I don't get liberal gun laws.

[ckafrica]

This is totally anecdotal as I have not the links or statistics.

Someone a while back did a survey and found that countries without liberal gun ownership like Canada and England had much higher rates of home invasions (robberies while residents were home) than those that the US. When asking some US B&E types why this was so; many said "and what get a gun in your face and blow your head off?" Conversely though the percentage of fatal home invasions were higher because those that were prone to invade a home knew that folks like have a gun and so would waste them so as to prevent them from fighting back.

Same was reported to me when I was south Africa where many people travel armed at all times. Robbers there often just kill you so you can't fight back.

All I can say is I'm glad I live in a safe country like Vietnam....

[Neeek]

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Someone a while back did a survey and found that countries without liberal gun ownership like Canada and England had much higher rates of home invasions (robberies while residents were home) than those that the US

I seem to recall hearing that people in Canada routinely don't lock their doors as a matter of course.

Also, I'm pretty sure most Canadians have guns. IIRC, hunting is pretty popular up there.

[CalibronXXX]

1194369311[/unixtime]]

1194346024[/unixtime]]
Someone a while back did a survey and found that countries without liberal gun ownership like Canada and England had much higher rates of home invasions (robberies while residents were home) than those that the US

I seem to recall hearing that people in Canada routinely don't lock their doors as a matter of course.

Also, I'm pretty sure most Canadians have guns. IIRC, hunting is pretty popular up there.

It's the same way, on every count, in a lot of rural America. Rising Sun, my home, is somewhat backwoods, but not to a great extent, and the only time we lock our doors is when we go on vacation.

[Lago_AM3P]

Someone a while back did a survey and found that countries without liberal gun ownership like Canada and England had much higher rates of home invasions (robberies while residents were home) than those that the US

I won't get into the statistics here because I don't have them on hand nor do I know where to look them up. But I seriously, seriously doubt that the US has a lower home invasion rate while simultaneously having higher crime statistics in all other categories.

At any rate I can see what you're getting at, but this runs into a problem with game theory on two levels.

1.) When a person is strictly taking the assailant role and one person has to be the defender then the attacker generally wins. This is because the defender has to defend against all avenues of attack but the attacker only has to pick one. The only hope defenders have is to have some overwhelming defensive advantage (like video cameras and armed guards) but even this doesn't stop banks and stores from being robbed.

2.) The above problem is intensified when you consider that the defender can only escalate their situation so much--even if a home was credibly armed with guns a potential attacker can still secure an advantage the defender can't match. For example, a burglar can just wait until the defender isn't home or he can grab more buddies.

A home with a gunowner in it is safer if only all these conditions are met:

1) The gunowner is at the home at the time of the invasion.
2) The assailant knows the gunowner is there at the time of invasion.
3) The gunowner is in a position to defend the home and the assailant knows it (for example, not in the bathtub or asleep).
4) The assailant believes that the house doesn't have some other hazards to it, like a guard dog or a security alarm.
5) The assailant can choose to attack a similarly tempting home that doesn't fit the above criteria.
6) The assailant is not attracted to the home in the first place because of the armory. For example, they actually want to steal the guns or believe that the armament is indicative of some sort of guarded treasure.
7) They're not attacking the home because of a motive not connected with profit--for example gang initiation or revenge.

If these conditions are not met then a gunowner will not decrease the chance of a house getting targetted for break-in. While waiting for this event you're owning a dangerous weapon that can hurt or kill the other people in the household as opposed to something like vigorous police protection or a guard dog.

[CalibronXXX]

1 guard dog is not as good as a gun for home defense if the assailant knows about it. 1d4+1 guard dogs should certainly cover it though.

[Lago_AM3P]

Again, I don't have the statistics to back this assertion up so feel free to correct me.

Banks and stores are significantly riskier targets for robberies than homes are. But robberies of these locales are much higher in the United States than in other countries.

So if locales with greater risk towards the assailant still find themselves victims of these sorts of crimes, why would protecting a locale with a significantly less capable arsenal be effective

Mind you, there might be more bank robberies if they weren't armed up the wazoo. But the fact that robberies of armed locales are still disproportionately high in the United States might indicate that another method of dealing with this problem is called for.

[Koumei]

Buy new curtains and get a dog. Problem solved.

Or better yet, get a bear for home defence. I mean, come on!

[ckafrica]

1194369311[/unixtime]]

I seem to recall hearing that people in Canada routinely don't lock their doors as a matter of course.

