Thread: Purgatory: American 'gun culture' - fact or fiction? Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.
To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=000635
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
This thread is to prevent hijacking of the 'Why are "our" lives more important?' thread.
The premise was Americans taking issue with the common UK description of the US as a 'gun culture'.
Have fun, kids.
Here are my responses to specific comments in the other thread:
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by mirrizin:
With all due respect, as a resident of a major US city, I can assure you we don't live in a "gun culture."
With equal respect, as a some-time resident of small US cities and major UK ones, I couldn't disagree more.
From Wikipedia (that repository of all true wisdom): 'Currently, 48 U.S. states allow some form of concealed carry. (About half of the states provide for some variant on non-concealed "open-carry". In 13 states, the same permit or license is required to open-carry a handgun, but most states do not require a permit or license to carry openly; in 6 states, even with concealed-carry licenses or permits, open-carry is absolutely prohibited.)'
For people from the UK, it seems a no-brainer that if the problem is gun crime, then putting more on the streets through outlets like Wal-Mart is not the solution. Only in America could the gun lobby immediately put out a statement saying, 'We pray for all those dead kids -- but, y'know, if one of 'em had had a gun, they'd have stopped that guy about 20 bodies before they did.'
For the news media -- and possibly the people -- in the US, a tragedy likes this simply revives the decades-old gun control debate, which the gun lobby invariably wins. A wide-scale, far-reaching gun ban, however, even for gun-control proponents is never seen to be an option worth raising. The gun is acceptable to most, even sacrosanct to some. And that's why we call it a 'gun culture' over here. It's not that everybody has one; it's that almost anybody could have one, and that seems to be o.k. with most Americans.
For myself I'll keep my Anglo-American kids over here.
which earned Response 1:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Almost all of us don't carry guns, discuss guns or give a shit about guns. It is an odd opinion to thus suggest our culture is obsessed with the things. Mental note.
(Following that logic, Britain must be knife culture.)
It's the 'not giving a shit about guns' that worries me. Gun crime is endemic in the States, due (naturally) to their wide availability, and if 'nobody gives a shit' that is worrying.
Call Britain a knife culture if you wish, but that kid in Virginia (or those kids in Columbine) wouldn't have been able to do the damage they did, had they been armed only with knives or -- say -- unwound paperclips. That business about 'guns don't kill people; people kill people' is all well and good; but guns sure make the job more efficient. (It's why the military tend to invest so heavily in them, I'm given to understand!)
And Response 2:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
Where are you going to find a safe place for your children with no crimes of passion and mental instability?
none. As mentioned elsewhere, Dunblaine still looms large in many people's minds here in the UK.
that said, such incidents are a rarity, and nobody questions the need to restrict public access to guns as a result. for a large portion of America (and the side that inevitably wins the political debate) such a reaction to Virginia Tech would be anathema; as it was with Columbine and the University of Texas.
The harder it is for the average imbalanced individual to get his hands on a gun, the less chance your kids will get shot. Simple maths.
I've seen a guy get shot in a mugging in the US in a fairly average crime in a piddly small city; but contrast I've walked through some of the worst parts of London at 3 am and only once ever felt especially unsafe. Maybe that colours my view; and I suspect my experience is still limited; but I'm not just another Brit initiating a 'pond war' either.
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
There is no *one* American culture that a gun sub-culture could be a part of. Guns are used by various people for various reasons, some of them having to do with sub-cultures, some of them not.
...
Yes, guns are an issue and more avaialable here than in some other countries--and many of us in the US don't like the current laws--but guns aren't a culture, no matter how badly people might want to think that they are to justify a stereotype.
But there are many American sub-cultures (and individuals) into which the armaments industry penetrates. A far smaller variety of guns are used by far fewer various people here for a far smaller array of purposes.
When you propose such limitations on Americans, certainly there's loud and controversial debate, including many who would gladly limit gun access. But those voices are never really taken seriously by the people who make the laws. And it never really changes anything.
FWIW, I'm not stereotyping American culture -- not deliberately, anyway; I'm speaking from 27 years of living in a gun heartland and 12 of living in Europe.
quote:
And since when has Wiki been considered rock solid evidence?
just a quick ref., as I implied. I'm sure you can go to all 50 states' websites to review their concealed-carry laws; but I just thought this was quicker.
quote:
I suspect that the man who committed mass murder at Virginia Tech would have found another way to enact his rage if guns had not been available--that's the sad fact.
oh, he almost surely would have cracked and acted out in some way -- but I don't buy for a minute that it would have been equally deadly. he'd find it difficult, for example, to get his hands on C4. And a pointed stick just wouldn't kill so many people so quickly as a 500 mph piece of metal penetrating their flesh. Somebody probably could have stopped him, if he'd only had a pointed stick.
[ 10. August 2007, 00:09: Message edited by: Duo Seraphim ]
Posted by MerlintheMad (# 12279) on
:
In Utah, there is an average of six firearms per household. I have never considered myself as living in a "gun culture." People don't flaunt their guns. They keep them locked up when not in use. Hunting is very big around here. We like our guns. Thousands of Utahns have concealed carry permits.
Posted by MerlintheMad (# 12279) on
:
"Pointed stick", heh. Let's not fail to mention the time-honored way of "going out with panache" in parts of Asia: with a broadsword in the marketplace. That can wipe out quite a few people before the sword wielder is finally taken down. Had this South Korean man known his swordsmanship, and disdained guns, we would be talking about fewer dead, probably, but a crime no less grissly or horrific. Would we then ban swords?
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
Doctor Frog,
Thanks for the in depth response. I will attempt an answer to do you justice. But first a quick comment: You comment that you've seen a robbery with a gun here and thuslyfeel safer in very sketchy parts of England at night. If I may say so, I'm guessing you're male. Unfortunately, most women have been taught to feel uncomfortable at night in bad neighborhoods because such worries keep us safer. And believe me, guns aren't even slightly what's worrying me in that case, either!
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Doctor Frog,
Thanks for the in depth response. I will attempt an answer to do you justice. But first a quick comment: You comment that you've seen a robbery with a gun here and thuslyfeel safer in very sketchy parts of England at night. If I may say so, I'm guessing you're male. Unfortunately, most women have been taught to feel uncomfortable at night in bad neighborhoods because such worries keep us safer. And believe me, guns aren't even slightly what's worrying me in that case, either!
I am male. And, yes, I respect what you're saying there.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
In Utah, there is an average of six firearms per household. I have never considered myself as living in a "gun culture." People don't flaunt their guns. They keep them locked up when not in use. Hunting is very big around here. We like our guns. Thousands of Utahns have concealed carry permits.
personally, I'm as o.k. with a farm / hunting shotgun as any vegetarian is capable of being. It's the guns that primarily kill people and are intended to kill people (offensively or defensively) that I have a problem with. (Or those used mainly for other purposes, but bought in circumstances where killing people is the most likely prospect.)
As for 'gun culture' -- would you say you live in an 'LDS culture' -- even when people don't flaunt it? If guns are such a prevailing ethic, for whatever reason, it does lend itself to that conclusion, even if you don't personally give it much of a thought from day to day. I'd certainly say that where I was in the States was a gun culture -- precisely because they were so de-rigeur that we didn't give them any real thought.
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
Had this South Korean man known his swordsmanship, and disdained guns, we would be talking about fewer dead, probably, but a crime no less grissly or horrific. Would we then ban swords?
actually, certain types of martial arts swords are indeed banned here except under specific controlled and/or licensed condiitons.
I'm perfectly cool with that. I don't think anybody has an automatic right to a device deliberately designed to inflict damage on other people -- gun or otherwise.
[ 18. April 2007, 16:22: Message edited by: doctor-frog ]
Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on
:
One could say that I lived in a gun culture. It was not unusual for the area that I gre up in for kinds to bring guns to school in High School. Although they weren't brought into the classroom, but were in the gun rack in the back of the truck.
It was a past time to show each other what guns you had.
But it was always the fact that the guns were used for hunting, and maybe target practice, but that was just to get ready for hunting season.
Is that gun culture? Probably. Would any of then think twice about it. No.
Is it that kind of culture that causes murder? No. None of them thought that guns were used to kill people. (Well, they knew that guns used unsafely would.) But wanting to kill someone wasn't something that they thought about.
So when someone tells me that people kill people, not guns, I know that it's true. Can someone with a gun kill more people than with a knife? Yes.
Of course a moving truck with a homemade bomb can kill many more people. An airplane flown into a building can kill even more.
What makes more sense is to look at how we prevent people with the desire to kill large amounts of people from carrying out their desires.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
I think sometimes nonAmericans forget how bloody large America is. Some of our states are much bigger than many countries. It is very possible for parts of my state to be rural enough that hunting is exceedingly important (and thus there is a lobby to support gun use) while other parts of the state are places where almost few people want anyone besides their policemen to own guns--if them!
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
Doctor-Frog--you've avoided responding (or copying from the other thread) some of the issues I brought up about what culture is and how "gun culture" is a misnomer and inaccurate concept, even though the use of guns and the availability of guns is an issue that many worry about for various reasons.
Or do you believe that there is one main American Culture and "gun culture" is part of that? If so, then every single American will be part of gun culture, and I can assure you that is not the case.
I recognize that you've had certain experiences in this country that lead you to extrapolate to the entire country, but we're 300 million people of various ethnicities, ideas about government, settling arguments, dealing with pain and frustration, not to mention religious prohibitions against using firearms--hardly a unified body in which the gun is a prominant part.
I think you are confusing "culture" and "society" and even in that confusion, you've placed the gun further up the ladder than it really is for the majority of us here.
Citing gun laws doesn't support a case for gun issues to be part of a *cultural* underpining of a society. Even the old stereotype of the frontiersman going into the woods with just his rifle is pretty much inaccurate.
Debating this stereotype takes away from larger and more important questions, like why do people commit violent crimes. I think the percentage of people who think I have a gun, I might as well kill or guns are the first thing to use in a conflict situation is relatively low, despite media-driven ideas.
In a true gun culture, using a gun as a first-line tool would be something socialized into *every* child. And in a true gun culture, no laws would impede that notion. Obviously, these things are simply not cultural at the level of national identity.
Following the logic of a "gun culture" Gwai wondered about a "knife culture" in Britain, and I (less seriously and only for purposes of discussion) wondered about a "hijack-the-thread" culture on the Ship.
I don't really believe there is a hijack culture on the Ship--in fact, I don't think there is one Ship culture at all. But if you use the gun culture reasoning....
1) many threads are hijacked (the many crimes), and
2) there seem to be policies about it (like gun laws), and
3) different threads have hosts to enforce the policies (law enforcement), but
4) people keep hijacking threads, so it must be a culture.
I think we advance the issue of gun violence in a way more open to discussion and problem solving if we stay away from trying to portray it as ingrained and start asking ourselves how we can make sure that people are responsible with weapons, how people can control their anger in better ways, how societies everywhere can seek peaceful coflict resolution and more compassion for those who are in a place where they feel they have few options besides death.
In every culture (or set of sub-cultures) there are areas for improvement. These areas are easier to recognize and address IMHO if stereotyping is kept to a minimum.
sabine
Posted by MerlintheMad (# 12279) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
personally, I'm as o.k. with a farm / hunting shotgun as any vegetarian is capable of being. It's the guns that primarily kill people and are intended to kill people (offensively or defensively) that I have a problem with. (Or those used mainly for other purposes, but bought in circumstances where killing people is the most likely prospect.)
But nutjobs don't use any gun for killing to eat: they kill because they want to kill. Preventing innocent people from having equal firepower cabability runs counter to the ethic that the most fundamental personal right is the right to defend your own life.
quote:
As for 'gun culture' -- would you say you live in an 'LDS culture' -- even when people don't flaunt it?
Oh, I didn't say I don't live in a gun culture: I simply meant that I never thought of it (considered it) that way; or noticed it at all, until this subject got raised the first time (way back when) by "outsiders" who were being critical (to say the least).
Yes, I live in a gun culture. LDS people love their guns possibly even more than the non LDS do: we have this "justified defense" ethic that hails back to our early days of persecution: and in the Book of Mormon, the greatest heros are men of the sword and men of God. Gotta love that mixture!
quote:
actually, certain types of martial arts swords are indeed banned here except under specific controlled and/or licensed condiitons.
I'm perfectly cool with that. I don't think anybody has an automatic right to a device deliberately designed to inflict damage on other people -- gun or otherwise.
Maybe not an automatic right. But if the likelihood of mayhem exists, it is just plain wrong to allow the perps to have their moment of "glory" and deny the victims equal or superior force.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
But nutjobs don't use any gun for killing to eat: they kill because they want to kill. Preventing innocent people from having equal firepower cabability runs counter to the ethic that the most fundamental personal right is the right to defend your own life.
Maybe not an automatic right. But if the likelihood of mayhem exists, it is just plain wrong to allow the perps to have their moment of "glory" and deny the victims equal or superior force.
This is exactly why Brits are so (IMO quite rightly) befuddled by American culture. When the problem is guns that are available in Wal-Mart, it's very hard to see why the solution would be putting more on the street.
Whereas to the British mind, if the problem is gun crime, you make them equally unavailable to all. Then you've only got your pointed sticks to contend with.
The American logic is, to me, a non-sense. Of course, even in a society where guns are totally illegal, some unbalanced person will eventually be able to lay hands on one. But to suggest that, because of that, everybody should be able to have one doesn't follow.
By that logic, everybody should be given access to the kind of explosives that what's-his-name in Oklahoma City had in 1995 -- because you never know when you're going to have to defend yourself against his ilk having their moment of glory.
By far, the lion's share of the mad-men/women would be less able -- and less able to figure out how -- to get a gun here. The one who can doesn't mean that a lot more lives wouldn't be saved.
[ 18. April 2007, 16:47: Message edited by: doctor-frog ]
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
This is exactly why Brits are so (IMO quite rightly) befuddled by American culture.
Can you explain to me exactly what "American Culture" is?
I'm a pacifist Quaker, daughter/gradndaughter of immigrants, have good relationships with my neighbors, live in a club-oriented neighborhood but don't own a weapon to "defend myself," don't shop at Wal-Mart...I could continue listing things that fall outside the range you are discussing as if they are part of all of us over here.
Should I stop calling myself American until I can get with the program?
sabine
[ 18. April 2007, 16:53: Message edited by: sabine ]
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
This is exactly why Brits are so (IMO quite rightly) befuddled by American culture.
Can you explain to me exactly what "American Culture" is?
I'm a pacifist Quaker, daughter/gradndaughter of immigrants, have good relationships with my neighbors, live in a club-oriented neighborhood but don't own a weapon to "defend myself," don't shop at Wal-Mart...I could continue listing things that fall outside the range you are discussing as if they are part of all of us over here.
Should I stop calling myself American until I can get with the program?
sabine
all right -- fair point. but you have to apply a certain amount of generalities and demographics to these discussions to make any sense; otherwise it just becomes hole-picking.
There are a handful of Christians in Turkey -- and important ones, at that. But, by and large, I'd call it a Muslim culture. There are a handful of Christians in India -- some communities dating back 2000 years. But by and large I'd call India a Hindu or Hindu/Muslim culture.
I'm glad you don't shop at Wal-Mart -- but they wouldn't be the massive conglomerate they are if nobody else in America did, either.
i'm sure I wouldn't fit into many/most of the demographics we're talking about either. (But, then, that may be why I 'fit' better here than there.) Doesn't mean the broader sweep of the culture goes along with me.
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
:
This is also very regional. When I lived in Dallas the subject came up and I asked several of my co-workers who are mostly urban, college educated, professional types and found that all of them owned a gun - from hyper-masculine men to old ladies.
When I asked why? It usually came down to no one trusted the police to do their job in a timely or effective manner and that they needed to take the law into their own hands and defend themselves.
Then when I asked "So do you keep the gun loaded with the safety off, next to your bed so that its ready if someone comes into your house with a loaded gun?", the answer was always no. They were almost always locked in safes or lockboxes with the bullets out because they were afraid kids would get a hold of them.
I didn't go any farther with my questioning (Like "If it's going to take you 5-10 minutes to find the key to your safe, get the gun out, find the bullets and load it what's the point?") because it would have come across as judgemental
At the same time, when I ask people in New York City if they own guns, no one I have encountered does (though I am sure some do) and they regard it as a bit redneckish.
So there isn't an across the board gun culture in America.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
This is also very regional. . . {etc. etc.}
100% agree.
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
all right -- fair point. but you have to apply a certain amount of generalities and demographics to these discussions to make any sense; otherwise it just becomes hole-picking.
Thank you for taking my last post seriously. I had a hard time finding the right words because I feel so strongly that if we do apply the kinds of generalities that come up in discussions like this, we miss opportunities to discuss some really important underlying issues.
For example, I work with refugees. Some of them come from countries that a person might categorize in one way, but they are different (religion, culture, etc). How can I help them if I don't recognize that there are differences within the larger whole?
I am very serious also about gun control (assuming an equally passionate non-gun control people will respoond to that) because I'd rather we limit the ability to do harm. That doesn't mean that I think we are going to get rid of the ability to do harm completely, but we can do something to limit it.
But at a deeper level, I think we have to look at how we teach our children (or better still, other children--maybe the "less deserving" children) to deal with the frustrations that come in a complicated world. If we don't go to this point in discussions, debating whether or not the US is a gun culture will just take time and energy we could use for better purposes.
