# is there gun violence in canada



## Roger Stepan (Nov 16, 2011)

as in the united states


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## Cafreeb12 (Oct 12, 2011)

Roger Stepan said:


> as in the united states


Well, I've been here twenty nine years and it isn't nearly as bad as the U.S. I've lived in Toronto and the last place I lived in the U.S. was Oklahoma City by comparison. Even a small city in the U.S. has more over all violent crime than I ever saw in Toronto. Every time I go home to visit I am shocked by what is going on in such a small city compared to here. I feel MUCH safer in Canada than I ever did in the U.S. which is one of the perks of living here. It is also a great place to raise kids. Our high schools don't have metal detectors and security guards with "lock downs" for searches here at all. No need for it for the most part.


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## EVHB (Feb 11, 2008)

Define "Canada".
There's probably less gun violence is a rural town with 3,000 inhabitants compared to a world city as Toronto. ;-)

In general:
List of countries by firearm-related death rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gun violence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## jemappelleKatherine (Nov 20, 2011)

I think there is a lot less violence reported by the media in Canada than actually occurs, so it just appears there is less gun violence, and less violence in general.
Where we lived in southwestern Ontario, there were a lot of things you never heard about on the news, some of which we definitely knew happened when the whole neighbourhood was blocked off with police cars and such.
Ironically, I think the high crime rate where we lived also had to do with the ridiculously high number of police officers. They have to charge everybody with everything possible (spitting on the sidewalk is a property crime) to justify their jobs.
Have studied statistics extensively at university, I generally ignore them.


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## Guest (Nov 20, 2011)

Roger Stepan said:


> as in the united states


Overall, I think one could definitely say not even close....

However, Toronto has changed considerably in the 30 years I've lived here. After the Conservative Provincial Government amalgamated/cut an awful lot of our social services, the number of gangs and the brazenness of their acts has created a lot of fear here. Literally, my neighborhood is surrounded by different gangs, who have often taken their turf war issues out in the middle of the day; it's a miracle so far, that more innocent bystanders have not been injured or killed. 

I never had that kind of fear in the Midwestern city I grew up in.


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## Ladyhawk (Sep 11, 2011)

Canada has gun violence and mass murders and racists and antisemites and all the other things you find in any society. There may be less percapita than in the US, but you still have to be careful where you choose to live, and where you walk at night especially if you are female. 
Sometimes Canadians talk as if these things only happen in the US. Statistics are used and mis-used by both sides of the debate.
I feel as safe here as I did in the US, but crime has slowly increased in my neighbourhood over the years, so I do not feel that we are morally superior here.


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## MarylandNed (May 11, 2010)

Roger Stepan said:


> as in the united states


Yes, although maybe not as rampant as in the US. I was in London, Ontario for the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend in October. I drove past a very obvious crime scene on Wellington and found out later that someone had been shot dead on the street there the night before. 

Arrest made in murder of David Arbuckle | 98.1 Free FM | London Ontario Rock Radio Station - World Class Rock London Ontario News | 98.1 Free FM | London Ontario Rock Radio Station

A couple of days later someone else was shot dead outside a bar in another part of London.

Granted these were just the city's 4th and 5th homicides of the year so it's not like people are being shot every day. However, gun violence certainly exists in Canada.


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## Roger Stepan (Nov 16, 2011)

MarylandNed said:


> Yes, although maybe not as rampant as in the US. I was in London, Ontario for the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend in October. I drove past a very obvious crime scene on Wellington and found out later that someone had been shot dead on the street there the night before.
> 
> Arrest made in murder of David Arbuckle | 98.1 Free FM | London Ontario Rock Radio Station - World Class Rock London Ontario News | 98.1 Free FM | London Ontario Rock Radio Station
> 
> ...


is he innocent


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

MarylandNed said:


> Yes, although maybe not as rampant as in the US. I was in London, Ontario for the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend in October. I drove past a very obvious crime scene on Wellington and found out later that someone had been shot dead on the street there the night before.
> 
> Granted these were just the city's 4th and 5th homicides of the year so it's not like people are being shot every day. However, gun violence certainly exists in Canada.


