From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Tue Aug 26 2003 - 14:10:08 MDT
> 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
-- “Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress.” Copyright 1992, Frank Rice Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com > Alternate: < fortean1@msn.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Vietnam veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]
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