Might we not start--all of us--with the idea that if we teach our children well <stop me before I start quoting that Crosby, Stills, and Nash song> the ideas of other means of conflict resolution can have a chance.
Just yesterday I made note of (and have subsequently lost) a book written by a former boy soldier. The socialization process of child soldiers is a lesson for us all, and takes years sometimes to undo.
So, the gun issue is not an easy one to think about, discuss, or deal with IRL.
Perhaps we can put more of our thinking time toward the issues (and there are many) themselves and leave the debates about national identity.
sabine
Posted by Trin (# 12100) on
:
quote:
Following that logic, Britain must be knife culture.
Not so. It is not culturally or legally acceptable to own a knife for the purpose of self defence. The kind of knives which are designed for damaging people are not readily available. Knives are not sold as weapons defensive or otherwise.
quote:
What makes more sense is to look at how we prevent people with the desire to kill large amounts of people from carrying out their desires.
In theory, yes! But in practice I think this makes less sense. I assume you are talking about some kind of "minder" system. Or ad campaigns urging people to watch out for irrational or suspicious behaviour or signs of mental illness in their neighbours. Both seem impractical and unlikely to be implemented. Or else what kind of measures are you thinking of?
Short of creating an extreme big brother society, I think there will always be dangerous people around.
quote:
Preventing innocent people from having equal firepower cabability runs counter to the ethic that the most fundamental personal right is the right to defend your own life.
[HIJACK]Then why don't we let Iran build nukes?[/HIJACK]
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
postscript to my previous post....
My family and relatives actually found their way to pacifism after arriving in the United States and then passed it along to me.
And they were deeply interested in acculturating.
So, there must be a way to become an American without taking on the so-called gun culture.
sabine
Posted by chicklegirl (# 11741) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
you have to apply a certain amount of generalities and demographics to these discussions to make any sense; otherwise it just becomes hole-picking.
I think you are painting with too broad a brush here, doctor-frog, even if it is to make your point (which isn't much of a point if it's not based on sound logic). It's tempting to paint America as having an over-arching gun culture because of the way we are portrayed in our own media and entertainment. It's definitely true that violence and guns are glorified in American movies and on TV, and most likely thas played a part in the increase of violent crime in the U.S., as the public becomes desensitized to violence and destruction, and sees it as a viable solution for personal and social problems.
However, in order to prove that crimes committed with guns are a product of our concealed carry laws, you'd have to provide some compelling statistics that the majority of those crimes were committed with legally obtained guns. Which you haven't done. If you can do so, I will be much more likely to be convinced.
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on
:
I posted this on the parallel Hell thread, where it sank. It does seem more appropriate here anyway.
I understand that the Second Amendment includes the phrase "in the interests of a well -regulated militia" or something similar.
The Swiss government has it set up so that every able male has a complete military kit, including guns and ammo actually in his house, ready for acts of war. BUT the rate of gun use in murders, while noticeable, is nowhere close to that in the US. I presume that part of this is the different social expectation in a small country, but part must also be that some of the psychologically unstable don't get to play with guns in the first place.
Why has the US never enforced it's own Constitution on this matter? Seems to me that a full range of training in gun use plus a weeding out of questionable people would make at least some sense. Even the NRA would appear to be onside with this idea.
Please note that I am not advocating the absence of guns, just the proper training/attitude in the posession of same.
Posted by Afghan (# 10478) on
:
I think what confuses Brits like me is that - although the majority of Americans favour gun control there is a large, vocal and seemingly quite powerful minority that opposes it. Moreover for that minority the idea of gun ownership - 'the right to bear arms' - seems to be strongly linked with their sense of American identity. Other countries just don't have that - at least not on anything like the scale.
So I suspect that the US does have a gun culture but that not all Americans are part of it.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chicklegirl:
However, in order to prove that crimes committed with guns are a product of our concealed carry laws, you'd have to provide some compelling statistics that the majority of those crimes were committed with legally obtained guns.
I'm not suggesting that gun crime is a direct product of the concealed carry laws. If anything, it's my understanding that it's had negligible effect on the amount of gun crime.
What I'm suggesting is that adding more guns to the mix is not going to help, and that the obvious solution is to ban guns.
I'd guess that most illegally obtained guns were obtained through channels that, at some leg of the trip, were legal. Cut off those channels, and I suspect that then you'll see a massive drop in gun crime.
As I said before, I think this is a no-brainer.
My point in bringing up the concealed-carry laws is that 11 or 12 years ago when I left the States there were something like 2 dozen fewer states with concealed-carry laws. Now there are 48 -- and anybody you run into on the street might well be carrying a weapon, even in places you wouldn't normally expect one. (Granted, as has been said, region is a factor.) And how has that helped? Has it stopped gun crime in the States from being endemic?
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
I'd say owning six guns per household is a "gun culture." Surely as an average that's incredibly high - particularly if you're counting city people, who mostly don't hunt.
Only one person I know owns a gun - which she got after she was raped. Most people around here don't, I don't think; I could be wrong, though. Perhaps they do and just don't talk about it. I used to live above a gun shop, but that was out in the sticks. It's the only gun shop I know of anywhere around here.
But actually, I think the problem is not guns per se. The problem behind this is a "violence-and/or-aggression culture," which shows up everywhere.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
I'd guess that most illegally obtained guns were obtained through channels that, at some leg of the trip, were legal. Cut off those channels, and I suspect that then you'll see a massive drop in gun crime.
Though, in the UK where there isn't a large stock of legally owned guns, criminals can still obtain guns with some ease (apparently, judging by the number of criminal acts committed with guns and assuming those acts represent a small minority of illegally owned guns in circulation).
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
quote:
Originally Posted by Doctor Frog:
What I'm suggesting is that adding more guns to the mix is not going to help, and that the obvious solution is to ban guns.
It's "solutions" like that that inspire gun owners to shout things like "over my dead body!"
And without guns, how are you going to enforce such a law?
Sorry, but the obvious ramifications of your law make me feel that the utility of your "solution" is anything but obvious.
Personally (as we discussed in bible study this morning) I'm a lot more concerned with our culture of alienation, powerlessness, and of suppressed violence than I am with our culture of allowing people to own firearms for personal use.
To use two cliches in one post:
Guns don't kill people. People kill people. (though guns make it easier to kill lots of people, I'll admit).
And if you ban guns, only criminals will own them (not to mention cops, but can you really imagine enforcing such a ban across a geographical area the size of the continental US?)
I also know of folks who use guns to literally hunt to put food on the table. Are you saying they should be more ethical if they used bows and arrows instead?
Sorry, but this "gun culture" thing bothers me on several levels.
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
Personally (as we discussed in bible study this morning) I'm a lot more concerned with our culture of alienation, powerlessness, and of suppressed violence than I am with our culture of allowing people to own firearms for personal use.
This is the issue, I agree, and this is why people are talking about this now in a way they didn't before.
I think it goes much, much deeper than gun ownership. Our entire culture is screwed up beyond belief - as you say, alienation and violence are two huge problems - and I think we've lost the belief that we can change it. It seems like we only believe we can put band-aids on it, like more gun control.
But I think we can change it, and I think we absolutely have to. Fortunately, I think many people are coming to that conclusion at this point, and also that this is a watershed moment.
We all have to tone down our anger and start to figure out how to do things differently - and work together. That sounds Pollyanna-ish, probably, but it can't be helped; that's what we have to do.
Posted by Iole Nui (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Though, in the UK where there isn't a large stock of legally owned guns, criminals can still obtain guns with some ease (apparently, judging by the number of criminal acts committed with guns and assuming those acts represent a small minority of illegally owned guns in circulation).
I believe that that used to be in part because of the smuggling of illegal weapons through the UK to Northern Ireland. Cities that were on the route, so to speak, like Glasgow and Liverpool, experienced a certain level of fallout and had higher levels of gun-crime than others.
I don't think this can be the case any more, though. At least I hope not. Don't a lot of the illegal guns in the UK now come from the ex-USSR states?
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Iole Nui:
Don't a lot of the illegal guns in the UK now come from the ex-USSR states?
About 80% of the ones that the police find are either home-made or very old ex-military weapons.
I once saw a forensic scientist estimate that about a fifth of illegal handguns he'd seen had never been fired even to test them and probably could not safely be fired.
This is handguns - pistols. Shotguns are relatively easy to come by legally in Britain and a great many of them are in private ownership.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Trin:
It is not culturally or legally acceptable to own a knife for the purpose of self defence.
I didn't know that: can you describe what kinds of knives are prohibited?
Would one like this one-handed opening folding knife be?
For a frame of reference the cutting edge is 67mm / 2.6 inches.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
Knives that are illegal in the UK include of switchblades and butterfly knives, and folding knives with blades longer than 3". Along with any knife that is in some way disguised (eg: knives hidden in belt buckles). Anything made, or adapted, to cause harm to another can't legally be carried in public. If you're carrying such a blade (excluding folding knives less than 3" blade, ie: penknives) you have to have a good reason for doing so - eg: it's a woodworking blade and you're a joiner. It's illegal to sell any knife to someone under 18.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
Gun-purchasing checks and regulations are too flimsy and easy to get around, and limited rates of purchase by individuals are far too high.
But I reluctantly agree with Bush that the right (of law-abiding citizens) to bear arms is sacrosanct. A few people go bad. All institutions eventually do. After all, we need to protect ourselves against his administration and those of his successors. The more suspicious of American culture and imperial power you are, I trust that the more you will agree with me here. It isn't as if Americans don't realize it, too. These could be the times for which the Founding Fathers fortified us with the second amendment.
Posted by Trin (# 12100) on
:
quote:
what kinds of knives are prohibited?
Damn I knew someone would pick me up on that. I checked it out and the gist goes something like
You cannot posses any kind of flick knife or disguised knife under any circumstances.
You have to have a good reason for carrying a knife around - ie for use as a tool. "Self defense" would not be a reason.
No knife can be sold or marketed as a "combat knife"
"It is an offence to sell or market a knife in such a way that it suggests it is suitable for personal injury."
It would appear that in your home you can keep what you like. So I was wrong to say "own" - rather "carry".
(eta: cross post, oh well.)
[ 18. April 2007, 19:33: Message edited by: Trin ]
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
It's "solutions" like that that inspire gun owners to shout things like "over my dead body!"
And without guns, how are you going to enforce such a law?
And those shouts are precisely the problem. sabine is right; i have over-generalised about the american populace. but, insofar as any reference to gun control (or even a rational debate on it) is pretty much political suicide for any lawmaker, what 'gun culture' there is in the US reigns supreme. the NRA's word, with only the slightest most timid tweaks, has pretty much won the day. I don't think this is anything close to a good thing.
as for enforcement, I certainly wasn't suggesting the police not be armed. I don't think you could un-arm the american police at this late stage. it only works in the UK, because our police never had them till lately.
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
Personally (as we discussed in bible study this morning) I'm a lot more concerned with our culture of alienation, powerlessness, and of suppressed violence than I am with our culture of allowing people to own firearms for personal use.
This point has been made, and I agree wholeheartedly with the first premise. There are a lot of underlying root causes that would need to be tackled; but if the violent can't get their hands on guns, then that eliminates a pivotal symptom of the problem.
and saves lives. real lives. not just the hypothetical cold dead hands of Charlton Heston.
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
To use two cliches in one post:
Guns don't kill people. People kill people. (though guns make it easier to kill lots of people, I'll admit).
I also know of folks who use guns to literally hunt to put food on the table. Are you saying they should be more ethical if they used bows and arrows instead?
I think you should re-read my earlier posts more closely.
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
And if you ban guns, only criminals will own them
And if you ban heroin, only criminals will own it.
So then you take up that offence as a matter of law in a country that prides itself on the rule of law.
[ 18. April 2007, 19:33: Message edited by: doctor-frog ]
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
Thanks, Alan.
And Trin.
[ 18. April 2007, 19:34: Message edited by: 206 ]
Posted by hedonism_bot (# 5027) on
:
I thought the point of the second amendment was to allow the arming of militias (for the "security of a free state" as far as I can recall without being sad and looking it up), which suggested that the Founding Fathers* were more interested in fortifying the government against the people than vice versa. And the people who have the guns and take the idea of arming themselves against the federal government seriously don't strike me as the sort who intend to make the US a more liberal and tolerant place, somehow.
* And I'm not sure quite how the wisdom of a gang of slave-owning freemasons in effeminate wigs is relevent to this century anyway.
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
You did notice that I pointed out that some people in some parts of the country literally hunt to put food on the table. Guns kill deer as well as people, and many more deer, I'd imagine.
And the NRA would not have power if it wasn't supported by lots and lots of people. Are you telling them all that they're evil?
It's one of those annoying things about democratic societies. You can't just enforce your altruistic desire by fiat. You have to negotiate with people, no matter how irritating they are.
FWIW, I'm a fan of strictly monitoring and controlling access to handguns and semi-automatic weapons, but that's not the same thing as banning guns for every purpose everywhere.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hedonism_bot:
were more interested in fortifying the government against the people than vice versa.
In context they were probably more interested in arming the citizens against the British, the Indians, and the slaves, not neccessarily in that order.
Posted by dawn treader (# 11296) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Though, in the UK where there isn't a large stock of legally owned guns, criminals can still obtain guns with some ease (apparently, judging by the number of criminal acts committed with guns and assuming those acts represent a small minority of illegally owned guns in circulation).
Not necessarily so, despite what the media would have us think. I've worked within the Criminal Justice system for 14 years and although the area in which I work suffers from a high crime rate, a significant heroin problem and patches of severe social deprivation, there are very, very few guns. Really, hardly any. When dealer A goes to sort out dealer B he takes a couple of baseball bats and a weights bar. Some cities do have real problems with guns, obviously, but it is surprisingly localised. In all this time I've only seen real (non-imitation, non-airgun) guns involved in a half dozen or so cases, usually with dealers from out of area or people with a suggestion of mental health problems.
Looking back to the OP a bit, IMO the US does not necessarily have a "gun culture" in which all participate, but it does have a legal and constitutional "culture" which has permitted an astonishing quantity of guns to be "out there". And the more are out there, the more people fear they need a gun for self-defence, and the more normalised the whole business of owning a lethal weapon designed to kill becomes. Perhaps not a gun "culture", but certainly a place where guns form a factor as they just don't here in the UK.
When I think of the terrifying things my clients have managed to do over the years when rage, alcohol, fear, revenge, drugs, sheer stupidity, delusions, mental illness or desperation have taken them to the edge.... with just big sticks and pointy objects! To think how many of those incidents would have escalted further if a gun had been in anyone's hand frankly fills me with horror.
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
The Tribune ran an interesting article that mentioned VA's gun control laws.
Here's the piece. Note the bullet points on VA gun laws.
I would say that the handgun laws in VA are a bit lax, IMO. There should be a licensing process.
Posted by hedonism_bot (# 5027) on
:
quote:
O.p. by ken
quote:Originally posted by hedonism_bot:
were more interested in fortifying the government against the people than vice versa.
In context they were probably more interested in arming the citizens against the British, the Indians, and the slaves, not neccessarily in that order.
True. There has always seemed to me to be something of a tautlology in assigning to the 2nd amendment the inherant right of armed revolt against the government - to do so you need to simoultaneously beleive that the Constitution is in some way sacrosanct and that it might be necessary to overthrow a government based on it with armed force.
[ 18. April 2007, 19:55: Message edited by: hedonism_bot ]
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
Are you telling them all that they're evil?
No -- I'm telling them, to use a cliche of my own, "It's the guns, stupid."
As for my personal fiat, I take part in the democratic process in both of my home countries. This, in its small way, is one example. There are others.
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
If the government breaks the Constitution, then I'd imagine that all bets are off as far as rule of law is concerned.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
Can anyone from America provide any insight or anecdote about how effective guns are as a defence? I can see that they might be a comforting thought: if I hear a window smash at 3am I will be able to get my gun from the top of the wardrobe and hold it as I tremble behind the bedroom door. But are they actually any use?
Are armed people less likely to be killed during burglaries or muggings? A gun is only going to be any use if either you can threaten someone effectively (and what chance does a scared person have of outfacing an armed criminal?), or if you shoot them before they shoot you. That either means firing first, or them firing first and missing you. So I can't see their utility, and I can see how they increase the likelihood of intruders carrying guns and using them when discovered.
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
I see. I would still say that taking away guns will lead people to resort to knives, baseball bats, and other forms of weaponry.
I don't think you're going to stop everyday violence and stupidity just by banning guns outright, though having tighter regulations on the ownership of handguns might help.
And any system you design is going to involve mistakes. That's just how governments work.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
but if the violent can't get their hands on guns, then that eliminates a pivotal symptom of the problem.
Something I've never understood is how gun control advocates practically expect to eliminate guns.
I've read there are scores of millions (200m?) of them extant. How realistic is it to assume you can get enough of them to preclude further violence?
Few criminals are going to hand them over and I imagine a lot of otherwise law abiding citizens would be willing to risk becoming a criminal in order to keep theirs.
Best I can see all you'll do is create a lot of ill will and red tape with the net effect of millions and millions of guns remaining in the hands of citizens, most of them bad guys, which I'm not sure is a desirable result.
What am I missing?
Posted by Waterchaser (# 11005) on
:
| was told when I lived in North West Pakistan that in order to get a gun licencse you had to prove you had an enemy. That's a real gun culture!
