On 12/25/01 6:41 PM, "Kai Becker" <kmb@kai-m-becker.de> wrote:
>
> If the right to bear arms - especially concealed guns - is so important
> to have a low crime rate, why is the rate of violent crimes so much higher
> in the US than in other countries?
You have obviously missed an important point. Widespread concealed carry
lowers the violent crime rate *relative to that population*. There is no
good correlation at all between weapon availability or ownership and
absolute crime rates.
Most people read right past that point. Absolute crime rates have an
enormous number of factors that have to be controlled for if you want to
even begin to look at firearm availability being correlated with crime
rates. Frankly, for absolute crime rates the evidence strongly suggests
that firearm availability falls way below the current noise floor in terms
of important factors.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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