Incidents in the year 2010 per 100,000 population Homicide: U.S. 4.8 UK (includes Northern Ireland) 1.2 Australia 1.0 Sweden 1.0 Rape: U.S. 27.3 UK (England and Wales) 28.8 Australia 88.4 Sweden 63.5 Assault U.S. 250.9 U.K. (England and Wales) 664.4 Australia 766 Sweden 936.6 Scotland 1449.7 http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/faq-on-violence
Uses UN numbers, which use numbers from governments, which have different collection methods and different definitions. For example, it is known that Sweden will have a higher reported rate of rapes due to their reporting methods and proceedures.
Contrary to Mr. Harris's presentation, the U.S. assault rate is not particularly low. For example - Costa Rica 20 Ireland 94 France 180 Japan 151 Also, these data are very unreliable, as the definitions of assault and rape differ by country, as does the level of reporting. For example, Pakistan's rate of assault is 0.1. Do you believe that? So I'd say that Mr. Harris is arguing like a lawyer rather than as a seeker of truth. He's cherry picking data points in the attempt to deceive. http://www.unodc.org/documents/data...rnational_Statistics_on_Crime_and_Justice.pdf (page 36 on assault stats)
Yes Harries does say that in his comments, it could be that rape and assault are under reported in the USA.
Sure that is why it is better to compare them to countries with similar standards like the UK, Australia and Sweden (he does admit he put Scotland there for effect). I imagine his point is not that they are low in the USA, but that they are low relative to similar countries with out guns. Plus he does make the case that he would favor a ban on guns and a repeal of the 2nd if it was possible. (He does make and exeption for hunting rifles that I dot agree) He does make that point picking fights is safer when you know the other person is not going to pull out a gun. Now IMO teasers and pepper spray would be a much better to avoid getting your ass kicked by some hooligan than a hand gun.
Yea but did he think they were all bad? Because that's the criteria that's used to justify Obama's drone strikes on this board and if its acceptable for him i don't see why it wouldn't be acceptable for this sniper.
When I first read your post, I pictured a guy holding a gun in another guy's face. He pulls out a little box with a recorded voice of Rodney Dangerfield, "you call that a gun? It looks like a penis, only smaller, you know what I'm saying? I'd call it a pea shooter, but that would be an insult to peas. You get a free bowl of soup with that gun? Looks good on you though."
Then join my movement to repeal the 2nd amendment. It's not needed anymore. It will be a long, pointless fight, but at least we will be right!
He said, "lose." I was in Nashville last year. I kept thinking it was a real shame I didn't like country music because it looked like a pretty fun place if you did. I used to dismiss anything related to the genre out of hand, but as I have gotten older, I have developed an appreciation for old blue grass music.
I dunno-- am I the only one who thinks teasers with pepper spray might actually make a dent in the problem ?
I hate the overtly commercial crap Nashville emits, but there's still some stuff called "country" music I like. Sturgeon's Law is in effect. Quoth Theodore Sturgeon... I repeat Sturgeon’s Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud.[1] Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science fiction as trash, crud, or crap, it can be argued that 90% of film, literature, consumer goods, etc. are crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms.
Japan is weird, they do have lower cases of rape, assault and murder (I also hear they have a 90%+ conviction rates) so they are doing something right (they do have a suicide problem). Ireland does very well on the rape part, not so much on the assaults part. http://www.civitas.org.uk/crime/crime_stats_oecdjan2012.pdf The rape statistics do IMO contradict Harris POV, it is logical IMO since most rapes are perpetrated by people the victim knows so they would not pull a gun on that person. Regarding assaults that does seem to be the category where the USA does better than other OECD countries, but like I said before maybe that is an issue of under reporting or classification of what is an assault.
Country-tinged pop-rock. Which, of course, is what passes for country these days, so in that sense I guess they were pioneers.