I call BS here. I live in a very multicultural city, and being white only just puts me in the majority position. Crime here is lower than most cities. We have predominantly Asian settlers, but also a fair proportion of Africans, Somalians, and more recently East Europeans, lately lots of Polish immigrants.
But 'culture' isn't determined by minorities. By far the largest segments of both populations is White. Blacks feature more highly in crime stats on both sides of the pond. OK, you have a higher percentage in your population, but that doesn't account for the difference in Homicide rates. Our percentages of Asian people are about even.
In SoCal, where I live, my city of around 250k is 66% Mexican, and I'd say a good 15-20% are illegal immigrants -- no joke. When the minority becomes the majority, that's when you have a problem. So even while you may live in a "multicultural" city thinking you're pushing the boundries of danger while you're still the majority, that's nothing compared to many of the cities over here.
A Note to Mr. Scott: See, this is another example of what I mean when I refer to representation. Baron Max would suggest I carry a gun for fear of what might happen. Given that the statistical odds suggest I am more likely to see that gun shoot friends or family in an accident, I don't see how raising the odds of a bad outcome is a wise decision. After all, it only takes one mistake.
And exactly what are the specifications of those statistics where you're most likely to shoot a friend or have an accident? Sure, if you live in an area with absolutely no crime, odds are you're going to shoot a friend or have some other accident instead. Now put yourself in someone else's shoes that lives/works in a bad part of town with high crime, and the odds pretty much guaranteed you'll have at least one incident where it'll be needed. Don't think everyone has the same life as you or lives in the same areas. As mentioned above, you probably think you're living dangerously in Seattle and since you haven't had any troubles in your so-called "dangerous city", that nobody should have a need for a gun. Just keep in mind there are far worse places than your city. Hell, there's places much worse than where I live and I couldn't fathom having to deal with that.
And yeah, in regards to what ya thought of middle America with Scott's incidents in Gary, Indiana, that city is the 5th most dangerous city to live in. Worst goes to Camden, NJ, then Detroit, then Atlanta, St Louis, and Gary.
If you want to live in a self-induced climate of morbid fear, you can do that. But realise that it has no weight with reality.
Consdering the people here in favor of guns HAVE been in numerous incidents where a gun has saved them, your comment has no weight with reality. Quit talking as if the pro-gun people here live in ivory towers where they want a gun to have one but won't ever need them.
Cars are controlled by laws. You need a licence to drive one. You need to register your car. You have to drive on the right side of the road.
You put so much emphasis on laws. You fail to realize that criminals don't follow laws and those are the dangerous ones we need to stop, but that just means your efforts are in vain hurting and affecting the wrong people. Yep, you need a license to drive and registration too, but guess what? There are MILLIONS of people who drive every day that don't have any of the above. Most accidents that happen over here are by unlicensed illegal immigrants (or people who had their licensed revoked) that are also uninsured. When an accident happens, it's a roll of the dice if the person is insured or not. There's a reason why some groups want to give illegal immigrants licenses because there's nothing you can do to stop them from driving, and even if they have licenses, it doesn't mean they'll go out and spend that extra money for insurance since they already don't make a lot of money so they need all they can get. Laws don't mean jack squat. There's a reason why most laws aren't enforced until after the fact.
This idea definitely has merits. Especially if defaulters have either very stiff fines or prison sentences. Then any criminal caught with a gun and no insurance would be held liable.
How would the criminal caught with a gun and no insurance be held liable? The person is already going to jail for the crime commited. Not only that, but jail time is doubled, even tripled and quadrupled depending on where you live if a gun is used in a crime. Insurance or not won't mean a thing coming from that person. It'll be just like when you get in a car accident from an illegal immigrants or other person with no license.. you're screwed.
Yeah, except for the fact that the cops can't catch all the criminals even after they've done some horrid crime like murder!
Yeah, that too, heh.
Interesting, James, but have you seen the rates of crime in most major cities in the USA lately?
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Yeah. That would be because of all the guns, I guess.
Bzzzt, wrong. The most common weapon used in crimes are knives. This is also the reason why the UK and Australia have such high crime rates even though guns are pretty much banned from civilian hands, not to mention gun crimes still occur there, heh. Too bad civilians aren't allowed an equalizer to protect themselves with.
Having a gun actually makes accidents causing injury more likely, which is the exact opposite of the idea of insurance.
Uh, you can't compare the two like that as those are two completely different things. Gotta compare a gun with a car, not insurance, and with a car, it makes accidents causing injury more likely as well.
The only way for gun control to ever work would be to search EVERYBODY'S houses.
Some people here wouldn't mind that since they live in places like the UK where there's a camera for every 15 people. Too bad that hasn't stopped their ungodly high crime rates even though guns are basically non-existant for civies. Yeah, man, gun control works and makes everyone safer!
http://www.mapsofworld.com/images/w...untries-with-highest-reported-crime-rates.jpg
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