🚀 go-pugleaf

As a relative newcomer to Montreal, I have been struck, reading many of
the more recent articles in this thread about gun control, that none of
them (as far as I have noticed) has made reference to the situation in
Western Europe.  In Britain, my home country, as most people here may
well be aware, even most police officers don't carry guns.  Obviously
this requires laws preventing people from having access to guns without
a very good reason.  To regard such laws as a flagrant abuse of civil
liberty - a view that appears to be held by a significant number of
Canadians - seems to me to be a poor judgement.  For those of you who
are of this view, I strongly recommend a visit to (even the most
deprived, drug-infested areas of) Britain.

I believe the murder rate (per capita) in the U.S. is about 10 times 
that in Britain.  I wonder what the main reason for the difference is?

By the way, Montreal seems in general a remarkably safe city, despite the 
well-known mass-murders.  Don't let it degenerate to U.S. standards.
-- 
Matthew J. Bramley
bramleym@ere.umontreal.ca