What’s that you say?
Why is it then that so many Americans – and foreigners who come here – feel that the place is so, well, safe?
A British man I met in Colorado recently told me he used to live in Kent but he moved to the American state of New Jersey and will not go home because it is, as he put it, “a gentler environment for bringing the kids up.”
This is New Jersey. Home of the Sopranos.
Brits arriving in New York, hoping to avoid being slaughtered on day one of their shopping mission to Manhattan are, by day two, beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about. By day three they have had had the scales lifted from their eyes.
I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place, the lack of the violent undercurrent so ubiquitous in British cities, even British market towns.
“It seems so nice here,” they quaver.
Well, it is!
Who would write such drivel?
You mean the conservative hype and spin and hyperventillation over crime! murder! mayhem! downward cultural spiral! Lock-em up all up to save the future!! is all just that: hype and spin and hyperventillation?
Whodda thought.
Britain has lost hope. Americans still have it.
Americans believe in themselves; Canadians believe in government. Specifically, government that will protect them from themselves. This is why we have consigned moral thinking to Charter judges and outsourced the monitoring of civil behaviour to HRCs.
I love the “despite the fact”…
I can say with some considerable assurance that I felt a hell of a lot safer in Phoenix Arizona than I do in Hamilton Ontario. In Phoenix the creeps don’t dare come near you, day or night.
The reason is simple. In Arizona if an intruder picks my house, all I have to deal with is the intruder. In Ontario I have to deal with the intruder and his government backers.
One drug addict I can manage. The whole police force and court system, that’s more than I’m willing to take on.
In Arizona if you shoot an intruder they give you a medal. In Ontario they take your house and throw you in jail too. That’s why we have the behavior here that we do.
I’ll tell you something else. The only reason anyone thinks America is a dangerous place to live is because the American media and Hollywood LIE about it 24/7. You only hear about the Virginia Tech massacre, you only see Dirty Harry.
The truth about the USA is that if you eliminate the drug dealers shooting each other in eastern cities that have been ruined by socialist welfare, the place is SAFER than Canada.
Let the trolls flame on all they want, the numbers don’t lie. Nor does The Phantom.
“I’ll tell you something else. The only reason anyone thinks America is a dangerous place to live is because the American media and Hollywood LIE about it 24/7.”
The media certainly sensationalizes the violence and makes it seem more rampant than it is. But you need to add conservative politicians and pundits to your list, Phantom, the ones who are constantly scare-mongering citizens in order to pump up the votes and get back to more draconian crime and punishment laws. If it is this safe, with generally declining crime rates throughout North America (aside from Alberta and the Canadian prairies which seem to be going up) then why is crime and punishment such a desperately necessary bread and butter issue for conservatives?
The truth is: liberal crime policies have slowly, over time, reduced crime recission, reduced the overall crime rate. When you say that the worst crime is now just among drug gangs (and I don’t know why you think this is only a phenomenon in the US and not Canada), you tacitly confirm that.
Sorry Ted, there are lots of spots in the USA that are out of control ugly. Places where the prosecute you for protecting yourself and/or your property. Washington DC springs to mind, as does Chicago. New York City was that way under Mayor Dinkins. Bloomberg is making it go back that way again.
Giuliani -fixed it- in eight little years by doing something incredibly radical. He fired all the cops in his police department who were on the take, and then he told the ones who were left to arrest jaywalkers, graffiti “artists”, loiterers, small time drug peddlers, drunks, and all the assorted dickweeds who infested the town at that time. The broken window policy.
An amazing thing happened. Violent crimes dropped by double digit numbers, annually, the whole time he was mayor.
When the government spends its time protecting criminals, you get crime. Duh. When the government stops doing that, even if all they do is get the hell out the way property crime pretty much disappears. If they actively go after the petty criminals life improves dramatically.
Like I said, radical idea.
Ted: “Liberal Crime Policies”? … *blink*
Ted: “The truth is: liberal crime policies have slowly, over time, reduced crime recission, reduced the overall crime rate.”
Ted, that’s Toronto Liberal lawyer truth, which for most other Canadians means……BS. I suppose you will say with a straight face that youth crime has been lowered and the problem well served by liberal crime policies such as the YCJA?
Come on Ted, nowhere are crime policies more liberal than England…….how is that working out for them? Violent crime is a huge problem in Canada, and not getting better. The justice system is simply so hopeless that more and more crime is unreported. Everyone outside the enablers and associated parasites who feed off the system (lawyers) know that if a 15 year old kid throws a rock at your car, they’re not going to be punished, so why bother? All you do is make yourself a target for the little darling who had his/her afternoon ruined answering questions from some lefty idiot about what society did to make them react with such anger, and how can the Government help?