To put it in perspective: London, Ontario, is a city with over a third of a million people... 352,000 at the latest census. The homicide mentioned here is the sixth in the city for 2011 (and, to the point of the original question, that doesn't necessarily mean they were all firearm related, for that matter).

I defy anyone here to list any city in the United States of similar size that has registered only its 6th homicide by the beginning of December. For example, Minneapolis, a northern city of almost exactly the same size and one that I don't think springs to anyone's mind as a crime magnet, registered its 31st homicide in the first week of November.

By this time last year, Minneapolis had registered its 39th homicide and was projecting a year-ending total of 40, which was being touted as a "2010's projected tally of 40 homicides is 25 percent lower than the average year", and the secondly lowest total in the previous 25 years.

Toronto's homicide total for 2011 so far is 39, just like Minneapolis at this time last year. Except that Toronto has a population of 2.5 million, 6.5 times that of Minneapolis.

Roughly speaking, you're six times more likely to be a victim of homicide in Minneapolis than in either London or Toronto. And that's without going after the soft targets like Detroit, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, and Los Angeles.


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## jemappelleKatherine (Nov 20, 2011)

I'd suggest a check on numbers there.
The Minneapolis area is part of a larger U.S. Census division named Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI, the country's 16th-largest metropolitan area composed of 11 counties in Minnesota and two counties in Wisconsin with a population of 3,279,833 as of the 2010 Census.

As someone else mentioned above... People tend to heavily skew numbers in whatever direction is convenient to backing up their opinions.

Also, murders are not the sum total of gun violence. How many people were shot in London and did not die? Also, are you talking about the great London area? A couple of years ago on the farm outside of town, weren't a whole bunch of people killed in one night?

Again, on a per capita basis, I would say you are going to find the exact same rate of gun violence anywhere you look. Even in the UK where they are totally illegal. It requires taking an honest look at the numbers.


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

jemappelleKatherine said:


> I'd suggest a check on numbers there.
> The Minneapolis area is part of a larger U.S. Census division named Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI,


That's true, but that's not an area covered by the police in Minneapolis. Even St. Paul has its own police force and its own homicide count. The count for Minneapolis is strictly for the City of Minneapolis; ditto London and Toronto.




jemappelleKatherine said:


> As someone else mentioned above... People tend to heavily skew numbers in whatever direction is convenient to backing up their opinions.


Precisely why I picked a city the same size as London, and compared stats from the same time period. And it's not an "opinion"; it's a fact. My point is that no, gun violence, and homicide in general, is not at the same level in Canada as it is in the US. It's worse in Canada in general than it is in Britain, Germany, or Japan; that's fair to say. But it's nothing like what it is in the States. A starker contrast than Windsor and Detroit, which face each other across a mile of river (and a crucial international border with customs checks) would be harder to imagine. Detroit proper has a population of 714,000, and experienced 308 homicides in 2010. Windsor, close enough that you can see individual people there from Detroit, has a population of 217,000, 30% that of Detroit. All things being equal, you could have expected 93 homicides in a city that size. In 2010, Windsor experienced NO homicides. Not a single one. At the end of November 2011, Windsor, a city of a quarter of a million, had its first homicide in two years.

Canada currently has 1/9 the population of the United States. In 2010, Canada had 554 homicides, in a nation of 35,000,000. In 2010, the US, with a population of 309,000,000 (8.8 times Canada's) had 14,748. That's not 8.8 times more homicides, it's 26.6 times more.

These are facts, not opinions. Yes, there are homicides in Canada, and some of them are gun-related, but it's nothing like in the US.




jemappelleKatherine said:


> Also, murders are not the sum total of gun violence. How many people were shot in London and did not die?


