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by cm2187
3799 days ago
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The problem with these types of comparison is that you are comparing very different populations with very different cultures. If you could compare populations like that, then for instance the idea of banning guns to reduce the number of shootings in the US would be defeated by the example of Switzerland where pretty much every man has an assault riffle at home, and where you see little to no crime, and certainly no mass shooting. But the reality is that Swiss citizens behave differently than US citizens. |
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The comparison shows that it is possible to have low violent crime rates and low incarceration rates. After seeing that this is possible, I cannot understand why a country like the US would not go after these two goals. I am inclined to suspect that it has something to do with turning the prison system into a private business and the predominance of puritanism in American culture.
And let's not exaggerate the cultural differences between the US and Europe. We are talking about western democracies, stemming from the same intellectual source (the Enlightenment) and the same genetic source: the US was created by Europeans, and mostly consists to this day of people of European descent (yes, including "hispanics", as the name implies).
> the idea of banning guns to reduce the number of shootings in the US would be defeated by the example of Switzerland
The idea that banning guns is a requirement to have a peaceful society is effectively defeated by the Swiss example. It show that private gun ownership cannot be the ultimate cause of the problem.
By the way, the graph that is shown somewhere else, comparing incarceration and violent crime rates, shows no correlation between the two. A concept of "eras" has to be introduced to allow one to talk about these two metrics together.