From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Tue Aug 26 2003 - 14:46:52 MDT
Terry W. Colvin wrote:
>>Wonder how much of this reduction in the crime rate is attributable to the
>>large increase in legal private gun ownership in the U.S., particularly
>>legally carried guns.
>>
>>Mac
>
>
> One researcher (can't recall the name right now) attributes, at least in
> part, the lower crime rates to legalized abortion. Having children you want
> to have might imply better adjusted adults later on.
>
> Makes sense to me.
>
> Gene
>
> ----------------------
>
> The question to ask is how many 18 to 25 year old people are
> unemployed. The crime rate is directly related to the size of this
> population. When young men are employed crime goes down. When young men
> have no jobs crime goes up. When the 18 to 25 year old population drops
> because of how much sex people had a few years back crime goes down. These
> drops and rises are really not a mystery.
>
> Jim R Feliciano
>
> ----------------------
>
> Probably little or none at all. It's one of the Great Myths of the gun nut
> faction that your average criminal spends a lot of time worrying about
> whether his intended victim might be packing heat.
>
> Dunno if it still exists, but there used to be a famous cop bar not too far
> from LAPD main headquarters. It was run by a retired cop, it's where
> virtually all the patrons were off-duty (or even ON-duty) cops. It had a
> cop bar name, something like "Code 40" or whatever, it had cop car lights
> and police department patches decorating the interior. It was *really
> obviously* a COP BAR.
>
> And yet, one, two times a year, some jagoff would burst in waving a
> fearsome weapon like a 4-shot .22 pistol and yell, "this is a stickup!"
>
> Dave Palmer
>
> ---------------------
>
> There's a gun store here in town with an indoor pistol range.
>
> Let's be clear about this...it's a gun store. The employees are armed (they
> openly carry handguns in belt holsters). They are, at any given time within
> arms reach of several handguns and/or rifles and/or shotguns, plus boxes of
> ammunition. At any given time, there's an unknown--possibly as high as
> 10--number of customers in the store, WITH LOADED WEAPONS IN THEIR HANDS,
> firing them at targets. Some of these people are no doubt daydreaming about
> plugging some burglar or gang member or something as they do so.
>
> And this place has been robbed at least twice in the last 10 years, both
> times resulting in the robber being killed.
>
> I'm tempted to believe that people who try to rob cop bars or pistol ranges
> during business hours have simply got to be trying to kill themselves...but
> then I'm reminded how colossally dumb many criminals really are...
>
> Kevin
>
> ----------------------
>
> My first day in law school my civil procedure teacher, Jon Waltz, spent
> half the first lecture period in civ pro class telling us "war stories" of
> his times as a practicing lawyer (probably to impress us that he was "cool"
> or something), and as a part of that presentation he imparted a piece of
> wisdom that has remained with me years after my legal career ended:
>
> "Criminals are stupid. That's why they get caught."
>
> Len Cleavelin
>
> ----------------------
>
> They didn't teach that in law school, I had to learn that from experience.
>
> It is, in a way, unfortunate, but my experience of cops in law practice was
> such that were a cop to tell me right now that the sun is shining (it is,
> FWIW) I wouldn't believe him until I looked out the window and verified it.
> As you might imagine, that made life interesting when I married my second
> ex-wife and thereby picked up two cops as brothers-in-law.
>
> LRC
>
>
A better answer is that the population is aging. The late teens-early
twenties are always the high crime years. As a smaller fraction of the
population is in that age brackett, the amount of actual crime diminishes.
I also have a question as to the techniques for measurement, but such
quibbles aren't needed when placed against the population ages.
-- -- Charles Hixson Gnu software that is free, The best is yet to be.
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