That's true, but given that any person who's shot is about as likely to die in either country, those numbers can still be taken as more or less representative. The plain fact is that the United States is a considerably more violent society on the whole than Canada is; that's evident from the basic numbers. Canada doesn't have anything like the Second Amendment. Virtually every state in the past 25 years has adopted right-to-carry legislation; in Canada, that's a federal power and virtually no one gets that permission. Most typical security guards here do not usually carry firearms, for instance.




jemappelleKatherine said:


> It requires taking an honest look at the numbers.


You've just been given the numbers. With respect, the honest look at them that needs to be given is by you, I'm afraid.


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## luvcanada (Nov 10, 2011)

*Relatively little violence*

I agree completely with Lone Primate. While stats can be misleading, the key is to compare like to like and be sure of what you are talking about. While different areas of Canada have different levels of violence and gun violence the same applies to areas of a city. The following Wikipedia link has a quick overview of Toronto's gun violence over the past 6 years.

Check the "crime in toronto" post on wikipedia.


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

luvcanada said:


> I agree completely with Lone Primate. While stats can be misleading, the key is to compare like to like and be sure of what you are talking about. While different areas of Canada have different levels of violence and gun violence the same applies to areas of a city. The following Wikipedia link has a quick overview of Toronto's gun violence over the past 6 years.
> 
> Check the "crime in toronto" post on wikipedia.


Thanks, LC. I'd like to belatedly say that I'm not out to denigrate the United States here. Canada didn't put human beings on the moon; Canada doesn't have a dozen supercarrier fleets, or even one. We are what we are. But folks, give us our due... we have worked hard and consciously since the 1950s to build the Just Society, and I believe those efforts have paid dividends in giving violence less of a foothold, in promoting the acceptance of newcomers and allowing our society to slowly change rather than insisting they instantly do all the adapting, and in being just accommodating enough that Quebeckers have twice backed away from leaving the country. I don't think we're going to go down in history remembered alongside the Greeks, the Romans, or the great empires, no. But you have to spend your three score and ten somewhere, and as far as it goes, I honestly don't think the average person can do too much better than spend at least part of them here.

So welcome aboard, whoever and wherever you are.


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## Roger Stepan (Nov 16, 2011)

in london ontario
how many murder in 2010

and what the rate per 100,000


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

Roger Stepan said:


> in london ontario
> how many murder in 2010
> 
> and what the rate per 100,000


7 murders in 2010; 1.98 homicides per 100,000.


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## Roger Stepan (Nov 16, 2011)

does canada not have what happens here

Hollywood shooting spree may have been fueled by romantic breakup | masslive.com


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

Roger Stepan said:


> does canada not have what happens here
> 
> Hollywood shooting spree may have been fueled by romantic breakup | masslive.com


Is there anyplace on Earth where human beings live free of pain and insanity? What I can say is that incidents such as this are rare in Canada. And the United States, for that matter.


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## MarylandNed (May 11, 2010)

Lone Primate said:


> To put it in perspective: London, Ontario, is a city with over a third of a million people... 352,000 at the latest census. The homicide mentioned here is the sixth in the city for 2011 (and, to the point of the original question, that doesn't necessarily mean they were all firearm related, for that matter).
> 
> I defy anyone here to list any city in the United States of similar size that has registered only its 6th homicide by the beginning of December. For example, Minneapolis, a northern city of almost exactly the same size and one that I don't think springs to anyone's mind as a crime magnet, registered its 31st homicide in the first week of November.
> 
> ...


You're preaching to the choir - I agree with you that murder rates are generally higher in the US. I did say that there's gun violence in Canada (and there is) but that it's not as rampant as in the US. 

However, there are cities in the US with low murder rates. Plano, Texas has over 250,000 residents and only had 4 murders in 2009 and another 4 in 2010. That might be a lower murder rate than London, ON even when you take relative populations into account.

I've lived in Canada (Toronto) and my daughter now lives in London, ON. I now live in the US (DC's Maryland suburbs) although I still visit Canada frequently. Generally speaking I feel safer in Canadian cities than I do in US cities. However, I've always felt very safe in New York and Washington, DC. Those cities tend to have high crimes rates in areas where tourists/visitors tend not to go. For example, visitors to DC don't have much reason to wander into the worst areas of south east DC. I worked in downtown DC for years and have also been down there at night many times - never had an issue. Baltimore is nearby and I'm on heightened alert when I visit there. The inner harbour area is fine but you don't have to wander far from there to find trouble. Detroit is just a disaster zone. 