Also, I'm pretty sure most Canadians have guns. IIRC, hunting is pretty popular up there.

Well being a canadian, many people in smaller communities don't lock their doors all the time; my house for example in a city of 300,000. But a lot do, at least when they are not home and even when they are at home. Don't believe everything Michael Moore tells you; he likes to make facts fit his story. Most people in the city don't have guns and if they do they are locked up and put away with ammo stored in a separate. You are not supposed to keep hand guns in your home anymore. We do not keep firearms for home protection.

I won't get into the statistics here because I don't have them on hand nor do I know where to look them up. But I seriously, seriously doubt that the US has a lower home invasion rate while simultaneously having higher crime statistics in all other categories.

Home invasion is a B&E when the residents are home. It could have been the proportion of B&Es that were home invasions are higher elsewhere.
Smart criminals don't do them period unless they there would be sufficient extra reward from doing it because it increases the risk factors; especially if some might have a gun. But for those you don't care, cause their desperate or crazy or whatever, if they know the people might have guns they are more prone to just blast them so they can't fight back. Henceforth having a high prevalence of easily accessable guns appears to actually increase the likelihood of being involved in a fatal encounter even though it might reduce the likelihood of violent encounters. If you're not likely to have a gun they might just rough you up. If they think you've got one why would they take the chance?

[cthulhu]

There are more bank robberies in vancover than in the US.

So clearly canadians are bank robbing ninjas.

On a more serious note the canadian bank robberies per captia is much lower than the US, but vancover is insanly high for some reason.


Apparently.

[ckafrica]

1194413625[/unixtime]]There are more bank robberies in vancover than in the US.

So clearly canadians are bank robbing ninjas.

On a more serious note the canadian bank robberies per captia is much lower than the US, but vancover is insanly high for some reason.


Apparently.

I've only been to Vancouver once for a few days but it might be because it would be a good city to have car chases. Why else do people rob banks for than to have cool get-away chases?:jump:

[Crissa]

Why dis Michael Moore when he's right?

-Crissa

[Koumei]

Do you mean "in this specific instance", or are you saying he's right about pretty much every word he's written?

[tzor]

1194508621[/unixtime]]Why dis Michael Moore when he's right?

Michael More is never "right."
He's "left." Everyone knows that.

They do say that a broken analogue clock tells the correct time twice every day. Not that I'm comparing more with a broken clock. Clearly the later gets it right more times than Moore does.

[Crissa]

Yes, because having no points to quibble about in his last movie sure makes him so much more wrong.

-Crissa

[tzor]

Well I've never seen any of his movies so I don't have any points to quibble with at all. I do know that I do recall several Canadians wondering what all the Canada worship was in his movie and complaining, "dude the grass isn't really greener on this side of the fence." Given the general sloppy nature of Moore's documentaries throughout his entire history (well packaged shit is still shit) I generally don't pay much attention to his BS.

Some Truths About Socialized Medicine - GATHER.COM

Health Care in Canada - GATHER.COM


I thought the following was really important: "Shirley's cousin was diagnosed with a heart blockage. Put on a waiting list . Died before he could get treatment." In the US you would typically be thrown into multiple bypass surgery before you can blink an eye. No waiting! Shirley's cousin should not have died! You have to love Canada here!

[PhoneLobster]

If you think Moore is full of BS because you think that the US health system is more functional than anyone else's...

Well I think you may have bigger issues than needing someone to point out what is and isn't quality journalism/documentary making.

[tzor]

1194553486[/unixtime]]If you think Moore is full of BS because you think that the US health system is more functional than anyone else's...

No I just think Moore is full of BS ...
I don't think the US system is functional ...
I also don't think the other systems are perfect ...
All systems have their own special levels of suck ...

I would prefer to fix a broken system than to replace it with another broken system which may or may not be less broken than our current system but more than likely is equally broken only broken differently.

[CalibronXXX]

Completely national health care is certainly something I do not want to see happen in the U.S. in my lifetime. If I were a canadian I wouldn't have ever gotten approved to get my deviated (nasal)septum fixed(caused by a car accident that wasn't my fault). Not that we're going to see anything like that as long as the insurance industry is as lucrative and lobbied(is that a word?) as it is; as amoral and ruthless as insurance companies are I feel it is still better than not actually getting treated for things you should to be treated for.

[Neeek]

1194553880[/unixtime]]Completely national health care is certainly something I do not want to see happen in the U.S. in my lifetime. If I were a canadian I wouldn't have ever gotten approved to get my deviated (nasal)septum fixed(caused by a car accident that wasn't my fault). Not that we're going to see anything like that as long as the insurance industry is as lucrative and lobbied(is that a word?) as it is; as amoral and ruthless as insurance companies are I feel it is still better than not actually getting treated for things you should to be treated for.

