We have guns, and we have violent crime – just as we have deer and we have trout. They both live hereabouts, but one doesn’t breed the other.
Denny Bonavita
October 25, 2012
Hey, gun control boosters: Gun sales soar, but murders don’t. Why?
[I like the way he expressed that.—Joe]
A conversation between Denny Bonavita and Joan Peterson would be interesting.
Regarding Bonavita’s article, I’d point out that one of the primary factors determining the rate of gun deaths (and other deaths from violent crime) is the level of emergency medical care in the surrounding environs. There is a reason the University of Maryland Trauma Center in Baltimore is better at what it does than the Johns Hopkins Emergency Room in the same city, despite Hopkins being overall, and other than for trauma, a much better hospital. It is the same reason people get to Carnegie Hall – practice.
The takeaway I got from Mikee’s comment is that the difference between murder 1 and attempted murder is outside the hands of the perpetrator. Which leads me to my next question (not “begs the question, that is a different idiom), if it is outside the hands of the perpetrator, it is akin to luck, so how much do we want luck to play into charging and sentencing?