On Mon, 6 May 2002 22:32:21 -0400, darklord <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Monday 06 May 2002 06:53 pm, you wrote:
>
> > A interisting point to ponder is that from what I have heard the crime
> > rate in Kenasaw Georga before passing that local ordance was extremely high
> > compared to the rest of the state of georgia but after that law was in
> > place for 3 months the crime rate had droped to way below average for the
> > state.
> > Has getting rid of most of the firearms in a lot of the UK had that kind
> > of positive effect?
>
> You're on the right track here - taking guns away does NOT lower crime rates.
> Just the opposite, in fact. Britain and Australia (FWIH) are in the same
> boat... ;-(
How do you know that? Have you lived in Australia or Britain? Have you actually
looked at the official statistics or simply some biased interpretation by the
National Redneck Association [sorry, couldn't resist ;)]? The Australian Bureau
of Statistics (a government body, but their methodology is well-documented and
sound) has shown time and time again that reducing the number of weapons
_reduces_ crime. Some years back (IIRC, it was 1996) we had a big (by Australian
standards) gun massacre in the state of Tasmania. After that, the government
initiated a gun buyback and confiscation scheme, and crime rates dropped. The
City of Sydney introduced restrictions on knives a few years ago; that also
reduced the crime rate.
But as British PM Benjamin Disraeli once said, "There are lies, damn lies and
statistics". By this he meant that statistics can be easily twisted to argue
whatever you want. Microsoft does this all the time, as does MozillaQuest. One
famous example of this concerned the pesticides Aldrin and Dieldrin (A/D).
American and British scientists both had the same information on hand.
Nevertheless, the American scientists ruled them to be carcinogenic whilst the
British scientists declared them to be safe.
--
Sridhar Dhanapalan
If Bill Gates had a dime for every time a Windows box crashed...
...Oh, wait a minute, he already does.
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
