Posted by Leaky girl on August 03, 2005 at 21:07 [12.210.177.22]
In Reply to: Actually, the US is safer... posted by Dill Pickle on July 30, 2005 at 13:38
Agreed.
The media loves to sensationalize crime and violence because it gets them ratings and sells newspapers. Reporting "crime is down and you're safer now than you've ever!" doesn't sell.
By the actual statistics, the US is safer than it's ever been, crime is way down. For example, I walk three miles every night back from campus to my apartment because I don't have a car and the busses don't run by the time I get done with my night classes, I can walk three miles through a city of a quarter million people at night every night for almost a year and never have any problem with crime.
Much of the credit is being given to tough sentencing laws passed in the 90's: if you commit a serious crime, you're going away for a long time, and many career criminals are behind bars because of it.
Also, don't see guns as a problem. Carrying guns is a basic civil liberty: the right to defend yourself by any neccesary force. Honestly, I'm just as scared to go to England because if I'm attacked, I'll go to jail if I defend myself if somebody assaults me.
We have a saying here: "Fear the government that fears your guns"
Also, states that have legalized concealed weapons have reported sharp drops in crime, because frankly criminals hate armed victims, while places that have much stricter firearms controls, have much higher crime rates involving firearms, because only criminals have guns in those cases.
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