From: VirgilT7@aol.com
Date: Tue Jul 07 1998 - 15:19:44 MDT
In a message dated 7/7/98 10:38:35 AM Eastern Daylight Time, mark@unicorn.com
writes:
<< You think... see, there's that word again. You *think*... you don't care
enough to actually look the figures up. Oddly, the per-capita figures don't
seem to be available on the Net, but here's a URL for the total murder
rate in NYC in recent years:
http://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/len/i/one.gif
And the reality: more than a thousand murders a year from 1968-1996 and a
peak of nearly 2300. But what's reality when you can *think* instead?>>
Yep. You're right. 964 last year in fact. I stand corrected. But there's
no need to be rude about it.
Now, I believe that the number given for Dodge City was 5 murders per year,
given a population of about, *I think* 2000. So, to put this in perspective,
that'd be about 12.5 murders per hundred thousand in NYC annually, and about
25 murders per hundred thousand in Dodge City.
<<>So your strategy is to to exchange issue-oriented arguments for
psychological
>explanations of why others do not agree with those arguments? It'll
certainly
>make for a messy and pointless discussion.
No, our strategy is to continue to explain reality to those who prefer
their ideology to facts. You seem to be amongst them.>>
Well this should be interesting. And what is my ideology, pray tell?
<< >Other methods would be to point out that NYC has the toughest gun control
laws
>and a declining crime rate that is the envy of American cities.
Or pointing out that *DC* has the toughest gun control laws in the US
*and* the highest murder rate (more than 100 per 100,000 last time I
checked). You were saying, again?>>
I pointed out that the facts simply weren't clear enough on the matter to make
a knock-down argument on either side. Thanks for illustrating this fact with
the above.
<<(and, of course, the reduction in murders in NYC has come from increasing
the clearup rate and hence the risk to murderers, not by new restrictions
on guns).>>
Actually, many police officers attribute, partially, the reduction in murders
to more aggressive police work which has reduced the number of guns on the
street. :) But they're just sticking to their ideology rather than facing
reality, right?
<< >My point here, since I really do not want to become entangled in a long,
>detailed, gun-control debate, is that the facts simply are NOT clear,
Of course that's only true if you prefer your anti-gun ideology to reality;
amongst independent criminologists the facts are indeed very clear, as you
would have discovered if you'd read the paper I pointed you to yesterday.>>
The study by John Lott? I haven't read it. Given the sheer amount of
criticism the book has come under, I certainly don't think that it's clear
that the facts are "very clear." I will try to learn more about it though.
<< Gun control is almost entirely irrelevant to crime rates; there are
countries with strict laws and lots of gun crimes and countries with lax
laws and almost none. Relaxing those laws does reduce the murder rate, just
as increasing the number of cops, but that's still a small change compared
to social factors which can make one area a hundred times as dangerous
as another even though the less dangerous area has almost no gun laws
and the more dangerous area bans them almost entirely (e.g. Vermont and
DC).>>
I think that it depends on the effectiveness of the gun control, much like it
depends on the effectiveness of the increase in the number of cops.
<<But like most anti-gunners, you think and feel, you don't bother to
actually study the subject you're ranting about.>>
You've come far closer to ranting here than I have. And you've deviated much
further from the issue than I have, into statements the only possible purpose
of which is to be inflammatory. So let's go easy on the self-righteous
champion of the truth act.
Andrew
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