Alphecca

The other problem with the comparison is an artificial construct. If you restrict method A, deaths by method A will go down. ie, Japan has a very low suicide by gun rate, but a very high rate of suicide overall. Suicide is associated with depression, etc, not with a particular method of modus exitus....

The way statistics are gathered is different too. If someone in Japan kills his entire family and them him or herself all the deaths are considered suicide (they have name for it--essentially a family suicide). In the U.S. it's 'N' murders and one suicide. Other countries don't consider it a murder until someone is convicted of the crime rather than as in the U.S. where it is declared a probable murder after the medical examiner signs off on the cause of death. And finally the gun grabbers almost alway include the legal shooting deaths, including those by the police and I presume firing squads, amoung the "gun deaths". In other words in their minds there are no justified, let along praiseworthy, homicides.

Huh?

"Has a gun caused you to act violently? I believe most of us will answer no. Then how can we think a gun causes everyone else to act violently?"

Given the stats on who, demographically, commits the most handgun murders, we could also lower our rate significantly by kicking out all the African-American males between the ages of 16 and 30, because that's who commits the majority of murders (and other violent crimes) in the US. But you won't hear any media types talking about that stat.

BTW Joe, Utah last I checked was the only state that still allowed for the death sentence to be carried out by firing squad, but they haven't actually had one for many years.

and....yes, we enjoy freedoms here that cannot be found on any other place on earth. Why not compare our crime rate to that of oh, say, Singapore? Sounds good statisticaly if you don't mind living in a police state.

There is some statistical study (lies, statistics, they are all the same) that shows the increase in crime as television sets became more prevalent in the American home. A similar increase was seen in Canada lagging by like 5-10 years, as Canadian household caught up with the US in televisions per household. Interesting correlation.

There may be another factor affecting Japan's murder rate: the conviction rate for all crimes is, if I remember correctly, somewhere above 90%. Anyone have any details, especially as compared to the US?

A few years ago, at a law enforcement conference featuring Dave Grossman, the author of "On Killing" and one of the leading trainers of our special forces in the area of combat psychology, I learned something interesting. Somewhere in Canada at a group home for violent teen boys, they conducted a study during which they removed all violent electronic media: television; games; all of it. Nothing else was changed.

The result? Violent acts committed by the boys were reduced by over 90 percent. It seems that outside influences provided by entertainment can surely have an effect on those who are predisposed to that sort of thing in the first place.

Food for thought. And no, I would never support speech restrictions.

We all know that the answer to the crime problem is locking up the criminals and not letting them back out on the streets b/c of the recidivism rate. Simple, but not practical since 1) punishment is only meted out to fit the crime at hand and 2) people in general always hope that someone can be rehabilitated.

ur a twat