Date: Mon, 10 Jul 95 10:14:18 CST From: "jim blair" To: alt-politics-economics@cs.utexas.edu, alt-politics-libertarian@cs.utexas.edu,cardin@ix.netcom.com Cc: BCc: Subject: Europe vs USA: the Latest OECD Info! USA vs EUROPE and the INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD? Much has been make on the net about the US and Europe being different: the US as more "libertarian" and Europe as more "welfare/socialist" Both sides tend to agree with this, and cite figures of 20% GNP going through government in the US vs 30-40% in Europe, Canada and Japan This idea has some LIMITED merit, but is overdrawn: if you add state and local taxes to federal figures for the USA, it is more like the 30% of the other industrial nations (most of them don't have state taxes in addition to the national taxes). And most European countries plus Canada are cutting back "social services" that they are discovering they can't afford. They and we are (for better or worse) very much alike: what are called "capitalist liberal democracies" in THE END of HISTORY and the LAST MAN. See my book review at http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/4834/42.txt I think the biggest differences between Europe/Japan/Canada and the US are in the attitudes towards guns and cars. Did you see the report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (in Paris) that was just released? It was summarized in the Sunday paper. It claims that accounting for income, prices and taxes, people in the USA are better off than those anywhere else except Luxembourg. They rate Luxembourg at 130, USA 120, Switzerland 115, Japan 108, with Belgium and Norway tied at 106. Germany is 102 and Italy 101. Their numbers are units on a scale of 0 to 200 and are only meaningful relative to each other. But they claim almost all Europeans have a harder time making ends meet than Americans do. It is good to keep things in perspective. And note that there is not much difference (percentage wise) between people in any of these countries: the BIG difference is between ANY of these and the 3rd world people. . Date: Fri, 2 Jun 95 07:37:41 CST From: "jim blair" To: pjvm@euronet.nl,alt-politics-economics@cs.utexas.edu Cc: BCc: Subject: Guns & pizza: the US and Europe I have been reading and posting to this group for about 8 months but didn't know that it is "a European newsgroup" until I saw your post. Since the posters are from all over the world, and the topics cover everything (not even limited to economics) just what does it mean to be a European newsgroup? But I don't mean to put you down or off. You raised some sensitive and emotional issues in your post and I think your questions deserve some considered answers. I will try. USA vs EUROPE and the INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD I assume you saw Dan Day's several pages of data correlating GRI (LEGAL availability of guns) with lower crime rates for the 50 US states. (If you haven't, I can e-mail it to you) But where would the various European countries fit if included? They all have 0 GRI, but how do their crime rates compare to US states? My impression is comparable property crime but lower homicide. Is that accurate? I hear of blatant purse snatching in most major European cities, but fewer murders-and especially many fewer deaths by guns. We have all seen the figures showing a typical year with around 10,000 gun deaths in the USA vs 10-50 in almost any other industrialized country in the world. Even correcting for the larger population, the US is much higher. Murder rates are reported to be much lower Europe and Japan than in the US. (of course, in a country of very clever killers, the "murder rate" would be LOW; the "unfortunate accident" rate HIGH) There are two ways to look at guns, and two different kinds of society that result. If NO ONE ELSE has a gun, there is no need for ME to have one either. But if many OTHERS have guns, and especially criminals, then I NEED one for protection. These two views correspond to the European and American thinking. LOTS of WAYS to SLANT the RESULTS Supporters of guns want to restrict the discussion to crime, and stress that interviews with criminals in prison reveal that they fear a potential victim with a gun more than they fear the police. They want to dismiss the cases of unstable people shooting up restaurants, trains and work places as being anomalous "nut cases". Opponents of guns include suicide deaths and accidents and stress "emotion surge" cases of someone with no record of a criminal past grabbing a gun and shooting someone in a moment of anger. Where is the TRUTH? It is clear to me that the "emotion surge" and "nut case" deaths would be lower if guns were less available. (But there is always nerve gas and explosives for the determined "nut case") On the suicides, guns make it