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

[Phil Stracchino]

On 05/20/14 15:04, Mike Meredith wrote:
> On Tue, 20 May 2014 12:09:31 +0200, Jonathan Groll wrote:
>> However, the quite well armed continental europeans and scandinavians
>> have very good statistics. Switzerland, Finland, Serbia, Cyprus,
> 
> Switzerland is a particularly interesting example. Their gun ownership
> rate may well conceal the true level of firearm availability as most
> Swiss men between 20-30 are required to store an Army issued firearm at
> home. If those firearms are added to the ownership figures, it may well
> be that Switzerland approaches the level of firearm access that the US
> has.

My recollection is that the US actually ranks no higher than third or
fourth among all world nations in firearms ownership per 100,000.
However, you have to compare the correct numbers - "persons per 100,000
who possess firearms", not "number of firearms possessed per 100,000
population", which is not the same thing at all.  (Many US firearms
owners have sizeable collections, with a small minority such as C. Reed
Knight of Knight Armaments Corporation having collections numbered in
the thousands, but "a man can only shoot just so many guns at once", and
you only need to own one gun to commit a murder with it.)

I'm hazier about which nations were claimed to have the highest firearms
ownership rates, but I vaguely recall both Switzerland and Finland being
claimed to have a higher proportion of firearms owners than the US, and
I think Israel was also on the list.

>> What are they doing right?
> 
> In short: It's not about firearms. It's about violence.

Exactly.  The US does not have a *gun* problem.  It has a *social*
problem.  And major elements of that social problem are huge levels of
wealth inequality and pervasive, deeply-ingrained racism, both of which
lead to high levels of violence.  Plus, along with the highest level of
private automobile ownership in the world (and many of the biggest,
heaviest, dirtiest, most gas-guzzling cars), came possibly the highest
levels of urban environmental lead pollution in the world.  One study
based on something like fifty years of data has found that you can
correlate violent crime and lead pollution levels over time across the
US almost down to a street-by-street level, with a time lag just right
for children exposed to lead to grow into young adults.



-- 
  Phil Stracchino
  Babylon Communications
  phils at caerllewys.net
  phil at co.ordinate.org
  Landline: 603.293.8485