Nevada Enacts Universal School Choice 内华达州颁布普适择校法案 作者：Lindsey M. Burke @ 2015-6-8 翻译：乘风（@你在何地-sxy） 校对：Eartha（@王小贰_Eartha) 来源：National Review，http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419438/nevada-enacts-universal-school-choice On Tuesday night, Nevada governor Brian Sandoval signed into law the nation’s first universal school-choice program. That in and of itself is groundbreaking: The state has created an option open to every single public-school student. Even better, this option improves upon the traditional voucher model, coming in the form of an education savings account (ESA) that parents control and can use to fully customize their children’s education. 6月2日晚，内华达州普适择校方案经州长Brian Sandoval签署后成为法律，这是全国第一个普适择校方案。这本身是一个创举：每位公立学校的学生都将获得一个全新的选择。更妙的是，这一选择自由是对传统的教育券模式的进一步改良，家长将拥有一个教育储蓄账户（education saving account, ESA），可以完完全全地量身定制子女的教育。 Yes, school choice has often advanced through the introduction of vouchers and charter schools — which remain some of the most important reforms for breaking up the government education monopoly. But vouchers were, to quote researcher Matthew Ladner, “the rotary telephones of our movement — an awesome technology that did one amazing thing.” States such as Nevada (and Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, and Tennessee) have implemented the iPhone of choice programs. They “still do that one thing well, but they also do a lot of other things,” Ladner notes. 是的，教育券和特许学校的引入推进了教育选择计划，而且这项改革仍然属于破除政府教育垄断的最重要的改革之列。但是，用研究人士Matthew Ladner的话来说，教育券是“我们事业中的拨盘式电话——一项令人称奇的出色技术，”内华达（以及亚利桑那、佛罗里达、密西西比及田纳西）等州则已经安装上了择校方案中的iPhone。如Ladner所言，它们“仍能发挥以前的作用，但同时也增加了许多新功能”。（见：http://excelined.org/news/icymi-5-questions-matthew-ladner-foundation-excellence-education/） As of next year, parents in Nevada can have 90 percent (100 percent for children with special needs and children from low-income families) of the funds that would have been spent on their child in their public school deposited into a restricted-use spending account. That amounts to between $5,100 and $5,700 annually, according to the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. 从明年起，Nevada将把拟用于公立学校学生的资金中的90%存入家长的指定用途消费账户（对于有特殊需求或贫困家庭的学生，转存比例是100%）。据Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice说，资金数额约在每年5100-5700美元之间。 Those funds are deposited quarterly onto a debit card, which parents can use to pay for a variety of education-related services and products — things such as private-school tuition, online learning, special-education services and therapies, books, tutors, and dual-enrollment college courses. It’s an à la carte education, and the menu of options will be as hearty as the supply-side response — which, as it is whenever markets replace monopolies, is likely to be robust. 资金分季度打入一张借记卡，父母可将其用于购买多种多样与教育相关的服务和产品，如私立学校学费、线上学习、特殊教育服务及治疗、书本、家教、双学分大学课程。这是一种点菜式教育，菜单选项的丰盛度将视乎供应方对此作出的响应而定——任何时候，只要市场取代垄断，供方的响应总是相当活跃的。 Notably, families can roll over unused funds from year to year, a feature that makes this approach particularly attractive. It is the only choice model to date that puts downward pressure on prices. Parents consider not only the quality of education service they receive, but the cost, since they can save unused funds for future education expenses. 值得注意的是，家庭可以将尚未使用的资金连年转存，这一点使得上述办法特别具有吸引力。这是迄今为止唯一能对价格施压的选择模式。家长们不但会考虑孩子所受教育的质量，还会考虑价格，因为存下来的资金能用于未来的教育开支。 Accountability is infused throughout the ESA option. Funding is distributed into the accounts quarterly, and parents provide receipts for expenditures to the state. In the event there is a misuse of funds, the subsequent quarter’s distribution can be withheld and used to rectify it. Students must also take a national norm-referenced test in math and reading, a light touch that doesn’t dictate students take a uniform state test. ESA方案设置了充分的问责机制。资金按季发放至各个账户，家长们则需向州里提供消费收据。一旦出现资金滥用，就可以扣留下一季度的分配资金用于纠正此前的滥用。学生们还必须参加数学和阅读常模参照测验（norm-referenced test）【译注：一种考评方式，评价的是被测者在同类人中的相对水平，而非知识或技能的绝对掌握程度，后一种测量通常要求采用标准参照测验（criterion-referenced test）】，这是一种轻规制（light touch）模式，不要求学生参加全州统考。 So imagine now what the future of education could look like in Nevada. Instead of being assigned to brick-and-mortar schools based on their parents’ ZIP codes, students can instead have their state funds deposited into an ESA. Parents can then craft a learning plan that matches best to the unique learning styles and needs of their children. 现在你可以想象未来内华达州的教育会是何种情形了。学生们不会再根据其父母的邮政编码被分派到传统实体校园里面，取而代之的是拥有一个储存州教育资金的ESA账户。家长们可以根据其子女独特的学习方式和需求，精心拟定最为合适的学习计划。 Perhaps that means Johnny spends the morning at a private school, and then in the afternoon gets private instruction in algebra from a tutor who meets him at home. At night, Johnny takes a dual-enrollment college course online. 这可能意味着强尼上午会在一个私立学校学习，下午在家里接受代数家教的单独辅导，晚上则选修一门双学分大学网络课程。 The future of education financing is here. And the future is about separating the financing of education from the delivery of services. ESAs don’t dismantle public financing of education; they just recognize that education, although publicly financed, doesn’t have to be delivered through government schools. 教育财政的未来已经到来。这个未来就是，教育财政将与教育服务的提供相分离。ESA并不会削弱教育的公共财政性质，它只是承认，公共财政支持的教育并不是非得由公办学校提供不可。 Nevada understands that, and understands it to such an extent that state policymakers and Governor Sandoval went all-in with a universal option. In other words, families in the Silver State have struck gold. 内华达州充分理解了这一点，该州政策制订者们和Sandoval州长已经把赌注全部押在了普适择校方案上。换句话说，银山州【译注：这是内华达州的别称】的家家户户都找发现了金矿。 *Lindsey M. Burke is the Will Skillman Fellow in Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. *Lindsey M. Burke是美国传统基金会教育政策方向Will Skillman研究员。 （编辑：@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

