The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

Tim Walters · 18 Mar 2009, 08:19 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: walters at doubtfulpalace.com (Tim Walters)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:19:52 -0700
Subject: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
In-Reply-To: <11050.67.142.130.31.1237358936.squirrel at brunians.org>
References: <722494.42734.qm at web32401.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<11050.67.142.130.31.1237358936.squirrel at brunians.org>
Message-ID: <49C0AEA8.50408 at doubtfulpalace.com>

brunians at brunians.org wrote:

> None of them are: it has been illegal for a civilian to own a firearm in
> SF for some time now.

And yet, we have a (slightly) lower murder rate than Tucson:

http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=San+Francisco&state=CA
http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Tucson&state=AZ

 > People in Switzerland are very heavily armed

Less than half the per capita gun ownership of the U.S.

 > Hardly any crime there at all.

Their murder rate is almost three times that of Italy, which has a much 
lower gun ownership rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_countries_by_gun_ownership
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate

My understanding is there isn't much correlation in either direction 
between gun ownership rates and murder rates. But I'm open to actual 
evidence (as opposed to cherry-picked examples).

By the way: do you support private ownership of nuclear weapons? If not, 
  how do you reconcile that with your constitutional views, and how do 
you justify drawing the line between acceptable and unacceptable weapons 
in one place rather than another? (These are not rhetorical questions. 
I'm curious. And for what it's worth, I lean against gun control, albeit 
rather tepidly.)

-- 

Tim Walters | The Doubtful Palace | http://doubtfulpalace.com

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