A bit disturbing that when anything good happened people celebrated by firing everything they had into the air (eg Pakistan winning a cricket match, sucessful nuclear test, weddings etc)- I heard a number of tragic stories about the fall out from this at weddings.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
hatless,
Personally, my response to your question is to remember that statistically I'm told that a gun-owner is more likely to shoot a loved one by accident than to shoot a criminal.
However, there is also a lovely story about the use of guns in Cleveland a while ago. A hoodlum gets on the bus and walks past the farebox (and the driver) without paying. Driver says "Fare's a dollar fifty (or whatever it was at the time, my source didn't know.)
The hood pulls out a large knife. "This is my fare."
Driver pulls out a gun. "Fare's a dollar fifty."
I'm told the rider paid the fare.
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
:
From what I am hearing on the news there seems to be miscommunication. He was locked up in a mental facility for a period of time but then released into the community and allowed to enrol in the university. When students and professors complained, no red flags went up.
His application for handguns in Roanoke was incomplete. He left the question about mental illness blank and his psychiatric hospitalization didn't show up on the background check.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
I see. I would still say that taking away guns will lead people to resort to knives, baseball bats, and other forms of weaponry.
I don't think you're going to stop everyday violence and stupidity just by banning guns outright, though having tighter regulations on the ownership of handguns might help.
And any system you design is going to involve mistakes. That's just how governments work.
of course. doesn't mean you should compound them, though.
the difference between a baseball bat and a gun is that a gun is designed to hurl a shard of metal at 500 mph through flesh, human or otherwise. that's its whole purpose. killing something.
a baseball bat is designed to hit a baseball.
I'm guessing that guy at VT wouldn't have killed 31 people with a baseball bat before someone got to him. probably 0. and maybe only 1 or 2 with a knife.
of *course* it should go without saying that he never should have been allowed to fall through the net, and that society's problems are deeper than the weapons that they use.
But that doesn't mean they should be handed their weapon of choice at the dollar-store. Again, "it's the guns, stupid."
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
I don't know if he couldn't have done as well without a gun. After all, Cho did have time to kill people in his dorm and then saunter over (while the police presumed it a domestic issue) and go from classroom to classroom killing people. He killed himself, so it's not as if the police are the ones who stopped him either. Certainly I don't know what the hell I could do besides die when attacked by a man with baseball bat and knives.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by 206:
quote:
but if the violent can't get their hands on guns, then that eliminates a pivotal symptom of the problem.
Something I've never understood is how gun control advocates practically expect to eliminate guns.
I've read there are scores of millions (200m?) of them extant. How realistic is it to assume you can get enough of them to preclude further violence?
Few criminals are going to hand them over and I imagine a lot of otherwise law abiding citizens would be willing to risk becoming a criminal in order to keep theirs.
Best I can see all you'll do is create a lot of ill will and red tape with the net effect of millions and millions of guns remaining in the hands of citizens, most of them bad guys, which I'm not sure is a desirable result.
What am I missing?
You are missing the fact that gun manufacturers pump a massive number of new guns into the system each year. End that, and over time the availability of guns will taper off. It won't be a matter of "here today, gone tomorrow."
The thing that I think an outright ban on private ownership of guns would accomplish in the long haul is a lowering of non-criminal gun killings. Yes, criminals will continue to find access to guns. But would the isolated young man who killed the VT people have the contacts to get guns from criminals? Would a drunk and irate husband be able to pull a gun out of his glove ompartment to kill his spouse?
I think that both of these kinds of killings would be reduced dramatically once the current stocks subsided. It appears that, as a society, we have elected to live with the slaughter in order to be able to have guns available to us. That is a pretty good working definition of a "gun culture" to my mind.
The fact of the matter is that signficantly more Americans want guns banned or sharply regulated than want the current system. However, those who want to keep guns cheap and legal are much more passionate about it than the rest of us. And the gun manufacturers are very active politically. Even so-called gun regulation laws are crafted carefully to give the appearance of gun control without actually controlling anything. This allows the politicians to claim a "moral" victory without unduly inconveniencing a powerful lobby or a rabid constituency.
--Tom Clune
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
Can anyone from America provide any insight or anecdote about how effective guns are as a defence?
John Lott is an anti-gun control type: scroll down a bit to find links to some of his data.
It looks like it requires registration but if you google his name you'll probably find something useful.
Posted by hedonism_bot (# 5027) on
:
quote:
O.P. by Dr Frog
a baseball bat is designed to hit a baseball.
True. But I remember reading something to the effect that one British sporting goods chain reported that in one year they sold something like 17,000 baseball bats, and 23 baseballs.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
I think that both of these kinds of killings would be reduced dramatically once the current stocks subsided.
Assuming the 200 million number I've heard is anywhere close to correct, how long do you suppose it would take for the stocks to subside adequately to have a significant impact?
I just thought of one relatively immediate result if guns are banned: the price to obtain one would rapidly rise which may deter some from obtaining one.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by 206:
Assuming the 200 million number I've heard is anywhere close to correct, how long do you suppose it would take for the stocks to subside adequately to have a significant impact?
I did a quick search, and was able to find statistics for 1994 in the US. Of all the transactions for hand guns in that year, 68% were purchases of new hand guns. For long guns, the figure was 60% new long guns. So introducing new weapons into the supply does seem to be a significant factor.
The number of years needed to effectively drain the swamp is, of course, very hard to estimate. Adding to the problem of anticipating the final effect is the fact that the majority of people who own guns own more than one.
Of course, eliminating the availability of new ammunition would have a direct and dramatic effect on the utility of the guns in circulation after a relatively few number of years.
However, all this seems pretty academic. I honestly can't imagine the US outlawing private ownership of guns in my lifetime, even if people were to come around to my view that the second amendment is about "well-regulated militias," not about gang-bangers' rights.
--Tom Clune
Posted by Iole Nui (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I don't know if he couldn't have done as well without a gun. [...] Certainly I don't know what the hell I could do besides die when attacked by a man with baseball bat and knives.
He might have done, who knows.
But I always think it's pretty telling to remember that shortly after the gun massacre of 16 at Dunblane primary school, there was a copy cat attack on another primary school, only this time the attacker ran rampage with a machete. He was disarmed by a rather small and frail-looking female teacher and while 7 people suffered cuts, no children or teachers were killed.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
Of course, eliminating the availability of new ammunition would have a direct and dramatic effect on the utility of the guns in circulation after a relatively few number of years.
However, all this seems pretty academic. I honestly can't imagine the US outlawing private ownership of guns in my lifetime, even if people were to come around to my view that the second amendment is about "well-regulated militias," not about gang-bangers' rights.
There are a whole lot of folks who reload ammo out there and casings can be re-used many times...
but I agree: it's academic. Ain't much gonna change.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hedonism_bot:
quote:
O.P. by Dr Frog
a baseball bat is designed to hit a baseball.
True. But I remember reading something to the effect that one British sporting goods chain reported that in one year they sold something like 17,000 baseball bats, and 23 baseballs.
and yet our papers are not full of reports of baseball bat killings. in fact, i've never read a one.
Posted by hedonism_bot (# 5027) on
:
Which is the point, really. British lowlifes wield knives and baseball bats and put people in hospital. American ones wield guns and kill them.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by 206:
quote:
Can anyone from America provide any insight or anecdote about how effective guns are as a defence?
John Lott is an anti-gun control type: scroll down a bit to find links to some of his data.
It looks like it requires registration but if you google his name you'll probably find something useful.
There's a link at the top of the page to his blog. It's mainly anecdotal stuff, and there's almost as much rubbishing environmental concerns as there is about guns. I see that he thinks Britain should have more guns because we would be safer.
If the death rate by guns was lower in the USA, I'd think about his suggestion. If it was, say double or treble in the USA, I'd think he was maybe losing the argument - but it's a different country, lost of them have to hunt to eat, they're always preparing to bring down the government, so we can't really compare. If it was five times the rate, then I'd think that whatever the special arguments it does look as if gun ownership must be a bad thing. If it was ten times higher in the USA I'd think, well I wouldn't need to think; as Dr Frog says, a no-brainer. In fact the death rate by gun in the USA is something like seventy times higher.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hedonism_bot:
Which is the point, really. British lowlifes wield knives and baseball bats and put people in hospital. American ones wield guns and kill them.
Um, British lowlifes also kill people with knives and baseball bats. The knives thing seems to be pretty trendy among teenagers at the moment, especially in London and Manchester.
I enjoy shooting and don't think guns should be banned. However, I truly hope guns don't become a greater feature of British society because we're a booze culture and God knows what we'd do with the damn things on a Saturday night after a 24 hour booze fest.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
ISTM a no-brainer that if guns are readily available legally then it is also easier for people to obtain them illegally, and that in a situation where guns are relatively easily available then they are an obvious tool for the violently inclined, and that guns are more effective at killing more people more quickly than other types of personal weapon.
The UK appears to have strict gun laws, but this doesn't preclude ownership by those who have legitimate sporting or work-related reasons for owning a gun (Wiki page) so those who need guns to hunt could still do so. The ownership of handguns, however, appears to be almost completely banned.
While I guess nothing approaching this has any likelihood of appearing over the US political horizon in the near future, I am aware of the immense turnaround in the UK in the last two to four decades in attitudes to drink-driving, the use of car seatbelts, the wearing of motorcycle helmets, the social acceptability of smoking (and, with a kind of historical topicality, the huge improbability as seen in, say, 1745 that the slave trade or the ownership of slaves would ever be abolished) - the culture changed.
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
Besides pointing fingers, stereotyping an entire nation with some moral superiority thrown in, discounting "uncomfortable" situations in other countries, and reducing the VT tragedy to a one-themed event, has any new idea about how to reduce violence come from the two pages of this thread?
It seems like an opportunistic chance to play the blame game and do a bit of bashing to me.
I'm so far from being a gun advocate that there isn't room for anyone to be farther...and yet, I know that gun ownership is not the only issue in a world of violence.
Ask any child sholdier in Uganda...oh wait, never mind--it's the US which has the gun culture.
sabine
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on
:
I gather from another forum that something like 11,000 people are killed by guns every year in the US, or just over 30 every day. In other words, the 32 deaths at VT are simply the number who die every day in the US from gunshot wounds. But noone organises memorial services, noone gets the POTUS to comment, noone seems to be worried in the slightest.
It is almost four times the number killed on 9/11, but noone has organised a "War on Terror" to combat this attack from inside the country, presumably because most of the perps aren't Arabic-speaking men in long white cobes.
No, all your threats are from nasty people outside the country, aren't they?
It would be 40 airliner crashes, at least three every month, but noone has called for regulation of the attacks, or laid blame on the companies involved or started scare campaigns to make people travel in safer ways or whatever.
But have one passenegr killed on a train, and all the mindless anti-tax people will be up in arms about wasting federal money on Amtrak.
What gives?
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
What gives is that you just made the point of my previous post for me.
sabine
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
One issue of this country that I've thought of is that when in doubt, we allow things.
When it's debatable whether or not certain speech is ethical, we allow it.
When it's debatable whether or not letting a group gather, we allow it.
When it's debatable whether or not having an abortion is ethical, we allow it.
I think gay marriage is the only exception, and even that seems to be pushing, slowly, into acceptance. And even then, gays can have sex however they choose. Even in the cases where there were laws against it, enforcement was pretty sketchy.
When the government is uncertain, it does nothing, and freedom ensues. And we pay the cost of having a free society. Sometimes that cost is great indeed, but yet we feel that it's worth it.
In terms of guns, I think it would be nearly impossible, especially in rural areas (like the one I grew up in) to track down every gun. The cops wouldn't want to do it. The people wouldn't want to do it, and as I said before, some have entirely practical reasons for owning rifles, and while they are a minority, I think it's unfair to take them away, not to mention impossible.
I think gun control advocates would do much better to focus on smaller, more incremental issues like strict licensing procedure and precisely which kinds of guns to "control" rather than going for an all out ban on firearms such as does not even exist on England (shotguns, anyone?).
It's also, as Gwai reminds me, much more practical to hunt in this country than it is to hunt in England. We've got much more open space.
Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on
:
Let's put it this way, as I did try before.
Let's say he built a bomb and killed 33 people.
Would we be talking about taking fertilizer away from people?
Why are people fixated on how he killed people and not why he killed people and how to stop that?
You seem to be assuming that if he didn't have a gun he wouldn't have killed people.
At least once in US history, someone decided to kill people and did kill over 200 without a gun. And yet banning fertilizer hasn't been asked....
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on
:
And Pata has also made my point: don't talk about any form of control/licensing/limitation whatsoever and maybe it will all go away.
The Governor of Virginia was quoted on the radio this AM, during a news conference about the event, as saying that he could only feel "loathing" for the possibility that gun control might even be discussed in relation to this event - and that after a known (if not acknowledged) psycopath had easily bought a handgun with a poorly-filled-out application form.
Yes, there was one case of someone doing this in 1927, but ISTM that most of the US was a relatively peaceful place before WW2. It is only since flower power and Vietnam that fatalistic acceptance of mass murder has become the norm. Why do so many people simply not care?
[ 19. April 2007, 00:28: Message edited by: Horseman Bree ]
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
quote:
Originally Posted by Horseman Bree:
Why do so many people simply not care?
I'm not sure it's not happened before. I remember hearing about a rape that happened in a public school in Cleveland back in the 1950's. School was tough, people just dealt with problems in different ways. Government did not have as much power to interfere, for good or ill.
Personally, I think it's just hard to care about statistics. Maybe that's why every time something like this happens pictures are posted on websites of each and every victim, as if it makes them suddenly human, and thus more likely to elicit sympathy.
And even then, to me, they're still pictures. I don't know them.
Maybe we just see so much of the world's horror on a national or international scale that we're rendered numb to the smaller, more local troubles.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
In terms of guns, I think it would be nearly impossible, especially in rural areas (like the one I grew up in) to track down every gun.
IMO it would be nearly impossible to track down more than 75% of them which means something like 50 million would still be out there; again, primarily in the hands of 'criminals'.
(For one example: how many guns, having been registered when legally purchased by the original buyer, were subsequently resold to a private party which requires no documentation?)
Even assuming you got 95% compliance which I think is wildly optimistic, 10 million guns would still exist, and a well made gun lasts for a long, long time: many decades at least.
I don't know one way or another whether banning guns is the 'right thing' to do; what I've yet to be anything close to convinced of is that it would do much more than disarm honest gun owners.
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
It is only since flower power and Vietnam that fatalistic acceptance of mass murder has become the norm. Why do so many people simply not care?
If we "didn't care" we wouldn't be here on this thread. If we "didn't care" we wouldn't be talking about tyring to find the underlying causes.
We simply don't agree with you that It's That Simple. (And I'd bet the Governor was attempting to make a point about making political hay out of this incident, two days after it happened.)
Guns were widely available before flower power and Vietnam, too, you know.
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
And crime was also very prevalent before flower power came along, especially violent organized crime (think mafia) whose heyday was the 1920's-40's.
Flower power has nothing to do with it, I'm afraid.
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on
:
And people weren't going into schools and universities to kill students and staff, except for the one incident. I don't think this huge upsurge of school shootings has come about just because there is now better reporting.
What changed in the attitudes since WW2? I don't remember the US being thought of as a dangerous place (unless you were black - and even they were more often lynched than shot, ISTM). There certainly wasn't a perceived need for concealed weapons when I was growing up. Those laws are relatively recent. I'm pretty sure that most of the Americans I met then were not as gun-obsessed as seems to be the norm now.
What changed? Is it an outcome of Vietnam, for instance, or the increased paranoia brought about by endless live crime reporting or what?
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
So you say it's "live crime reporting," which again leads to my argument that we're desensitized by the daily parade of atrocities.
Also, I think our culture has gotten more alienated, though that trend predates the Flower Power and Vietnam War movements. There's an essay that was written, studying social behavioral trends going back to the '50s called "Bowling Alone." Maybe television and other individualized social media are as culpable as anything. We've become more dependent on machines for our information, our lives.
And the Cleveland thing wasn't just one incident. The guy I read said that kids got beat up all the time. And gangs definitely go back to the 50's and 40's, sometimes in reaction to gang-like organizations like the Klan.
And I fail to see how lynching is superior to being shot. And I'm sure they shot black people. It just wasn't as newsworthy in those days. people probably preferred not to see it.
Again, I think the government has just gotten more powerful, and as it has gained the ability to enact more laws and control more behavior (in the "common interest" of course) it has done so, for good and ill.
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
It is only since flower power and Vietnam that fatalistic acceptance of mass murder has become the norm. Why do so many people simply not care?
Quite an indictment that "fatalist acceptance of mass murder" is a norm. Can you back this up? I mean with real evidence. I doubt it.
sabine
[ 19. April 2007, 01:09: Message edited by: sabine ]
Posted by the giant cheeseburger (# 10942) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Waterchaser:
I was told when I lived in North West Pakistan that in order to get a gun licencse you had to prove you had an enemy. That's a real gun culture!
A bit disturbing that when anything good happened people celebrated by firing everything they had into the air (eg Pakistan winning a cricket match, sucessful nuclear test, weddings etc)- I heard a number of tragic stories about the fall out from this at weddings.
I heard some stats on that from a man at church who has worked in Pakistan. This year Pakistan bombed out of the World Cup by losing to Ireland, and as a result one person has died - the coach, Bob Woolmer. In 1993 when Pakistan won the World Cup, at least five people died in the Wild West provinces (which is much wilder than any part of the USA ever was) from falling bullets. By that logic Pakistan should continue to lose all their cricket matches!
