triticale - the wheat / rye guy

Apples And Cabbages

Nick brought to my attention an experiment which Scott has proposed in response to recent discussion of the role of armed citizens in public safety. The experiment has been going on for some time. Cities with the harshest victim disarmament laws tend to have the most generous governnment handouts. They tend to have high crime rates, and altho often do quite well on established business are not the places where new wealth is being created.

We who seek legal recognition of our right to bear arms understand that doing so only addresses the symptom. We would do so to make ourselves and our loved ones safer, and if the rest of society benefits, that would be nice. We even understand that concealed carry will not reduce the total number of crimes committed. After all, it takes several shopliftings to pay as much as one armed robbery.

Scott believes it is possible to reduce crime by doing what he calls investing in education and economic development. He doesn't propose to invest his own money; he wants to take money from other people to do this. There is no evidence that giving money to a school bureaucracy unconstrained by competition does anything to improve outcome. As for taxing for econonomic development, that is generally equivalent to fucking for chastity.

There are things government is a suitable means of accomplishing which do further economic development. Much movement of raw materials and finished product is done by truck. Manufacturing firms prefer to locate where roads enable this to be done efficiently. Scott is on record as opposing this form of government investment in economic development. It is easier to do business in a crime-free environment, which is one reason jobs are relatively scarce in the inner city. Maybe Scott will campaign for the strong and effective candidates for sheriff and attorney general. A third way government can further economic development is regulatory agencies more concerned with positive results than power tripping. Maybe Scott will write a post decrying the DNR's actions in driving 600 Menards jobs out of Wisconsin.

In Milwaukee, the city Scott and I care most about, there are jobs which already are going unfilled without any new "investment" in economic development. There is a constant requirement for 300 new Certified Nursing Assistants. MATC already offers the training course, ans some employers will also provide. There is also a need for over the road truck drivers, a job which pays the household median income with one year's experience. Employers again will provide training. The only requirements are a clean background and driving record, things which are not the government's job to provide.

Update:

I just happened upon an example, admittedly extreme, of the sort of thing Scott seems to think higher taxes will do more to prevent tha an armed citizenry would.

Posted by triticale at October 9, 2006 10:09 AM | TrackBack