>>>>>Hi Jos,
>>>>>
>>>>>>Death by gun is obviously a gun related death (tautology) but the reason there was a crime committed, regardless of the weapon used, has another cause. You say the cause is gun availability. I say the crime has socio-economic causes.
>>>>>
>>>>>I agree with you, but also think that gun availability escalates the crime, so, for example, a robbery is now an homicide/death depending on the outcome <g>
>>>>
>>>>You are correct. The availability of a gun can indeed escalate the crime to a more serious one (but does not cause the crime to occur). Without weapon A the criminal would need to use weapon B, which may indeed be less effective.
>>>
>>>And without the criminal there wouldn't be a crime, but some people look at the tools rather than the root cause.
>>
>>It should be both.. if 1 kid is threatening 10 other kid with a knife, you are going to do something about that knife aren't you?
>>
>>If not, should every parent give their children guns to protect themselves? If not, what should they do when a criminal tries to kill them?
>>
>>Enlighten me, what the US should do the reduce the crime rate?
>
>It would be nice if the US made being a criminal painful, and kept repeat criminals out of society, but our court system us a joke, our law enforcement personnel are handcuffed more than the criminals, and our prison system makes life too easy when they are in, and lets them out far too early.
>
>If that changed and criminals were treated as such, we would be much safer.

This is totally unrealistic. The US has the largest imprisoned population (it reached 1% of its population from 0.75% in 2003). There is not a country in the world that has so many people jailed and yet, you are not able to get a safe society. When do you think you'd reach that? At 2, 3 or 5% ?

Explain to me why other countries are much safer with a much lower percentage of imprisoned population?

Please enlighten me...