I think a great deal could be done to fix the view that the USA has a rampant gun culture if the second amendment was repealed. There is no need for every citizen to be part of the 'well organised' civilian militia nowadays since the National Guard has taken over that role. Nobody is going to invade the world's largest military state and legitimate law enforcement and military agencies would have no trouble putting down an insurrection these days. If someone did invade the USA the best way for civilians to repel the invasion would be get out of the way and let the armed forces deal with it rather than risk summary execution if caught fighting without legit military ID. The Second Amendment should be repealed and replaced with some note making it clear that gun ownership is a privilege to be used responsibly, not a right.
Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
And Pata has also made my point: don't talk about any form of control/licensing/limitation whatsoever and maybe it will all go away.
No, I don't think that it will go away. Some people want to kill other people, and sometimes many other people. How do we stop that? How does someone stop someone else from killing? If the only way people died was from a gun, then banning guns would be a very viable option. However, people can get very creative, or not so creative, and still kill people.
And I do think that there should be regulation about who can own a gun and how one can be bought and/or sold.
quote:
The Governor of Virginia was quoted on the radio this AM, during a news conference about the event, as saying that he could only feel "loathing" for the possibility that gun control might even be discussed in relation to this event - and that after a known (if not acknowledged) psycopath had easily bought a handgun with a poorly-filled-out application form.
Yes, the Virginia law was broken when he bought his gun. And it does need to be looked at and fixed as to how his background check came back clean when it shouldn't have. But I'm not sure how keeping a handgun out of someone's hand who only wants to do target shooting is a good thing. (Which as I see it a total ban would do.)
quote:
Yes, there was one case of someone doing this in 1927, but ISTM that most of the US was a relatively peaceful place before WW2. It is only since flower power and Vietnam that fatalistic acceptance of mass murder has become the norm. Why do so many people simply not care?
I'm not sure why we stopped caring for each other. But I'm not sure how getting rid of every gun (outside of the ones that the military has) would change people's attitudes.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by PataLeBon:
Let's put it this way, as I did try before.
Let's say he built a bomb and killed 33 people.
Would we be talking about taking fertilizer away from people?
probably not. you don't talk about taking away guns. In fact, at times like these the politicians actually have to go out of their way to stroke all the NRA types, lest the poor little dears get their feathers ruffled, and re-assure them publically that, just like the Governor of Virginia, they're as committed to guns and gun use and gun ownership as they ever were -- indeed they find gun control abhorrent. It just screams out for someone to ask 'Just who the hell do you think was the victim here?'
but there was a time when the sale of fertilizer was banned in N. Ireland except to legitimate farmers who underwent a strict licensing regime.
So not really all that ridiculous, actually. Although, admittedly, N. Ireland is a whole 'nother kettle of fish, and several threads in it's own right!
quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
Nobody is going to invade the world's largest military state and legitimate law enforcement and military agencies would have no trouble putting down an insurrection these days.
Well, this is exactly it. Many gun-types will tell you things like, 'I need my gun so that if the Federal Government ever becomes too repressive the citizens can put an end to it.'
But if we learned anything in Kosovo, it's that the United States is perfectly capable of winning a war (handily) against a country with quite advanced defense capabilities -- and win it without ever setting a single foot-soldier on the ground.
If any president ever decided to turn that kind of power against his/her own people, surely there's previous little a few farmers with a few shotguns could really do about it. In a best-case scenario, it'd just be a home-grown version of Viet Raq.
quote:
Originally posted by PataLeBon:
But I'm not sure how keeping a handgun out of someone's hand who only wants to do target shooting is a good thing. (Which as I see it a total ban would do.)
Again, I'm not sure that anyone was suggesting that. (I wasn't, at any rate.) It's entirely possible to have a licensed regime for such things and establish controlled conditions for where the guns are located. Certainly such schemes exist elsewhere in the world, including Britain. But the same guns are not then allowed at-will out onto the street.
My point in bringing up the thread is that to discuss these things, as we've been doing so well here, is anathema to the prevailing American political culture at large. For the Gov. of Virginia to have to (or even want to?) go out of his way after a tragedy like VT to say how much he likes guns -- can the people who make these decisions not see for themselves how twisted those values are? Or are they really so close and so invested in it they can't see the big picture?
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
I think gun control advocates would do much better to focus on smaller, more incremental issues like strict licensing procedure and precisely which kinds of guns to "control" rather than going for an all out ban on firearms such as does not even exist on England (shotguns, anyone?).
If you were to go down the control route this would probably make best sense as at least there would then be a track to follow for legally owned guns. However, no matter what degree of control the US opted for (if they did), it wouldn't stop mass killing if an individual was so inclined. Our only mass shooting of schoolchildren - in Dunblane - was performed by a fucked up man who legally owned a number of guns.
I agree with the point you made about the US opting to allow when faced with a situation such as the one in Virginia (though of course Americans have been keen to ban smoking, so the approach isn't universal!). Here in the UK our knee-jerk reaction is to ban or attempt to further control something when that something is involved in an awful event. So we banned handguns after Dunblane, and the Dangerous Dogs Act came in following a few maulings of children by certain breeds of dogs during the 1990s (which didn't stop the hideous dismembering of a young child recently by a dog, the ownership of which was not curtailed because the dog was not a pure breed and so didn't come under the Act).
Banning or controlling something can give a sense of security to people but I'm not totally convinced it actually works. That response can also be unfair in that it is often law abiding citizens who lose out thanks to the actions of one total whackjob or a few irresponsible individuals.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
Banning or controlling something can give a sense of security to people but I'm not totally convinced it actually works. That response can also be unfair in that it is often law abiding citizens who lose out thanks to the actions of one total whackjob or a few irresponsible individuals.
No, it doesn't work in a simple, direct causal way. I think the effect of laws is often as symbols and signals. A widely supported law has a strong effect on people's behaviour. Laws against drink driving, for example, have helped to change attitudes to the point where it is now generally seen as so unacceptable that people will readily prevent even a good friend from doing it.
A law against handguns and automatic weapons, coupled with a long amnesty for people to hand them in and good, prolonged publicity, education and public debate, would take a lot of guns out of circulation, but more importantly it might shift opinion, and therefore behaviour.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
The UK appears to have strict gun laws, but this doesn't preclude ownership by those who have legitimate sporting or work-related reasons for owning a gun (Wiki page) so those who need guns to hunt could still do so. The ownership of handguns, however, appears to be almost completely banned.
In the UK, hand guns are completely banned. That's basically because no one could come up with sufficiently good reasons (ie: sporting or work related) for people to own them. There was some extensive discussion following Dunblane about whether or not to allow gun clubs to keep members weapons locked on site, but even that was finally not allowed. The only people it affects are a small number of people who engaged in target shooting with hand guns (I guess they must have made some temporary easing of the law to allow the pistol events for the Olympics in 2012, either that or those events won't be happening that year).
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by PataLeBon:
Let's put it this way, as I did try before.
Let's say he built a bomb and killed 33 people.
Would we be talking about taking fertilizer away from people?
No because fertilizer is not intended primarily for use as an explosive ingredient, let alone a product primarily intended for killing.
The primary purpose of guns in general is killing. Secondarily they are used in the sport of target shooting - though in general those kinds of guns are very different in design from the sort intended for killing. Some guns are intended for use in hunting - the legitimate (pace the anti-hunting lobby) killing of animals for food or for sport. Some guns are intended for killing people - this applies to most handguns and certain other kinds of multi-shot or maximum damage weapons.
It is in principle pretty easy to distinguish between the guns designed to be used for different purposes - tho' I'm sure that if a licensing regime did that there would be companies that developed weapons on the margins.
It would in principle, therfore, to produce a strict licensing regime which would only allow access to certain kinds of gun for the majority - indeed, to uphold the right to bear arms, but to insist that does not mean arms of all kinds.
In the meantime - given that a well made gun that is cared for and not used remains effective for a very long time, why not put restrictions on the sale of ammunition alongside a stronger licensing system for guns. Citizens wishing to buy ammunition would need to hold an ammunition purchasing license for the guns for which they need to purchase it. Sale of ammunition inappropriate to the licence or without production of a licence would be an offence. Use of ammunition in a gun for which a citizen does not hold an appropriate license being also an offence. No-one would be legally compelled to obtain a licence for an existing gun - unless they wanted to buy ammunition for it ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
[ 19. April 2007, 10:06: Message edited by: BroJames ]
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by 206:
For one example: how many guns, having been registered when legally purchased by the original buyer, were subsequently resold to a private party which requires no documentation?
Do you mean to say, someone needs to have background checks and cooling off periods to buy a gun from a gun store (in at least some states, the precise details varying from state to state), but they're then allowed to sell that gun on to whoever they wish? That just seems like a recipe for letting guns into unsuitable hands, and makes all those background checks pointless. No wonder people don't worry too much about doing the paperwork properly when someone wants to buy a gun, what's the point if all that happens when they get turned down is they buy a gun from Uncle Bob. It doesn't seem to be much of an infringement of the "right to bear arms" to limit sale of weapons to licensed gun shops, and if necessary include a requirement to demonstrate you still own the guns you've legally purchased at regular intervals (at the very least, prove you still own them when you want to buy another one).
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
(I guess they must have made some temporary easing of the law to allow the pistol events for the Olympics in 2012, either that or those events won't be happening that year).
Yes wiki page agian.
Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on
:
BroJames, this is a problem with how some Americans see guns.
Where I grew up guns were seen as primarily for hunting or as protection against things that don't respond to logic at all (snakes for instance). Target shooting was second, and defense third.
So when someone brings up getting rid of them what they want to know is why. Their way of looking at guns is quite different than yours.
Realize that I don't have a problem with banning automatic weapons, speed loaders, or different types of ammunition. They don't have any place in hunting or target shooting.
And controlling who buys ammunition could be a problem. Even if you only sell to people who have a hunting license, those can be purchased for a lifetime in some states, and quite legally.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
Do you mean to say, someone needs to have background checks and cooling off periods to buy a gun from a gun store (in at least some states, the precise details varying from state to state), but they're then allowed to sell that gun on to whoever they wish?
I should point out that's the way it was several years ago; however, I believe nothing's changed and it remains a point of contention. But I haven't been following the debate closely for some time so take it FWIW.
The registration regulations apply to FFL (Federal Firearms License) dealers, not private individuals.
You might have some potential civil liability in the event the new owner did bad things with the gun (conjecture on my part and I can't help but think it would be very difficult to prove the original owner's culpability) but to the best of my knowledge no criminal liability.
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on
:
Random question alert re: restrictions.
Can anyone in America go out and buy a gun - are there gun-shops? Are there some restrictions? Does it vary from state to state? Would someone have to show identity/age/ check criminal record? Is it recorded? Do you have to apply for a license to own one?
In the UK - if I wanted to buy a gun what would I do? I assume there are some guns you can own for hunting/sport?
thanks
Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
Random question alert re: restrictions.
Can anyone in America go out and buy a gun - are there gun-shops? Are there some restrictions? Does it vary from state to state? Would someone have to show identity/age/ check criminal record? Is it recorded? Do you have to apply for a license to own one?
In the UK - if I wanted to buy a gun what would I do? I assume there are some guns you can own for hunting/sport?
thanks
There are restrictions about who can buy a gun. And some of those vary from state to state.
In general: One cannot own a gun if they have commited a felony or have been involuntary commited to a mental health institution due to you wanting to hurt others or yourself. to purchase a gun one needs to be at least 18, however a parent can purchase a gun for a younger child to use.
There is a ten day waiting period, unless you purchase a gun at a gun show (
). There is a background check run to make sure that you have not lied on your form. (Although that doesn't always work).
Carrying a gun is another thing altogether. That is state by state. In general one has to pass certain tests to be able to conceal a gun and carry it legally.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
Yes, you have to provide ID if you buy from an FFL dealer.
quote:
There is a ten day waiting period, unless you purchase a gun at a gun show (
).
Isn't that a function of buying and selling used guns between private parties, not of being at a gun show?
I thought FFL dealers have to comply with the regs no matter where they do business.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
And, though I've never even thought of buying a gun, the restrictions are even more severe over here. Basically, in addition to showing that you're a fit person to own a gun (eg: not a convicted felon, not known to have mental issues) you also have to show a good reason why you need a gun.
If you want to take up a sport involving guns, then you're best course of action (in fact, probably only course of action) is to join an existing club. You'll then have use of guns owned by other club members, or owned by the club itself, at club meets. Then, if you enjoy the sport and want to take it further they'll be able to help you a) buy a suitable weapon and b) go through all the legal stuff.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
In the UK - if I wanted to buy a gun what would I do? I assume there are some guns you can own for hunting/sport?
thanks
Broad picture from Wiki. Basically you would need to approach the police first to obtain a licence appropriate for the kind of gun you wanted to buy (Home Office info) and then you would need to go to a gun dealer. Try Googling 'buying gun uk'
[ 19. April 2007, 13:18: Message edited by: BroJames ]
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on
:
Thanks
Someone earlier suggested you can just go into wall mart and buy a gun. Does that mean after registering interest 10 days in advance?
If you sold a gun privately do records have to be sent off (Im kind of imagining the uk veichle registration which gets sent off when cars change hands - so *in theory* all veichles are logged.)
We talked a bit about this in class today (13/14 year olds) and they were all shocked that there was a right to own guns. I suspect that USA students would be similarly shocked that they are restricted in the UK? It was such a good example of cultural relativism that I often wonder if i would have differnet moral beliefs if brought up elsewhere.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
Someone earlier suggested you can just go into wall mart and buy a gun.
Unless they've recently changed, federal regs allow you to buy and immediately take possession of a longgun contingent on completing FFL form 4473, meeting age requirements and the like.
(IIRC there may be additional state and county restrictions requiring a waiting period. And BTW WMT stopped selling handguns years ago.)
Not all that long ago (didn't the Brady Bill change this?) you could do the same with a handgun.
Now, for handguns there is a federal mandatory waiting period which involves the applicant obtaining a background check from the local authorities.
But I ought to stop commenting: it's been too long since I was up to speed.
Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on
:
Well, if this incident brings about any changes, perhaps Alan has come up with the best one, that we make you prove you still have the weapon you purchased legally years back - kinda like your car registration. A complication could be in physically showing the thing, but hey, why would I pay a registration on something I no longer have? And if you don't pay, they come for the gun. A little too "big brotherish" in some ways, but a concept nonetheless. The fringe in America would not like this as they see the government as a possible enemy that would confiscate the weapons to protect gov't. power (i.e. to prevent a revolution or to set up a police state), but hey, in a chaotic situation such as that, it wouldn't matter, would it?
I think PataLeBon has summed up the proper attitude nicely:
quote:
Where I grew up guns were seen as primarily for hunting or as protection against things that don't respond to logic at all (snakes for instance). Target shooting was second, and defense third.
For most of America, particularly when I was growing up, this was the attitude, if you thought about it at all. my cousins were hunting at age 12. I was on the target team at school (my family was too squeamish for killing, cleaning and grilling wild game.)
But no matter what you do, and I do mean no matter what, right up to an outright ban on all firearms, criminals will get them - notice the resounding success of all our "war on drugs" campaigns. It may well influence attitudes, as hatless has pointed out, and that would be good, but I think a general moral revolution is what is needed in America. That said, I'd like to reiterate my support for tighter licencing, as Alan has suggested.
Oh, I just remembered this, it's a slight tangent. A reporter was asking about, "would it be right for kids on college campus to be allowed to carry firearms? (empahsis mine)
Hello! Why are they "kids" on a college campus, and yet an 18 year old has essentially full adult priveledges -to marry, to contract, to become a soldier... We have 18 year old "men and women" fighting in Iraq, and 18-22 year old "kids" on our college campuses.
I was trained on M-14's, M-16's, and the venerable military .45 caliber my first year at school, and I didn't turn 18 until midway through my first term.
I won't go so far as to say that a student with a legal permit to carry, and that actually was carrying, could have stopped the carnage. Well, actually I just did, but it's just kinda "Rambo", and a bit improbable. Keeping a piece on you all the time is just a pain, I know I probably wouldn't do it in such a low-threat situation.
Nevertheless, the proper use of guns turns on the problem of proper training and attitudes, but the real wrench gets thrown in the works when you factor in human sinfullness, human silliness, and mental illness.
I'm blathering on now, so until later,
Blessings,
Tom
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
Someone earlier suggested you can just go into wall mart and buy a gun. Does that mean after registering interest 10 days in advance?
not sure off-hand about the waiting-period. Interestingly, MSNBC reported about a year ago that Wal-Mart dropped the gun lines from around a third of their US stores where demand was down: seehere . The NRA apparently fretted and fretted over all those poor maltreated people in those communities who wouldn't then have access to guns. Seems they needn't have worried; as it turns out, we can order one from Wal-Mart online .
Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on
:
Emma:
quote:
We talked a bit about this in class today (13/14 year olds) and they were all shocked that there was a right to own guns. I suspect that USA students would be similarly shocked that they are restricted in the UK? It was such a good example of cultural relativism that I often wonder if i would have differnet moral beliefs if brought up elsewhere.
Sure you would. Back during the first Gulf conflict, I spent about a week in training with a Saudi national. He said he had two Uzis in his house, and plenty of ammunition. I asked him if that was typical, and he said that his people are prepared to fight for their country - if Saddam wants to fight, let him come. it was an eye-popper.
