Gun culture doesn’t thrive in Canada

Lethbridge, Alberta, is a nice place to visit … and apparently, a nice place to live if a low crime rate is a priority.

According to an article I saw in the Lethbridge Herald during my recent visit there, police reported incidents requiring use of force at less than half a percent of calls in 2016. That’s 30,799 calls for service, and just 115 requiring use of force. And only one of those instances required a subject to be hospitalized.

Those are impressive numbers for a city of about 100,000 people. The conclusion drawn by the crime report was “that sober and rational people are less likely to become involved with a confrontation with police resulting in a use of force by officers.”

Almost all the use-of-force incidents involved people who were perceived as being agitated, emotionally disturbed or intoxicated.

I talked to three Canadians at a local golf resort about the report, and they were not surprised by the findings. They told me that violence, and especially gun violence, is not a way of life for most folks north of the border/ Chuck Malloy , Idaho Politics Weekly. More here.