You could... you know, just establish an effective oversight body that actually punishes cops who step out of line and break the law. Combine that with proper social programs to keep the poorest from being so desperate they see no recourse but to resort to criminal behaviour and hey, just like magic things get better!

Not exactly rocket science.

Honestly, and I'm sorry if I appear to be picking on you here, WTF is up with this bullshit. Every other Westernized democracy has a better record with their police, but Americans just throw their hands up and say, "Golly gee, if it ain't workin' here, I guess there's no solution, 'cuz 'Merica is the best at everythin'." PLENTY of other countries manage just fine. And you know what? They ALSO have lower crime rates and lower recidivism rates.

All you have to do is look beyond your own borders for solutions instead of assuming you know best.

Hmm, happiest and most productive countries in the world are "socialist states" in comparison to the US. Scandinavian countries, Canada, most of Europe.

Meanwhile, the US with its ultra-right government has some of the poorest health outcomes, educational outcomes, life expectancy, infant mortality, crime rates, murder rates, social unrest, happiness indicators, etc. etc. etc. of all developed nations.

Nobody believes you @bobknight33 you are full of crap.

Meanwhile, Hawaii, New York, California, Maryland continue to do very well for themselves while Kansas goes right down the tubes.

Sucks when theory and reality don't match, eh Bob? I guess you'll just go and throw out reality again (obviously it's flawed).

Perhaps you are ignorant of the fact that the vast majority cross where walls already exist. To answer your question, nearly all of them would still try. Do you really think a fence is deterrence when the alternative is go home and see your family raped to death before you're decapitated? Would you just say "oops, sorry, didn't mean to trigger you....let me just take my daughter back to the narcos for a life of sex slavery and just die then, so sorry."?

A better immigration policy that makes it easier to get a work visa or asylum at ports of entry instead of making illegal entry easier, simpler, cheaper, and faster would discourage people from taking the easier, but illegal path. We are moving the other direction, which is why illegal immigration is on the rise under Trump after falling steadily for decades.

This doesn't cost America except for fighting it, they make us money with cheap labor, taxation without representation or access to government assistance, and by lowering the per capita crime rates by being far less criminal on average than Americans. You want to deport a group that's well above average in criminality, that would be Republican politicians and or Trump associates...no one will miss a single one.

A $50 billion wall (Trump's never built anything that wasn't at least 100% over budget) that can be evaded with a ladder, shovel, car, truck, saw, torch, boat, plane, and in many many places, absolutely nothing (it's no longer a single solid wall from coast to gulf, it's now a fence in a few more places for your $50 billion.) is not just vastly more expensive, it's also uselessly wasting that money for almost zero return, the few places it might help will just see the migrant paths move a few miles over.

If we had a 40+ ft high, 20 ft deep, 4+ft thick reinforced concrete wall coast to coast that was somehow ladder proof, it still wouldn't stop most illegal immigration or drug trafficking, because the vast majority of both come through ports of entry. The wall is a useless solution to a non existent problem that's been solving itself for decades....side note: what do you think it was like in the good old days when America was "great"? Contrary to Chump's claims, operation wetback (that he wants to reimplement) was a failure....
https://www.cato.org/blog/enforcement-didnt-end-unlawful-immigration-1950s-more-visas-did

It’s very important to note that drawing direct parallels between countries when it comes to crime is very murky, as these difference could be due to differences in laws, the way the criminal justice system is set up, how policing is done, how crimes are reported, and much more.

Quoting this: Harold Pollack, co-director of the University of Chicago's Crime Lab, called Zimring and Hawkins's book "an excellent source." In a 2015 phone interview, he pointed to a number of more recent studies that fit the pattern it identified.

"There's no question the United States faces a number of distinctive social policy challenges, some of which affect the crime rate. But many other OECD countries face their own distinctive problems that affect their crime rate," he told me. Western Europe, for example, has a major problem with drug use. Canadian cities have "very high" rates of property crime like car theft. And yet, the US still stands out on murders.

