Guns and Tranquility

Good write-up on Canadian efforts to further outlaw gun ownership is here. Included is a sagacious look at the relationship between gun ownership and peaceful communities. It's reflected in the words of foreign visitors.

A British man I met in Colorado recently told me he used to live in Kent but he moved to the American state of New Jersey and will not go home because it is, as he put it, “a gentler environment for bringing the kids up.”

This is New Jersey. Home of the Sopranos.

Heh.

Additionally, there's this from Kevin at The Smallest Minority.

In America, and I assume pretty much worldwide, the vast majority of violent crime is committed by a tiny percentage of the population, almost all of whom have prior criminal records.

As I have noted here in the past, American homicide rates are heavily skewed by the fact that young, black, urban males - who make up less than 13% of America's population - commit and are the victims of well over half the homicides America suffers each year.

And on top of that, the young, black, urban males that actually commit the murders are a tiny fraction of that 13%.

But the political response to this is "gun control"?

In 2005, the numbers penciled out indicate that 2.62 percent of the population committed 49.6 percent of the homicides.