Examples:
1. white caucasians commit more crime in the Canada than all other ethnic groups combined!
2. In Sweden the common cold is more lethal than HIV!
In my opinion article exemplifies the antithesis of a decent argument or even ligitimate journalism.
i.e., there's a Z which does Y, and it's a tiny, tiny problem that nobody considers to be an actual threat. e.g., toddlers murdering people.
And then there's an X, which is even less dangerous than that, namely terrorism.
And then there's a response to this X, which has trampled on basic civil rights, privacy and the constitution in the form of mass surveillance, and shows few signs of slowing. Further, there's another response which is inciting hysteria, fear, ignorance and increasingly racism towards a minority who hate terrorism as much as anyone.
That's what this article implies, and it's completely true. It presents an absurdity of threat vs response that has lost all sensibility, an absurdity that, though has been mentioned before many times in various articles, still hasn't resonated with the general public and media.
- higher gun ownership rate does not cause higher gun related homicides (check Switzerland or Finland compare to US) - lower gun ownership rate does not cause lower mass shootings (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...)
I don't understand why people try to make these conclusions.
Here is the list of gun ownership broken down by countries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_c...
Firearm related death by countries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...
For starters it has fairly strict gun laws (essentially no carry permits, gun safes, etc.).
Second the reason for the high gun ownership is the mandatory military service (no standing army) - you can purchase your service weapon at the end of your service period. And for the service weapon the ammunition is stored at the armory - not at home. And without ammunition I would think killing someone with a gun is much more difficult.
Hmm what you are saying is that gun laws have an impact on gun related death? I totally agree. Lets create a study that tells us how can we drive down the gun related death in the US by better laws. That has all of my support.
The rest I agree.
Indeed, the original article dismisses drunk teenagers as a non-threat. Drunk teenagers almost certainly kill more people than toddlers with guns.
Traffic fatalities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...
Gun fatalities: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states
Suicides do appear to be about 2/3 of the gun fatalities.