"I think that Americans have this view of Western Europe, or Toronto for that matter, which is very stereotypical and doesn't take into account the challenges that many of peer industrial democracy problems face," he points out. "There's a lot of drug sale, a lot of ethnic stratification and conflict, there's a lot of just general crime."

Crime rates in Canada aren't that much lower than the USA, there are just fewer violent crimes, like homicides.

In addition to this, a major factor might be considered in regards to Canada. Population and population density. Canada is lower than the USA across the board, 36.71 million to 325.7 million and density of 3.9 people per km to almost 90 people per mile (last census data).

I don't support the NRA, btw. I think they are idiots. I do support logical gun laws. I don't care for fake news.

I also think I was civil in my response to your original comment. I have tried to remain that way even though one could classify your response to mine as hostile and provocatory.

Your talking about it historically though. Historical abuse and mistreatment of Aboriginal people in Canada has been acceptable to discuss for at least a generation or two now, up to formal apologies and enormous numbers of court cases and cash settlements around the myriad past injustices.

The trouble is, even while addressing all the historical problems, there still exist new ones right now.

Typical conditions on Aboriginal reserves in Canada are unacceptably awful. You can have a thriving municipality right neighbouring an aboriginal reserve that is a mess of dilapidated homes, boiled water and grossly increased rates of unemployment, substance abuse and suicide. Small wonder then that increased crime rates also come along with all that.

Even that you can talk about, though the increased crime rate will get you in trouble for flirting with being racist against aboriginals.

What you can't talk about is many of the causes of the disparity.

Aboriginal reserves operate under a different legal framework than the neighbouring municipality. They operate under a different framework of governance. They operate under a different system of taxation. Organisation of all related government services like education, healthcare, policing and civil works like roads, water and sanitation are ALL different if you're on a reserve.

Talking about all that you need to be very careful how you say it, because if your not careful my above observations are a statement that coloniser systems are superior to aboriginal ones.

Private property rights are IMO an even hotter topic. The dilapidated housing on a reserve 10 minutes away from the municipality with everything in order is a direct result of who is responsible for maintaining them. In the municipality if a roof is missing shingles, the owner replaces them. If a window is broken, the owner replaces it. On the reserve though, the community is the owner. Unsurprisingly, that abstraction means maintenance on the homes is worse. If the mayor was responsible for using tax dollars to maintain all the homes in the neighbouring municipality it'd be a mess too. This leads to the poor aboriginal family stuck in a destroyed and overcrowded home and a chief saying sorry, the Canadian colonisers didn't give us enough money to fix your place, go yell at them. This just stirs up the Winnipeg citizens I mentioned earlier to respond with wonderment at why you don't fix your own home up yourself instead of protesting hopelessly for the government to hand out the money to do it for you.

The differential treatment still in place now, today is a cancer and needs to be fixed but calling it out like that would get me in trouble.

Private background checks is full of privacy, communication, and liability issues, true, but that could be solved in various ways.
In gun store private sales, that's how California does it.
Does it stop all criminal sales? Clearly not. Does it minimize them and hold illegal sellers who ignore the law accountable for what others do with the guns they illegally sold, making illegally selling a criminal your gun insane? Yes.
If it was the law nation wide, would it severely curtail the illicit gun trade, and have a positive impact on gun crime rates? Absolutely, zero question.
Would it stop it altogether? Duh, no, no law is a panacea, the death penalty doesn't stop all murders, but it definitely stops most. That is not how law works. No law has EVER stopped the crimes they regulate altogether except those that legalize the crime out of existence....like legal marijuana eradicated illegal pot smokers completely.

Libertarianism is for teenagers and idiots.

Any well-adjusted adult with any ability for critical thinking can see how stupid this is. Even his premise is idiotic. The government doesn't use guns to enforce parking violations (for example) they certainly don't use guns to provide healthcare to people. When was the last time a bus driver pointed a gun at you and said, "Get on the bus, it's public transit, cars are illegal now!"