“Who would write such drivel?”
The same idiots who would use the graphic that accompanied this story — a pistol ready to fire — as shorthand for “the United States.”
As the Buddhists say, “A sword keeps another sword in its sheath.” The best thing about all the guns here (including mine) is never having to use any of them.
I agree Kathy with the “despite”. The Beeboids just don’t get that it’s not “despite”, it’s “because”. People respond to incentives, both negative and positive. If the creeps know they’re facing an armed populace, the risk of crime rises. They take their business elsewhere. Likewise, as The Phantom points out, if you know that the state will back the householder in blowing you away when you attempt a B&E the cost/risk/benefit calculus just got a whole lot more unfavourable. By contrast, Britain having created a calculus weighted heavily in favour of the creep (law-abiding populace disarmed, resistance to criminality punished) the creeps are emboldened to try their luck wherever they fancy.
On the flip side, there is some truth that a social safety net reduces the level of desperation to which people can sink and thereby keep otherwise law abiding citizens from commiting crimes of desperation. But for the career criminal, the safety net is irrelevant, crime is their chosen life style because, unfortunately, it pays either economically or in terms of the perverse culture in which they are raised.
So I favour a multi-pronged approach: a safety net (not a hammock} for those genuinely disadvantaged by circumstance; an armed populace with the right to defend itself and its lawfully owned property, and a sledge hammer for those who simply don’t/won’t get it.
I don’t know what to think of this article. Do e.g. people in London generally believe that e.g. NYC is like the Wild West was, 150 years ago? For much of America, a gun is a tool; you use it for killing predators that attack your sheep, or for hunting deer, or to protect your home, and people who so regard their guns use them skillfully and responsibly. It may be argued that there are too many guns and that it is too easy for criminals to get them, but for most of the USA, a gun is no more dangerous to people than is a power saw. Less dangerous, probably.
Grithater: no one is “not reporting” murder.
Murder by firearm (www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir_percap-crime-murders-firearms-per-capita)
Rank Countries Amount (top to bottom)
#1 South Africa: 0.719782 per 1,000 people
#2 Colombia: 0.509801 per 1,000 people
#3 Thailand: 0.312093 per 1,000 people
#4 Zimbabwe: 0.0491736 per 1,000 people
#5 Mexico: 0.0337938 per 1,000 people
#6 Belarus: 0.0321359 per 1,000 people
#7 Costa Rica: 0.0313745 per 1,000 people
#8 United States: 0.0279271 per 1,000 people
#9 Uruguay: 0.0245902 per 1,000 people
#10 Lithuania: 0.0230748 per 1,000 people
#11 Slovakia: 0.021543 per 1,000 people
#12 Czech Republic: 0.0207988 per 1,000 people
#13 Estonia: 0.0157539 per 1,000 people
#14 Latvia: 0.0131004 per 1,000 people
#15 Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of: 0.0127139 per 1,000 people
#16 Bulgaria: 0.00845638 per 1,000 people
#17 Portugal: 0.00795003 per 1,000 people
#18 Slovenia: 0.00596718 per 1,000 people
#19 Switzerland: 0.00534117 per 1,000 people
#20 Canada: 0.00502972 per 1,000 people
#21 Germany: 0.00465844 per 1,000 people
#22 Moldova: 0.00448934 per 1,000 people
#23 Hungary: 0.00439692 per 1,000 people
#24 Poland: 0.0043052 per 1,000 people
#25 Ukraine: 0.00368109 per 1,000 people
#26 Ireland: 0.00298805 per 1,000 people
#27 Australia: 0.00293678 per 1,000 people
#28 Denmark: 0.00257732 per 1,000 people
#29 Spain: 0.0024045 per 1,000 people
#30 Azerbaijan: 0.00227503 per 1,000 people
#31 New Zealand: 0.00173482 per 1,000 people
#32 United Kingdom: 0.00102579 per 1,000 people
Ted…the liberal crime policy is the same policy I use when I fish,catch and release.
Blinkers on Ted?
your stats also reflect a period between 1998 and 2000. Anything more current? Do you think that things have changed at all in the last 10 years? Manslaughter or murder, apples and oranges?Anything reflecting non-gun? How about the source, about as honest as the global warming stats from the UN? Try to be a bit more honest with your stats.
I’ve wandered around Pnom Phen, Bangkok, Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, Almaty in Kazakstan, and lots of other places.
The most nervous I’ve been is in London UK about 11 o’clock at night. I went to get a burger and one look at the scumbags out on the street made me realize I’d made a mistake.
