Comments on: Half of assaults involve a firearm and occur in San José

By: Timothy Williams

Timothy Williams — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 11:49:00 +0000

Ken, I think another factor involved is that INS started offering insurance for smartphones – police report required. In fact, we heard from someone at OIJ that they are concerned that they are receiving false reports of robberies when someone simply loses their phone.

By: Ken Morris

Ken Morris — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 02:08:00 +0000

It must be statistics day! For starters, since half the population lives in the Central Valley and most pass through San José (of course, San José might have been defined as the metro area rather than the city) to find half the robberies occurring in San José only means that there are about an equal amount of robberies everywhere. Second, somewhere in the neighborhood of three-quarters of everyone in Costa Rica don’t drive, so finding that 78.5% of the robbery victims are pedestrians also only tells us that the odds are proportional. Third, robbery is by definition a crime that includes the threat or use of force, and there aren’t a lot of weapons to choose among. Some thugs probably use machetes, but if you intend to rob people, I recommend getting a gun. Fourth, I would imagine that those robbed by bandits with guns are more apt to report the altercation than those robbed by thugs with a pocket knife, so I’m not even sure I believe the report. Last, there are more cops on the street, which makes crimes easier to report, so for all we know the actually street crime rate is the same or lower, but only the reported crime rate is up. In the end, I’m not sure that these data tell us anything (except to keep your cell phone in your pocket).

By: Jim Freeman

Jim Freeman — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 01:37:00 +0000

Good responce Timothy!

By: Timothy Williams

Timothy Williams — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 15:18:00 +0000

Stevieboy, Rico is no longer with ICR (I’m the new editor), but I’ll respond to your question – I do believe it would be appropriate to add ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ to the story if the OIJ report would have provided such information, which it did not.

I wouldn’t call it yellow though, the story simply states a fact (that fact, perhaps, could even ENCOURAGE legal gun ownership by law abiding citizens).

Of course, almost certainly most of the firearms used were illegal and/or stolen.

I don’t see anything about the story though that is intended to discourage legal gun ownership. Perhaps the opposite.

Personally, I’m all for legal gun ownership by law-abiding citizens.

By: stevieboy

stevieboy — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 15:11:00 +0000

rico- aside from participating is yellow journalism dont you think adding the word “LEGAL” OR “ILLEGAL” to your article would give a better distinction??? for example..

Half of assaults involve a “ILLEGAL”firearm and occur in San José
this slight addition.. makes all the difference in the world.. if that information is not known.. then it should be stated.. because then we can actually find solutions instead of attacking things ona topical level which is so common in the states.

I would go out on a limb.. and call me crazy.. to say most of these were committed with illegal firearms.. thus protecting the rights of legal citizens that want to protect themselves and family. I go out of my way to comply with all the laws here. and when i read this it steams me..