Chicago Gun Ban Case

[Morganite]

While I'm not quite certain anyone is doing this now, I don't think you can directly compare any deterrent effect (or lack thereof) of the death penalty to that of general gun availability. There's a distinct difference between considering the idea that one might successfully commit a crime, get caught, convicted, and eventually executed, vs. the idea that one might try to commit a crime and get plugged by their erstwhile victim. (And I think I've read things suggesting that the fear of injury might be just as important as the fear of death in this sort of case.)

Compared to internal security apparati and the organizational superiority of real combat troops, the difficulty of acquiring illegal arms is at most a trivial factor in any popular insurrection.

I'll ask the same question I always have when I see this line of argument: Why do you assume that half the real combat troops aren't going to be supporting the insurrection?

(Although you could argue if that's the right word, since in the usual scenario it's the government that's revolting against the established order...)

For my evidence I present: Canada. We have no death penalty and yet we have a less than half the murders (per capita) then the United States does. In fact, every modern western nation which has no death penalty has less murders per capita than the United States does.

I'm not sure where you're going with this, since you're not suggesting a way to separate the effect of having the death penalty from all the other factors. (Unless you're suggesting that the US has more murders because of the death penalty, which seems unlikely.)

-Morgan.