It’s also the only place I saw a crime. As I was walking into a convenience store a guy was running out with another guy chasing him. I grabbed the jacket sleeve of the first guy on the way by but he shed the jacket and took off.
Grabbing the jacket was probably a mistake, if he had been hurt, I’d have been in trouble.
Thanks, Ted…now please post the statistics of “total murders by all methods”. I doubt that the ranking stays the same.
Zing ! Eeyore nails !
Bleedin-hearts are good at selective stats. Their way to promote ‘reward failure, punish success. Protects their kind.
Eeyore: Sure, no problem. Happy to oblige.
Murder (all methods) (www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita)
Rank Countries Amount (top to bottom)
#1 Colombia: 0.617847 per 1,000 people
#2 South Africa: 0.496008 per 1,000 people
#3 Jamaica: 0.324196 per 1,000 people
#4 Venezuela: 0.316138 per 1,000 people
#5 Russia: 0.201534 per 1,000 people
#6 Mexico: 0.130213 per 1,000 people
#7 Estonia: 0.107277 per 1,000 people
#8 Latvia: 0.10393 per 1,000 people
#9 Lithuania: 0.102863 per 1,000 people
#10 Belarus: 0.0983495 per 1,000 people
#11 Ukraine: 0.094006 per 1,000 people
#12 Papua New Guinea: 0.0838593 per 1,000 people
#13 Kyrgyzstan: 0.0802565 per 1,000 people
#14 Thailand: 0.0800798 per 1,000 people
#15 Moldova: 0.0781145 per 1,000 people
#16 Zimbabwe: 0.0749938 per 1,000 people
#17 Seychelles: 0.0739025 per 1,000 people
#18 Zambia: 0.070769 per 1,000 people
#19 Costa Rica: 0.061006 per 1,000 people
#20 Poland: 0.0562789 per 1,000 people
#21 Georgia: 0.0511011 per 1,000 people
#22 Uruguay: 0.045082 per 1,000 people
#23 Bulgaria: 0.0445638 per 1,000 people
#24 United States: 0.042802 per 1,000 people
#25 Armenia: 0.0425746 per 1,000 people
#26 India: 0.0344083 per 1,000 people
#27 Yemen: 0.0336276 per 1,000 people
#28 Dominica: 0.0289733 per 1,000 people
#29 Azerbaijan: 0.0285642 per 1,000 people
#30 Finland: 0.0283362 per 1,000 people
#31 Slovakia: 0.0263303 per 1,000 people
#32 Romania: 0.0250784 per 1,000 people
#33 Portugal: 0.0233769 per 1,000 people
#34 Malaysia: 0.0230034 per 1,000 people
#35 Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of: 0.0229829 per 1,000 people
#36 Mauritius: 0.021121 per 1,000 people
#37 Hungary: 0.0204857 per 1,000 people
#38 Korea, South: 0.0196336 per 1,000 people
#39 Slovenia: 0.0179015 per 1,000 people
#40 France: 0.0173272 per 1,000 people
#41 Czech Republic: 0.0169905 per 1,000 people
#42 Iceland: 0.0168499 per 1,000 people
#43 Australia: 0.0150324 per 1,000 people
#44 Canada: 0.0149063 per 1,000 people
#45 Chile: 0.014705 per 1,000 people
#46 United Kingdom: 0.0140633 per 1,000 people
#47 Italy: 0.0128393 per 1,000 people
#48 Spain: 0.0122456 per 1,000 people
#49 Germany: 0.0116461 per 1,000 people
#50 Tunisia: 0.0112159 per 1,000 people
#51 Netherlands: 0.0111538 per 1,000 people
#52 New Zealand: 0.0111524 per 1,000 people
#53 Denmark: 0.0106775 per 1,000 people
#54 Norway: 0.0106684 per 1,000 people
#55 Ireland: 0.00946215 per 1,000 people
#56 Switzerland: 0.00921351 per 1,000 people
#57 Indonesia: 0.00910842 per 1,000 people
#58 Greece: 0.0075928 per 1,000 people
#59 Hong Kong: 0.00550804 per 1,000 people
#60 Japan: 0.00499933 per 1,000 people
#61 Saudi Arabia: 0.00397456 per 1,000 people
#62 Qatar: 0.00115868 per 1,000 people
So as you can see, when you stay in the reality-based world, the US is compared to most of the world a pretty safe place to live and work.
Compared to the rest of the western world, I would say it is a safe place to live. In other words, I do not think you can look at the statistics or real experiences of living and working in the US and conclude that the US is a violent country. No leftie, anti-gun ideology is going to change that.