Just because America has a lousy political system and therefore generally a string of bad governments, does not mean government is bad. It just means American government is bad. The countries with the highest levels of citizen happiness, the greatest spread of wealth, the highest education standards, the longest lifespans, the lowest infant mortality rates, the lowest crime rates, all have the kinds of governments Libertarians rail against.

Libertarianism, in summary, is childish, stupid, and immoral. No big surprise @bobknight33 is a fan then.

I actually agree with you mostly, but you're not gonna like it.

One thing I will point out though - "I just don't connect gun regulations as an effective solution to mass murder."

We have data on this. Take Australia. In the 21 years leading up to Port Arthur and that massacre itself, which triggered the nation into heavily regulating guns, there were 16 mass murders of four or more people, totaling 137 murders. Since then, there have been 12, with a total of 76 murders. This despite there being population growth.

Violent crime rate has dropped from 1996 to now, mainly from reductions in robbery and a small drop in homicide rates.

There is very clear evidence that if most guns are removed from circulation, there are very real and likely benefits when it comes to reducing violent crime in general and murder.

I'm a political moderate and pragmatic. I go with what works. Don't care how liberal or conservative the solution is. I'm never in favor of regulation that is ineffective at solving problems.

And to that end, I'm against most gun control measures. I'm on board with banning assault weapons, fully automatic weapons, armor piercing bullets, but most gun control things like psychiatric evaluations, universal background checks? No.
Why? Because societal models we know that provided real progress on problems seemed to suggest one thing - it's the prevalence of guns that is the problem. If you make it marginally harder to buy guns by things like...

Three day waiting periods
Universal background checks
Psychiatric evaluations

They don't work. Banning guns works, though. It's worked time and time again. Australia, Britain, over and over and over, if guns lose prevalence, violence, murder, etc. decrease significantly.

At some point, society has to decide that giving up guns is worth it. But until that time, "common sense" gun control is a waste of time, and I quite frankly think it might do real effective gun control measures harm because when nothing gets better from these mild measures, they're going to point that out.

@jwray

*facepalm*

You realize the link you just posted is titled "IQ dominates socioeconomic background data for white men" (my emphasis).

Sure, there is a correlation between IQ and crime and it is hotly contested to what that actually means.

To some, that means only dumb criminals actually get caught (meaning we don't know the true average IQ of criminals because the smart ones get away with it).

To others, it reflects the socioeconomic status of the people most likely to commit crimes (i.e. likely grew up poor in a neighborhood without strong educational opportunities and therefore does not share the cultural values that IQ tests inherently load into the questions and furthermore the test-taker may be openly hostile to standardized test-taking).

To still others it reflects the RESULTS of crime (i.e. leading a criminal lifestyle makes it more likely that you are going to suffer traumatic physical injuries to the head that literally make you dumber).

The 7-8 point difference you quoted is not nearly enough to make a difference on the crime rates. 100 IQ is the normally distributed mean and Japanese people on average, score around 106. For reference, a standard deviation on the IQ test is 15 points, meaning that for all intents and purposes Japanese people are still roughly in the same ballpark as Americans with their 98-point average.

And literally the first Google search result when I looked up Japanese IQ scores was this one, explaining how national average IQ scores correlate with the per capita income and national rates of economic development.

In other words, economic factors correlate with IQ, which correlates with negatively with crime, which seems to further reinforce the idea that socioeconomic forces are a key factor in criminal behavior.

Look, we're getting really far afield of what the video is about. I think it is a no-brainer that few gun crimes are committed in Japan because guns are so heavily regulated. We do have stabbings, in fact we have mass stabbings (which is something you don't see so often in the U.S.). The thing we both agree on is that it is impossible for the U.S. to replicate these crime statistic results, whether that be for cultural reasons or whatever other cause you want to throw out there.

Uhhh... you are aware of the atrocities Japanese soldiers committed less than a century ago during WWII, right? And I think you're confusing psychopaths (who may or may not be violent) with those suffering from a psychosis (a complete mental break with reality).

Either way, mental illness is a huge problem in Japan and in fact treatment of mental illness is one area where their socialized medicine is sorely lacking behind other countries.

