From: "John Beamish" 

No ... gun laws do affect crime:  We have much, much more stringent gun
laws than you have; we have 1/3 the number of murders that you have.

The current (minority) federal government is the Conservative party and one
of the their major planks was their intention to cancel the gun registry. 
They're about to introduce legislation to do just that.  Who opposes this? 
Ontario, Quebec, BC and the maritimes (especially the urban part of the
population)  Who's in favour?  Alberta, Saskatchewan and, to a lesser
extent, Manitoba.

Oh ... one other group that wants to keep the legislation:  nearly all the
police forces.

Here's an interesting sets of numbers (2001 StatsCan figures -- next census
is this year, btw):

Alberta population - approximately 2,900,000 Alberta murders - 70

Ontario population - 11,410,000
Ontario murders - 170

Ontario has nearly 4 times the population but just over 2 times the number
of murders.

Why is this important?  The "mindset" in Alberta is very much
"free-wheeling, get the gubmint off my back" -- in line with that
of a significant portion of the US (anti-gay marriage, pro-gun,
pro-punishment).  In fact, when I worked out there in the early 1990's I
was amazed at just how neanderthal-like the attitudes were.




On Sun, 07 Jan 2007 23:38:50 -0500, Geo.  wrote:

> "John Beamish"  wrote in message
> news:op.tls239t6m6tn4t{at}dellblack.wlfdle.phub.net.cable.rogers.com...
>> Three citations:
>
> Great, so we know that 1) gun laws don't affect crime, 2) punishment
> laws don't affect crime. hmmm. could that be because criminals don't
> care what the gun laws are and don't worry about the punishment?
>
> Geo.

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