Just wanted to throw this out here because we were talking about gun control and everything. It's from the new REASON, and you are--of course--free to dismiss any of this as libertarian crankitude. But, regarding England:

"...In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban [in England], the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent.
"Gun crime is just part of an increasingly lawless environment. From 1991 to 1995, crimes against the person in England's inner cities increased 91 percent. And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled. Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York. England's rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America's, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police."

The other neat little point:

"Historically, America has had a high homicide rate and England a low one. In a comparison of New York and London over a 200-year period, during most of which both populations had unrestricted access to firearms, historian Eric Monkkonen found New York's homicide rate consistently about five times London's. Monkkonen pointed out that even without guns, 'the United States would still be out of step, just as it has been for two hundred years."

So, 1. England has it all over the US with the murder rates, but we compensate by getting robbed and assaulted far less often because we never know when one of us might be armed and dangerous, and 2. Americans put a greater priority on self-defense/the right to stand your ground than the English do. That was this article's explanation (it's by Joyce Lee Malcolm) for the second quote above.

I just don't think you can necessarily say that the right to bear arms is an anachronistic value, or that a better society would have to be one that had less guns. There you go.

Justin

Let's take this apart. Public ownership of handguns were banned decades previously to 1997, it was just handguns kept in sports clubs that were banned in 1997.

You give percentages, not figures. An increase from 1 to 2 is 100% increase, but in the scale of things is not much. The UK has a far more concentrated population than the US, violent crime can become more likely. As it is, you're far safer in a UK city than in a US city... and guns make the difference between an attack that leaves you in the hospital and one that leaves you in the morgue.

http://www.post-gazette.com/neigh_city/20021015arrest1015p1.asp

Hee hee hee.

Nope. I never said that anywhere, nor did I imply it.

And what the fuck do you want me to do? Post a link to an obituary? Grow up. Would you ask me that to my face?

But here's some reading for you:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/news/021102_nw_infant_death_cause.html
http://www.ehendrick.org/healthy/00055940.html

Yes, you can die of malnutrition. Not starving to death -- malnutrition. Look it up.



Sorry. I know that going to www.dictionary.com would probably tire you out. Here: "Malnutrition is the condition that develops when the body does not get the right amount of the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients it needs to maintain healthy tissues and organ function."



Step out onto the streets of any major city -- as small as Birmingham, where I live -- and you'll find homeless people who can't get into the overcrowded shelters and who can't eat a decent meal because they have no money.

Most of our homeless and poverty stricken don't die of malnutrition, but I bet that's largely because they freeze or drink themselves to death first.

Thread drift over.

km

Hopefully never.

km

Actually, my quote implies nothing. I implied (apparently incorrectly) that Shoegaze had no clue what poverty was like. It pisses me off to no end to hear Americans talk about how good the poor have it, since -- Hey! It could be worse. You could live in some third world country -- when most Americans have come no closer to poverty than telling the homeless bum to get a job.

You might have inferred that a family member had died, but you would have inferred incorrectly. I do, as a matter of fact, know a woman whose child died of malnutrition-related illness, owing largely (though not completely) to poverty -- so yes, I've some experience in the area.

And anyone heartless enough to tell her that she's got it easy because she's American-poor instead of Russian-poor or Libyan-poor or whatever needs to isolate themselves from society.

km

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-sniperup1014,0,7121905.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines

ha ha ha

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=15&art_id=ct20021015121916686C650240&set_id=1
hee hee hee

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=15&art_id=ct20021015121916686C650240&set_id=1

ho ho ho

For those playing at home, let's recap.

First, someone makes the reasonable point that poverty in America is not like poverty elsewhere in the world.

Second, visionsound responds with an hysterical comment about watching a family member die of malnutrition.

Third, people point out how silly he is.

Fourth, visionsound turns into a professor of English disecting a term paper to back away from his confrontational and idiotic statements.

We now return to our regularly scheduled thread.

Mike

ps - keep including the word "fuck" in your posts, visionsound. It makes you seem all tough and kewl

If you're going to be pointy-headed about parsing words, you might want to pay a little more attention. I wasn't the one who inferred a family member of yours had died. And unless your post (not quote) and you are of different minds, it's the same thing, and the implication was there.

For all you know, maybe I have lived in poverty. Maybe I've seen people die as a result of poverty. But it isn't your business, has no relevance to the discussion at hand, and besides, I would never cheapen my experiences or those of others by invoking them to score points on an internet message board.

Please don't confuse the very specific problem of homelessness with the more broad problem of poverty. While the two are most certainly related and without question cross paths, the plight of the homeless represents a much different problem (generally with quite different roots) than the overall problem (or issue) of poverty. If we're going to discuss poverty, we discuss poverty, If we're going to discuss homelessness, we discuss homelessness. The two issues are, however, seperate (though sometimes related) subjects.