re my gun is like my american express car in article apr grace rt cs boeing com rwojcik atc boeing com richard wojcik writes in article utkvm utk edu veal utkvm utk edu david veal writes in article apr grace rt cs boeing com rwojcik atc boeing com richard wojcik writes directly contradicted by the nejm study that compared crime in seattle and vancouver b c the non gun rates were roughly the same for both cities the difference in violent crime rates was almost totally gun related and as was not pointed out in the study but in critiques of it two seperate articles by james wright and david kopel come to mind it was pointed out that the difference was also almost entirely minority related that is the gun crime rate skyrocketed for poor minorities blacks and hispanics primarily while when you compared the white majority they were virutally identical many of the people who never read the nejm article believe that this critique is valid in fact the study explores the minority issue at length and cites studies to back up its contention that poverty not minority type is the relevant factor in violence statistics perhaps i failed to make myself clear minorities in the u s correlate with poverty this isn t good and we should address it but we shouldnt ignore that minorities and poverty do tend to go together does vancouver have a consistantly poor population drawn along racial lines if it doesn t then assumptions of being able to compare minority vs majority in both cities is questionable at best post hoc ergo propter hoc those areas implemented gun control because of the high rates true only to a certain extent take washington d c where gun control was instituted while it had crime problems true but that crime proceeded to explode afterwards similarly for new york actually i don t know whether any serious studies have been done for both cities usenet style statistical arguments are not very serious usually involving people sitting by computers with the latest world almanac figures i had heard of a study on washington dc that seemed to indicate a significant drop in gun related violence there after the laws were implemented i heard gary kleck comment on the radio that he thought the decline in suicide rates was related to the new laws but he doubted their affect on other gun related violence i have never seen a report on the study nor have any of my pro gun friends had much to say about that report remember you can t just say that crime increases indicate a failure of the laws to affect crime rates you don t know whether the rate of increase would have been different without the laws if the rate of increase over a period of several years remains unchanged or increases i think it s not a far jump to say that the laws are not effective no you can t sit down and say that things wouldn t have been worse i don t have a crystal ball and neither do you however that road leads us to a place where it is impossible to critique any action if it gets down to be it might have been worse without them then there is no valid objection which i m sure would amuse certain people to no end you don t know whether the laws prevented a threefold increase or failed to stop a two fold increase so we ve got a situation where we have several options the crime rate decreased obviously gun control worked the crime rate remained the same it would have been worse without gun control the crime rate increased perhaps the laws prevented an even bigger increase cute testing ground we ve got all responses support the proposition that gun control works the question is this did washington d c experiance an increase in its violent and or gun crime rate which was greater than the pattern indicated prior to the implemented gun control laws if it did then the suggestion that the problem the gun control laws were designed to control did not exist in their entirety prior to the gun control laws david veal univ of tenn div of cont education info services group pa utkvm utk edu i still remember the way you laughed the day your pushed me down the elevator shaft i m beginning to think you don t love me anymore weird al