However there are areas of Toronto (Jane/Finch; parts of Scarborough) and Vancouver that I'd want to avoid too.

Overall though I definitely agree that Canada is safer. But you can still be shot dead there - just statistically not as likely to happen.


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

MarylandNed said:


> Generally speaking I feel safer in Canadian cities than I do in US cities. However, I've always felt very safe in New York and Washington, DC. Those cities tend to have high crimes rates in areas where tourists/visitors tend not to go.
> 
> Overall though I definitely agree that Canada is safer. But you can still be shot dead there - just statistically not as likely to happen.


These are the differences. Anyone can "feel" anything. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and in this case, the only fair way to address the original question is to trot out the stats. The direct answer to the original question is that yes, there is gun violence in Canada, but that no, it's not "like the United States". You can find aberrations within any set. Overall, your house is a fine place to live in terms of average temperature... the fact you can't live inside your oven or freezer chest doesn't disprove that. Ultimately, I think the real and fair--and demonstrable--answer to the question that prompted this thread in the first place is that where gun violence is concerned, person for person, you are safer in Canada than in the United States, and considerably so. Again, that's not to denigrate the US, but at the same time, I won't see Canada's achievements in social justice buried under polite equivocation just so no one is in danger of being offended by the facts.


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## MarylandNed (May 11, 2010)

Lone Primate said:


> These are the differences. Anyone can "feel" anything. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and in this case, the only fair way to address the original question is to trot out the stats. The direct answer to the original question is that yes, there is gun violence in Canada, but that no, it's not "like the United States". You can find aberrations within any set. Overall, your house is a fine place to live in terms of average temperature... the fact you can't live inside your oven or freezer chest doesn't disprove that. Ultimately, I think the real and fair--and demonstrable--answer to the question that prompted this thread in the first place is that where gun violence is concerned, person for person, you are safer in Canada than in the United States, and considerably so. Again, that's not to denigrate the US, but at the same time, I won't see Canada's achievements in social justice buried under polite equivocation just so no one is in danger of being offended by the facts.


Well there's more to it than just a "feeling". I feel safe in DC because of what I see with my own eyes added to my experience of spending a lot of time there over the last 14 years. Crime is not uniformly distributed over any city - there are always areas of higher and lower crime levels. Sometimes the contrast between low and high crime areas is very acute. This is particularly true of DC. The areas that tourists and other visitors typically frequent in DC are very safe. The overall figures for the city are skewed by very high crime stats in certain areas of south east DC. Most residents and visitors to DC would have absolutely no reason to visit those areas.

I have also spent a lot of time in New York. Like most visitors that means Manhattan which I've found it to be very safe. Large areas of Queen's are very safe. If you look at where most homicides occur in New York, you'll see that certain areas of Brooklyn, The Bronx and upper Manhattan (near The Bronx) top the list. The areas where most visitors to New York actually spend most of their time are actually much safer.

Granted there are cities in the US where I don't feel safe almost anywhere and, again, more than a feeling - I have good reason to feel that way. Detroit, New Orleans and Baltimore probably top my list. Baltimore has a very safe inner harbour area but there are large parts of the city where you really are in danger. 

Canada does not contain urban blight of the same magnitude that we see in major US cities. There's not one major city in Canada where I could say I feel unsafe in most of it - that's not true in the US (e.g. Detroit).

However, there are areas in Canadian cities where I actually am (not just feel) less safe than in those areas of DC that most people visit (which is most of the city by the way). Canada's "social justice" system may well contribute to a kinder, gentler society with lower levels of violent crime - but it certainly hasn't eliminated violent crime. Canada may be safer than the US but, in terms of gun crime, it's definitely more dangerous than plenty of other countries e.g. Spain, Portugal, Japan, etc.


