actually, the largest predictor for success of a child is his/her family genetic makeup.
In short it's what we are, not what we do that has the largest effect on how your child will grow up.

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

eugenics aside, -and I don't even want to get into it....- it would be also good to have a study of societies with gun control and gun-related violent death for comparison -ha-ha:-D .
sorry for deviating from the topic here

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Happy New Year to all! Virtual hugs!

Julia, did you know that guns are actually one of the safest consumer products ever created?
we have 225mln guns with 25,000 death in US/year gun related. Half of those death are suicides. Leaves about 12,500.
So only 0.005% of all guns actually cause death.
So guns are 99.995% safe.. how many other products you know are that safe?

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

Ira, you can "say" what you like.. there are studies that show what affect childs success.. and it;s overwhelmingly genetics.
The best study is done on adopted children, which i linked in another topic.

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

sounds good.
let's look at some other statistics: main causes of death by age groups and gender in the US and other first world countries. Let's look , for example at the group of males ages 15-35. We can also look at those numbers by race, just out of interest

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Happy New Year to all! Virtual hugs!

Julia, yeah.. lets look at a very specific demographics that's convenient to prove your point...
We are WAY off-topic.. but let me ask you a specific question..
You have 2 neighbors, one has a gun at home, another one has a swimming pool. You also have a 5yo child.
Everything else being equal, which house is it safer for your child to go to?
The point ( for US ) is.. there are so many guns out there right now, making them illegal will not change anything. bad guys will still get them

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

Why not just compare the level of violence in Russia, where guns are outlawed to US?
Anyone feels like digging up that statistic?

Slavik, I'm sure those statistics are unavailable. Ira, don't you have the toughest gun laws in your state?

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Хочу лето (или нормальную зиму)

we estimate on the basis of a comparison of biological and adoptedchildren that about 55–60 percent of the parental ability isgenetically transmitted.
sounds about right to me.
I can't find the study i referenced before here.. i do have a bookmark at home.. so will send later.
Again, mostly generic.. the rest environmental..

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

liberal and conservative religious nuts are against abortion all-together..
1.Ok, going back to the old argument...while I'd argue that conservatives are mostly religious, they are NOT nuts...nuts or fanatics are someone who use religion to harm...people of faith use their faith to quide them in determining right and wrong (and I am not implying that non-religious people are not moral)...While I would argue that ultra-liberals are zealots (but their religion is liberalism with own churches and Gods), conservatives are the ones who use traditional religion to guide them...name one religious liberal nut you know, PLEASE!!!...:-)