From: Patrick Wilken (patrickw@klab.caltech.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 24 2001 - 14:13:08 MST
>From: James Rogers
>
>Similar trends apply to the UK as well. As has been mentioned in the past,
>at the beginning of the 20th century when guns were totally unregulated in
>the UK, the murder rate was substantially lower than it was at the end of
>the 20th century when handguns were basically outlawed. The same goes for
>overall violent crime rates.
I have no doubt we are going over old ground here. However, its a
truism that correlation does not imply causation. Lots of things have
changed in the UK over the last hundred years. It would be a stretch
to imply that guns, or their lack, are responsible for all these
changes.
>It should also be noted that virtually all of the concentrations of violent
>crime in the US occur in locales where firearms have been banned or severely
>restricted.
Again this is just an argument from correlation. Is there any
evidence that is more convincing? I realise that this sort of
evidence is hard to come by.
best, patrick
--
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Patrick Wilken
Postdoctoral Fellow in Biology, Caltech
Editor: PSYCHE: An International Journal of Research on Consciousness
Board Member: The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/ http://assc.caltech.edu/
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