how to be the safest city in the U.S.

Freakonomics Blog--Hey, I had no idea there was a Freakonomics blog out there, but there is, and there's great material in it! Steven and Stephen, co-authors, share the duties, and the result is reassuring. Anyway...

...I was reading Freakonomics last night and came across the section in which they relate that Switzerland is one of the safest places in the world, and on a per capita basis has more firearms than just about any other country. As a matter of fact, each adult male has an assault rifle for militia duty and is allowed to keep it at home. How do you suppose that would play around here?

Bear in mind also that the country of Switzerland acts as custodian to wealth that comes to it from all other nations. If we're the safest city in the United States, might we not also safeguard the money?

It might be good for economic development if we got our safety issues, our fiduciary issues, and our taxation issues all aligned to be extremely friendly to outside assets, and to keep those we have from fleeing to more favorable climes. Delaware, New Mexico, and Alaska do it--they've rolled out the welcome mat. Why can't we? Certainly we can't be in such dire straits that we have to tax everything still around us on our way to the bottom. Let's see if we can reverse the trend we started when we drove John D. Rockefeller out of town.