? > >The law isn't to get them to stop from having heart attacks (although >there is the expense of health costs)it's to get them to stop ripping >people off and ripping off the family bank accounts to support their >habits. The high cost of illegal drugs is because (well) they are illegal. And how about the cost to the family of sending daddy to jail ? >> If the guy robbing my house could feed his habit cheaply, he >> wouln't have to steal, at least not as much. One major reason I >> advocate decriminalization is to control crime and restore social >> order.. The violent crime rate plummeted after the repeal of >> prohibiton. > >And it raised with the introduction of crack in the 80's and when the >crackheads couldn't afford it the dealers lowered the price from $5 a >vial to $3 a vial, making it very cheap. Cocaine is not all that habituating, except in the form of crack, which came into existance as a result of the cost of powder. Dr P
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