However, it is more violent than the rest of the western world. Violent crimes are higher in the US than in Canada, UK, Germany, France, etc. In fact, no surprise, but the US compares even worse when you isolate gun crimes. No rightie, guns are the answer to everthing ideology is going to change that.
It’s official.
The Greeks hardly ever murder anybody. The best news of all is they make brilliant gyros and good beer.
Total Criminal Code offenses in Hamilton in 2004: 5,764 (0.5 million people) = 1.2%
Total Crime offenses in Pheonix in 2005: 95,626 (1.5 million people) = 6.4%
I’ll stick with the hammer.
Ted; there is an old saying: “figures lie and lairs figure”. Not suggesting you are one, but the stats don’t tell the whole truth. If you take the cities with the prolific criminal gangs out of the picture, such as DC, the image changes. The US is a safer place than Canada on the whole when it comes to rape and violent confrontational crime. In the US you can defend yourself; in Canada you are on your own!
You can go to the same site, and check out other stats. For instance, ‘total crimes per capita, with the US at #8 and Canada at #12. And that’s quite something to say, given the massive difference in population and economic activities in these two countries.
Stats are excellent bases to begin an analysis, but not to conclude one (as Ted does). You have to include other factors, such as size of population, economy, etc, etc.
The fact is, Toronto, for example, has become a city where people are getting shot on a daily basis. Gun control is a ridiculous idea, for no criminal is going to listen to such rules. What we need are more severe penalties for such activities, ie. increase the risk factor in using guns to commit some robbery, etc.
OK here’s my take on it. I grew up in a British seaside town. If a murder occurred anywhere near me it would have been on the front pages of the national newspapers. In the late 70’s I moved to a small town in the US Midwest. In the five years I spent there I believe there were four murders. Mostly by gun and generally drug related. At the time I found this quite shocking. I returned to the same town UK in the mid 80’s and now murder is disturbingly commonplace.
I can think of three in the past year. Added to this is the random violence and general hateful behaviour by a significant percentage of the population. It is not uncommon for a life sentence in Britain to mean 15 years which corresponds to 7-8 in reality. In the town in the US where I used to leave some scumbag recently burned down a church. No one fortunately was injured. The low life that carried out the arson was caught and was sentenced to 35 years in a Federal prison. Now maybe there were other factors for the long sentence I don’t know. What I do know is this scumbag won’t be burning down any more churches for a very long time.
It was interesting to see the figures posted by Ted relating to gun murders. Perhaps you could research the numbers of murders carried out by knives as well? I think they probably wouldn’t make very good reading though.
Sad to say Britain has conducted a Liberal experiment for the past forty years to the point that the criminals now seem to be the victims. How many people have to be raped/murdered etc. before we put an end to this crap?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1947315/Addicts-who-steal-may-escape-jail.html
Oh you’re a drug addict. OK it’s not your fault you broke into that persons house and ruined their life. After all you are the victim here!
I really despise liberals with their woolly moral code. The constant bleating about “prison doesn’t work” well no, of course it doesn’t when you lock people up in a holiday camp for a few weeks or not at all. We need to get back to real sentences and a deeply unpleasant prison regime. I couldn’t give a toss if “prison doesn’t work” quite frankly if people are locked away they can’t commit crime. How hard is that to understand?
PIMF leave = live obviously!
Nice try Ted. Crime is a -local- phenomenon. Nationalizing a crime rate conveys zero useful information. Its like taking the temperature of an entire room as 50 degrees F, that doesn’t tell you the room is full of ice but there’s a welding torch blasting away in one corner.
Can you explain, given those stats (and I really believe the ones from Armenia, uh huh), why crime rates fall in every US state that enacts a “shall issue” concealed carry permit law, and falls again in every state that enacts the “castle doctrine”?
Can you explain the complete disorder in the Jane/Finch area compared to the rest of Toronto, and can you explain why it wasn’t that way ten years ago?
I repeat, when you remove the obscene murder rates for the downtown cores of Large Eastern Cities, where your much beloved Liberal Crime Policies were invented in the first place and then transplanted here by IDIOTS, the USA has the same or lower rates than Canada.
This dysfunction of large cities is one of the only arguments for legalizing hard drugs that makes any sense at all, actually. Those killings are almost exclusively related to the drug trade, either directly through turf wars or peripherally from addicts doing robberies to feed their monkey.
In places where the city government backs the citizens in self defense cases and jails the dorks for petty crime, as in applying the law -equally- to all parties, crime is not a problem and its safe as can be. People literally don’t lock their doors, there’s no reason to.
Those are the places I lived in for ten years Ted. Its safer than friggin’ Hamilton, that’s for damn sure. I won’t even mention Toronto, that place has gone straight to hell in the last 20 years, right before my eyes. Liberalism in motion.
