On Wednesday, December 03, 2003 at 12:48
Walt Wayman <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Even the Canadians are beginning to see that Moore and those who
> believe his anti-gun propaganda are full of it.
>
> http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=nr&id=570
>
> Walt, a gun-toting Southerner, who is four times less likely to
> become the victim of a violent crime than a resident of London.
Why does the article (
http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/files/FailedExperiment.pdf )
talk so much of increases and decreases? Because the absolute numbers
still show there's more gun violence in the US than almost anywhere else.
(Somalia doesn't have gun control. They're probably worse.)
I love the graphs, "Figure 1" and "Figure 7 where the lines apparently
show that the US murder rate is now lower than in England and Australia,
respectively. But look at the legend on each side. The England rate is
per 1,000,000, the US rate is per 100,000! The Australia rate goes from
.5 to 2.5 while the US rate goes from 2 to 10! The author is being
deliberately misleading. He misleads again in Figure 9.
One of the objectives of gun registration is to avoid allowing many
people to legally possess guns, including former felons and the mentally
unstable. Without registration, how do you do this? Yeah, they can still
buy guns illegally, but it makes it harder than just going to your local
gun show and picking up an uzi for your collection.
He also examines how independent variables "affect" the homicide rate.
However, he doesn't provide any linkages. He could as well be measuring
the increase in the use of the internet, or the decline of tech stocks.
There is no theoretical structure that supports any connection.
This pseudo-scientific article is unrefereed and misleading. "Public
Policy Sources" is a regular publication of the Fraser Institute, a right-
wing pressure group in Canada.
At least in London you'll likely live if you're a victim of violent
crime, you live. In the US, you have a 10x greater chance of being
killed.
tOM
---- Abacurial Information Management Consultants ----
Tom A. Trottier, President http://abacurial.com
758 Albert St, Ottawa ON Canada K1R 7V8
N45.412 W75.714 +1 613 860-6633 fax:+1 775 307-4133
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin
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