8,000 Years Ago, 17 Women Reproduced for Every One Man 八千年前，17名女性为1名男性传宗接代 作者：Francie Diep @ 2015-03-18 来源：Pacific Standard 译者：Eartha（@王小贰_Eartha)   校对：陆嘉宾（@晚上不买白天买不到） 网址：http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/17-to-1-reproductive-success 【编者按：原谅我不得不写一段长长的按语。本文所报道的研究非常有意思，但报道本身写得很差。这项研究所揭示的其实是这样一个事实：从大约一万年前开始，也就是农业诞生后不久，人类男性中留下后代的比例经历了一次急剧下降，这段下降期为时约四千年，接着又迅速回升。对此，研究者作出的猜测是：在此期间男性的性竞争强度剧增，原因可能是财富和权势积累并集中在少数人手里。所面临的性选择压力。当然，男性之间的性竞争强度历来很高，而且远远高于女性，对比两幅图可以看出，在历史上大部分时间，留下后代的男性数量大概只有女性的1/4，但农业起源后，这一比例突然跌到1/17，这是极不寻常的。】 An analysis of modern DNA uncovers a rough dating scene after the advent of agriculture. 一项对现代DNA的分析揭示了农业出现以后人类两性关系的大致图景。 Threshing wheat in ancient Egypt. 古埃及的打麦场面（Photo: Carlos E. Solivérez/Wikimedia Commons） Once upon a time, 4,000 to 8,000 years after humanity invented agriculture, something very strange happened to human reproduction. Across the globe, for every 17 women who were reproducing, passing on genes that are still around today—only one man did the same. 很久以前，在农业诞生之后4000到8000年间，人类繁衍活动中发生了一些非常奇怪的事情。全世界每17名女性进行生育繁衍、从而得以将其基因留传至今的同时，却仅1名男性有这样的机会。 "It wasn't like there was a mass death of males. They were there, so what were they doing?" asks Melissa Wilson Sayres, a computational biologist at Arizona State University, and a member of a group of scientists who uncovered this moment in prehistory by analyzing modern genes. “看来并不像是男性经历了大规模死亡，他们都安然地活着。可既然如此，他们到底怎么啦？”Melissa Wilson Sayres问道，她来自亚利桑那州立大学的一位计算生物学家，包括她在内的一群科学家，正试图通过分析现代基因来解密这一史前现象。 Another member of the research team, a biological anthropologist, hypothesizes that somehow, only a few men accumulated lots of wealth and power, leaving nothing for others. These men could then pass their wealth on to their sons, perpetuating this pattern of elitist reproductive success. 该研究团队的另一名成员，一位生物人类学家，提出了这样一个假设：只有少数男性能够积累大量财富与权势，而其他男性则一无所有。这些有钱有势的男性将他们的财富传给自己的子孙，以保持世世代代精英繁衍的模式。 Then, as more thousands of years passed, the numbers of men reproducing, compared to women, rose again. "Maybe more and more people started being successful," Wilson Sayres says. In more recent history, as a global average, about four or five women reproduced for every one man. 如此过了几千年之后，有繁殖机会的男性的比例（相对于女性）再次升高。“也许是成功男士越来越多了。”Wilson Sayres说。在较晚近的历史时期，全球范围内平均4到5名女性为1名男性传宗接代。 These two graphs show the number of men (left) and women (right) who reproduced throughout human history. (Chart: Monika Karmin et al./Genome Research) 这两幅图展示了人类历史上进行了生育的男性数量（左）与女性数量（右） Physically driven natural selection shaped many human traits.Ethnic Africans and Europeans had to evolve to digest milk, for example, while most ethnic Tibetans have adaptations to deal with the lower oxygen levels at high altitudes. But if Wilson Sayres' team's hypothesis is correct, it would be one of the first instances that scientists have found of culture affecting human evolution. 