Re: Gun control doesn't work--so what?

*snipped for brevity*


Trevor Wilson wrote:

> **I never said that guns cause violence. Not once. Guns merely facilitate
> easy and cheap destruction of human life for those with a violent
> disposition. Look at the assault rates in the UK, the US and Australia:
>
> http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_ass_cap
>
> The rates of assault for all three nations is broadly similar.
>
> Now look at the homicide rates, from bullets in each country:
>
> http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_wit_fir_cap
>
>
> American assaults seem to more often lead to homicide. Americans are far
> more adept at killing each other, yet seen to have approximately similar
> violent tendencies to other nations. The only glaring differnce, is the easy
> availability of cheap firearms in the US.
>  
--->From the nationmaster site, US firearm murders were 8259, and 
overall murders were 12689 (about 65% firearm related murders (FRM.)) 
The UK stats are 62 FRM from a total of 850 (7%.)  Overall murder rates 
were .05 per 1000 for the US, and .01 per 1000 for the UK.  Assuming 
that guns availability were the only difference in the rates, what do 
you suppose the difference in non-gun rates comes from?  Non gun rate 
for the US= .05*(1-.65), or roughly .0175 per 1000, vs the UK's 
.01*(1-.07), or .0093 per 1000.  As murder without guns is almost twice 
as common (per capita) in the US as the UK, there must be more involved 
than just saying that the guns are responsible for the difference. 
Comments?

*snip again*

Shane Yeager
Views expressed not indicative of views of the Center for Genome Research