To paraphrase Reagan: ET… there you go again.
Usually it takes ET several posts to completely obliterate any sense that she is sane. But in this one atypically short post, she has reproduced all the elements of classic ET:
– Demonstration of a reading comprehension problem? Check. “You have to include other factors, such as size of population” ET: When a statistic states X per Y people, we call that a per capita statistic which takes into account the size of the population by very definition.
– Writing two contradictory statements and/or holding two contradictory positions? Check. ET here: “Stats are excellent bases to begin an analysis, but not to conclude”. And ET “concluding” here: “Gun control is a ridiculous idea”. She was clearly for making conclusions based on facts before she was against making conclusions based on facts.
– Sublime nonsense? Check. “Stats are excellent bases to begin an analysis, but not to conclude.” The statement on its own is classic silly. Yes, yes, facts are good, for what they are worth, but you would neeevvveeer want to draw conclusions based on facts. Very interesting world you live in ET. There you go folks, academic professeurial taxpayer funded thinking at its finest.
– Fabrication of facts to suit your own biases? Check. “The fact is, Toronto, for example, has become a city where people are getting shot on a daily basis.” There were 84 murders in Toronto in 2007, ET, not 365. You are off by more than 4 times! Toronto’s murder rate is among the lowest among North American cities (and is going down each year generally even with the last few years of gang turf violence).
– Gratuitous attack on yours truly because she’s clearly obsessed with moi? Check.
Well done, ET.
Remove black and Hispanic homicide offenders from the US total and the rate will fall to Canadian levels.
Phantom:
Where to begin.
I’ll start here: conservatives around here have accused liberals of basing their policies on “feelings” instead of facts. I actually agree. So much of our policy making is driven by guilt or sorrow or misguided over-protection, etc.
But then you write stuff like: “Its safer than friggin’ Hamilton, that’s for damn sure. I won’t even mention Toronto, that place has gone straight to hell in the last 20 years, right before my eyes.” That’s a conclusion just as based on feelings.
And the facts do not bear those feelings out. Crime rates in Toronto, and murder rates in Toronto, have been going down, year after year, despite the miserable lack of political leadership at City Hall and despite a provincial government (under any colour) that doesn’t give a crap about Toronto.
It is exactly like the article cjunk posted about UK visitors in the US: reality does not bear out the outsiders image. And not just for Toronto. As pointed out above, Hamilton is a far safer place than Phoenix despite your feelings to the contrary (now that doesn’t mean Hamilton is a better place to live, of course, but we’ll leave that for another day).
As for the stats “falling” argument, I remember the pro-gun lobby touting the drop in crime rates after Bush became governor in Florida and introduced pro-gun laws. And it was true: crime rates were lower after crime laws than before. Problem with those stats is that the year before he came into office the crime rate had already dropped from the year before, and had dropped the year before that. In other words, the crime rate had a longer term decline and then he came to power and took credit.
So you’ll have to show me fuller stats than just ask me to take your word for it.
Finally, if you are going to play statistical god and “remove the obscene murder rates for the downtown cores” then let’s do that. How many of the 84 murders in Toronto were gang/drug related? 50? 60? I read 62 of them were. Just because you don’t like the statistics, doesn’t mean you can just invent “if this impossible to test hypothetical I am inventing were true, then the statistics would support my case” scenario as though that were an obvious and indisputable fact.
Hems, same problem with the stats. There’s one locality in Phoenix where probably 80% of the crap goes down. You live in South Phoenix, you’re going to have trouble. Huge unassimilated transient Mexican population and major drug dealing.
You live pretty much anywhere else, you don’t have trouble. The jerks stay where they live, they don’t spread out. Fear of being shot by the pissed off homeowner, y’know.
Forgot this one Phantom: “Can you explain the complete disorder in the Jane/Finch area compared to the rest of Toronto, and can you explain why it wasn’t that way ten years ago?”
First of all, it is not a “complete disorder”. It is simply the roughest part of an otherwise safe city. If you are going to isolate neighbourhoods in order to make Phoenix’s high crime stats look better; then to do the same to Toronto (of the 84 murders in Toronto, roughly 75% of them were in two neighbourhoods only) it makes Toronto and Hamilton look even better comparatively.
Second, did you/do you live in Toronto? It wasn’t that much different ten years ago. Jane/Finch was a problem back when I was in high school so well beyond your ten years.
You know, I’ve been to New York. It’s a fun town, and while we never left Manhattan, the guys and I wandered all over the place at all times of day and night in various states of intoxication. The cops were approachable, the people were friendly, and the worst look we got was from some big guy in a suit at Flashdancers trying to figure out if we were for real.