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

MarylandNed said:


> Well there's more to it than just a "feeling". I feel safe in DC because of what I see with my own eyes added to my experience of spending a lot of time there over the last 14 years.


Well, no, that's "feeling"... personal anecdote. Frankly it's a direct contradiction to end one sentence with "it's more than just a feeling" by beginning the next with "I feel". This is exactly the reason it was crucial to the point to present actual numbers. These aren't affected by where one person happens to be, or have seen, or the opinions he has formed on that basis, all of which are, to be blunt, purely subjective.




MarylandNed said:


> Crime is not uniformly distributed over any city - there are always areas of higher and lower crime levels.


That's the point I made with the oven analogy. The numbers I gave compare both cities of similar sizes and national averages as a whole. The former give specific impressions, but the latter saves the point from suggestions that only aberrant or exceptional (good or bad) examples have been cherry-picked; for example, leading to the inescapable conclusion that for every Plano, there are lot more corresponding Minneapolises per capita in the US than in Canada.




MarylandNed said:


> The overall figures for the city are skewed by very high crime stats in certain areas of south east DC.


I'm not especially bothered by the fact that you want to slice up the Snickers bar and point to the crunchy parts; the peanuts... the point is, there are considerably more such peanuts in the bar of society stateside, and the average person is several times more like to choke on them. Even in places you would qualify as safer, one is still statistically far more likely (in the United States) to encounter firearms, with all that that entails for domestic disputes, suicides, criminal negligence causing death, and so on. It's not all about stick-up men in dark alleys.




MarylandNed said:


> Canada may be safer than the US but, in terms of gun crime, it's definitely more dangerous than plenty of other countries e.g. Spain, Portugal, Japan, etc.


A point I also made previously; however, some of the initial comments made suggestions that gun violence in Canada resembled that in the US in character and scope; an error I have undertaken to rectify.




MarylandNed said:


> Canada's "social justice" system may well contribute to a kinder, gentler society with lower levels of violent crime - but it certainly hasn't eliminated violent crime.


That was never my contention, and I've repeatedly said so. The point I've taken issue with is that gun violence in Canada is on par with that in the US, or so much like it as makes no odds, and it demonstrably is not. The bottom line is that per capita a person is far less likely to be a victim of gun violence in Canada than the United States.


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## MarylandNed (May 11, 2010)

Lone Primate said:


> 7 murders in 2010; 1.98 homicides per 100,000.


You challenged someone to come up with something comparable in the US because you thought it couldn't be done. That's actually a higher murder rate than Plano, Texas. Plano had 4 murders in 2009 and another 4 in 2010 for a homicide rate of 1.4 per 100,000 people.


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## MarylandNed (May 11, 2010)

Lone Primate said:


> Ultimately, I think the real and fair--and demonstrable--answer to the question that prompted this thread in the first place is that where gun violence is concerned, person for person, you are safer in Canada than in the United States, and considerably so.


Again, not taking issue with that. I don't disagree with the stats. Yes, they can be averaged out and everyone in the US can be told quite correctly that they are (on average) in more danger than everyone in Canada (on average). No argument about the math. My point is that stats can be very misleading. There's a huge wealth gap in the US - much bigger than the one that exists in Canada partly because of Canada's social safety net. One of the consequences of that is the creation of US urban blight (of the like not seen in Canada) where most of the crime is actually concentrated. So while statistically speaking there is more violent crime in the US, where I actually live and work and play is, statistically speaking, no more dangerous than where I lived and worked and played in Canada. Some people are considerably more at risk in the US than they would be in Canada but some people are not and never will be. Not everyone in the US is statistically more at risk than everyone in Canada. There are Canadians who are in much more danger of falling victim to violent crime than I am.



Lone Primate said:


> Again, that's not to denigrate the US, but at the same time, I won't see Canada's achievements in social justice buried under polite equivocation just so no one is in danger of being offended by the facts.