针对生理方面的自然选择塑造了人类的种种特性。例如（民族意义上的）非洲人和欧洲人进化得能够消化牛奶，而多数西藏人则拥有了对付高海拔地区稀薄氧气的适应器。可是假如Wilson Sayres团队提出的假说是正确的，这将是科学家找到的第一批人类文化影响自身进化的例证之一。 The team uncovered this dip-and-rise in the male-to-female reproductive ratio by looking at DNA from more than 450 volunteers from seven world regions. Geneticists analyzed two parts of the DNA, Y-chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA. These don't make up a large portion of a person's genetics, but they're special because people inherit Y-chromosome DNA exclusively from their male ancestors and mitochondrial DNA exclusively from their female ancestors. 研究团队观察分析了来自全球7个地区450多名志愿者的DNA后，发现男女生育比例的这一大起大落。遗传学家分析了DNA的两个部分——Y染色体DNA和线粒体DNA。它们只占个体遗传物质的一小部分，但其特殊之处在于，Y染色体DNA只能继承自父系祖先，而线粒体DNA只能继承自母系祖先。 By analyzing diversity in these parts, scientists are able to deduce the numbers of female and male ancestors a population has. It's always more female. 通过分析不同个体间Y染色体DNA和线粒体DNA的多样化程度，科学家得以此推测一个种群中男性祖先和女性祖先的数量。女性祖先总是多于男性祖先。 So much for what our DNA can tell us. This study, published last week in the journal Genome Research, can't directly account for why the dip occurred. Instead, the team members tried to think through other explanations. "Like was there some sort of weird virus that only affected males across the whole globe, 8,000 years ago?" Wilson Sayres asks—a hypothesis the team found unlikely. 我们的DNA能告诉我们的就这么多了。上周在Genome Research期刊上发表的这项研究，并不能直截了当的解释上述大起大落的原因。研究团队也在努力寻找其他可能的解释。“比如说8000年前全球爆发了一种只感染男性的奇怪病毒？”Wilson Sayres说道——但这个假设大家都觉得不太可能。 To further test the wealth-and-power idea, the researchers plan to look for other genetic markers that would indicate that something cultural, not physical, kept those early male farmers from reproducing. Team members could also collaborate with anthropologists and archaeologists, to see if they have any clues. 为了进一步验证“财富与权势”假说，研究者们计划寻找适当的遗传标记，能够揭示某些妨碍早期男性农耕者生育繁衍的文化而非生理因素。他们也希望与人类学家和考古学家开展合作，看看他们能否提供什么线索。 Nature is a harsh taskmaster, but so, it seems, is human culture. Although the popular notion is that farming and settlement cushioned people against "survival of the fittest," this study shows that's not true. Something cultural happened 8,000 years ago that's marked us even today. 大自然是个严酷的工头，但现在看来，人类文化似乎也是。尽管流行观点认为，农耕与定居已将人类从“最适者生存”的法则中解放，但这项研究却告诉我们真相并非如此，8000年前的某些文化条件留在我们身上的印迹至今仍在。  

