Interesting, but somewhat contractory. It admits that Japan is a very safe place, and correlates that safety to their gun control laws. Remember: the gun control laws did not arise from Japan's culture; they were instituted by Gen MacArthur after WWII.
With Switzerland, it seems that HAVE cleared up the question of the 2nd amendment. People who own these guns ARE part of a "well regulated Militia", not a bunch of untrained individuals who happen to own guns. Quite different from the US. If the US would do the same, and regulate/train these gun owners into Militia units, then maybe our murder and crime rates would shrink, too.
Britain is an example of the impact of many other factors. For whatever reason unrelated to gun laws, Britain is experiencing a rise in crime and uncivil disobedience. For example, British 'soccer hooligans' have been banned from attending matches in many other countries. I do not believe (IN MY OPINION -Ok, Scott?) that you can correlate their gun laws with this rise in criminal activity. Maybe its their weird TV programs...
Do we believe that, in the US, if we disarmed ourselves, our crime rate would triple as the result of crimes by police officers? Hard to swallow, so I don't know what point the author is making here.
I have previously argued in favor of addressing the multitude of factors that influence crime: economic conditions, education, preventive laws (like 3 Strikes). However, to argue that the problem does not have to do with guns is like arguing that disease is the not the problem, the problem is that people don't wash their hands enough. |