easy, but I recall Sweden and Japan having high rates and with guns not being very available, they find other ways. Drive-by shooting victims and bystanders of gang fights would be safer if guns were less available. Many gun advocates recognize the need for safety, and want trigger locks and/or keeping guns unloaded. But this is not consistent with the reason for the gun: PROTECTION. It must be loaded and easy to grab. And if kids find it while playing? MY BIAS No one is completely objective on the subject of guns. I would rather live in a society where no one has a gun than one where everyone has one. But I also am enough of a realist to know that this won't happen in the US in the near future. Maybe someday, but not in my lifetime. And some of the token measures proposed (city wide gun bans, as recently passed in Madison, are less than useless). I do support stopping the sale to civilians of military hardware: assault rifles, machine guns, artillery, stingers, tactical nuclear warheads, etc. I have always believed in the "original intent" doctrine of interpreting the constitution: it means just exactly what the authors meant when they wrote it. Meaning does not evolve with time. So to me, the second amendment is clear: everyone in a well regulated militia is free to have a muzzle loading flintlock rifle. THE FACTOR that DARE NOT BE DISCUSSED Much has been made of the comparison of gun deaths in two cities that are similar in many ways: Seattle and Vancouver. Gun deaths are much higher in the US city (where guns are readily available) than in the Canadian one (where they are banned). Point for gun control? But looking deeper shows another disturbing factor. The difference is due almost entirely to deaths of and/or by African-Americans. Arson rates are also higher in Seattle especially in the mostly black sections of the city. Comment from: cybershooters@compuserve.com (sent in erly 2004): >Canada has 2% blacks and the US has 12% blacks, however the point about >guns being banned in Vancouver is wrong, gun ownership in Vancouver is >actually pretty common, this is where I always thought this study fell >over, it's pretty easy to get a gun license in Canada, although you can't >keep a gun for self-defence, but that's hardly likely to stop someone from >committing murder. Hi, Been busy and so slow to reply. That study implied guns are tightly controlled in Canada, and when I went to Montreal several years ago they made a big deal of asking about guns in our car and stressing the restrictions on guns in Canada as compared to the US. No "Second Ammendment when we cross the border" etc. But when I saw Bolling For Columbine, in the discussion between Michael Moore and Charlton Heston, Heston pointed out that gun ownership in Canada (and I assume in Vancouver) is not much different than in the US. That would be a point against gun control as the explanation for the difference in firearm-related homicide rates. I mean maybe restricting just who can have a gun makes a big difference, but that sound less plausable if there are as many guns around. When Michael Moore was on a talk show (with host Jon Stewart as I recall) he said Heston lost his case when suggested that ethnic differences were the real reason for the higher firearm-related homicide rates. Because Seattle and Vancouver have a similar percent of "minorities". Of course he didn't point out that the word "minority" has a different meaning in Seattle than it does in Vancouver. But "minority" in Vancouver means immigrants from Asia. Asian immigrants in the US often live in poverty but their kids do well in school, and no one worries about then becoming an underclass. We all know their poor kids will grow up to go to college and become doctors and scientists, and in a generation will be above the average income. But the African-Americans will continue to drop out of school and fall into poverty, and kill each other with guns. If the rate of firearm-related homicides was as low in the US Black population as it is in the US Asian population, the difference between the US and Canada would be gone. It has also been pointed out that the arson rate in Seattle is about as much higher than in Vancouver as the gun death rate. Should we ban matches in the US? cybershooters@compuserve.com >Canada has a more substantial welfare state anyway, I think poverty >probably is the driving force behind higher levels of crime generally in >much of the US. Look at Brazil, South Africa and Jamaica for example, >which have the highest rates of armed crime in the world - and very high >levels of poverty. Yes, but are you using these as examples of crime being caused by poverty or by the Black population? You need some examples of high crime and low or no Blacks. In Wisconsin, African Americans are about 5-6% of the population, but about half