People are killing People !

[kandrathe]

I wanted to respond to a couple of other items in your earlier post now that I have a little more time.

Interesting, especially for its harsh indictment of the spread of firearms. They clearly believe that guns are bad, and their prevalence accounts of a huge number of deaths in the US relative to other countries.

True, but I'm not holding that against them. Idealistically, wouldn't eat be nice if we could just all frolic in clover, hugging each other and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the sunshine. Until that day, however, some of us would still like to have the option of defending ourselves.

However, only one of those statistics has a comparative component showing a worsening over time. (There are a couple that say "have not declined since", but that means things are staying the same, not getting worse.) That would be the claim that, in 1933, 75% of deaths between 15-19 were natural causes, whereas in 1993 80% of deaths for that bracket were murders. The rest of the statistics would have to be compared to an equivalent series of data to support a claim that these numbers are up from earlier times.

There are a few issues with that. First is the timing: 1933 was during the depression, and 1993 was during the crack boom. So, in the first instance, "natural causes" like disease and starvation would be up, whereas in 1993, murders would be way up. The 10 years after 1993 were not as violent. Etc...

You make a good point here. Yes, it would be nice to compare more specifics of mortality rates. I would also like to see it done regionally. There is a big difference between a small town, a small city, and a major metropolis.

There is something different about the society of today, and that of 1933 beyond the propensity of the media to plaster the headlines with blood and carnage.