That's relative. Comparing Canada with the US is one thing. No doubt Canada's "social justice" system has had an effect against the type of social problems we see in the US (although the native people of Canada may take issue with that statement). However, compare Canada's violent crime rate with many other countries and its "achievements in social justice" doesn't stack up so well.


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## MarylandNed (May 11, 2010)

Lone Primate said:


> This is exactly the reason it was crucial to the point to present actual numbers. *These aren't affected by where one person happens to be*


Actually they are. Just averaging out the overall crime numbers and applying them to everywhere in a city completely ignores the fact that those numbers don't apply to everywhere in the city. Just because you can take horrific crime stats in south east DC and average them out over the entire city does not mean your numbers even relate to what's going on in most of the city. If you knew DC as well as I do you would know it's complete nonsense to think the way you do.

Let's say south east DC separates and becomes a separate city. Does that suddenly make the rest of the city safer? Of course it doesn't - but by your logic it would.

The same argument applies to the country as a whole. Where you actually are does affect your risk of becoming a victim of crime. You can't state that the average applies everywhere. There are areas of the US that are much safer than many areas of Canada.


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## MarylandNed (May 11, 2010)

Lone Primate said:


> Canada currently has 1/9 the population of the United States. In 2010, Canada had 554 homicides, in a nation of 35,000,000. In 2010, the US, with a population of 309,000,000 (8.8 times Canada's) had 14,748. That's not 8.8 times more homicides, it's 26.6 times more.


That's a very misleading way to represent the numbers! Anyone reading that might think that the homicide rate was 26.6 times higher in the US! That's nowhere near the truth. Here's the truth:

- The homicide rate in 2010 in the US was 4.77 per 100,000 people. 

- The homicide rate in 2010 in Canada was 1.58 per 100,000 people. 

That's not the spectacular difference you're trying to make it out to be with your use of numbers.


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## JohnSoCal (Sep 2, 2007)

Lone Primate said:


> I defy anyone here to list any city in the United States of similar size that has registered only its 6th homicide by the beginning of December. For example, Minneapolis, a northern city of almost exactly the same size and one that I don't think springs to anyone's mind as a crime magnet, registered its 31st homicide in the first week of November..


I live in a metro area with a population of 350,000+ and there has been only 1 homicide in the last 3 years and that was a family dispute. 
Oh by the way, my metro area is located in Southern California 60 miles from San Diego. Speaking of San Diego, it is a lot safer than Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and is much larger. Same goes for San Jose CA.

My point is that you cannot make generalizations. The numbers are skewed in the US because of some very high crime areas in certain cities but there are also many very safe areas. I feel a lot safer walking around downtown New York City ( Manhattan ) at night than downtown Vancouver.


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

MarylandNed said:


> That's not the spectacular difference you're trying to make it out to be with your use of numbers.


If I presented you with two passages through the jungle and told you that choosing one of them would result in you and your family facing a threefold greater risk of violent death than choosing the other, are you seriously telling me that that information would not represent a "spectacular difference" to you, and moreover, that the answer as to which passage was which would not be worth parting with a great deal of money to learn?

On the contrary. An almost 300% greater likelihood of being murdered, person for person, is not mere statistically significant, it's on its way to representing an order of magnitude.


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## JohnSoCal (Sep 2, 2007)

This whole discussion is really pointless because it all depends on where you live in Canada or the US. Sure, there are parts of Detroit, St. Louis, etc. that are very dangerous but the vast majority of the residents in those metro areas don't go near the high crime areas. There are also many very safe areas in the US. My sister, nephews, etc. live in a small city ( 45,000 ) in the Okanagan in BC. They have far more crime than where I live in Southern California and our population is 8 times larger.


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

JohnSoCal said:


> I live in a metro area with a population of 350,000+ and there has been only 1 homicide in the last 3 years and that was a family dispute.


You also live in a country where, person for person, you're three times more likely to be murder than I am, and considerably more likely to face an assault by firearm, inflicted or threatened, than I am. People are not trees. They are not rooted in the soil of one American community or another, and they can and do move freely about, taking their grudges, their compulsions and needs, their firearms, and the constitutional fiat to own, amass, and wield said firearms with them.