I find this sort of position completely baffling. Why is it people seem to think there are only the utterly stupid way we do things here, and the way they do things in Canada? I was in Austria last summer, and one of the people I was with was severely injured while roller-blading. He was in surgery within half an hour of the accident, despite not being a citizen of that country, and it didn't cost him a dime. You really can have it both ways. There really are systems that get more care for less cost than the one we have now.

[cthulhu]

Public health care and a parallel private system seem to be.. the obvious contender.

[CalibronXXX]

1194561165[/unixtime]]I find this sort of position completely baffling. Why is it people seem to think there are only the utterly stupid way we do things here, and the way they do things in Canada? I was in Austria last summer, and one of the people I was with was severely injured while roller-blading. He was in surgery within half an hour of the accident, despite not being a citizen of that country, and it didn't cost him a dime. You really can have it both ways. There really are systems that get more care for less cost than the one we have now.

Systems like this can work in smaller more population dense places like Europe, Australia and Japan. If it works out great for those people then more power to them, but given current medical technology, medical staffing, and the "efficiency" of the bureaucracy that is the norm in the U.S. I'd prefer the relatively safer alternative of mostly private health care. I'm not saying it'll never work, it most likely will eventually, but it would almost certainly be way too subpar in the current economic and political climate.

Personally I'm all for socializing a number of necessary institutions, but I don't think it would work right now.

Being spread out is also one of the main reasons that we can't have awesome public transportation like Japan and some European countries.

[cthulhu]

1194567510[/unixtime]]
Systems like this can work in smaller more population dense places like Europe, Australia and Japan.

Australia has population density?

Australia is the poster child for low density everything. Sydney is like the least dense urban area in the world, and our population density is a low low levels.

Did you mean austria? (I'm confused because australia has a public/private hybrid system)

[PhoneLobster]

Couple of points.

Well one really.

Private health does NOT coexist nicely with a parallel public system, (as evidenced by the Howard governments assault on one of the best public health systems in the world)

Also the very concept of private health is amoral and despicable.

Fortunately private health is also massively stupid and inefficient, and down right murderous, so there's no reason at all to institute it.

The only reason anyone thinks to the contrary is a massive anti government, anti socialist, anti refraining from killing poor people, propaganda campaign brought about by the forces of utter stupidity.

Seriously, when people in the REAL world talk about how much private health sucks as a solution they (rightly) point to the US as an example of everything terrible.

When people in the US, and imaginary fairy land, talk about how terrible socialism is they point (oddly) to their own dysfunctional health system as an example of everything good.

Only one of those two groups is right, either the US system is a piece of crap that leaves vast swathes of the population without health coverage or it isn't. So one of those two groups are craven liars and idiots promoting an agenda that kills little children.

Also, the "spread out" thing is utterly ridiculous.

Australia has very serious issues with being spread out. We may have a few dense population centres but we have much smaller populations spread out over vast distances. Private health will NEVER serve the majority of those communities because the expense of setting up in such remote and poor regions is never worth it compared to the profits.

Also the same goes for vast distances and public transport.

And for telecommunications.

And all sorts of public socialist services.

Private enterprise just has this eccentric little hang up about vast infrastructure and expense for only small gains.

Which, oddly touches on the reason why putting your health in the hands of a group trying to make a profit off you is really exceptionally stupid.

[CalibronXXX]

1194579393[/unixtime]]

1194567510[/unixtime]]
Systems like this can work in smaller more population dense places like Europe, Australia and Japan.

Australia has population density?

Australia is the poster child for low density everything. Sydney is like the least dense urban area in the world, and our population density is a low low levels.

Did you mean austria? (I'm confused because australia has a public/private hybrid system)

Isn't the majority of Australia inhabited solely by kangaroos, crocs, and the occasional aboriginal tribe? Most of the industrialized society sticks to a handful of the best areas, or am I completely wrong? This could be the case since I did no research and don't know much about Australia in the first place; such as that you've got a hybrid health care system rather than a fully public one, as Neeek implied.

[Cielingcat]

I think the main arguments I've heard against socialized medicine are "there are long waiting lines and you die before you get treatment" and "you get inferior treatment because the doctor doesn't have any incentive to do anything."

I don't know what the hell people are basing these arguments on, but those are the things that get parroted.