【2015-08-03】 @海德沙龙 人类男性间的性竞争强度历来很高，而且远远高于女性，在历史上大部分时间，留下后代的男性数量大概只有女性的1/4-1/3，不过这份最新研究显示，农业起源之后不久，男性间的性竞争强度突然急剧提高，背后原因引人深思…… @侯杨方: 根据明朝徽州的户口册，我算出临终时，只有三分之一成年男子有男性后代。 @whigzhou: 哇～ @大音希声声声:貌似黑非洲没有经历过长时期的农业文明，是否他们的基因就还比较多样性…所以…接下去就有点政治不正确了…… @whigzhou: 下撒哈拉非洲的农业历史并不短，班图语系各族有很长农耕史，尼罗-撒哈拉语系各族则有很长畜牧史，后者甚至已独立发展出了乳糖耐受 @whigzhou: 非洲的基因多样性最高，是因为她是智人的发源地，发源地多样性最高，这是进化的普遍现象，包括文化进化也是，比如波利尼西亚语在其发源地台湾的多样性，比台湾以外的全部波利尼西亚语加起来还高 @whigzhou: 班图大扩张就是农业民族从西非向东向南扩散的过程，和东亚类似，尼罗语牧民也在不断向南侵袭，但不同的是，非洲的热带雨林（及其孳生的病原体）构成了此类大规模扩张/替代的巨大屏障，所以欧亚大陆那种规模和频率的大清洗就较少发生，这大概也为非洲保留了更多多样性  