I don't know of any credible studies that say that mental illness rates are lower in Japan than in other developed countries, but I do know that the overwhelming majority of crimes in pretty much any country are actually committed by people who are legally sane.

So, despite what you may believe, "genetic" predisposition is an unlikely factor in explaining Japan's crime rate. Besides which, criminologists agree that whatever role genetics plays in people becoming criminals it isn't nearly the most important factor and is dwarfed by environmental factors (see this for a scholarly article on the topic and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29760212>this for a popular news article).

You're trying to paint this as two equal parts of the recipe for crime when in reality it's more like "add two cups of environmental and a dash of genetics/personality/whatever."

Crime does happen here. The kinds of stuff I hear about on a daily basis in the news: crimes of desperation (homeless guy stealing to survive), thrill-seeking crimes (stealing a bike because you're young and stupid and the chances of getting caught are pretty low), crimes of passion (i.e. domestic violence, drunken bar fights, etc.), organized crime (i.e. yakuza), and the big one--sexual assault.

Sexual assault is so prevalent in Japan that there are actual signs warning women of areas where they are likely to be groped or have men expose themselves. There are train cars for women only so they don't have to get groped on the way to work or school. I mean, how fucked up is that?

So it isn't all rainbows and unicorns over here. Crime happens, and unfortunately is much more likely to happen to you if you're a woman. Still, even accounting for that the crime rates here are ridiculously low, for the reasons I stated above.

Sorry, that's pretty culturally-ignorant thinking right there.

Japanese people are not "meek" or "inhibited" any more so than Americans are. There are different cultural rules about self-expression but there are most certainly loud, aggressive, and flamboyant people here. They just express themselves in different ways than your typically loud, aggressive, and flamboyant American would.

You might think socioeconomic factors were a reason for the lack of crime, but you'd be wrong there too. Japan has a higher poverty rate and lower median income than the U.S.

The low crime rates here can much better be attributed to cultural factors. Every Japanese person is raised with the belief that it is shameful cause problems to the people around them, whether that be family, schoolmates, or co-workers. Getting arrested is about the most shameful thing you could do here. Just being suspected of a crime will likely get you fired from your job, before you are even tried.

And let's not forget the role the justice system here plays. If you get arrested you are almost 100% going to get convicted because the odds are massively stacked against you in the court system. You are basically guilty until proven innocent. Read this for more info about it.

And people here know this. They also know that Japanese prison is hellish. You won't be raped or assaulted there like in the U.S. but you will know exactly what is like to have all of your freedom stripped completely away.

You add to all of this the low unemployment rate of Japan, the high regulation of all weapons (including knives), a robust social system for helping the unemployed (although unfortunately lately a lot of people seem to be falling through the cracks), a nationalized health insurance plan (I pay a $1 co-pay to take my daughter to the doctor and all prescribed medicines are free), a strong social stigma against drug use, and the ability as an island nation to strictly police the borders to prevent the influx of illegal goods (i.e. drugs/guns) and you get the low crime rates in Japan.

tl;dr

There is little incentive to commit crime in Japan because the both social and legal repercussions are extremely severe, and there is little need to resort to crime to survive (plentiful jobs and robust social security). Likewise the opportunity to commit crime is lessened because of the strict regulation of weapons, drugs, and borders.

EDIT: I will say that on more than one occasion I've thought that a career criminal in the U.S. who suddenly found himself in Japan would feel like a kid in a candy store. Because of the lack of crime, people here don't take precautions against it--some people leave doors and windows unlocked when leaving the house, you'll see laptops or iPads left in cars in plain view, and people carry ridiculous amounts of cash on them (I'm talking like on the order of $1000 or more in some cases). On the one hand it can be reassuring but on the other hand I seriously worry about these people when they travel overseas.

Waaaaah?

This video gets so many things wrong it is truly cringe-worthy.