of the prison population. Asians are about 2% of the population but are so rare in prison that I can't even find any numers for them. My wife worked as a prison librarian for 25 years and commented that she had seen only one Asian inmate. I know that critics don't accept that African Americans actually commit more crimes, and claim that the larger prison inmate numbers prove that "the system" is racist and the cops target Blacks. Of course the sex ratio imbalance is even greater: over half the state population is female but the prison population is about 90% male. But it IS politically acceptable to say that more men are in prison because more men are criminals. Also the "racism" explanation would imply that the cops and courts are biased in favor of Asians over Whites. Here in Madison much was made of the high rate of traffic tickets given to African Americans. They are about 5% of the Madison/Dane county population but got about 13% of the total tickets given. I wrote a letter to the paper on this an pointed out that Asians (who are also about 5% of the populatio here) got under 1% of the traffic tickets. If those radar guns are targeting Blacks more than Whites, they are also targeting Whites over Asians. Is it BECAUSE of race? Maybe. But there is at least one other possible explanation. Almost all the Asian kids in Vancouver (and in the US) have a father that is married to their mother. This is not the case for most poor African-American kids. The statistics on kids raised by one parent are grim. They are a MAJORITY of the men in prison for violent crimes. They are over 80% of the juveniles in trouble with the law. The are most of the kids who drop out of school. I refer you to the Atlantic Monthly for April, 1991 and the article "Dan Quayle Was Right" by Barbara Defoe Whitehead. There is a lot of information there, but it is probably best summarized by sociologist David Popenoe who says: "Social science research is almost never conclusive. There are always methodological difficulties and stones left unturned. Yet in three decades of work as a social scientist, I know of few other bodies of data in which the weight of evidence is so decisively on one side of the issue: on the whole, for children, two parent families are preferable to single-parent and stepfamilies." Is this the key to our gun/crime problem? This directed to pjvm@euronet.nl (in the Netherlands): PS: There is a certain lack of gratitude in criticizing the US for getting into wars, when our biggest one in this century was to liberate you from Nazi occupation. A REPLY: From joneth@ral.mindspring.com At 06:49 PM 11/9/97 -0500, you wrote: > >I've just read your article "Guns and Pizza," and would like to comment. >Some European countries have especially strict gun control laws, (UK, Japan >too) but others have more lax laws. Gun ownership rates are higher in >Denmark and Switzerland than they are in the US. IIRC, Israel is third in >gun ownership with the US fourth. Hi, Yes, I should add that to my file. > >WRT child access to guns intended for personal defense: there are products >on the market which allow quick access to firearms with no child access: >safes with Simplex locks and the like. See the rec.guns FAQ at: http://www.recguns.com/XIIIB3.html >For broad information on gun control, the Libertarian >Alliance has two excellent articles at: http://www.digiweb.com/igeldard/LA/political.htm >Numbers 33 and 47 are the most relevant, but the whole >website is chock full of information. I have heard of "trigger locks", but they clearly reduce access time. The lock boxes and small safes described in your URL are probably better. But the entire box can still be stolen and opened later. And they still reduce access time. There was mention on TV of a "personal ID" gun that fires only for its owner. But the report indicated (not very clear on this), that the owner must be wearing a bracelet with a special coded microchip for it to work. I don't think this is likely to be practical. But maybe if carrying a pistol were legal, people would wear such a bracelet all the time as a way to deter potential muggers. This might serve to reduce crime and also reduce accidents. If the technology is really ready, I would like to see some state try it. > >It seems that too often people, in general, respond to a problem by saying, >"There ought to be a law!" instead of working to fix the problem themselves. I agree. > >A guy posting to talk.politics.guns from the Netherlands recently said >criminals can buy locally made guns easily in Amsterdam. I own a copy of TM >31-210 "Improvised Munitions Handbook" an Army technical manual which >details how to make handguns, explosives and other naughty things, so the >information is out there. It would be nice to live in a world where murders >didn't occur, but we won't be able