RE: Reducing Crime

["Lynn Hauka" <lynn@evening-star.com>]

Hi Roy,

> Are you saying the we in the US should become obedient sheep as
> well?  Should our government patrol the streets with protective
> gear and nightsticks with impunity?

Nope. Just commenting by way of explanation. I don't think riot police
patrols or blind obedience are the answers - in some ways they're just as
scary - and the same - as the gun-lovin', weapons-totin', free-for-all part
of the public. Do I have the answers? Not really. Only opinions.

IMO, there won't be any substantive change til that - what does the bumper
sticker say? something about prying the gun from my cold dead hand - kind of
mentality starts to change.

> I was just up to Banff last week for a vacation and while I was
> there I caught the some of the local news programs.  Lets see,
> there was a guy who shot at the police with a rifle.  Someone
> committed suicide with a gun.  There was a fire in a small
> business which included a suspicious dead body in the backroom.
> A lady was shot by the police after she opened fire on them.   I
> thought that there was more going on up there than in my home
> town of Muderopolis, MN.

Yeah - I didn't say no crime, just less if you compare it on a per capita
basis, particularly of violent crimes.

I'd also be curious to know, since Banff is a popular tourist spot - who
committed those specific crimes. Canadians? Tourists from out of Canada?

Wish I had some exact numbers at hand, but as a general comparison,
Vancouver with a metro population of about 1.5 million people, has a murder
rate that for example is a fraction of Washington DC's. If memory serves,
last year there were about 40 murders in the Van metro area.

When I first moved to Canada, I went from the Baltimore/DC area to Ottawa
and was really bemused to find that the "norm" that I'd become accustomed
(inurred?) to in Balto/DC was not the norm in the national capital of this
country. Each murder is still headline-making news in the dailies and cause
for grave pontification and speculation by newscasters, both in Ottawa and
Vancouver. Last I heard, DC's murder rate was somewhere between 1-2 a day -
not headline material unless someone powerful and/or famous.

Cheers,
Lynn