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Nothing Has Changed Since Thursday
Well Thursday’s post certainly engendered some feedback ! To quote one responder;
Really? That’s the moral equivalence fallacy popular in fish wrap like the Guardian. Innocents being vaporized in an airport departure lounge or a Srebrenica-style massacre at a death metal concert is a lot different than desultory, one-on-one gang/domestic/criminal/police etc., violence.
According to Urban Dictionary - fishwrap is defined thus
Slang for any printed journalistic medium (newspaper, magazine, etc.) with such low credibility and standards in acceptable journalism, that its only useful function is to wrap fresh fish in.
I will let you, the reader, decide if ‘The Guardian’ is indeed ‘fishwrap’, but today I want to drill in a little more, add some clarity - but still stick to my basic premise that ‘Europe Is Still Safer Than Most American Cities.’ To remind - my point in the last post reminded us that Terrorism in Europe - counted by deaths - is at a fraction of where it was in the 70s and 80s. Moreover, the deaths totaled are well below total deaths in the USA through gun crime. That said, in some respects I would agree that the comparison between the two kinds of violence is maybe slightly off. Let me instead look at ‘deaths by guns’ in the USA, where 4 or more people die in the event (including the gunman - if indeed the gunman does actually die). How about this map ? - which is sourced from this data ? If you can’t be bothered to click through let me highlight some of the data …
- The San Bernadino shooting was the 355th mass shooting in 2015.
- There were six shootings on Nov. 22 (thankfully although they injured a total of 37 people, only one was killed. But the very next day - Nov. 23, there were mass shootings in Houston, Minneapolis and Columbus, Ohio.
- Talking of Columbus, Ohio - that town had two mass shootings in 2015 - each adding 4 fatalities to the count.
- etc etc
To revisit my friends comments at the top of this post - while I would agree that the comparison might not be actually exact, the fact is we do have a substantial number of incidents each and every year, where innocent people are in fact caught in the equivalent of being ‘vaporized in an airport departure lounge or a Srebrenica-style massacre at a death metal concert’ … maybe not at 31 at a time - but it is only 10 times 3 that gets us to that number. We just don’t do anything about it. So, moving on - lets take an alternative view - selecting from the other end of the spectrum of comments received.
Well stated John
Ok - plaudits aside, he goes on …
Another discussion on European nations lack of economic and cultural integration and opportunity for immigrants is needed in my opinion ….. this fosters isolation within ghettos …. so the young frustrated 20-30 year olds are invited to Syrian Club Deads for terrorist training and radicalization before returning to their European ghettos and ‘Cells’. The USA, some pundits say, is safer because Muslims are better assimilated into our communities.
I also have read and heard this - not sure I agree … here’s why … Pew Research - a good enough source of data …
As of 2010, there were 4.8 million Muslims in Germany (5.8% of the country’s population) and 4.7 million Muslims in France (7.5%). In Europe overall, however, Russia’s population of 14 million Muslims (10%) is the largest on the continent.
… the UK’s population is represented with 4.8% of the population counted as Muslims. 
Here in the USA, Pew Research has this data …
Pew Research Center estimates that there were about 3.3 million Muslims of all ages living in the United States in 2015. This means that Muslims made up about 1% of the total U.S. population.
and guess what ….. there are very few places in the USA where there is a concentration of ‘ghettoes’. (I do hate that word - but it is constantly used by American media when referring to concentrations of Muslim populations.) I suspect the same work is going on here - it just isn’t as obvious.
… oh the power of a large country with lots of space. But back to my friend …
My point put mathematically would look like this I + I - O = F x bW = HvO
Immigration plus Isolation minus Opportunities = Frustrations times BrainWashing = Hateful violent Outbursts.
His answer ….
Integration and education at the grade school level … economic growth opportunities … and cultural integration through integrated sports teams … along the South African model.
As I pointed out to him - we didn’t ‘just get here’ so we aren’t just going to ‘get out’ either. Mandela was released just over 26 years ago - South Africa is not a role model - even now. But then - as a wise man once said - “no time to start like the present”. Love to hear more from my readers.