king' s outdoor world - Index

king' s outdoor world - Hunting Illustrated - October/November 2007 - Index

Dateline
Biggest Fires in U.S. History
October 1825 - Maine fires burned
3,000,000 acres; 160 lives lost
1845 - Oregon fire burned 1,500,000
acres
October 1871 - Wisconsin and
Michigan fires burned 3,780,000
acres; 1,500 lives lost
September 1881 - Lower Michigan
fire burned 2,500,000 acres; 169 lives
lost, 3,000 structures destroyed
February 1898 - South Carolina
fires burned 3,000,000 acres
August 1910 - Idaho and Montana
fires burned 3,000,000 acres; 85 lives
lost
October 1918 - Minnesota fire
burned 1,200,000 acres; 450 lives
lost, 38 communities destroyed
1988 - Yellowstone fires burned
1,585,000 acres
October 2003 - California fire
burned 275,000 acres; 2,400 structures
destroyed, 15 lives lost
2004 - Alaska fires during 2004
burned over 6.38 million acres
March 2006 - Texas fires burned
907,245 acres; 80 structures destroyed,
11 lives lost
A ccording
"the fall in the American crime rate is even more
impressive when compared with the rest of the world,?
The reason that gun ownership doesn't correlate with
murder rates, the authors show, is that violent crime rates are
determined instead by underlying cultural factors. "Ordinary
people,? they note, "simply do not murder.? Rather, "the murderers
are a small minority of extreme antisocial aberrants who manage to
obtain guns whatever the level of gun ownership? in their society.
Therefore, "banning guns cannot alleviate the sociocultural
and economic factors that are the real determinants
of violence and crime rates.? According to Dr. Kates and Dr.
Mauser, "there is no reason for laws prohibiting gun possession
by ordinary, law-abiding, responsible adults because such people
virtually never commit murder. If one accepts that such adults
are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than to commit
it, disarming them becomes not just unproductive but counter-
productive.?
12 HUNTING ILLUSTRATED.com 5FRESH SIGN5
More Guns, Less Crime
The ability of law-abiding citizens
to possess firearms has helped
reduce violent crime in America.
to a study recently released by Harvard Journal of Law &
Public Policy, worldwide gun ownership rates do not correlate with
higher murder or suicide rates. In fact, many nations with high gun
ownership have significantly lower murder and suicide rates. In their study
entitled Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of
International and some Domestic Evidence, Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser
bring out the notion that more guns actually do lead to less crime and disprove
"the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and that fewer guns, therefore,
mean fewer deaths.? Here are a few excerpts from their findings:
"Norway,? they note, "has far and away Western Europe's highest household
gun ownership rate (32%), but also its lowest murder rate. The Netherlands,?
in contrast, "has the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe ( 1.9%) ...
yet the Dutch gun murder rate is higher than the Norwegian.?
"murder in Europe was at an all-time low before the gun controls were
introduced.? As the authors note, "strict controls did not stem the general
trend of ever-growing violent crime throughout the post-WWII industrialized
world.?
Citing England, for instance, they reveal that "when it had no firearms
restrictions [in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries], England had
little violent crime.? By the late 1990s, however, "England moved from
stringent controls to a complete ban on all handguns and many types of long
guns.? As a result, "by the year 2000, violent crime had so increased that
England and Wales had Europe's highest violent crime rate, far surpassing
even the United States.? In America, on the other hand, "despite constant and
substantially increasing gun ownership, the United States saw progressive and
dramatic reductions
in criminal violence
in the 1990s.?
"You say you're going after sharp-tooth
tigers? You better take my magnum!?