The worst experience I’ve ever had in the US was a threat of physical violence in the Black Rose in Boston. Go figure, I learned a thing or two about IRA pubs that night.
On the other hand, in my little Manitoba hometown I’ve had my face punched in three times in the past nine years by lowlifes looking to prove how tough they are by blindsiding a guy. I even had my nose broken years ago at a social because one jerkbag paid a loser five bucks.
So, long story short…where do I encourage friends to vacation? It ain’t the Catfish Capital of the World, I can tell you that.
Ahh, ted, my favourite pet slithering Liberal.
No, ted, a per capita statistic doesn’t take into account the size of the population. A ratio statistic, which is what a per capita stat is, doesn’t account for the social, economic etc pressures of the population mass. So, you can get the same stats of 1/1,000 whether the whole population mass is a total of 1,000 people in that village, or 1 million in that city.
As phantom points out, you are ignoring other factors – crime occurs on a local basis. You ignore these factors.
That total population base, plus other factors, is what is important in an analysis. The bare ratio won’t explain anything. So, slithering ted, think about that for a bit.
I used to warn my students about stats; they can be misleading. You can get ten peaceful cities and one violent city, and if you collate the incidents of violence, your ‘statistical image’ is totally misrepresenting ‘actual reality’. I bet you don’t know that, ted.
‘I am against Gun control’ is a conclusion. Not based on stats. The problem, ted, is that all your provide are the stats, which you expect us to accept as an analysis! But they aren’t!
When I say that people in Toronto are getting shot on a daily basis, I don’t mean ‘shot and killed’; I just mean what I said (read it again ted). Shot. Every day, one reads about someone getting shot in Toronto. That’s shot, ted, not shot and killed. Try comprehending what is written.
No, ted, trying to reject being called to account by claiming ‘racism’ or ‘hurt feelings’ or, in your case’ ‘someone is (sniff) obsessed with me’ – that’s just another slithering tactic. Don’t slither out of accountability, ted.
Thanks to Ted for helping boost my theory that Apartheid wasn’t all bad.
Ok you owe 30seconds of my life back for making me read that crap!
Shaidle, we all know what you think about apartheid and segregation. Fortunately, even conservatives have moved beyond those thoughts.
It’s no coincidence that the worst crime rates in western countries are always located around areas in which liberal governance is the highest. Whether it’s cause and effect or effect and cause is up to people who care more than me. I just spend my money elsewhere and let the scumbags kill each other.
“It is a paradox. Along with the guns there is a tranquillity and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream. ”
This is waht leftards can’t get through their heads. It IS NOT a paradox! When the dirt-bags realize they are going to pay,and maybe with their scum-bag lives, funny how they cut down on the crimes. Washington D.C. Strictest gun-control laws in the world(except for dictatorships), and th highest gun-crime rate in the States. Yup. Works for the libbies, I guess. And no. I am not going to provide a source. All you lazy leftards can ask your local socialist rep,or try Google.
ET: when you read statistics about Toronto and about Hamilton and about Phoenix… what takes place in your brain that ignores that as “local”? Again, as always, I am just curious about the mental process that so automatically rejects evidence that contradicts something you want to say, something you want to be true.
And while were at it, please show me where I’ve said statistics are a replacement for analysis? I posted some statistics to counter some of the feelings around here that say, for example, Toronto is a violent city or that pro-gun laws directly result in safer cities.
I’ve merely provided some statistics – in the real world we do consider statistics as a form of evidence, especially if it is not refuted like it has not been here – and I invite folks here to provide backing facts for their feelings and impressions. So far the best we’ve got is something along the lines of “if you take out this neighbourhood here, and that race there and that group over there, and, oh what the heck, take out all “obscene murder rates for the downtown cores” but only in the US of course… well by golly, then we’ve got some stats we can use”.
It’s rather simple so no surprise it escapes you ET: I think the crime stats show that the US is not violent but it is more violent than the rest of the western world. I provide some evidence that supports analysis. The logical, non-ideological reaction would be to say either
(a) I disagree and here are some verifiable statistics that support my view (I’m still waiting for this) or
(b) my gut says otherwise, so let’s leave it as a supported working hypothesis until I can do some further research or
(c) holy crap, I just realized this whole crime argument is just a proxy for an ongoing left-right debate (’cause there’s nothing in between) therefore I MUST: (1) if I’m a rightie, attack Ted, attach Ted’s sources, insult Ted, blame all the world’s problems on the left (and The Media, naturally) and absolutely above all else slither away as fast as I can from reality-based world things like facts and rational arguments; OR (2) if I’m a leftie, attack and insult Phantom, use the unchallenged crime statistics Ted presented to somehow prove gun-control laws are the only answer to everything (and probably somehow they can be used to prove global warming too I’m sure), exaggerate how bad it is in the US, and blame all of the world’s problems on the right or Bush or Cheney or, so long as the Democrats aren’t in office, the US.
