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From: josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.rec
Subject: Re: Merry Christmas from the NRA
Message-ID: <285@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 16-Jan-85 03:59:47 EST
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Posted: Wed Jan 16 03:59:47 1985
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> The figures, as I recall, were about 50 deaths in Canada, 10,000 in the
> US.  About 200 times more, for a country only 10 times larger.  What you
> are trying to tell me is that these figures reflect the relative danger
> in living in the US (after all, you seem to think you *need* to own a
> hand gun, while I've never felt that threatened here).  Do I want to
> spend 5 years living in the US if it's as bad as you make it seem?  Just
> for the record, how does crime in general compare?  Does the 20 times
> figure (one tenth of 200) still apply? (Might be interesting to compare
> these figures, particularly the armed vs unarmed crimes.)

Alright...all the below figures are RATES, ie crimes per 100,000 population
per year, and are thus directly comparable:

The murder rate in the US varies considerably depending on where you live.
In North Dakota, it's 1.2, in New York, it's 10.3.  In Canada, by comparison,
it is 5.9.  Violent crime rates: N.Dakota, 67, New York 841, Canada 592.
Property crimes, N.D. 2405, NY 5792, Canada 4672.  New Jersey is similar
to Canada on all counts.  In general, the denser the population, the 
higher the crime rates.  The US is more urbanized than Canada.  But 
if you're moving, you can (should) pick your spot...

By the way, the "handgun deaths" figures the gun-haters quote is quite
misleading; the number of homocides per year my almanac lists for 
Canada is 1400.  Canada's pistol laws seem only to have altered the
*distribution by weapon* of its murders.

--JoSH