Then on some stretches, you have to drive 100 km to find a little town where a big part of the population are foreign labourers, then another 100 km where the case becomes the same. But again, they can't buy guns, cos they don't have an Icelandic passport...
One thing about Detroit, - it actually has a lower percentage of foreign born population than we do. So much for that....
You see, thats just it... foreign
laborers, as in people with jobs. Also, I personally don't believe that being foreign or being of a particular race etc. is itself some sort of genetic driver for crime. But, it does tend to lead to a community of us vs them, when you concentrate such people in a urban ghetto without local economic opportunity or access to a quality education and then have mainstream society ignore them (and, of course, blame the results on guns instead of failed social policies). Look at the phenomenon of "snitchin'."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Snitchin' In these communities the career path of drug dealer, gangbanger and prostitute become mainstream choices. Minimum wage as a day laborer competing against illegals or the flashy thug lifestyle of drugs, cash and bling -- which to choose?
You completely ignore the
economic differences. In fact, I should have stated earlier that the US, with a population 100 times that of Iceland, has entire urban ghettos with the populaion of Iceland.
Economy
Iceland
The economy of Iceland is small but well-developed, with a gross domestic product estimated at US$10.57 billion in 2005 (and a per capita GDP of $38,100, which is among the world's highest.)[1]
Detroit
n March 2007, metropolitan Detroit's unemployment rate was 6.5 percent.[54] In the city, the unemployment rate was 14.2 percent at the end of 2005, leaving Detroit with more than one-third of residents below the poverty line.[55] Parts of the city have abandoned and burned out shells of buildings. The city has struggled to obtain funding to demolish blighted properties and the homes... Detroit still has the highest percentage of people living below the poverty line (one-third). The unemployment rate of 6.8 percent trails only hurricane-paralyzed New Orleans.
Per capita GDP = $29,465
Now, lets put 1/3 of Iceland's population out of work, house most of that 1/3 tightly in a city like Reykjavík and then make most of those people the outsiders -- the foreign labors for example-- give them a subsistence level handout and promptly ignore them like they don't even exist. I would imagine the crime rates, including violent crime and firearm crime even with your restrictions (criminals don't obey laws), would change somewhat dramatically, IMO.
As noted, the US is 100 times the size of Iceland, and the US even has a higher per capita GDP. But, there are areas with far greater and far less population densities. In a city like Chicago, there can be a tremendous economic disparity between communities (in the same city) separated by a two-lane urban street. Million $ condos on one side, a housing project on the other and the police in the good community keeping the bad people out instead of trying to reduce crime in the bad communities themselves. There are areas of the US where crime is far less and areas where it is far greater. Iceland represents the equivalent of an upper middle class US suburban community from an economic standpoint. Good for you. The average American would have no more to fear walking down a street in 99 percent of the US than the average Icelander at home. Most violent firearm crime is criminal on criminal, in improvised urbanized areas, and generally confined to about 5 counties each containing a major metropolitan area.
Or comparing the USA as a whole to a country like Britain?
I have done this several times before and the same general theme is at work there. In fact, you have heavily participated in some of those (reference this thread, starting page 3 for my specifics and we can both save some time):
http://forums.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=183162&referrerid=5405and here's another
http://forums.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=200488&referrerid=5405In some communities in those countries you can see very much the Detroit factor at work (if not more so, in a few), and at work as a growing trend as society changes and the US urban ghetto model becomes more common (taking dubious credit for it starting here first, not its spread by any means). I predict (not really going out on a limb here) that we will see far more similarities between the US and Britain, France etc in coming decades as these differences decrease -- stringent firearm laws or not.
Charon