Alas, then there is the reaction of people like ET.
Ted,I have relatives that think like you.They isolate themselves from reality by living in walled compounds with alarm systems!A gun is the poor mans alarm system so alarm systems and walled comunities should be BANNED.Take one of those low lifes that are just misunderstood home with you.Let them marry your daughter,let them have sex with your grandchildren,then stick up for them.
Yukon Gold: “It’s no coincidence that the worst crime rates in western countries are always located around areas in which liberal governance is the highest.”
Justthinkin: “When the dirt-bags realize they are going to pay,and maybe with their scum-bag lives, funny how they cut down on the crimes.”
Except the evidence that we have – called it flawed, incomplete, a year old, the best/only that we have, whatever – shows otherwise. I’ve put up some easy to find and verifiable statistics that counter your points. Others show, for example, that Calgary and Edmonton are more violent than Toronto or Montreal.
I’d be very interested in getting my hands on the evidence from a non-advocacy source (i.e. not a gun control group, not the NRA, David Frum, not a political party or its talking points).
I used to lean toward the view that having widespread gun use reduced crime – makes sense in the gut – but the more I looked at the statistics, the less I found to support that view. But I’m not ideological about this. I want crime policies that work to reduce crime, no matter who’s ideological political agenda that supports. I get the impression that there are not that many who take that approach around here.
Can’t wait for your stats any longer folks. Have to get off to a busy afternoon of work. So continue to spew rhetoric in place of evidence, or tells us about how liberal cities/countries MUST be worse off because that’s how you feel (all evidence to the contrary) as much as you want.
However, I am genuinely and seriously interested in this subject. So if anyone any interest in having a true fact-based discussion about this (all evidence here indicating otherwise), I am interested. And if anyone has any bona fide, verifiable and online reproducable statistics to support the theory that more guns means less violent crime, I am genuinely interested. Post it here or send it to me at tedbetts at rogers.com and I will follow up.
Cheers.
Stats schmats. Who cares!
Studies don’t mean sh*t when it is you and your family in jeopardy. I will happily go to jail for executing anyone who would risk the health of my family, for any reason, poverty or not. I have never owned or held a gun but I would be content doing the deed with my hands.
Your presumption that we can trust the police and government to protect us from criminals and the aforementioned government/police is juvenile.
Ted, you are slithering.
The statistics you (I repeat: YOU) supplied were about countries not cities. So, don’t go bringing in the local view, after Phantom criticized you about your omission of it.
And again, statistics aren’t an analysis. You are slithering. Because you didn’t say that ‘statistics are a replacement for analysis’ doesn’t negate the FACT that your posting of these stats was, in effect, an opinion about the criminality/safety of those countries. Stop slithering.
Your statistics WERE refuted here. They are refuted because they are not relevant to an analysis of crime. You have to consider the location, the economy, etc. Not just the gross spatial area. Heck, even my first year students knew that.
Am I insulting you ted? After all, that’s usually your strategy – constant insults and put-downs. I’ve learned it from you…But, you did just describe yourself perfectly, in your ‘leftie’ outline. You did leave out one of your usual Hates..where’s your usual hatred of Harper?
Crime policies to reduce crime? First, I think one has to redefine the nature of and causes of crime.
The leftist view is that the criminal is an unloved, abused-as-a-child, but inherently good person. Just love and hug him and forgive him and release him immediately on parole..and he’ll be ok. It doesn’t work; he’s immediately back out robbing and shooting and knifing someone.
My view is that crime is a basic economic mode. You can enter this economy early, you don’t need years and years of droning school and subsequent low wages. You can get rapid returns; you usually work in teams that protect each other. You can also get very high returns.
In leftist governed areas, it’s relatively low risk. Sure, you might get caught. That simply means rapid bail and early parole..and..back to work in that economy. If you are jailed, heck, that means that your room and board are paid, and you can file all kinds of human rights complaints and etc.
You can enter this mode as early as 12 years or so. Work your way into protection from the gang or a group. Get lucrative returns just by threats and bullying (tieing up shopkeepers)..stealing cars, etc. No 9-5, no schooling. In Canada, it’s low risk.
So, make it a HIGH RISK economic choice. Make it that you don’t get parole or bail. That you are ‘away’ for many, many years. Make it an economy where you have to think hard about choosing it, because the risks are too high for the economic return.
Ted is actually right.