The country has been covered by vending machines since the 1960s--long before there were problems with an aging population and birthrates. The primary reason for vending machines being installed everywhere is, surprise, convenience! Who wants to go to the store and stand in line to buy a drink when you can just go downstairs from your apartment and grab one from outside your front door?

Another thing to consider is that Japan late at night basically completely shuts down--even in major cities like Tokyo the trains stop running around 1AM or so and won't start again until 5AM. Nowadays their are 24-hour convenient stores on practically every other urban street corner but back when vending machines first started getting installed nothing was open late besides bars. If you caught the last train home from work and wanted to buy a coke or something on your walk back from the station you were SOL. Vending machines helped solve that problem.

Which brings us to another point--VERY few Japanese people in urban areas commute by car. Mass transit is fast and efficient and a huge number of people just walk/bike everywhere. Since there is so much foot traffic vending machines make total sense, especially in the summer when temperatures are going to rise into the mid-90s (30+ degrees Celsius) with high humidity and people who are walking/biking are going to get thirsty pretty damn quick.

Another thing he gets wrong is that retailers are not the ones primarily profiting off of vending machines: land owners are. Either they purchase and stock the machines themselves (thereby keeping all the profits) or they make a contract with the retail company in which the company stocks and services the machine but compensates the landowner for use of the space.

Oh, almost forgot something not mentioned in the video--the low crime rates. Another reason for the proliferation of vending machines is that whoever puts them out can be reasonably sure they won't be damaged, defaced, or robbed.

Finally, while he is right that credit cards are not as big here as in, say, the U.S., e-money is huge. And all of the newer vending machines produced in the last few years will take either cash or e-money, such as Suica or Pasmo cards.

By the way, all of this information that I've posted here is available from a simple Google search and there have actually been several articles written on vending machines in Japan over the last couple of years. It's like this guy just came over here and tried to guess why there were so many vending machines around....

Where to start? You're provably wrong on every single point you made.

It's actually been made clear he mistook a political anti-immigrant interviewee and clips from their movie (already debunked, btw) he watched on Fox for a news report on crime in Sweden.

2016 Swedish crime surveys showed a stable crime rate over the last decade, no marked rise. This was just one of the falsehoods in the movie/interview, and a good example of why getting his "information" from Breitbart and Fox and discarding the intelligence community as political opponents is treason level incompetence.

The vast majority of voters don't, and didn't support him. He lost the election, bigly, he only won the electoral college.

There are so many reasons he's a disaster to talk about that we need every mouth available on the job. ;-)

You conflate illegal immigrants with immigrants.

Learn the difference and your first paragraph is pure nonsense. Also, what support do you have for the conclusion that illegal immigration has more negatives than positives? Illegal immigrants in general have a lower crime rate, support businesses, they work hard and pay taxes (which is more than can be said for Trump). Give me some data, ANY data to support your claim.

They "could" have come legally, you say. Well, no, that's the thing, most of them couldn't have. So that's a straight-up lie on your part. Couple that with the incentives the US government gives them to come illegally and why wouldn't they come? Yes, incentives, if the govt doesn't want them they need to take away the jobs, instead they pass rules to protect businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

The rest of your "argument" is mostly nonsense, so I won't even bother with it. WTF does Upton Sinclair have to do with it?

Further to my post above, the back and forth, left vs right, petty bickering all serves to perpetuate the existing problems.

For instance, here in Canada statistics do clearly show that aboriginals are over-represented in crime statistics. Simply observing that statistic though already marks me as a racist in most circles and conversation/debate is supposed to shut down and your not supposed to talk about it.

The trouble is that the disproportionate crime rate isn't because skin colour influences the probability you'll become a criminal. Things like poverty and environment though absolutely do. The reality in Canada is that Aboriginal reserves have conditions that are much worse then comparable municipalities. The system of segregation of Aboriginal people on reserves has created a disparity and this disparity is at the root of the problem.

As I stated though, people aren't even supposed to discuss the issue because it's racist to say most of what I just did. The worst part is that refusing to talk about the problem, let alone working on resolving it, is allowing the continuation of a systematic disadvantaging of Canadians based upon their race.