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Monday, December 17, 2012

Comparative crime stats

In light of the Sandy Hook tragedy, Randal Rauser has been indulging in one of his favorite pastimes–bashing the USA. I don’t know why he’s so resentful of the USA. I don’t resent Canada.

In one post, he says, mockingly:


Since it is not practical to build all schools like Fort Knox with armed guards stationed at regular intervals along the parapet, there really is only one other practical solution: arm the nation’s teachers with semi-automatic weapons as soon as possible. The barbarians are at the gates (or, if you prefer, the bike racks). And what better way to meet violence but with more violence?...Just as one must fight fire with fire, so one must fights guns with more guns.

Now maybe he’s just ignorant–what else is new?–but as a matter of fact, many schools across the US do have armed guards on the premises:


If it’s not absurd to have policemen stationed in school, why is it mock-worthy to arm the principal, V.P., or some of the teachers? They’re all gov’t employees.

Suppose the football or wresting coach is a hunter. The sports and hunting cultures overlap. Or suppose the coach is ex-military. Isn’t he qualified to handle firearms?

Like other knee-jerk liberals who can’t think for themselves, Rauser also acts as though access to guns must be the source of the problem. But is it?

I’m no expert on Canada, but don’t a lot of Canadians own shotguns and hunting rifles? Last time I checked, a shotgun or rifle can put some impressive holes in a human being.

So if Canada doesn’t have the violent crime problem we have here in the US, is the availability of guns the source of the problem, or is that simpleminded?

I could ask the same question about other countries like Australia. That has big game hunters too, yes? So is access to guns the differential factor?

Hunting is big in Canada and Australia because both countries have huge tracts of wilderness. By contrast, much of Europe has been deforested by centuries of intensive human occupation and cultivation. These are variables we need to take into account when we attempt to compare crime stats and gun access between one country and another.

7 comments:

  1. Hi Steve,

    Agreeing with the 43% of Americans that believe gun laws in the United States are not restrictive enough is not "bashing the United States".

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    1. Don't be duplicitous. That's hardly the only thing you've said.

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  2. "And what better way to meet violence but with more violence?...Just as one must fight fire with fire, so one must fights guns with more guns."

    Seems like this is banking on the notion that we'll think violence per se is bad. But I think violence can be a good thing under proper circumstances. So prima facie there is nothing absurd with meeting violence with violence or a stopping guns with guns. IM guessing Raiser wouldn't have rushed to the Connecticut crime scene with cupcakes, knowing there was an armed gunman who killed several people.

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    1. "IM guessing Raiser wouldn't have rushed to the Connecticut crime scene with cupcakes, knowing there was an armed gunman who killed several people."

      One can always hope....

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  3. It's true that Canadians have lots of guns - it's just that they're (as mentioned) mostly of the rifle and/or shotgun variety rather than handguns. Hunting moose with handguns just seems to lack a certain panache.

    And for all the fuss the Canadian government makes about gun control, it's done little to stop the numerous shootings that Toronto alone experienced over the past year.

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  4. Mathetes, hunting moose with a handgun can be fun I suppose if you are a cowboy that rides bulls at a rodeo! Woo Hoo! Yee Haw! Just stick the barrel in his ear and pull the trigger!

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  5. Well if I were a moose, I think that I would probably want to go to moose heaven knowing that I had been dispatched by a truly worthy weapon. A piddly handgun is unbecoming of these majestic beasts.

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