to legislate weapons out of existance. > >On the constitutional point you bring up, the second ammendment recognizes >the right to bear "arms". It doesn't say "muskets". Does the first >ammendment only protect the forms of speech that were available in the 18th >century? The musket was the assault rifle of its day. There are several schools of thought about how the US Constition should be interpreted. Generally it is the liberal/left that has wanted to extend the original intent to cover new things. In effect to create new "rights". But, except for the 2nd Ammendment, the conservative/right has supported the original intent idea: it means just what the founders meant when they wrote it. They didn't SAY muskets, but they meant muskets, pistols and Kentucky long rifles. Single shot weapons I don't see a problem with the freedom of speech part since "press" is included. Radio is just "speech at a distance", and the internet is just "electronic press". And there is some dispute about just who is free to do what in the internet. Recall the recent "internet decency law". But in the case of "arms", I think the ability to destroy entire cities really puts nuclear arms outside of what the first Congress had in mind. >If you're looking for a compromise position, some have >suggested the 2nd Ammendment protects the right to >"bearable" arms; those that can be carried. With the >reference to "militia", the ammendment could be taken to >protect the sorts of weapons light infantry would carry; >including assault rifles, machine guns and grenade >launchers. However, this limitation conflicts with the >implications of ... >And what about the "Letters of Marquis and Reprisal" clause? Sorry, that does not ring a bell. Explain? >Article I, Section 8: Powers granted to Congress, clause 11: >"To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, >and make rules concerning captures on land and water;" >My dictionary defines "letter of marque" as a "license >granted by a state to a private citizen to capture the >merchant ships of another nation". It's state >sanctioned piracy, like what Sir Francis Drake did. The >implication here is that private citizens would have >access to their own *warships* which they could use to >capture enemy shipping. >Now, the Constitution gives Congress the power to grant >such permission, it does not say that Congress must do >so. But still, it gives you an idea of just how much >firepower the Founders were willing to trust in the >hands of private citizens. >Alex Joneth Very interesting. But today there are nuclear weapons that can be carried by a single person. Machine guns are banned. I agree that the whole "assault rifle" thing has become a stupid political issue. The line between legal and illegal should be drawn between self-defense and excessive harm to others when used by a nut. ANOTHER REPLY: From: saturn@crash.cts.com (Elaine Gallegos) Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.usa.misc,alt.p olitics.usa.republican Date: 5 Oct 1995 16:21:45 GMT Subject: Re: GUNS and PIZZA: the USA and EUROPE jim blair (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu) wrote: : THE FACTOR that DARE NOT BE DISCUSSED Much has been made of the comparison of gun deaths in two cities that are similar in many ways: Seattle and Vancouver. Gun deaths are much higher in the US city (where guns are readily available) than in the Canadian one (where they are banned). Point for gun control? But looking deeper shows another disturbing factor. The difference is due almost entirely to deaths of and/or by African-Americans...jeb >Elaine Gallegos: > Oh, like it's a real well kept secret that young black males are >disproportionately violent. In the U.S., 1/3 of ALL black males are >either in jail on parole, have charges pending, or are otherwise >evolved on the wrong side of the justice system. > The black influence of crime in the U.S. is evident in just a few of >the statistics- > Violent young black males constitute no more than 1% of the population, >yet a whopping 40% of violent crime can be attributed to them. > If the gun related crimes by blacks were factored out, the U.S. would >not be any more violent than most of Europe. > Over the last 20 years, gun related deaths in the white community have >actually gone DOWN. The rise in gun deaths is strictly limited to the >black community. ..eg Elaine, I did not say that this is not well known. I said it dare not be discussed. It is seldom openly analyzed in the press. Any attempt to do so is met with cries of "racism" and "insensitivity". Critics usually don't claim that it is not TRUE, only that it is racist and insensitive (which it is). :Poverty breeds crime and violence you say? Vancouver also has a poor lower : class. But they are recent immigrants from Asia. They live in poverty but : their kids do