Will China Get Fat Before It Gets Rich? 中国会未富先胖吗？ 作者：Jonathan Woetzel @ 2015-4-20 翻译：bear 校对：陆嘉宾（@晚上不买白天买不到） 来源：McKinsey China，http://www.mckinseychina.com/will-china-get-fat-before-it-gets-rich/ The rising wave of obesity around the world and its health and economic costs cannot be ignored—even in China. This is no longer a “western” problem. Today, 62 percent of the world’s obese people are in developing countries. 这波全球范围内愈演愈烈的肥胖浪潮，以及它导致的健康和经济损失，无法被忽视——即便是在中国。这不再只是个“西方的”难题。如今，发展中国家拥有了世界上60%的肥胖症患者。

Global scourge 全球性灾难

More than 2.1 billion people—nearly 30 percent of the global population—are overweight or obese today. That’s nearly two and a half times the number of adults and children who are undernourished. Obesity is responsible for about 5 percent of deaths worldwide. The global economic impact from obesity is roughly $2.0 trillion, or 2.8 percent of global GDP, roughly equivalent to the global impact from smoking or armed violence, war, and terrorism. 目前，有超过21亿人——约占全球人口30%——超重或肥胖。这几乎是营养不良的成人和儿童数量的2.5倍。全世界大概有5%的死亡是由肥胖导致的。肥胖给全球带来的经济负担约为2万亿美元，或者说占全球GDP的2.8%，差不多和吸烟或武装暴力、战争以及恐怖主义造成的全球性影响相当。

A problem for China? 中国面临的问题？

The fact of the matter is that rapid industrialization and urbanization is boosting incomes (Exhibit 1). Higher incomes mean more food and often a more sedentary lifestyle. The risk of obesity rises. 事实的真相是，高速的工业化和城市化进程提高了收入（图1）。更高的收入意味着更多的食物，还常常伴随着坐得更久的生活方式。于是，肥胖的风险上升了。 In China, the prevalence of obesity in cities is three to four times the rate in rural areas, reflecting higher incomes in urban areas and therefore higher levels of nutrition and food consumption and often less active labor. The prevalence of obese and overweight people rose at 1.2 percent a year in Chinese adult males between 1985 and 2004 and 1 percent a year in adult females. ⑴ 在中国，城市中肥胖的流行程度是郊区的三到四倍，这反映出市区有更高的收入和因此带来的更高营养水平、食物消费，以及通常更少的体力劳动。1985至2004年间，中国成年男性中，肥胖和超重人群的比例每年增长1.2%，成年女性中则每年增长1%。⑴ Today, the top social cost to China is air pollution, the second is smoking, and obesity ranks only ninth. That ranking could rise very quickly. 如今，对中国来说，社会成本排名最高的是空气污染，其次是吸烟，而肥胖仅仅排在第九，但它的排名可能会快速上升。

Famine and feast 饥荒与盛宴

There is worrying evidence that obesity can entrench itself even more quickly in countries that have experienced food scarcity in the recent past. Take the Micronesian island of Nauru, which, until the mid-20th century, experienced repeated food shortages and starvation. Once food poverty was a thing of the past, the prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes soared to among the highest worldwide. In 2010, 94 percent of men and 93 percent of women were overweight, and approximately 71 percent of the population was obese. ⑵ 令人担忧的证据是，在晚近历史上曾经历过食物短缺的国家，肥胖都成了根深蒂固的问题。例如密克罗尼西亚地区的瑙鲁岛，在直到20世纪中叶前的历史上，反复经历着食物短缺和饥荒。一旦食物匮乏不再是一个问题，此地肥胖和II型糖尿病的流行程度迅速蹿升，成为全世界该问题最严重的地区之一。2010年，94%的男性和93%的女性超重，大约有71%的肥胖人口。⑵

What needs to be done? 需要做什么？

Without action, almost half of adults in the world will be overweight or obese by 2030. MGI’s recent economic analysis of obesity looked at 74 interventions that are being discussed or piloted somewhere in the world (including restrictions on advertising of high-calorie food and drink, calorie and nutritional labeling, and public-health campaigns); we had sufficient information to compare 44 of these internationally. 若不采取行动，到2030年全世界大约会有一半的成年人超重或肥胖。MGI近期对肥胖的经济分析，观察了曾被讨论或试行的74种干预措施（包括限制高卡路里饮食做广告，用标签标明卡路里和营养成分，以及公共健康活动），其中44种我们有足够信息作出国际比较。 The conclusion was that each single intervention is likely to have only a small impact on its own. Only a systemic, sustained portfolio of anti-obesity initiatives will work——implemented on a large scale. Everyone needs to play their part from government to retailers, consumer-goods companies, restaurants, employers, media organizations, educators, health-care providers, and individuals. 结论是，单独实施时任何种干预措施，可能只有一点点作用。只有大规模地实施系统性的、持续的反肥胖组合措施才会奏效。政府、零售商、消费品公司、餐馆、雇主、媒体机构、教育工作者、医疗保健机构，以及个人，都需要在其中发挥作用。 Individual responsibility for health and fitness is vital, but experience shows it is insufficient on its own. People need help and that means changes to the environment in which they are making choices. Such changes include changing marketing practices, and restructuring cities to make it easier for people to exercise. 在保健问题上，个人责任是关键，但经验显示，仅仅靠它是不足够的。人们需要帮助，这意味着改变他们做决定时的环境。这包括改变营销策略，和把城市建设得让人们更易于锻炼。