“The truth is: liberal crime policies have slowly, over time, reduced crime recission, reduced the overall crime rate”
According to the authors of ‘Freakenomics,’ abortion, a patented Liberal policy, has lowered violent crime in the US. Inner city Blacks and Hispanics are aborting more children.
I liked the line, ‘down here gun control is hitting your target.’
Ted,
What is the crime rate adjusted for the percentage of the population in the 15-45 age group?
What is the crime rate for assaults, robberies, sexual assaults, break-ins, etc. Murder is one of the few crimes which are committed at a higher rate in the US than Canada or Europe. It is a fact that overall crime is a much greater problem in Chelsea or Knightsbridge than it is in Manhattan even if South-Central LA is more dangerous than Liverpool.
Take out US inner-cities and the US crime rate is as low as Canada or Europe and their crime rate is dropping faster than ours is despite a higher birth rate and a younger average population. Crime isn’t going down in the crime-committing age groups. There are just less people (in percentage terms) in that age group.
There is no parallel in Canada or Europe to places like south-central LA or the Bronx. The suburbs of Paris may be getting there but since they’re a no-go area for the police, valid statistics may be hard to come by. In fact, the validity and comparability of statistics is another area you may wish to consider.
As for the idea of criminal justice reform is concerned, if we were to reduce our murder rate to one (and I mean one single murder, not percent) it still wouldn’t excuse the murderer.
I’d still be in favour of a harsh sentence because justice is more than some lawyer’s statistic. There is something obnoxious in the arrogant way lawyers (and “criminalists” that journalists drag out of the woodwork every time they want a soft-on-crime advocate to spew leftish fairy tales) downplay the idea that there should be an equal amount of punishment in a sentence. Way back in the dark ages (before Trudeau,) justice included a bunch of things. Punishment, deterrence, safety of the public, restitution and rehabilitation were all factors – not just the criminals delicate sensibilities.
In fact, if I hear some a-hole lawyer or socialist professor whining about how harsher punishments won’t reduce the crime rate I’m going postal. I don’t care if putting some child diddler in prison for the rest of their lives fails to prevent someone else from committing the same crime. I DO care about dispensing justice that suits the crime. Leftard justice as practiced by the Liberals have failed to live up the responsibilities of the state. Parents are responsible for preventing crime by properly raising their offspring. The State is responsible for jailing criminals.
Walls aren’t enough protection here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=565024&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490
Warwick: “Crime isn’t going down in the crime-committing age groups.”
Sources?
ET: hard at work at misreading things again?
ET’s whopper: “The statistics you (I repeat: YOU) supplied were about countries not cities”
From the prior discussion:
“Total Criminal Code offenses in Hamilton in 2004: 5,764 (0.5 million people) = 1.2% — Total Crime offenses in Pheonix in 2005: 95,626 (1.5 million people) = 6.4%
“There were 84 murders in Toronto in 2007, ET, not 365. You are off by more than 4 times! Toronto’s murder rate is among the lowest among North American cities (and is going down each year generally even with the last few years of gang turf violence).”
“First of all, it is not a “complete disorder”. It is simply the roughest part of an otherwise safe city. If you are going to isolate neighbourhoods in order to make Phoenix’s high crime stats look better; then to do the same to Toronto (of the 84 murders in Toronto, roughly 75% of them were in two neighbourhoods only) it makes Toronto and Hamilton look even better comparatively. Second, did you/do you live in Toronto? It wasn’t that much different ten years ago. Jane/Finch was a problem back when I was in high school so well beyond your ten years.”
In ET-world, that is a discussion about “national” crime statistics, I guess.
And only in ET-world are crime statistics “not relevant to an analysis of crime.” You really floored me with that one, ET.
And no, your feelings are not sufficient to refute facts. I am not saying that my facts are the end of the argument, but no one has yet given me any facts supporting the theory that more guns = less violence. The only argument back has been (a) if you ignore the violent areas of the most violent cities in the US, and pick and choose who counts, then the crime stats go down and (b) my gut tells me different so there.
For a group that whines incessesantly about how liberal policies are driven by feelings and not facts, I’m stunned – stunned I tell you – that the ideological equivalent on the other “side” can only offer feelings in support of their crime policies.
Is it possible for dinosaurs to get smarter? who knew. 🙂
“Remove black and Hispanic homicide offenders from the US total and the rate will fall to Canadian levels.
Posted by: DJ”
Or better.
Was it Kathy who posted that illegals in the USA are killing 25 a day?
south of here in Grand Forks and Fargo areas 66% as large as winnipeg they between them have 1-3 murders a year. While we have 18-33 for that extra 1/3 of the pop.
It’s the enriching diversity,