Blessings,
Tom
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
intended as an edit to my previous post; messed up, so it's here now:
Almost amusingly, I can't access Wal-Mart's online music shop because I use Linux with the Firefox browser. But the guns I can find just as big as life.
[ 19. April 2007, 14:05: Message edited by: doctor-frog ]
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
Seems they needn't have worried; as it turns out, we can order one from Wal-Mart online .
[pedant]
It says 'find' online; 'order' in store.
[/pedant]
But decades ago you could buy guns mail order here. IIRC it was RFK's assassination which put an end to that.
So maybe we can conclude the US has something of a 'gun culture', whatever that is, and now we have a bit less of one?
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
No, it doesn't work in a simple, direct causal way. I think the effect of laws is often as symbols and signals. A widely supported law has a strong effect on people's behaviour. Laws against drink driving, for example, have helped to change attitudes to the point where it is now generally seen as so unacceptable that people will readily prevent even a good friend from doing it.
A law against handguns and automatic weapons, coupled with a long amnesty for people to hand them in and good, prolonged publicity, education and public debate, would take a lot of guns out of circulation, but more importantly it might shift opinion, and therefore behaviour.
OK - but what about my friend, who purchased a handgun after she was raped? Does she have to live in fear, thinking she can't ever defend herself?
What you suggest is a good idea, until you get down to details like this.
There should definitely be a waiting list, and no instantaneous purchases. People should be required to prove they can shoot straight, maybe; there are tests to get driving licenses, after all.
But the real issue here was that this particular kid was known to the mental health system, and the legal system (he'd been accused by two women of stalking) - and the gun seller didn't know it. That's a travesty.
I don't think anybody here is raving about an unrestricted right to own firearms. But people do hunt, people do feel they need a gun for safety, and are we supposed to tell them they can't have these things?
And again: I really think it's the coarse, uncaring, violent culture that's the problem. Guns have always been freely available here; only recently do we have regular mass shootings.
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
quote:
Originally Posted by TubaMirum:
And again: I really think it's the coarse, uncaring, violent culture that's the problem. Guns have always been freely available here; only recently do we have regular mass shootings.
Yeah. That's about how I see it. One might call that a "gun culture," but I don't think it's all about guns, and I think it's a totally different culture than hunting culture, at least based on the hunters I've known. Hunters who own guns, IME, tend to be very responsible with how they use and maintain their firearms.
Posted by Amazing Grace (# 95) on
:
Oh, absolutely. My late grandfather was a hunter. By the time I started moving under my own power, he was retired, and he was my default babysitter because he lived in town. I can't remember a time when I didn't know that the gun case (which was locked) was strictly verboten to us kids.
A lot of the "gun rules" environment at the time was shaped by people who put meat on their tables during the lean early years of the last century by their hunting skills (taught by their grandfathers and fathers and uncles and older brothers), so there was a lot of training and very clearly understood social norms re guns, in addition to the fairly cohesive "small farm town" environment. Still exists to a large extent in hunter culture as far as I know.
[oops - top of page - this is in response to mirrizin]
[ 19. April 2007, 15:08: Message edited by: Amazing Grace ]
Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on
:
I can remember my grandad being tickled pink when I bore-sighted his .22 rifle and drove the nail from the bullseye at 100 yards. The target dropped! A thick layer of luck on top of the skill, no doubt.
Grace, you said it so much better than I. And also, what mirrizin quoted from TubaMirim.
Blessings,
Tom
(who just can't type...)
[ 19. April 2007, 15:14: Message edited by: TomOfTarsus ]
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
Yeah. I think, and the demographics will probably support me, that gun control makes more sense in metropolitan areas where there are fewer practical uses for firearms besides sport.
Rural areas really are a totally different situation, which might be what Brits (no offense intended) may not understand.
There are many, many American cultures, even within one state, and even within one city.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
TubaMirum said quote:
OK - but what about my friend, who purchased a handgun after she was raped? Does she have to live in fear, thinking she can't ever defend herself?
What you suggest is a good idea, until you get down to details like this.
People in the UK who have been raped don't usually have guns afterwards. I'm sure coping with the fear must be very difficult, and they might find it helps to have a mobile phone, perhaps a quick dial facility, a personal alarm, perhaps to change their lifestyle, take self-defence lessons, move house, install security lighting, or buy a fierce dog. No one will do all of these things, some people might do none. If someone can't do one of them - buy a fierce dog, say - they can't really complain that they're therefore being condemned to a life of fear. There are ways of building confidence, and not all of them are always open.
But what use is a gun as a defence against rape? I guess that many rapes begin with an unexpected violent physical assault. It might be very difficult to get a gun that is in a bag or pocket into your hand and ready to fire. To produce it in between blows from your assailant might only provoke greater violence. If you're disarmed, then you and the violent attacker are in a scenario that now includes a loaded gun. Not a great thought.
I would have thought that a gun was a very dubious benefit. Add to that all the dangers to yourself and others that come from having a handgun in close proximity all the time (just think of how many curious events might happen that lead to a child getting hold of it) and I just don't see the logic.
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
True. I was thinking that a bowie knife made more sense for that kind of thing.
But still, it's a deadly weapon, and one could hurt one's self by owning one and not taking care of it.
A "fierce" dog, for that purpose, is also a weapon. I see lots of folks around here that own mastiff or pitbull-type, intimidating looking dogs apparently for that purpose. And these dogs have the same issues as other weapons. They could potentially express their fierceness on anyone.
I think the point remains that banning potential weapons isn't going to stop people from killing each other. They'll just find different means.
A more effective long range goal would be to focus on the people, rather than the tools, even though it's harder to do in the short run.
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
People in the UK who have been raped don't usually have guns afterwards. I'm sure coping with the fear must be very difficult, and they might find it helps to have a mobile phone, perhaps a quick dial facility, a personal alarm, perhaps to change their lifestyle, take self-defence lessons, move house, install security lighting, or buy a fierce dog. No one will do all of these things, some people might do none. If someone can't do one of them - buy a fierce dog, say - they can't really complain that they're therefore being condemned to a life of fear. There are ways of building confidence, and not all of them are always open.
But what use is a gun as a defence against rape? I guess that many rapes begin with an unexpected violent physical assault. It might be very difficult to get a gun that is in a bag or pocket into your hand and ready to fire. To produce it in between blows from your assailant might only provoke greater violence. If you're disarmed, then you and the violent attacker are in a scenario that now includes a loaded gun. Not a great thought.
I would have thought that a gun was a very dubious benefit. Add to that all the dangers to yourself and others that come from having a handgun in close proximity all the time (just think of how many curious events might happen that lead to a child getting hold of it) and I just don't see the logic.
Come on. If in the U.S. there are literally millions and millions of guns, why aren't we hearing about millions and millions of children being shot?
My friend is single. She was raped by a breaker-in to her own apartment. She's not going to let that happen again; I suspect she'd rather die first. And she's a law-abiding and productive citizen. It's really not foranybody else to tell her how she should deal with her fears. I would think women in the U.K. would resent the fact that they can't protect themselves in a similar way.
I got a dog because I didn't want to have a gun. But maybe she's not allowed to have one - and I haven't been attacked and raped in my own home. You're not getting the point here: even most of us "liberals" don't believe that guns should be outlawed. We recognize that there have always been guns here - but that something has changed to make these sorts of events more prevalent.
It ain't the guns, IOW.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
Rural areas really are a totally different situation, which might be what Brits (no offense intended) may not understand.
I think that most Brits would understand that rural situations are different. I suspect that if people in the UK were asked to think of a legal gun owner, near the top of their list would be farmers; we get this stereo-type of the farmer with a stalk of straw in his teeth patrolling his land with a shot gun (breach open, cartridges in his pocket) in case a fox appears to worry his hens. Also near the top of the list would be the country gent taking pot shots at pheasant or the businessman taking a jaunt in the Highlands to bag a stag (ignoring the fact that most people shooting deer or pheasants aren't country gents or wealthy businessmen but people just like them). I suspect most brits would have difficult with figuring out why anyone would need a handgun, it's not exactly the most useful weapon for hunting.
The only person I've ever talked to about owning guns (though, not the only person I know who's owned one) was raised on a farm in Texas. They regularly had assorted 'vaa-rmin' (as he, approximately, called them) come onto the land and raid the trash or worry the hens. Usually opening the door and letting the dogs out was sufficient, but occasionally they needed to get a gun out. They did have a handgun, because it was the best way of quickly finishing off something the dogs had mauled or where they were close and were restraining a dog with one hand. But, usually it was the shotgun or rifle they used to dispatch the critter.
Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on
:
TubaMirim, I'm with you in many respects, although as hatless pointed out, it could become problematic.
But even so, your friend needs to be properly trained. And one of the biggest thoughts se has to drill into her head is, that if the gun comes out, she will fire immediately and to the most effective end.
Too many people have a gun for just such a reason, then they get the idea from TV that they can pull it out and hold off the attacker. Then they have it taken off of them and used gainst them.
Cardinal rule: Don't produce it if you aren't going to fire.
Blessings to you and your friend,
Tom
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
Alan:
Thanks for explaining. Those are the sorts of cases I'm talking about.
And I agree that there's some sense in putting closer restrictions on handguns in many areas. Unfortunately, given the number of them that are out there, I think such a process would be practically impossible to accomplish on a federal level and rather difficult on a state or local level.
Not to mention that cops might not want to or be able to enforce it properly.
Posted by Amazing Grace (# 95) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
Yeah. I think, and the demographics will probably support me, that gun control makes more sense in metropolitan areas where there are fewer practical uses for firearms besides sport.
Rural areas really are a totally different situation, which might be what Brits (no offense intended) may not understand.
There are many, many American cultures, even within one state, and even within one city.
Well, of course, there is the perennial Ship Pond War chestnut of hunting US vs. hunting UK general (please note my qualification) class differences. But people who live in the country also may need to defend themselves against varmints.
There isn't really the cohesive social structure these days to support a laissez-faire attitude such as existed in my rural childhood decades ago in most places in the US*. Which is why I support sensible gun regulations.
* story time ... a net.acquaintance of mine lives in small town South Dakota. When he came to visit, he thought he was going to shock me by showing me his concealed carry permit. He didn't, because at the time he was telling me the process of getting it: the sheriff knows him personally (or, in places like that, he would know someone who could vouch for him), and was keeping his eyes and ears open and could pull it at any time. Sounds like a fairly cohesive social network with checks and balances to me. I told him it was like the place I grew up, but it certainly wasn't the case where I was living at the time.
Charlotte
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by TomOfTarsus:
TubaMirim, I'm with you in many respects, although as hatless pointed out, it could become problematic.
But even so, your friend needs to be properly trained. And one of the biggest thoughts se has to drill into her head is, that if the gun comes out, she will fire immediately and to the most effective end.
Too many people have a gun for just such a reason, then they get the idea from TV that they can pull it out and hold off the attacker. Then they have it taken off of them and used gainst them.
Cardinal rule: Don't produce it if you aren't going to fire.
Blessings to you and your friend,
Tom
She trained diligently. She goes back to the police regularly for re-training. Believe me, she's not a dingbat in any sense of the word. I'm sure she'd rather not feel this way at all.
Hatless, I'm sorry for getting a little worked up there. My friend was really scarred by the experience - it changed her life and her way of looking at the world completely - and honestly I'd rather she be willing to preserve herself and her life (as she sees it) than to have her feel that kind of fear and anger, and experience the damage it does.
It may be that she'll come to the point you're talking about; maybe she'll get rid of the gun someday. Another woman I know was also raped, and she handled it differently.
Gun control, yes. Registration: yes. A long discussion about this topic: yes. But banning guns completely is just not the right answer, I don't think. We do have a problem here, but I think it lies elsewhere.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
Cardinal rule: Don't produce it if you aren't going to fire.
IME most gun 'experts' amend that to
Don't produce it if you aren't willing to fire; and to kill, not maim.
I once had a gun guru dude tell me mere brandishment was notably effective in deterring threats. I can't confirm or deny the allegation but ISTM to be supported by 'common sense'.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
What is that song in Oliver-- "reviewing the situition?"
A few years ago came a bill in congress that would "preserve standards of broadcast decency" (merely, as the propaganda had it) by upping the ante to the point where either compliance or non-compliance threatened to bankrupt anyone who didn't operate a whole string of stations.
In the case of firearms, perhaps we should be similarly dubious about the agendas and claims of corporate persons, who are immune to gunshots, when they result in flesh-and-blood persons, who are not immune to them, winding up in hospitals and graveyards every day by the hundreds.
I don't want to repeal the second amendment any more than I want to see the airwaves turn into a cesspool of obscenity. But the problem is that gun crimes, often committed by teenagers, have increased sharply in the past few years and reached an epidemic level in Philadelphia among other cities. In a discussion on the radio this morning, an authority (whose main point was that someone needs, at last, to care about these kids in a one-on-one, quasi-parental way) suggested a state law to restrict purchase of firearms to one gun per person per month.
Would someone in the NRA like to explain to us how and why this proposal is not reasonable? (I'd have thought, why not one firearm per year under normal circumstances.) But, our speaker sighed, no such bill will never pass in the current legislature.
Personally, I wish I could demand of an individual who marches in to a gun shop regularly and walks out with another purchase to show me all the guns he has bought. Where is he keeping them? What does he do with them? It's a good bet that he sells them illegally in the black market. But gun registration is a no-no, for reasons we can understand if we've heard or read our real gun-control freaks, so we can't make such inquiries.
Qui Bono? This looks increasingly like a war between the human race and an alien breed of creatures with a different lifeform, and incarnate flesh and blood are losing it.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
If nothing else, this thread has demonstrated the nature of the American gun culture, which was the what the OP wanted to know about.
--Tom Clune
Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on
:
206:
Well, that was what I meant. And brandishment only works from a safe distance, and then you must be sure there's only one of them, no one is behind you. And then, if they do anything but obey your order to lie down, or else run away, you fire to effect.
Still the bottom line is, if the will isn't there, don't pull it out.
Alogon:
Your're probably right about the black market sellers. Many guns are also stolen, or at least reported as stolen. There's also quite a market for foreign weapons smuggled in outside of the registration process altogether. That's where the NRA gets their old saw about"if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns," and to an extent they are correct.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do something about it.
tclune:
You're right, but I think there is a big difference between criminal use and psycopathic use of a gun. FWIW.
Blessings,
Tom
Posted by Iole Nui (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I would think women in the U.K. would resent the fact that they can't protect themselves in a similar way.
Well, you would think wrong, for the most part. There may be some women who think that, but I've never in 38 years heard a UK woman of my aquaintance express resentment that she can't carry a gun in her handbag*. For most people it really wouldn't be an issue they'd give any thought to.
Which is a pretty good illustration of why many non-Americans would think of America as a 'gun culture'.
* She could, of course, own various sorts of legal gun, subject to the same restrictions as everybody else.
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Iole Nui:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I would think women in the U.K. would resent the fact that they can't protect themselves in a similar way.
Well, you would think wrong, for the most part. There may be some women who think that, but I've never in 38 years heard a UK woman of my aquaintance express resentment that she can't carry a gun in her handbag*. For most people it really wouldn't be an issue they'd give any thought to.
Which is a pretty good illustration of why many non-Americans would think of America as a 'gun culture'.
* She could, of course, own various sorts of legal gun, subject to the same restrictions as everybody else.
I don't remember saying anything about a "handbag." My friend was violently raped in her apartment, which is where she keeps her gun. It's also legal and "subject to restrictions."
Otherwise, spot on.
Posted by Professor Kirke (# 9037) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
If nothing else, this thread has demonstrated the nature of the American gun culture, which was the what the OP wanted to know about.
This is the kind of snide comment that really undermines any kind of honest conversation about these types of cross-pond differences. There is a rich and diverse American culture, some of which involves owning guns. Yes, it's true.
But you can't just take the laws of London and drop them into Los Angeles expecting them to work the same way. That's why some comments about "obvious this" or "clearly that" sound so ignorant.
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
For people from the UK, it seems a no-brainer that if the problem is gun crime, then putting more on the streets through outlets like Wal-Mart is not the solution.
You know, I haven't heard anybody say that the solution to gun crime is selling guns at Wal-Mart. I've heard people say that guns in the right hands could prevent or deter some gun crime. There's a difference.
A lot of the confusion is causality. People assume that since:
More guns in America. More violent crime in America.
Less guns in UK. Less violent crime in UK.
that this necessarily (and obviously) implies:
More guns --> More violent crime
Less guns --> Less violent crime
when it could just as easily be explained:
More violent crime --> More guns
Less violent crime --> Less guns
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
Brits are so (IMO quite rightly) befuddled by American culture. When the problem is guns that are available in Wal-Mart, it's very hard to see why the solution would be putting more on the street.
Whereas to the British mind, if the problem is gun crime, you make them equally unavailable to all. Then you've only got your pointed sticks to contend with.
The American logic is, to me, a non-sense.
First of all, the problem isn't "guns that are available in Wal-Mart". Second, I find your assumption that "making them equally unavailable to all" would be so easy and foolproof to be rather naive.
quote:
By that logic, everybody should be given access to the kind of explosives that what's-his-name in Oklahoma City had in 1995 -- because you never know when you're going to have to defend yourself against his ilk having their moment of glory.
If I see you with explosives about to blow up a building, how exactly do you suppose I'm going to stop you with more explosives? Now, if only I had a gun...
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
Yeah, it seems that "guns in handbags" and "more guns at Walmart" are getting all the attention here, so let me try again, too.
