Friday, January 26th, 2018
Stephan: In the surreal circus that is the American Federal government there is no oxygen in the media world to cover a number of trends that are affecting the daily lives of Americans. The social outcome data arising from these trends never seems to get covered beyond a brief mention.
One of the worst of these trends is the Gun Death Trend. Are you aware that there have been 11 school shootings in just the first 25 days of this year? Are you aware that school principals all over the country are now training their students how to respond to gun fire in their schools? Can't you just imagine what those faculty meetings must be like?
One of the reasons this death trend has become the new normal -- I can hardly believe I just wrote that sentence -- is the increasing prevalence of guns in normal society. The Republican Party and its thugs at the NRA openly are trying to pass into law something called the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act. Did you know about that? This act would allow a person who could carry a concealed weapon in their state to carry in any state they might visit. The argument is, "An armed society is a polite society." Really. They actually say that.
So lets look at some actual data to see if that is true.
Armed Republicans in Cleveland
One of the most contentious arguments within the larger gun control debate is over whether right-to-carry laws that make it legal for gun owners to carry loaded weapons in public, usually concealed on their person, make people safer. Gun rights advocates argue that packing heat is a prevention against crime and violence, invoking slogans like, “An armed society is a polite society.” Gun control proponents, however, argue that a proliferation of loaded weapons is bound to lead to more violence, if only because people have easier access to the means to harm others.
John Donohue, a legal researcher who works for Stanford Law School, has been working on this question for the better part of two decades. “Turns out it’s a tricky question to answer through statistical means,” he told Salon. But now “this data [has] become complete enough, and some of the new statistical techniques have been implemented,” he continued.
The correlation between the passage of right-to-carry or RTC laws and violent crime has long been documented, […]
This is a shocking article. What many Americans do not know is that Canada is the US’s largest trading partner and vice versa. Many Canucks have decided not to travel to the US due to the increasingly violent nature of the society. I believe Stephan, you have already posted on this newest trend in travel. I’ll be travelling to Cuba to celebrate my approaching septuagenarian status rather than Florida. ‘Sides, I read this AM that FL has more snow than Alberta, CA! hahaha What a world. hahaha
If guns are so bad, when is the government going to give up their guns then? Oh that’s right, while you want regular people to not have guns YOU vote for a government that has more guns than anyone on the planet and pay taxes for them to use those guns against people in your own country and to invade other countries. Hypocrisy that knows no bounds.