well in school, and no one worries about them becoming an : underclass. We all know their poor kids will grow up to go to college and : become doctors and scientists, and in a generation will be above the : average income. But the African-Americans will continue to drop out of : school and fall into poverty, and kill each other with guns. : Is it BECAUSE of race? Maybe. But there is at least one other possible : explanation. Almost all the Asian kids in Vancouver (and in the US) : have a father who is married to their mother. This is not the case for : most poor African-American kids. Is this the key to our gun/crime :problem? ..jeb > You know many of the black Americans' ancestors have only been in the >U.S. for about a hundred years. In addition, the black community here >has traditionally been an isolated one....eg Your time frame is off by several hundred years. Negro slaves (as they were called then) were brought to the New World by Columbus. The first slave ships came to Virginia in 1619 and they were openly imported into the US until the trade was prohibited in 1808, and smuggled in until the 1850's. It is hard to give a time limit on "black" American ancestors since most have European ancestors also. Malcom X had a "white" grandfather, for example. This is another topic that is not discussed much. ..jeb >I believe that it is legitimate to look to Africa for clues to the >nature of the recent decedents of native Africans. > The African have their own culture. Africans and their immediate >decedents are not chocolate dipped white people.--eg But African-Americans are not African by culture. None can trace their heritage to any tribe in Africa. And those tribes are quite different from each other. When Marion Barry or some other "leaders" put on "African" garb, it is a joke. When I see that, I imagine David Duke dressed in "generic European": a French beret, Scot kilts and wooden shoes. And for some reason, other people aren't laughing.--jeb >Those of African decent are going to be influenced by millions of years >of having evolved in Africa. Life for Africans would be considered >violent by many of the west. Traditionally, they lived in villages, and >the young males engaged in warfare with neighboring tribes. This was >real warfare, with some tribes such as the Zulus gaining reputations and >status for being the "baddest" tribe around.--eg But the slaves shipped to America didn't come from powerful tribes like the Zulu, but from the conquered tribes.--jeb >If one is still not convinced that native Africans can be violent, look >into the recent history of Rwanda. ..eg Certainly unfortunate. But the same can be said of Yugoslavia. --jeb Just WHEN did this problem start? (And what IS the PROBLEM??) It is common for both white Liberals and Blacks to blame the problems of Blacks in America on the history of slavery. And some blame it on life in Africa. I think these have no bearing on the case. This is not a consequence of evolution, but of the policies of the US in the 1960's. Recall that by the 1930's Negroes in the US had much the same values as the rest of the country. The rate of illegitimate births was similar, at around 5%. It was after the government began paying single girls to drop out of school and have babies that this became a serious problem. People THINK that crime and gangs and drugs and failure in school are our "social problems", but I think they are wrong. Our "problem" is single women having babies and trying to raise them without fathers. All those other "social problems" are just the CONSEQUENCES.---jeb > Traditionally, what happens is that the young males go to war. The >weakest ones are killed off. The strongest warriors return home to >father the children. Tribal Africans didn't have marriages as we know >them. Many of the physically weaker men were killed off in the tribal >wars. The remaining warriors had to be shared. As food and other >resources were abundant, the male was needed to do nothing more for his >families but donate sperm. He may very well die in the next tribal war >anyway. > This pattern is the exact same one that American blacks follow today- >The young males fight for territory. They tend not to marry in a western >sense. The state supports the families, so the males need do nothing >more than donate sperm for the next generation.--eg Another comment referred to men in general as being driven by testosterone. This may be true; I fancy my self to be logical, and in favor of moral behavior. But when a pretty woman smiles at me, hey maybe a little sperm donation is OK....jeb ,,,,,,, _______________ooo___( O O )___ooo_______________ (_) jim blair (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu) Madison Wisconsin USA. This message was brought to you using biodegradable binary bits, and 100% recycled bandwidth. .