If you want to consider population density, Alaska has a density 7
times that of Yukon. This is a rather enormous difference.
Andy Freeman said:
But, is it a significant one? The relative size of the empty spaces
probably doesn't matter much, except when it comes to computing
average population density, because we really can ignore places where
there's no one around to kill or be killed.
I think it is up to those who claim that the two places are
comparable, to show that, ignoring uninhabited areas, the densities
are the same.
Here is another way they differ:
% of population living in centres of population 20,000 or greater:
Alaska 60%
Yukon 0%
Legal availability is certainly lower in the Yukon than in Alaska.
The evidence is a knowledge of Alaska, US, and Canadian gun laws and
an assumption that Yukon gun laws don't preempt Canadian laws.Does Lambert really want to argue that Canadian gun laws are less
strict than US laws? While I wouldn't be surprised by a "the US laws
provide no legal obstacles to gun ownership" claim, I'd be surprised
by one about Canada.
Rather than speculate on the effect of Canadian gun laws on legal
ownership, we could actually look at Centerwall's data. This shows
that ownership of long guns is about the same in the Prairie states
and the Prairie provinces and the same in Washington and British
Columbia. Does Andy want to argue that long gun ownership would be
much higher on the Canadian side of the border without strict Canadian
gun laws? I suppose that is possible, but then the places will differ
in ways other than gun laws....
Centerwall's data suggests that long gun ownership increases with
decreasing centre size. This means that long gun ownership is
probably higher in Yukon than in Alaska.
Note that there's a difference between legal availability and legal
ownership rates. Since we're talking about the value of gun laws as
restrictions on typical people, surely legal availability is the
relevant factor.
Only if legal ownership rates make no difference.