[Info-vax] Nice printers for OpenVMS?

[Doug Phillips]

Consider this a reply to Bob, Chris & David.

On Aug 8, 8:20 am, koeh... at eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob
Koehler) wrote:
> In article <23960c5f-ea63-4d4f-a07a-30bc67d68... at m13g2000vbd.googlegroups.com>, Doug Phillips <dphil... at netscape.net> writes:
>
>
>
> > By that do you mean the US world-police? I think if you look a little
> > closer, you'll find that the US does *not* want to be the world-
> > police. Most of us would be happy if other countries dealt with their
> > own outlaw neighbors.
>
>    Like the current situation in Syria?  Some of the anti-government
>    forces want to put balme on the US for not establishing a no-fly
>    zone.
>
>
>
> > Credibility? Look at the crime statistics of some of the countries
> > with the most restrictive gun control laws. Go ahead, I'll wait.
>
>    That's a clearly loaded question.  Russia has restrcitive gun control
>    laws.  So does Britain.  I'd be happy if we had crime statistics
>    similar to most of the western nations that have tight gun control
>    laws, but not with the goverments some of the others have.
>

Right. We don't have the restrictions on our freedom found in most
other countries (yet) and we have a larger and more diverse population
mix than other countries.


>    So you're statement doens't make any point, it depends on which
>    countries you pick.

Since we're discussing gun control, look at countries that have
enacted strict gun control. In the US, gun control is a State
decision, so just looking at US statistics doesn't tell the story.
Even in the US, different states and different areas within each state
have different ethnic - economic - social - religious makeups and
therefore different problems.

Compare per-capita crime rates (not just firearm related) before and
after gun control was enacted. Comparing different countries raw crime
rates introduces too many variables and it's hard to find unbiased
analysis. www.unodc.org is a good place to start. The pro-gun side has
the most statistic laden sites, and verifying those numbers can be a
challenge. News channels like BBC often publish crime statistics and
here's one from 2001 (4 years after the ban):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1440764.stm

The UK's incident of gun related crime *increased* after the gun laws
were passed. Since then, by some reports, gun related deaths decreased
but knife related deaths increased. I've read conflicting statistics,
but the crime increase in England since the laws were enacted seems to
be around 89%. Even in the UK, there is a difference in statistics
between England, Wales, Ireland & Scotland, so just looking at the UK
doesn't tell the story any more than just looking at the US or
Chicago.

Chicago, which has one of if not the highest crime rate in the world,
has a huge gang problem and that problem significantly impacts the
statistics. Non-gang related crime in Chicago is not so much different
than other major cities. There are areas in every major city that are
not safe.

Mass-killings with legal guns are anomalies. The guns most often used
in crime are not legally obtained. Gang-related crimes are a huge
problem and gangs (and other criminals) have easy access to illegal
guns. Those problems are hard to solve anywhere in the world.

Even though the recent incidents in Colorado & Wisconsin are fresh in
our minds, I still remember Cumbria and others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers

It isn't an easy question, and I'm not strong on either side, but a
look at the numbers seems to support the statement that "Gun control
is not crime control."