I know exactly one person who has a gun. She's the friend I mentioned, and she lives 600 miles away from me. Nobody here discusses guns at cocktail hour.
So I fail to see how this constitutes a general "gun culture." There are places in the country where a "gun culture" does exist - but this is only a problem, anyway, if people are getting killed because of it. I shot rifles at summer camp - target-shooting for sport - and nobody got hurt.
My argument is simply that a person should not be prevented from purchasing a weapon for self-defense - and particularly not, IMO, a woman who lives alone and who has been attacked previously. People do hunt, and they should be allowed to.
There should also be gun control. There should be restrictions on purchases, and registration of firearms. There should be better communication between the mental health care system and gun sellers. There should be waiting lists. There should be aggressive gang-control measures in urban areas, so that people who live in poor parts of towns and cities don't have to live in fear.
There shouldn't be a total ban on firearms. That is what most of us are saying, yet it seems to get ignored in favor of making the case that Americans are all gun-crazy. We're not.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Professor Kirke:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
If nothing else, this thread has demonstrated the nature of the American gun culture, which was the what the OP wanted to know about.
This is the kind of snide comment that really undermines any kind of honest conversation about these types of cross-pond differences. There is a rich and diverse American culture, some of which involves owning guns. Yes, it's true.
But you can't just take the laws of London and drop them into Los Angeles expecting them to work the same way. That's why some comments about "obvious this" or "clearly that" sound so ignorant.
I find your response to my observation puzzling. Not only was it not intended to be snide, for the life of me I can't see what you are viewing as snide. I am from the US, not the UK, and have no knowledge of what UK gun laws actually are.
The thing that struck me was the extent to which many people in the US find the gun an important part of their psyche. It is much like the attitude many Americans have to the automobile (no, that's not a shot either). From a purely sociological standpoint, the gun culture is fascinating. My comment was purely reflective of that sociological interest, although I personally would be quite content if guns were outlawed, so that only outlaws had guns (the way God intended...)
I am honestly perplexed by the fury of your response to a bland post.
--Tom Clune
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
I think we were perplexed by your post* becuase you were stating that we clearly had a gun culture when many of us still don't see good evidence that we do. I am persuaded that some parts of the US have a gun culture, but I still see no reason to apply such a generality to the whole country. I have only seen a real gun twice in my life and never seen a handgun unless you want to count seeing a policeman's gun bulge. If I live in a gun-culture I must be pretty damn out of the loop!
*Apologies PK, if I have misunderstood you
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Professor Kirke:
A lot of the confusion is causality. People assume that since:
More guns in America. More violent crime in America.
Less guns in UK. Less violent crime in UK.
that this necessarily (and obviously) implies:
More guns --> More violent crime
Less guns --> Less violent crime
Well include me out of 'people'. My assumption is:
Fewer available guns --> Less use of guns in violent crime
and
Less use of guns in violent crime --> fewer deaths
I am aware that it is people who kill not guns - that is true in the UK too, but - generally speaking - people without guns kill fewer than people with guns. So, yes address the people side of the equation, but don't neglect the guns side. What I find hard to comprehend is not that people won't ban guns - that seems to me to be unrealistic - but that there seems to be little willingness to increase regulation or licensing at all.
I guess the phrase 'gun culture' is open to interpretation. In Britain we have one kind of gun culture in gangland Manchester and London where it is becoming a matter of fashion and kudos for young men to go about armed. A different kind of 'gun culture' exists where the citizen's right to bear arms *appears* to trump any sort of possibility for the government appointed by the citizen to regulate more tightly the way in which the citizen does that.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I think we were perplexed by your post because you were stating that we clearly had a gun culture when many of us still don't see good evidence that we do. I am persuaded that some parts of the US have a gun culture, but I still see no reason to apply such a generality to the whole country. I have only seen a real gun twice in my life and never seen a handgun unless you want to count seeing a policeman's gun bulge. If I live in a gun-culture I must be pretty damn out of the loop!
There are various things that we say with respect to American cultures that need not apply to all people in the culture. It has been said that America is a Christian nation. You may disagree with that, but if someone pointed to, e.g., the Christian broadcast stations and called them examples of that Amerian Christian culture, my guess is that you would know what was being said -- even if you personally never listened to them.
As I tried to indicate, I think that the cultural artifact that most closely approximates the place that guns hold in some Americans' iconography is the automobile. You may not own a car. You may seldom ride in cars. You may own a car and not feel that it is noticeably a part of the definition of who you are. But I would guess that you could make sense out of someone suggesting that there exists an American car culture, and that the place that the automobile occupies in many people's self-image is not limited to the utlitiy of the object.
None of this is an attack on anyone in any sense that I can discern.
--Tom Clune
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
I am aware that it is people who kill not guns - that is true in the UK too, but - generally speaking - people without guns kill fewer than people with guns. So, yes address the people side of the equation, but don't neglect the guns side. What I find hard to comprehend is not that people won't ban guns - that seems to me to be unrealistic - but that there seems to be little willingness to increase regulation or licensing at all.
But I think people here do agree with this, and have said so.
Are you talking about what's generally true in the U.S.? I think we will have that discussion, too. The NRA is a powerful organization, though, it's true. But once people get fed up with this sort of thing - and I get the sense that this event may help that process along - they will do something about it, NRA be damned.
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on
:
Gwai. from my (uk) perpesctive your posts *would* make me think America has a "gun culture". I guess its a question of definitions. As others have tried to point out, over here it is highly unusual to find someone who thinks we should have a "right" to a gun, and indeed very few people that would want to have them in their homes for a number of reasons.
By "gun culture" I think you could read something like "acceptance of guns in society" or more specifically to america the fact that a *right* to own a gun is tied in with American culture/identity. The very fact that so many Americans dont even question guns for sale in wallmart/ right to bear arms etc looks to *outsiders* to be a "gun culture" as its a culture we dont have. (it may well be its just the NRA and lots of people *are* anti-guns, but were talking about how it appears to outsiders - through posts here etc)That isnt to say every single american owns 6 guns and is desperate to shoot them.
Regardless of what you believe about guns, the fact that as a country America appears (to the outside world) proud of the fact that every one has a right to have a gun, or even blissfully unaware that others might find the law unusual suggests to cultures that *dont* find guns to be usual, a gun culture.
I think... ?
[ 19. April 2007, 19:10: Message edited by: Emma. ]
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
Gwai. from my (uk) perpesctive your posts *would* make me think America has a "gun culture". I guess its a question of definitions.
I don't think I get it. I've reread my post to find what I said that suggests a gun culture and I'm missing it. Elaborate please?
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
By "gun culture" I think you could read something like "acceptance of guns in society" or more specifically to america the fact that a *right* to own a gun is tied in with American culture/identity.
It sounds like you all have as much a right to own a gun as we do. It's just more regulated. Acceptance of existence doesn't seem to be enough to create a culture. After all, I suspect they accept the existence of moose in Alaska, but I'd scarcly call Alaska a moose-culture.
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
The very fact that so many Americans dont even question guns for sale in wallmart/ right to bear arms etc looks to *outsiders* to be a "gun culture" as its a culture we dont have. That isnt to say every single american owns 6 guns and is desperate to shoot them.
We also don't question that books are for sale in walmart and most of us would say we have a righ to own books. Does that mean we have a book culture even though most people can't be bothered with books?
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
There are various things that we say with respect to American cultures that need not apply to all people in the culture. It has been said that America is a Christian nation. You may disagree with that, but if someone pointed to, e.g., the Christian broadcast stations and called them examples of that Amerian Christian culture, my guess is that you would know what was being said -- even if you personally never listened to them.
As I tried to indicate, I think that the cultural artifact that most closely approximates the place that guns hold in some Americans' iconography is the automobile. You may not own a car. You may seldom ride in cars. You may own a car and not feel that it is noticeably a part of the definition of who you are. But I would guess that you could make sense out of someone suggesting that there exists an American car culture, and that the place that the automobile occupies in many people's self-image is not limited to the utlitiy of the object.
I can't agree with this at all. Guns literally make up no part of my life, while both cars and Christianity do (and Christianity would, even if I wasn't Christian myself, since it is my heritage - and since we have to deal with it in politics these days).
Yes, we are generally a car culture; most of us own one, or want to. And we are a Christian culture; there's a church on practically every block.
But since only about a third of us own guns, or have any interest in the matter, I really don't see how the other two-thirds of us are implicated in any sort of "gun culture." I haven't fired one in years, and have no plans (or even desire) to.
I'm not part of the "sports" culture, either, and that's more ubiquitous in fact.
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
FYI, the Walmart near me doesn't sell guns. I don't think any non-gun shop around here does, except for the outdoor stores that sell hunting equipment. They sell bows and arrows, too. Bowie knives. Golf clubs, baseball bats, and pool filters.
It really does sound like you have similar policies in Britain; the guns-in-handbags post was starred with the information that women could, indeed, own guns.
So what's the big difference here, then?
Is it just our 2nd Amendment? We're generally suspicious of government here, and don't trust the powers-that-be to run our lives (even when they say it's for our own good). It IS in the Constitution, though, and something we can't discard without huge majorities voting to do so.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Professor Kirke:
You know, I haven't heard anybody say that the solution to gun crime is selling guns at Wal-Mart. I've heard people say that guns in the right hands could prevent or deter some gun crime. There's a difference.
If I recall, the NRA and similar groups pretty much advocate a gun in every household as the best deterrent to gun criminals.
In fact, back in the 1980's they passed a law in a town in North Georgia to that effect -- Kennesaw, I believe it was: that every household must have a gun.
Perhaps you do your shopping at K-Mart, but the net effect is the same.
quote:
Originally posted by Professor Kirke:
A lot of the confusion is causality. {etc., etc., etc.}
you misunderstand.
I make the following assumption:
human nature ---> violent tendencies sometimes.
then, all other factors being equal ...
violent tendencies --> guns in America --> violent attacks and more gun crime
equal amount of violent tendencies for the sake of argument --> not so many guns in Europe --> violent attacks of the same level of viciousness, but not so much damage, because available weapons not nearly as efficient at doing their job.
quote:
First of all, the problem isn't "guns that are available in Wal-Mart".
oh, yes it is.
quote:
Second, I find your assumption that "making them equally unavailable to all" would be so easy and foolproof to be rather naive.
This thread has gone a long way since those comments, and I've expanded and clarified.
But, for the record, I don't think it would be easy and foolproof. (As I've said, I grew up in a gun heartland. And, also for the record, I'm one helluva good shot with a small-calibre rifle.)
I just think it would be worthwhile.
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
Well include me out of 'people'. My assumption is:
Fewer available guns --> Less use of guns in violent crime
and
Less use of guns in violent crime --> fewer deaths
I am aware that it is people who kill not guns - that is true in the UK too, but - generally speaking - people without guns kill fewer than people with guns. So, yes address the people side of the equation, but don't neglect the guns side.
Yeh. What he said.
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on
:
Gwai - I wasnt trying to argue as such, just trying to give an indication of how it looked from outside the situation if thats possible.
Given your book example, I think that yes, *if we didnt have books for sale/read them/hmade a big deal of right to own them* then we *would* call your culture a "book culture" even if only 1/3 of Americans ever read them.
From what Ive read on this thread it is far far harder to own a gun here than in America (rightly or wrongly, I dont really know either way!) and like derf said, I wouldnt even know where to start to try and get hold of one. RE the woman being raped with a gun situation - culturally we (and obviously huige sweeping generalisation here) stereotypically have different responses. It appears you are saying in America the usual response would be to defend her right to own a gun, over here it really wouldnt factor at all, and wouldnt be a reason to own a gun it just woudlnt be thought of. We dont have a culture that accepts gun ownership as "normal" or a "right" (especially not one written into law) unless farming etc. Certainly not a handgun.
It may well be that large parts of America *dont* agree with gun ownership/dont own a gun, but to those outside looking it it still looks like, as a nation, America defends the right to own a gun. That to us looks like a "gun culture".
Not sure I can explain any better than that really (which i realise wasnt great!) but was just trying to say that from the posts on this thread, because they hit our ears so differently (ie the rape victim and the gun) people do see things differently as a result of the culture theyre in I guess.
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
Psst: They don't sell guns at the Wal-Marts around here.
This probably does happen in some parts of the country, but it doesn't happen where I am (NY Metro). Why are people refusing to listen to what we're saying here?
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on
:
PS apologies Gwai
I think Ive conflated your posts with a couple of others on this thread in my head,
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
It may well be that large parts of America *dont* agree with gun ownership/dont own a gun, but to those outside looking it it still looks like, as a nation, America defends the right to own a gun. That to us looks like a "gun culture".
[Emma, I'm not responding directly to you, but using your quote to make a point to the thread]
A culture is a set of shared beliefs, values, and attitudes. It doesn't need laws to restrict it because it is considered to be right and is socialized into the people who belong to it.
Now, if many (perhaps most) Americans do not buy or use guns, how can they be participating in a "gun culture"?????
Even among those who use guns, it would be hard to make a case that these people all share the same beliefs, values, and attitudes.
Collectively, they may live in a country which does not restrict gun ownership as much as other countries do (or, restricts gun ownership more than other countries do).
So when speaking of the "gun culture" in the US, it's best to be very specific about who belongs to that sub-culture. It is not helpful at all to assume that there is some sort of generalized "gun culture" here or anywhere else.
sabine
[ 19. April 2007, 19:54: Message edited by: sabine ]
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on
:
ISTM "gun culture" would include the almost knee-jerk reaction that I quoted from the Governor of Virginia. It is so ingrained in the public discourse of the US that "guns are part of what we are" that no politicain dare offer a small suggestion of some sort of registration or training, without being quite viciously attacked by a large minority of the voters. And those attacks would be supported by another large minority on constitutional grounds, EVEN WHEN the Constitution expressly says "well-regulated"
There are almost no industrial countries except the US where this would be the case.
Being dismissive of this doesn't help the discussion.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Psst: They don't sell guns at the Wal-Marts around here.
Psst: They do in Texas.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
A culture is a set of shared beliefs, values, and attitudes. It doesn't need laws to restrict it because it is considered to be right and is socialized into the people who belong to it.
Now, if many (perhaps most) Americans do not buy or use guns, how can they be participating in a "gun culture"?????
There is a sense in which "culture" means what you indicate. It is not the case that "gun culture" or "car culture" or the like mean that at all. We have laws restricting the use of cars, but that does not mean that the term "car culture" is therefore vapid. It just means that you can't define "culture" in the phrase "car culture" in the way that you would like.
Rather, the core concept to my mind in this use of "culture" is that the automobile has iconic significance for people (whehter they own one or not) that goes well beyond the utility of the car itself. Some people identify with their cars in a way that has little to do with moving from point A to point B. They judge other people's merit or whether another is sympatico on the basis of what car they drive, etc. they see the car as a window into the owner's soul in some deep-seated sense.
Now, guns have a similar iconic place in the consciousness of a very large segment of Americans (and other people, too. I saw on a show recently that some African youth are called "Kalash," for Kalashnikov (sp?). That sort of identification of their manhood with a weapon is an excellent example of what I would term a "cultural" icon.)
I was raised on cowboy movies and given toy pistols as part of my acculturation into what "little boys were made of." I was take hunting on Grandpa's farm when I was 12 in a way that was rather like a secular bar mitzva: it was part of coming of age to lug a 20 gauge around the back fourty, hoping to bring down a deer and make dad proud. Like Ralphie in "A Christmas Story," I had fantasies of protecting the family with my trusty long gun against ne'er-do-wells. I don't know whether this is true of other countries -- it may well be. I don't know whether they have a gun culture or not. But I sure as shootin' know that we have one.
--Tom Clune
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
ISTM "gun culture" would include the almost knee-jerk reaction that I quoted from the Governor of Virginia. It is so ingrained in the public discourse of the US that "guns are part of what we are" that no politicain dare offer a small suggestion of some sort of registration or training, without being quite viciously attacked by a large minority of the voters. And those attacks would be supported by another large minority on constitutional grounds, EVEN WHEN the Constitution expressly says "well-regulated"
There are almost no industrial countries except the US where this would be the case.
Being dismissive of this doesn't help the discussion.
I wasn't being dismissive; I was trying to bring some clarity to the use of the word culture----and if we're talking about a minority--even a passionate and vocal one--we can't be talking about a culture. It might be a movement; it might be a sub-culture; it might be a regional trait; but it's not an "American gun culture" unless everyone in it has the same beliefs, values, and attitudes. Even at the regional level or the sporting level, it's hard to make a case that it is more than a sub-culture.
I would say that if someone is afraid to bring up a subject because of political fallout, then you specifically don't have a culture (which would have an internal cohesion)--you have political pressure.
I don't deny in the least that people can get and use guns more freely here than some other places, that there is a big gun lobby, that some politicians are afraid of that lobby, that some people are afraid of other people and use that to justify gun ownership, that some people are afraid of the wrong people having guns, that the Constitution has been interpreted in various ways on this issue, that violence is glorified in the media, that there are situations in which people feel they have no other options but to use violence.
I could go on--but I don't believe that the US is a gun culture.
I'm not sure what the purpose of this thread is....are we trying to solve a problem here, get to the heart of the issue (in which case, my posts culture are surely are relevant) or just point fingers and keep using a phrase that is innacurate in the act of pointing fingers?