I've already addressed the "Snickers" argument. It's fine to point out the peanuts, as long as you're willing to honestly acknowledge there are a whole lot more of them.


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## JohnSoCal (Sep 2, 2007)

MarylandNed said:


> That's a very misleading way to represent the numbers! Anyone reading that might think that the homicide rate was 26.6 times higher in the US! That's nowhere near the truth. Here's the truth:
> 
> - The homicide rate in 2010 in the US was 4.77 per 100,000 people.
> 
> ...


There is another factor that skews the rates. Canada often calls it "manslaughter" what would be called "murder" in the US.


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

JohnSoCal said:


> This whole discussion is really pointless because it all depends on where you live in Canada or the US.


If you want to evade the overall numbers in comparison. But again, you don't have to go seeking violence. Violence can, and often does, have its reasons for seeking you. And the better and more thoroughly armed your society enables it to be, the broader and deeper are the results.

Your community you live in, taken in isolation, might be nicely aberrant for your purposes. But in California in 2010, the homicide rate was 4.9 per 100,000. In Ontario, where I live, it was 1.5 for that year. Where does your community end and California begin? Do you ever leave your community? Do people from outside ever enter it? Is there anything to prevent either?


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

JohnSoCal said:


> There is another factor that skews the rates. Canada often calls it "manslaughter" what would be called "murder" in the US.


No, John. These statistics are both for HOMICIDE. That category includes both murder and manslaughter.


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## JohnSoCal (Sep 2, 2007)

Lone Primate said:


> You also live in a country where, person for person, you're three times more likely to be murder than I am, and considerably more likely to face an assault by firearm, inflicted or threatened, than I am. People are not trees. They are not rooted in the soil of one American community or another, and they can and do move freely about, taking their grudges, their compulsions and needs, their firearms, and the constitutional fiat to own, amass, and wield said firearms with them.
> 
> I've already addressed the "Snickers" argument. It's fine to point out the peanuts, as long as you're willing to honestly acknowledge there are a whole lot more of them.


I am not going to continue discussing this with you as it is pointless. You obviously choose to live by statistics, rather than the real world. I have lived in many areas of the US and Canada and I have always felt a lot safer where I lived in the US than I did in Canada. I don't know where you live but you won't find any area in Canada any safer than where I live or travel to. The dangerous areas in the US are typically in concentrated ghettos where the average American would never be in contact with. I realize that Canada does not have many of these same ghettos. You have probably never spent any time in the US.

By the way, Seattle also has less crime than Vancouver.


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

MarylandNed said:


> You challenged someone to come up with something comparable in the US because you thought it couldn't be done. That's actually a higher murder rate than Plano, Texas. Plano had 4 murders in 2009 and another 4 in 2010 for a homicide rate of 1.4 per 100,000 people.


It's a nice piece of research, but it's arguably more a point in my favour than yours. 

In October 2010, Forbes magazine named Plano the safest city to live in America with a population greater than 250,000.

In other words, you had to dig up the "safest" city in the United States in order to match up with the safety of a Canadian city I choose simply because someone mentioned it as _unsafe_ (e.g., London). I think my point is well made, if not well taken.


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

JohnSoCal said:


> I am not going to continue discussing this with you as it is pointless.


Yes, because I've made my point with objective data, which you've merely countered with your subjective opinion. The fact that you, living in the US, are considerably more likely to be murdered than I am living in Canada, and that you are living among people far better armed to do so, is "the real world".




JohnSoCal said:


> By the way, Seattle also has less crime than Vancouver.


Now, now, John. Don't go living your life by stats.


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## Lone Primate (Nov 23, 2011)

JohnSoCal said:


> You have probably never spent any time in the US.


Funny you should say that. I spent three weeks in Los Angeles several years ago. I remember being on the highway with my host and seeing what appeared to be the towers of the downtown in the distance. When I expressed an interest in going there, I was told by my host, "People like us don't go downtown." And we didn't.