Change is cost-effective 改变是划算的

MGI’s initial analysis of obesity in the United Kingdom found that almost all of the 44 interventions are cost-effective. So it is well worth China experimenting with solutions and trying them out—before obesity takes hold and becomes an expensive problem. MGI最初在英国对肥胖的分析发现，几乎所有44种干预措施都是划算的。所以在肥胖问题变得昂贵且根深蒂固之前，这些解决方案对中国来说都是值得一试的。

⑴ Barry M. Popkin, “Will China’s nutrition transition overwhelm its health care system and slow economic growth?” Health Affairs, volume 27, number 4, 2008.

⑵ Nauru country health information profile 2011, statistical annex, World Health Organization.

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——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

Why Gun Sales Boomed In June 六月，枪支销售因何大热 作者：Frank Miniter @ 2015-7-25 译者：Eartha（@王小贰_Eartha） 校对：晓舸（@ShawXG） 来源：Forbes，http://www.forbes.com/sites/frankminiter/2015/07/17/why-gun-sales-boomed-in-june/ Guns are not perishable items. Kept in good repair a firearm lasts generations. So how is it that gun sales continue to set records when more than 100 million American gun owners already have over 300 million guns? 枪支不是易腐商品，照料的好，可以保用数代。那么，为何当超过1亿多美国枪主已拥有3亿多支枪时，枪支销售量仍然屡创新高呢？ Last month, for example, was the busiest June for gun sales ever. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for firearms manufacturers, says gun dealers completed 886,825 background checks in June 2015. 就近的说，上个月是史上枪支销售最火爆的六月。美国全国射击运动基金会（National Shooting Sports Foundation ，NSSF），一个由军火生产商组成的贸易协会，宣称2015年6月枪支销售商们完成了886,825例（对购买枪支者的）背景调查。【译注：此类背景调查所依据的是1993年通过的布雷迪手枪暴力防治法（Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act）设立的背景调查制度，该法案禁止出售枪支给受限人群。】 The NSSF follows the FBI-administered National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) closely. Each time someone wants to buy a gun from a licensed dealer their name must be called into the FBI’s NICS database (or, in some cases, a state-operated database) to check if that person is barred from possessing a gun. NSSF严格遵守由FBI管理的全国即时犯罪背景调查系统（National Instant Criminal Background Check System，NICS）的有关规定。每当有人想从特许枪支销售商那里购买枪支，其姓名必须被输进FBI的NICS数据库（或者，在某些情况下，由州运营的数据库），以检查此人是否被限制拥有枪支。 The NSSF said the number of NICS checks last June was “the highest” on record “for the 17-year-old [NICS] system.” It was an increase of 10.1 percent over June 2014. NSSF表示，上个月是NICS系统建立17年以来背景调查次数最多的六月，比去年同期增加了10.1%。 Now, some news reports say this jump in sales is all about gun owners’ fears about more gun control coming in the wake of the horrific attack on parishioners on June 17 at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. The thing is this can’t be the whole story because in May 2015 some 918,707 background checks were called into the FBI’s database, making it the second-highest May ever. 现在，一些新闻报道认为，此次枪支销量突增全是因为，6月17日发生在南卡罗来纳州查尔斯顿一座教堂中针对教徒的严重枪击事件，导致持枪者们担心政府会进一步加强枪支管控。但这并不是全部的理由，因为在2015年的五月，FBI的数据库进行了918,707次背景调查，这是有史以来次数第二多的五月。