AGain, I mention countries in which people have free access to weapons and use them to oppress--Rwanda, East Timor, Zimbabwe, Colombia. The list could go on--and these are countries where children are trained to use weapons and then sent out to be soldiers. Now, if anything approaches being a gun culture or a weapon culture of any kind, that would be it.
And I would want to ask folks to think about what we can do to stop violence world-wide. I think we could have a pretty good conversation about that.
Sometimes discussion that do not demonize can be more fuitful than those that do.
sabine
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
There is a sense in which "culture" means what you indicate. It is not the case that "gun culture" or "car culture" or the like mean that at all. We have laws restricting the use of cars, but that does not mean that the term "car culture" is therefore vapid.
Tom, I agree. But as with the word, "myth," the word culture has been distorted in popular. I think because I am both an anthropologist and a social worker, I've seen things that allow me to believe that we need to get our language straight if we are going to transcend generalizations in order to have a dialogue that will result in greater awareness and answers.
I think your examples were very good ones, esp. the iconic examples--but at the most, they are sub-cultures. I also think that many of us were not part of this iconic world. It's very risky to label something as being a cultural underlay of a whole country when that country is so large and includes so many diverse peoples and POVs and, yes, sub-cultures.
sabine
[ 19. April 2007, 20:45: Message edited by: sabine ]
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Psst: They don't sell guns at the Wal-Marts around here.
Psst: They do in Texas.
And? I've never been to Texas, and have never had any desire to go.
In my area we talk about gun control, not about "guns in every household." Stop projecting your issues onto the rest of the country. And maybe start listening to what we're saying at some point?
Posted by Bean Sidhe (# 11823) on
:
When he was small my little brother never went anywhere without his toy gun in a holster, but as an adult, apart from shooting (hopelessly) at rats in his garden with our dad's old air pistol, I've not seen him show the slightest interest. My son loves shoot-em-up games and beat the adults into a cocked hat at a fairground shooting range, but is spooked seeing police with the real thing. I teach kids who boast about their "straps", whether truthfully or not I couldn't say. Shootings happen, still rarely enough to make the news and worry people. Mostly "black-on-black", which makes whites complacent at least until it happens on their doorstep. And here there's talk of an incipient gun culture, though again mostly seen as a black thing. Black or white, knives are still far more popular, as they were when I started teaching a quarter of a century ago. A woman who taught in Glasgow in the fifties told me how she'd disarm each class as they came in, lining up knives, chains, knuckle-dusters on her desk, to be collected as they left at the end.
Violence is everywhere, I suppose, and such people will use whatever weapons locally are easy to come by, though if you can avoid those weapons being guns I'd call it a wise move. In France, Italy and Greece of course they just drive.
[ 19. April 2007, 21:18: Message edited by: Bean Sidhe ]
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
It's really quite annoying, I have to say, to be told what our "culture" is about by people who don't even live here. I frankly can't see why we should pay any attention whatsoever.
In any case, I'm sure 100 times more people die in car accidents every year than die from gunshot wounds. So why isn't anybody talking about banning the sale of cars?
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
I must see if I can find the statistics, because I don't know them, but I'd guess that your automobiles kill two or three times as many as your guns, not hundreds.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
In my area we talk about gun control, not about "guns in every household." Stop projecting your issues onto the rest of the country. And maybe start listening to what we're saying at some point?
Fair enough. You'll find some interesting and useful statistics here .
According to the surveys in question, you'll find on p 4 of the first report that New York scores 27% out of 100% by this particular measure of toughness of gun control laws, with 100% being the most stringent. Hardly glowing. New York ranks the lowest of the 'moderate control' states. But, in fairness, it's relatively high compared to many others. 'low control' is zero to 20. 'abysmal control' (my word, not theirs) is in the negative numbers. The highest two are Hawaii and Massachusetts, with 71 and 76. Most of New England and the Northeastern States rank in the 'low' or 'moderate' categories.
The national average was 9%.
At a pure speculative guess, I'd guess that most of Western Europe would score at or above Hawaii and Massachusetts levels.
As far as what you're saying goes, I think other oeople -- including females -- have responded to the most convincing of your criticisms, and have done so far better than I could do. I hesitate to place myself in the shoes of a raped woman, because I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like or what my reaction would be. Confronted face to face with such a person, I'd be far less likely to spark up a debate on gun policy with her than simply to express what Christian / human love and care I could in whatever way seemed most sensitive and appropriate and, hopefully, the least presumptuous.
Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
ISTM "gun culture" would include the almost knee-jerk reaction that I quoted from the Governor of Virginia. It is so ingrained in the public discourse of the US that "guns are part of what we are" that no politicain dare offer a small suggestion of some sort of registration or training, without being quite viciously attacked by a large minority of the voters. And those attacks would be supported by another large minority on constitutional grounds, EVEN WHEN the Constitution expressly says "well-regulated"
There are almost no industrial countries except the US where this would be the case.
Being dismissive of this doesn't help the discussion.
I believe that the Governor was trying to tell people to wait until the investigation is over, or at least started.
And yes, I know it seems odd that it seems that Americans don't automatically decide that since guns were used to kill people, then we ought to get rid of guns.
But for some people in America, guns are a tool that can be used for ill or for good.
My best guess right now from listening to the American media is that then end game will either be 1) stricter laws about people who are mentally ill being comitted easier or 2) a much better way to check to make sure that people who have been committed, even if for a short time, don't have access to guns.
I know it seems strange, but America seems to be dealing with this as a mental health issue not a gun control issue.
And that's where the gulf is, and probably will be for awhile.
(And yes, I've seen guns for sale at Wal-Mart. Strange, but true. But then again Wal-mart also sells hunting licenses and ammo.)
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
It's really quite annoying, I have to say, to be told what our "culture" is about by people who don't even live here. I frankly can't see why we should pay any attention whatsoever.
I'm sure Mr. Bush thought much the same thing when his flunkies said, 'Oh, they'll welcome us as liberators'. Never mind what they think of America, and never mind what the administration might have tried to learn about Iraqi culture(s) before blundering on in. How'z that working out for him?
It's failure to grapple with one anothers' cultures that causes the kind of misunderstandings that lead to wars -- and cold wars -- and and and ...
If you don't like it that you're perceived as a 'gun culture', then maybe the answer lies as much within as without.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
Except as TubaMirum has proved over and over and over, she doesn't live in a gun culture although some Americans do.
I t hink the main solution to this problem is for people throughout the world to admit that not everyone is the same. If you love guns, please remember most of America doesn't. If you hate guns, please remember most of America agrees.
Please tell me, oh ye people who don't live in the USA that you don't remember that we have as many sketchy news outlets and reporters who exaggerate for effect as you do.
Emma, I think I understand where you're coming from now. Still, I don't accept being defined by how we differ from you
. Just because we have more of X or less of Y than you doesn't mean those facts define our society.
On a different note, those of you who insist the USA is all one monolithic gun culture, would you call every other feature that represents a large minority to be a culture? For instance, is Britain an Asian-culture (in your sense of the world Asian not ours) since a large minority of Brits are Asian?
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Except as TubaMirum has proved over and over and over, she doesn't live in a gun culture although some Americans do.
I t hink the main solution to this problem is for people throughout the world to admit that not everyone is the same. If you love guns, please remember most of America doesn't. If you hate guns, please remember most of America agrees.
Oh, absolutely I agree that not everybody is the same. But this is in Tuba's own words:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
My argument is simply that a person should not be prevented from purchasing a weapon for self-defense ...
Elsewhere she suggested that British women who'd been attacked should resent not having them readily available.
This from someone who has made all the other remarks (which, to correct my own wrongs, I've just gone back and read far more closely in this rapidly-expanding thread; and I see she's said more than I gave her credit for).
Notwithstanding that, other people have said that here in the UK, it wouldn't even occur to us to go out and buy a gun. Still others have suggested that victims of crime (including rape) have many options, of which the gun is merely one.
In that light, Tuba's insistence that they *should* be available to all --and the assumption that we should resent not having them -- is exactly what I meant when I stated in the OP that there's a gun culture in the US -- and, to clarify, I think it goes beyond ownership. It's the tolerance and passive acceptance of that they're out there and *should* be out there that I find problematic.
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
According to the surveys in question, you'll find on p 4 of the first report that New York scores 27% out of 100% by this particular measure of toughness of gun control laws, with 100% being the most stringent. Hardly glowing. New York ranks the lowest of the 'moderate control' states.
Here's an article about New York and Massachusetts, and about what's going on in gun control here:
quote:
The mayor appears to be taking an interest in the gun laws of other states, such as Virginia and Georgia, which supposedly are so lax that Empire State criminals just hop on Interstate 95 to buy their weapons. A number of lawmen we respect enormously, including the police commissioner and the Manhattan district attorney, are extremely concerned about this factor. But the mayor might want also to zip up I-95 in the other direction, toward Boston, where the mayor there has taken to criticizing neighboring states, especially "Live Free or Die" New Hampshire, for making it too easy for criminals to buy guns that then kill innocent people in Beantown's streets.
It turns out, however, that the United States Attorney in New Hampshire, Thomas Colantuono, recently disputed that claim, citing data showing that the majority of gun crimes in Massachusetts are committed with guns originally purchased instate. This mirrors a national trend, according to the senior vice president of a gun-industry trade group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Lawrence Keane of the NSSF told us yesterday that across the country, the top source for guns used in crimes is almost always the state in which the crime is committed.
What does work? Strict enforcement of laws that are already on the books. New Yorkers already have ample experience with this phenomenon - witness the spectacular success of Mayor Giuliani's crime control program that focused on zero tolerance not just for violations of the gun laws but for all crime. Criminals, by definition, do not follow the law. Enacting more laws for them to break won't exactly change that. But fair, ruthless, committed, steady leadership in the uniformed services, such as we've had in recent years, and a practice of backing up the police during controversies will do a lot.
Here's something else. These are just two random finds; there are many more. Commissioner Kelly is very strong on gun control, and so are the police in other localities around here.
Again: no one here has disputed that gun control is necessary; we all (I think) support licensing. What we are arguing against is banning guns completely. And we don't agree that we live in a "gun culture" - unless support for ownership by sane and law-abiding citizens (just as they are allowed to own cars) constitutes such a culture.
I haven't been convinced by anything women on these boards have said, BTW; I am convinced, though, by the experience of my friend.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
Doctor Frog: I don't know where TM lives and have no idea whether she lives in what I consider a gun culture since I probably haven't been there.
However, I guarantee you, that telling me one of her opinions on guns could never convince me to generalize about her whole culture.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I haven't been convinced by anything women on these boards have said, BTW; I am convinced, though, by the experience of my friend.
which is exactly why I hesitate to stamp on it. rape victims respond in as many different ways as there are women, and I see how deep this goes for you.
what I've said above, I stand by. But I'm not going to be the one to tell your friend she shouldn't have a gun in a country where it's allowed. I just hope she's sleeping better tonight than last night.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
On a different note, those of you who insist the USA is all one monolithic gun culture, would you call every other feature that represents a large minority to be a culture?
I don't know about monlithic, but it is a gun culture to my eyes. What I mean is that every socio-economic class in every area of the country has been brought up with guns and gun ideation (for lack of a better word). A male child who was not given toy guns like girls are gvien dolls was almost assuredly raised by parents who were consciously opting out of the culture. I am in my fifties. Of my age group, I doubt that one male in a hundred has never shot a gun. And that is apart from military service.
I think that it is becoming rarer for males to actually be trained in the use of firearms outside the military, unless they specifically seek it out. But, until very recently, a father would see to it that his son knew the basics of handling a firearm as surely as he would teach him how to catch and throw a baseball.
I would hope that the cultural component of firearms would be subsiding. But I disagree with you and Sabine that this is a subculture. I was in a subculture when I was a druggie in the '60s. That was characterized by an identification as opposed to the rest of society (in that case, youth vs "grown-ups"). The gun culture has been pervasive enough that people have not felt that they were doing something "counter-cultural" in teaching their kids how to shoot and hunt. At least not among my northern middle-class peers. My understanding is that the south and west are just more-so.
--Tom Clune
Posted by teddybear (# 7842) on
:
Has anyone posted this yet? It just gets scarier to live here in the states and I grew up around guns.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
However, I guarantee you, that telling me one of her opinions on guns could never convince me to generalize about her whole culture.
Well, then let me re-phrase. Granted for the sake of argument, it is not a 'typically' American response, it is all the same a very American response.
As I've said before, when the bodies in VT aren't even cold yet and the political discourse demands that the leaders come out within minutes to voice their antipathy to gun control, then what you have is a gun culture. It may not be the opinion of the majority of Americans any more than Stalinism was the preference of the average East German -- but they had a communist culture, if nothing else but by virtue of who ran the show, and until this silent majority of Americans changes the political discourse on handguns, there will indeed be a gun culture in America.
Posted by Professor Kirke (# 9037) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
I find your response to my observation puzzling. Not only was it not intended to be snide, for the life of me I can't see what you are viewing as snide.
There was no fury, it was more like disappointment.
I (perhaps wrongly, I see) saw your comment as a way to subtly interject a patronizing "Yes, yes, some of you think it's not a gun culture, but as we can see by all of you who think you shouldn't outlaw guns, it obviously is, so we're getting what we wanted." If it's not how you meant it, then just consider it a response to how it sounded to some.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
I guess there is a pond difference thing here - and also perhaps a failure to realise how vast and various the US is. Statistically, however, the UK had gun ownership of 0.1% prior to the 1997 ban on handguns. US gun ownership appears to run at about 30% with just under 50% of households having a gun. (Because of the size of the US, of course, there could be some places where guns are relatively few and far between, and others where they are much more common)
From a culture where fewer than one person in a thousand owns a gun, a culture where three out of every ten people own a gun and a firearm can be found in almost half the households looks like a gun culture - at least in common parlance if not in the technical terms of anthropology.
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Except as TubaMirum has proved over and over and over, she doesn't live in a gun culture although some Americans do.
I t hink the main solution to this problem is for people throughout the world to admit that not everyone is the same. If you love guns, please remember most of America doesn't. If you hate guns, please remember most of America agrees.
Oh, absolutely I agree that not everybody is the same. But this is in Tuba's own words:/
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
My argument is simply that a person should not be prevented from purchasing a weapon for self-defense ...
Elsewhere she suggested that British women who'd been attacked should resent not having them readily available.
This from someone who has made all the other remarks (which, to correct my own wrongs, I've just gone back and read far more closely in this rapidly-expanding thread; and I see she's said more than I gave her credit for).
Notwithstanding that, other people have said that here in the UK, it wouldn't even occur to us to go out and buy a gun. Still others have suggested that victims of crime (including rape) have many options, of which the gun is merely one.
In that light, Tuba's insistence that they *should* be available to all --and the assumption that we should resent not having them -- is exactly what I meant when I stated in the OP that there's a gun culture in the US -- and, to clarify, I think it goes beyond ownership. It's the tolerance and passive acceptance of that they're out there and *should* be out there that I find problematic.
Look, Frog-Doctor: do me a favor and read, and report on, what I actually say and stop misquoting and ellipsing out what you don't like.
I've said - not once, but about 4 times now - that I support gun control, licensing, testing, registration, etc. I've said that they don't sell guns in Wal-Mart here, to counter your argument that that was ubiquitous. I've said that I don't live in a "gun culture." I've said that the VA Governor's remark was likely a refusal to get into the "gun control debate" two days after the incident. You refuse, apparently, to listen, because you're so intent on pushing your own ideology - but that's not my problem.
And BTW, I haven't heard one person here say that they - or their friends - had been violently raped but wouldn't consider purchasing a gun. I'm simply not convinced by anything I've heard here.
Posted by Professor Kirke (# 9037) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
I make the following assumption:
human nature ---> violent tendencies sometimes.
then, all other factors being equal ...
violent tendencies --> guns in America --> violent attacks and more gun crime
equal amount of violent tendencies for the sake of argument --> not so many guns in Europe --> violent attacks of the same level of viciousness, but not so much damage, because available weapons not nearly as efficient at doing their job.
So, you're saying that your opinion is that guns are causing the crime, and I'm saying it could be that the level of violent crime is driving the need for guns.
I find it hard to believe that if Cho Seung-Hui lived in the UK that he'd said to himself "I'd really like to make a name for myself by causing mass terror and destruction, but it's just so hard to get a gun around here. I guess I'll just settle with killing one or two kids with a knife and that'll be that."
Like many have said, the fact that there are people who are so bent on killing many people -- that's the problem. It's not the guns. The guns, the violent video games, the blaming of teachers who "didn't see it coming", these are all distractions and scapegoats used for coping.
I'm confused about the idea of "availability", too. It seems to me that a person who is prepared to kill people would usually be willing to go to whatever lengths necessary to procure him/herself a gun. We've outlawed alcohol in the past and various drugs currently, and we all know how well that's working.
quote:
quote:
First of all, the problem isn't "guns that are available in Wal-Mart".
oh, yes it is.
Well, that's certainly a compelling argument.
You made an assumption ("If the problem is that guns are available in Wal-Mart, then...") that wouldn't be accepted as a premise by most of the people you're arguing with.
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
My assumption is:
Fewer available guns --> Less use of guns in violent crime
and
Less use of guns in violent crime --> fewer deaths
Again, availability. How exactly do we limit the availability of guns? Law-abiding citizens may turn theirs in and refrain from buying or selling new ones. With violent crime under consideration, though, it'd be the not law-abiding citizens I'd be concerned with.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
On a different note, those of you who insist the USA is all one monolithic gun culture, would you call every other feature that represents a large minority to be a culture? For instance, is Britain an Asian-culture (in your sense of the world Asian not ours) since a large minority of Brits are Asian?
