[geeks] [rescue] Guns - what are they good for? - was Re: TME and Apple II and other Drive emulator questions.

[Jonathan Groll]

On Mon, 19 May 2014 08:51:04 -0400, hike <mh1272 at gmail.com> wrote:

[...]

> When my father was a child in Virgina, he would take his .22 rifle to
> school in order to go hunting right after school.  They stacked the guns in
> a corner of the classroom, I suppose.  He never spoke of it as if there was
> any rigamarole or bspecialb procedures for doing so.  He taught me that
> guns were for sport, hunting included, and self-defense.  He taught me that
> guns are not the way to resolve an argument.  This is what I teach and it
> works.  The National Rifle Association (NRA) teaches the same thingbfun,
> necessity, and self-defense.  While they hold that law-abiding citizens
> should have guns if they want, the NRA does not propose the breaking of any
> laws or arming people indiscriminately.
[...]

This has made me read up on the gun ownerships statistics:

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list

For the most heavily armed nation in the world (88.8 firearms per
100), the stats for the USA are surprisingly good (2.97 firearm
homicides per 100,000). Compared with, say South Africa (12 firearms
per 100) but a firearm homicide rate of 17 per 100,000! And it gets
worse if you look at Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica, etc.

However, the quite well armed continental europeans and scandinavians
have very good statistics. Switzerland, Finland, Serbia, Cyprus,
Sweden, Norway, France, Austria, Germany all own at least 30 firearms
per 100 but all have firearm homicide rates lower than 0.77 per
100,000, and some are much much lower (France?, Norway).

What are they doing right? 

Cheers,
Jonathan

P.S. not convinced the stats above are all that solid. Another
article, also on the Guardian web site puts the US firearm homicide rate at
10.2 per 100,000: 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/gun-ownership-gun-deaths-study

--
jjg: Jonathan J. Groll : groll co za
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