I honestly can't think of a city in Canada of which I would say that. I genuinely cannot. And I think that that, too, in facing a world of immigrants wondering about conditions of life as they consider a new home, is a point worth making.


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## Roger Stepan (Nov 16, 2011)

Lone Primate said:


> Is there anyplace on Earth where human beings live free of pain and insanity? What I can say is that incidents such as this are rare in Canada. And the United States, for that matter.


i've heard 5 spree shooting or or more maybe 10
in the us this year


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## MarylandNed (May 11, 2010)

Lone Primate said:


> If I presented you with two passages through the jungle and told you that choosing one of them would result in you and your family facing a threefold greater risk of violent death than choosing the other, are you seriously telling me that that information would not represent a "spectacular difference" to you, and moreover, that the answer as to which passage was which would not be worth parting with a great deal of money to learn?
> 
> On the contrary. An almost 300% greater likelihood of being murdered, person for person, is not mere statistically significant, it's on its way to representing an order of magnitude.


3 times a small number is still a small number. In terms of percentages, it's 0.00158% versus 0.00477%. Like most people, I don't live in a high crime area and I'm not involved in any of the illegal activities that dramatically increase one's chances of falling victim to homicide. So I'm at even less risk than the average. 

I'm more at risk of dying in a traffic accident.


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## MarylandNed (May 11, 2010)

Lone Primate said:


> If I presented you with two passages through the jungle and told you that choosing one of them would result in you and your family facing a threefold greater risk of violent death than choosing the other, are you seriously telling me that that information would not represent a "spectacular difference" to you, and moreover, that the answer as to which passage was which would not be worth parting with a great deal of money to learn?


Spectacular? Maybe if we were talking a 30% chance versus a 90% chance of violent death. We're actually talking about 0.00158% versus 0.00477%. Either way I have more than a 99.995% chance of survival. Hardly a "spectacular" difference.

I've lived in both countries and travelled extensively in both countries - overall life in Canada and in the US is pretty similar. There are safe and dangerous areas in both countries. Some areas of each country are safer than some areas of the other. 

Again, I'm more at risk of dying in a traffic accident so the homicide numbers are not really something I dwell on.


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## Roger Stepan (Nov 16, 2011)

MarylandNed said:


> Spectacular? Maybe if we were talking a 30% chance versus a 90% chance of violent death. We're actually talking about 0.00158% versus 0.00477%. Either way I have more than a 99.995% chance of survival. Hardly a "spectacular" difference.
> 
> I've lived in both countries and travelled extensively in both countries - overall life in Canada and in the US is pretty similar. There are safe and dangerous areas in both countries. Some areas of each country are safer than some areas of the other.
> 
> Again, I'm more at risk of dying in a traffic accident so the homicide numbers are not really something I dwell on.


this is not the percentage of survival
this is number of murders

what if someone you know is 0.00477%


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## hawgworth (Dec 20, 2011)

*Yes*

There is gun violence everywhere, just it's more of a wrong time - wrong place problem and less of a bunch of monkeys with banannas throwing them at one another like the states. Quebec and BC are bad, mostly angels but outside of that gun violence isn't as big an issue for us as other places since they are not easily accesible.


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## MarylandNed (May 11, 2010)

hawgworth said:


> There is gun violence everywhere, just it's more of a wrong time - wrong place problem and less of a bunch of monkeys with banannas throwing them at one another like the states. Quebec and BC are bad, mostly angels but outside of that gun violence isn't as big an issue for us as other places since they are not easily accesible.


You're kidding yourself. Canada has a higher firearm-related death rate than most other countries in the world including UK, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Greece, Spain, Netherlands and Portugal. And that's naming just a few.


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## luvcanada (Nov 10, 2011)

There were 45 murders in Toronto, population 2.5 million, last year. This is about 1.8 per 100,000. Most of these were by gun. I don't know how many manslaughter charges there were but I cannot imagine that these would skew these numbers significantly. Suffice it to say, the vast majority of murders were committed by family or people who knew each other. Most of the murders in this last group were criminal on criminal.


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