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So, the BBC asks why violent crime is so rare in Iceland. They ask on the occasion of the first-ever police-involved shooting. It's not that Iceland is a gun-free zone - it ranks 15th in per-capita gun ownership. But Iceland has a murder rate of 1.8 per hundred thousand, while the US has a murder rate of at least 5 per hundred thousand people.
Then, M. Night Shyamalan looked at American education. He discovered that, if you took the inner-city schools out of the equation, American elementary and secondary education is the best in the world.
I have a theory that accounts for both facts. It also accounts for the fact that countries like Mexico and Brazil have much higher rates of violent crime than the US despite stricter gun laws. It's income inequality.
I suspect that the wider the gap between rich and poor, the more problems the society will have. In the extreme cases of Mexico and Brazil, where you have whole towns of people living in cardboard boxes overlooking luxurious housing developments, this inequality problem is obvious. Here in America, it's less obvious, and arguably just less of a gap. So we have less violence, but "less" is not "none."
Of course, The Usual Suspects think income inequality came down from the mountain with Moses, so I am obviously a communist. /snark, for those so impaired/
Then, M. Night Shyamalan looked at American education. He discovered that, if you took the inner-city schools out of the equation, American elementary and secondary education is the best in the world.
I have a theory that accounts for both facts. It also accounts for the fact that countries like Mexico and Brazil have much higher rates of violent crime than the US despite stricter gun laws. It's income inequality.
I suspect that the wider the gap between rich and poor, the more problems the society will have. In the extreme cases of Mexico and Brazil, where you have whole towns of people living in cardboard boxes overlooking luxurious housing developments, this inequality problem is obvious. Here in America, it's less obvious, and arguably just less of a gap. So we have less violence, but "less" is not "none."
Of course, The Usual Suspects think income inequality came down from the mountain with Moses, so I am obviously a communist. /snark, for those so impaired/
