My intentions were not to paint a picture of guns being ubiquitous in the United States. Clearly, they aren't, considering the number of people who are anti-gun violence and anti-gun ownership.
I wasn't pulling that scenario out of my ***. There are parts of Norfolk and Newport News (VA) that are less safe for living, primarily attributable to drugs and relatable violence. That type of scenario certainly doesn't happen everyday, though.
I wanted to convey to you the differences in relatablility. Often, in debate, you insist on comparing American issues to Canadian issues, when our culture and demographical concerns can be quite different.
Don't simplify as it relates to the underpriviliged. Those who live in crime infested areas are typically imbedded in horrible cycles of dependence, themselves. If you live below or at the poverty level, it's unlikely that you can up and leave to find greener, safer pastures. Unfortunately, in our country, our underpriviliged areas are often synonymous with our more crime ridden areas.
Alceste, poverty, drug abuse, lack of education and cultural attitudes direclty correlate to crime in the United States.
You hear about the school shootings which may happen in suburbia to seemingly normal people in normal communities and gun violence does happen everywhere. IN addition to the given - mental disturbances and illnesses behind such tragedy - demographics do play a direct role in crime and violence in the United States.
This is what makes Detroit a more violent place vs. my own city. This is what makes New York a more violent place over my own city. Population, demographics, culture - all of this has an impact on crime.
As diverse as your country is - America is even moreso and we can't compare your country's demographics to our own. Honestly - it's like comparing apples to oranges.
Still, statistically, more people die each year in the US via automobile than via gun violence. That has yet to change, last I checked...
It's not apples and oranges at all. Poverty correlates strongly with crime, drug addiction, lack of education, violence, yada yada yada
everywhere in the world. Including Canada. What's unique about the US is that INSTEAD of implementing public policies that are proven to alleviate poverty, many if not most Americans seem to believe everybody should pack a gun around to defend themselves against the poor. What's the point, when the poor have guns too? All you're going to do is get more people killed.
I don't buy the argument that the US is "more diverse" than Canada. In Toronto - our largest city, the population is
fully half visible minorities. Half of those are first generation immigrants - these are people from all over the world, including refugees from extremely violent, extremely poor countries.
What we DON'T have is sprawling ghettos where the poor are all swept into a corner together and forgotten about, then blamed for their own misfortunes when those areas become hotbeds of crime, ignorance and violence. *
But even in this respect, America is not unique.
Ghettos everywhere in the world are hotbeds of crime and violence. It's just that industrialized nations generally try to
avoid creating ghettos through completely idiotic social, urban planning and economic policies. That works WAY better than guns, believe me. When they fail, as they did in the
UK and
France, surprise surprise! The resulting ghettos become hotbeds of crime and violence even there.
It's not that I don't hear you or understand your point. Wherever the poor, desperate and forgotten are concentrated, the streets are not safe. That's true everywhere. I simply disagree with you that the specific issues America is dealing with exist nowhere else in the world, or that the "everybody should get a gun" solution many Americans favour could ever be as effective at reducing violent crime as a reasonable economic policy would be.
*(With the important exception of our reservation system, which is a breeding ground for violence, crime and addiction).