Rifles stand on a rack at Article 2 Gun Store in Lombard, Illinois. U.S. (Photographer: Tim Boyle/Bloomberg) 美国伊利诺伊州Lombard镇的“Article 2”枪店内陈列的来复枪。【译注：Article 2即宪法第二修正案：纪律严明的民兵是保障自由州的安全所必需的，因此人民持有和携带武器的权利不得侵犯。】（摄影：Tim Boyle/Bloomberg）

For a deeper explanation I contacted Jim Curcuruto, director, industry research & analysis for the NSSF. He said, “Background checks were up over 19 percent in South Carolina, as compared to the previous June, but that one state isn’t enough to make the NICS checks jump 10 percent nationally. So, after making a lot of calls, we found that some of the bump was related to sales and other deals at retail chains. Some percentage of the rise in sales was definitely related to fear of more gun control. There are also typically spikes in sales regionally after something occurs that prompts people to look for ways to protect their own lives. But there has also been a steady rise in gun sales for some time. So there were multiple factors involved.” 为了获得更深入的解释，我联系到了NSSF行业研究分析主管Jim Curcuruto。他说：“南卡罗来纳州的背景调查数量相比于去年六月增加超过19%，但是一个州的情况变化并不足以导致全国范围的NICS背景调查数量突增10%。所以，在打了很多电话进行调查之后，我们发现，数量突增一部分与连锁零售店的交易量有关，一部分也确实出于对强化枪支管控的担忧。如果在某个地区发生了一些事件，人们由此意识到需要采取行动来保卫自己的生命，当地的枪支销售量也通常会突然增加。但是，枪支销量的稳定上升也有一段时间了。所以，全国调查数量的突增涉及到很多因素。” Of course, we’re talking about NICS checks here, not actual gun sales. Just because someone undergoes a background check doesn’t mean they necessarily purchased a gun; also, someone could buy multiple guns after a single background check. This is why NICS is seen only as an indicator of the volume of gun sales. 当然，我们在此讨论的只是NICS的背景调查数目，而非真实的枪支销售量。并不是说一个人接受了背景调查之后就一定买了一把枪；同样，一个人可以买很多把枪而只需进行一次背景调查。正因此，NICS只能被视为判断枪支销量的指标之一。 Now, I started by asking why gun sales continue to set records when more than 100 million American gun owners already have over 300 million guns? This probably had a lot of gun aficionados asking, “What, the average gun owner only has three guns?” 现在回到本文开头提出的问题，“为什么当1亿多的美国枪主已拥有3亿多支枪时，枪支销量仍屡创新高？”。恐怕有很多枪支爱好者要问了，“什么？每位枪主才三支枪？” Guns, you see, are heirlooms, works of art, and practical tools used for sport, self-defense and hunting. As works of art or tools—or both—guns have a specific purposes. Hunters will have a specific gun or guns for big game, for upland birds, for waterfowl and so on. 你瞧，枪支是传家宝、艺术品，还是用于体育、自卫和狩猎的实用工具。不论是作为艺术品还是实用工具，抑或两者兼具，枪支都有着特定的用途。猎人们用不同种类的枪分别对付丛林里的大家伙、陆鸟或是水鸟。 Those who are into the shooting sports will find their collection expanding as they mature and try new sports. Those looking for self-defense guns will try new carry guns and more as technology and design adds options. As for collectors, well, by definition they just can’t get enough. So it’s actually not all that helpful to compare the number of guns in private hands to the number of gun owners. 当射击爱好者们变得老练起来，并开始尝试新项目，他们的枪支储备也随之而不断扩充。想买把枪防身的人则会不停地尝试新款配枪，而技术与设计的发展也为他们提供了更多的选择。至于收藏者，看这称呼就知道他们永远都不会满足。所以，将私人拥有的枪支数量和持枪者的数量进行比较并没有什么意义。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——