Quote:
Originally Posted by hockeycop
Some kids off their dad in a library with a crossbow (Toronto). Some kids kill their whole family after meeting their boyfriend on a vampire website (Medicine Hat). Terrorists in Edmonton. Mounties killed in Mayerthorpe. War Criminals in Lethbridge...
|
Now, I have heard this said before many times. But nobody has been able to adequately explain why Canada has a murder rate of 1.8 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants per year while in the United States it is 5.0 homicides per 100,000 people. That's 2.8X Canada's murder rate. The "this happens everywhere" thinking may be correct, but it happens MORE in the United States.
The "correlation" vs "causation" thing may be true. I see "freer access to guns" being a cause of that 2.8X, but the correlation does not prove causation, so I have no guaranteed proof of my belief. Some have told me that it's just cultural.... Americans, coming from the American Revolution, are just more violent than Canadians. Others have said that it's the wealth gap... there are more extremely poor people in the U.S. that see no option but to join gangs, deal drugs, etc.. But do those factors explain the 2.8X and wouldn't those things suggest that there are reasons to believe that Canada, as a society, has done a better job of curtailing violent crimes like homicide?