Depends what you call a large minority. Less than 8% of the population is from an ethnic minority - 4% Asian ethnic minority.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Look, Frog-Doctor: do me a favor and read, and report on, what I actually say and stop misquoting and ellipsing out what you don't like.
Same applies -- errm ... would that MirumTuba?
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
This from someone who has made all the other remarks (which, to correct my own wrongs, I've just gone back and read far more closely in this rapidly-expanding thread; and I see she's said more than I gave her credit for).
by which i meant the kind of thing you summarise here:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I've said - not once, but about 4 times now - that I support gun control, licensing, testing, registration, etc. I've said that they don't sell guns in Wal-Mart here, to counter your argument that that was ubiquitous. I've said that I don't live in a "gun culture." I've said that the VA Governor's remark was likely a refusal to get into the "gun control debate" two days after the incident.
and again ...
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
And BTW, I haven't heard one person here say that they - or their friends - had been violently raped but wouldn't consider purchasing a gun. I'm simply not convinced by anything I've heard here.
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
which is exactly why I hesitate to stamp on it. rape victims respond in as many different ways as there are women, and I see how deep this goes for you.
what I've said above, I stand by. But I'm not going to be the one to tell your friend she shouldn't have a gun in a country where it's allowed. I just hope she's sleeping better tonight than last night.
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
As I've said before, when the bodies in VT aren't even cold yet and the political discourse demands that the leaders come out within minutes to voice their antipathy to gun control, then what you have is a gun culture.
Then you misunderstand what a culture is. What you are describing is political pressure.
quote:
It may not be the opinion of the majority of Americans any more than Stalinism was the preference of the average East German -- but they had a communist culture, if nothing else but by virtue of who ran the show, and until this silent majority of Americans changes the political discourse on handguns, there will indeed be a gun culture in America.
Running the show does not a culture make. That's politics, not culture.
And from tclune:
quote:
But I disagree with you and Sabine that this is a subculture. I was in a subculture when I was a druggie in the '60s. That was characterized by an identification as opposed to the rest of society (in that case, youth vs "grown-ups"). The gun culture has been pervasive enough that people have not felt that they were doing something "counter-cultural" in teaching their kids how to shoot and hunt.
There are many sub-cultures that are not "counter-cultural" in the sense that you are describing.
There are so many disturbing things about gun use in the world, why are is it so important that we continue to debate this as if we're finally showing up the evil underbelly?
Can't we move on to thinking about how to stop violence? In my work I see the results of people who've lived with a much greater degree of weapon use and acceptance than we will ever see here or in the UK.
so my questions are: Why is it so important to portray the US as a "gun culture?" Why? With a world in chaos, why is this stereotype so precious that it needs to be defended through four pages of a thread? What is being gained? What is being contributed to any solutions?
I've asked these questions before, and so far, the discussion continues along the lines of exposé. Sigh....
sabine
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
On a different note, those of you who insist the USA is all one monolithic gun culture, would you call every other feature that represents a large minority to be a culture?
I don't know about monlithic, but it is a gun culture to my eyes. What I mean is that every socio-economic class in every area of the country has been brought up with guns and gun ideation (for lack of a better word). A male child who was not given toy guns like girls are gvien dolls was almost assuredly raised by parents who were consciously opting out of the culture. I am in my fifties. Of my age group, I doubt that one male in a hundred has never shot a gun. And that is apart from military service.
I think that it is becoming rarer for males to actually be trained in the use of firearms outside the military, unless they specifically seek it out. But, until very recently, a father would see to it that his son knew the basics of handling a firearm as surely as he would teach him how to catch and throw a baseball.
I would hope that the cultural component of firearms would be subsiding. But I disagree with you and Sabine that this is a subculture. I was in a subculture when I was a druggie in the '60s. That was characterized by an identification as opposed to the rest of society (in that case, youth vs "grown-ups"). The gun culture has been pervasive enough that people have not felt that they were doing something "counter-cultural" in teaching their kids how to shoot and hunt. At least not among my northern middle-class peers. My understanding is that the south and west are just more-so.
--Tom Clune
So a "gun culture" is anyplace that doesn't express shock and horror about the fact that guns exist, then? Or that doesn't ban them completely?
Sorry, I think that's completely off-the-wall. Guns have always simply been tools. Fathers taught kids to use them in order to hunt; we didn't grow up in a rural area so that didn't happen in my household. I shot rifles at camp 30 years ago - and yet somehow I've never even considered shooting a person. After 9/11, I considered buying a gun, to tell you the truth - but I didn't.
If I moved to the country, though, I'd probably buy a shotgun myself. (I'd probably buy a better snow shovel, too. Does that make us a "snow shovel" culture, too?)
Why IS the purpose of this thread? If somebody wanted to talk about gun-control issues, that would at least be constructive. As it is, this appears to be just more gasbag rhetoric and finger-pointing. "Gun culture" my hind foot....
Posted by Lee12 (# 10910) on
:
I am Ohio resident who owns no guns, and I certainly agree that the US has a gun culture. As several on the board have said, guns have an "iconic" significance in America, primarily among men. Americans are quite at ease with registering and regulating their cars, driver's licenses and dogs, but a very strong minority become nearly hysterical at the thought of registering and regulating guns. That this reaction bears no relation to logic is shown by the fact that guns are involved in the deaths of a great many more people than are, say, drugs, yet "everyone" agrees it is essential to regulate drugs. For many people in this country, guns = masculinity.
I also don't think we should underestimate the influence of the NRA. They are extremely wealthy and make large contributions to our politicians. They are also extremely vocal, and anyone who opposes this powerful lobby must submit to the most vicious attacks and ridicule. Furthermore, the NRA are what the tobacco lobby used to be -- the "rabid racoons" of litigation. For instance, last year, Ohio tried to pass a modest little law focused on protecting police who have to search the cars of people they stop for possible criminal activity. The law proposed that, *if* the car's occupants had permits to carry weapons, the weapons must be displayed openly when the police came to search the car. The NRA was nearly hysterical at the thought of even this very minor restriction on a person's "right" to do whatever he wanted to do with his gun. The lobby put such intense pressure on the legislators *and* on the Ohio sheriff's association that the final bill passed, with the reluctant agreement of law enforcement, stated that the guns in a car didn't have to be openly displayed, but could in fact be hidden in the glove compartment if that's what the gun owner wanted to do with them. Apparently the right of a cop to survive a criminal encounter is trumped by the right of anyone who buys a gun to have his sovereign will with it.
Most Americans who think like me, however, have pretty much given up hoping to fight the NRA and its attendant gun culture. This most recent scene at VT will doubtless stir a few people up to try again to limit the spread of guns, but the gun lobby will triumph yet again. It's been a quarter century since John Hinckley shot Mr. Reagan and Mr. Brady, and if that horror didn't result in any changes, surely the lives of a few dozen innocent students will mean nothing at all.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Professor Kirke:
So, you're saying that your opinion is that guns are causing the crime, and I'm saying it could be that the level of violent crime is driving the need for guns.
errrm. no, Professor. I thought my flow chart made that clear.
I'm saying that human nature / human violence / the Fall of Humanity / Beelzebub whatever you want to call the evil side of human instinct -- that's whats causing the crime and the desire for violence.
After that I'm saying that, given the same human nature that applies worldwide, crime is therefore more efficient and deadly when more criminals can get their hands on guns. Or militaries or what have you. (To wit: the US military has the biggest defence budget on the planet, and consequently overwhelmingly the most killing power of any army.)
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Why IS the purpose of this thread? If somebody wanted to talk about gun-control issues, that would at least be constructive. As it is, this appears to be just more gasbag rhetoric and finger-pointing. "Gun culture" my hind foot....
I've asked this question several times (and in the post right before this one). For the life of me, I can't understand why it's so urgent that the US be defined as a "gun culture."
I'm in the business of culture, sub-cultures, and working with people who have suffered terribly, horribly and irreversably within true and pervasive mileux of weapon use--all outside the borders of the US.
In light of that, to have a thread like this seems almost unbelievable in it's reluctance to give up on the stereotype.
sabine
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
...and I might add, slow to give up on language that perpetuates the stereotype and slows down true discource.
s.
Posted by Professor Kirke (# 9037) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
given the same human nature that applies worldwide
Do you think there could be factors that would exacerbate this nature in certain ways and make it more volatile or even more violent?
Is the availability of guns the only factor you'd consider to have any effect on human nature's tendency toward violence?
My answers (obviously) are yes, no.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Professor Kirke:
I find it hard to believe that if Cho Seung-Hui lived in the UK that he'd said to himself "I'd really like to make a name for myself by causing mass terror and destruction, but it's just so hard to get a gun around here. I guess I'll just settle with killing one or two kids with a knife and that'll be that."
He would certainly have found it very difficult to go out and buy one of these.
Without a rigourous police check and demonstrating a genuine need and first obtaining a licence, he would not have been able to buy anything legitimately - and in the UK not a handgun at all.
He'd have had to get involved with illegal and dangerous dealers, pay cash up front and would be unlikely to have obtained anything like a semi-automatic.
As it was he just walked into a store and made his purchase with little more difficulty and at no greater cost than buying, say, a laptop computer.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Professor Kirke:
Do you think there could be factors that would exacerbate this nature in certain ways and make it more volatile or even more violent?
Is the availability of guns the only factor you'd consider to have any effect on human nature's tendency toward violence?
My answers (obviously) are yes, no.
Same answers here.
I agree, e.g., with sabine that Uganda is one example. Darfur is another. And these are both places where suffering happens far more than in America. And I agree with her -- and presumably you -- that it would be a fine thing to discuss these things / other causes / etc. on this thread. (I don't want the 'gun culture' debate to get too repetitive or devolve into a pissing war.)
My OP was specifically in response to specific comments about 'gun culture' in America on a different thread, which is, I suppose, why it's played out focussing on America. It was kind of the point.
But, no -- I certainly don't think guns are the *only* factor. That doesn't change my view, however, that they are more freely available in the US than they should be and that medicine for the symptoms is often as valuable a step as medicine for the underlying cause.
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Why IS the purpose of this thread? If somebody wanted to talk about gun-control issues, that would at least be constructive. As it is, this appears to be just more gasbag rhetoric and finger-pointing. "Gun culture" my hind foot....
I've asked this question several times (and in the post right before this one). For the life of me, I can't understand why it's so urgent that the US be defined as a "gun culture."
sabine
I know. It's empty political rhetoric, I'd say.
I guess we're talking to the walls, essentially. I live in the urban Northeast, and nobody thinks about guns, much - except when they're talking about gun control. Most people want there to be way, way fewer guns around than there are; they want the gangs gone and to have less fear in their lives. So I find this conversation pretty strange, too.
The 9/11 hijackers killed 3,000 with box-cutters. And again: cars kill far more people than guns do - but you can get a bigger rise out of people about guns, I guess, both for and against. Especially right after one of these incidents, which have in fact occurred all over the world.
The difference is in the culture, but they won't listen....
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
Can't we move on to thinking about how to stop violence? In my work I see the results of people who've lived with a much greater degree of weapon use and acceptance than we will ever see here or in the UK.
so my questions are: Why is it so important to portray the US as a "gun culture?" Why? With a world in chaos, why is this stereotype so precious that it needs to be defended through four pages of a thread? What is being gained? What is being contributed to any solutions?
I've asked these questions before, and so far, the discussion continues along the lines of exposé. Sigh....
sabine
The reason that I think that it's important to recognize the cultural component more than the legal ownership issue is that the gun culture is corrosive to my way of thinking. Without recognizing that it exists, we cannot begin to be intentional about our approach to the issue of gun violence. Let me give you a couple of examples:
When I was younger, I worked armed security. I had to stop because I found that I had a real attitude when I was wearing a gun. My response to people arguing with me was to get angry, which was not my normal response to such things. I know that many people can wear a gun and not feel that they are "owed respect," but I was not one of them. And I don't think that I am alone in that. The gun made me more aggressive, pure and simple.
If you say "Say hello to my little friend!," or "Are you talking to me? You must be talking to me, because there's nobody else here," or "Do you feel lucky, punk?" everyone knows the reference, and an awful lot of people think of these things as the height of cool. Guns really do allow people who feel marginalized to feel powerful. And that is something that I share with the VT killer. This is not just a psychological problem -- it is a security issue that the gun helps create.
Until we stop thinking of guns as our savior, we are going to be awash in violence. Yes, most folks have enough of a "regulator" on their behavior to not shoot the guy who cuts them off in traffic. But the seduction toward violence of gun ownership is real and dangerous. We need to acknowledge that excess within us, and choose how we will respond to it.
That is why I keep harping on the cultural aspect of guns in our society. I am under no illusion that we will enter the new Jerusalem if we only outlaw guns, but focusing on our fascination with them is an important part of our spiritual growth ISTM.
--Tom Clune
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
Would it perhaps be more accurate to say there is a 'gun culture' in America, than America is a 'gun culture'?
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
Would it perhaps be more accurate to say there is a 'gun culture' in America, than America is a 'gun culture'?
How very judicious of you! I would be fine with that characterization.
--Tom Clune
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
(I don't want the 'gun culture' debate to get too repetitive or devolve into a pissing war.)
I'm afraid it's too late.
but I am glad to see this:
quote:
But, no -- I certainly don't think guns are the *only* factor. That doesn't change my view, however, that they are more freely available in the US than they should be and that medicine for the symptoms is often as valuable a step as medicine for the underlying cause.
This is a reasonable statement to make, has very little to do with so-called "gun culture" and opens the door to some discussion.
I'm pretty much a gun control gal myself--world-wide. Not only do I think we should exercise some control over the access to personal use of guns, but also to the arms trade, which puts a lot of guns into play.
How to do this when there are big bucks to be made by selling weapons is beyond me at the moment. The arms trade is someting that many countries are involved in. Making money is always alluring, and there are people who don't care that they make money by selling death machines (large and small).
Anger, hostility, vengeance, and cruelty will always exists--the issue is how to make it harder to inflict those things on innocent people.
I sense a discussion about how to control the sale of weapons is really another thread.
sabine
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on
:
The purpose of this thread would seem to be to illustrate two opposing views.
People outside the US (and some fraction of the population inside) see the US as an overall culture which includes the having of guns as a defining characteristic. Not everyone has this characteristic, but enough do that outsiders see it that way.
The vast majority of those in the US see themelves as aware that guns are a significant part of their "culture" (again, not everyone....) but that this is no big deal...to them.
To most people outside the US, the huge availability and carrying/usage of guns is peculair at best and threatening at worst. To those inside the US, the presence of guns is something you have to get used to/be resigned to.
Many of the posters from the US on these boards appear to be offended or in some way upset that the rest of us don't see it their way, but, hey, we don't live there. Its just how we see it. Lump it.
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Many of the posters from the US on these boards appear to be offended or in some way upset that the rest of us don't see it their way, but, hey, we don't live there. Its just how we see it. Lump it.
But why should we care how you see it, since as you say, you don't live here and, futher, won't listen to what we're saying?
You seem offended when we say that, though. Lump it yourself.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
Anger, hostility, vengeance, and cruelty will always exists--the issue is how to make it harder to inflict those things on innocent people.
Amen, and amen.
and to everything you said in that post.
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
The reason that I think that it's important to recognize the cultural component more than the legal ownership issue is that the gun culture is corrosive to my way of thinking. Without recognizing that it exists, we cannot begin to be intentional about our approach to the issue of gun violence.
Tom, I think you may have misunderstood me. I'm not asking us to stop talking about the issue--I'm asking us to stop generalizing and misidentifying the issue so we can talk more productively.
As someone who works with culture and also with the victims of weapon violence, I think we do not support a good discussion of how to solve things if we don't first get our definitions clear.
And, in fact, I have already said on this thread that I think we *should* focus our attention on gun issues.
The rest of your post was spot on....even if it doesn't support the idea that there is a gun culture, it sure makes a case for the power of weapons and our (universal "our") relationship with them. Something needs to be done to make it less enticing to use weapons as a method of first resort.
sabine
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
The purpose of this thread would seem to be to illustrate two opposing views.
People outside the US (and some fraction of the population inside) see the US as an overall culture which includes the having of guns as a defining characteristic. Not everyone has this characteristic, but enough do that outsiders see it that way.
The vast majority of those in the US see themelves as aware that guns are a significant part of their "culture" (again, not everyone....) but that this is no big deal...to them.
To most people outside the US, the huge availability and carrying/usage of guns is peculair at best and threatening at worst. To those inside the US, the presence of guns is something you have to get used to/be resigned to.
Many of the posters from the US on these boards appear to be offended or in some way upset that the rest of us don't see it their way, but, hey, we don't live there. Its just how we see it. Lump it.
This post is filled with inaccuracies and yet at the end, there is a posturing, defiant statement. I'm reminded of a schoolyard for some reason.
sabine
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
[edited out knee-jerk pissing contest response to TubaMirum.]
[ 19. April 2007, 23:23: Message edited by: doctor-frog ]
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
[edited out knee-jerk pissing contest response to TubaMirum.]
Thanks, you controled your knee better than I did in responding to another poster.
Anyway, I find the issue of how to dissuade people from thinking of weapons as the essential tool for solving problems much more engaging.
I wish I had more answers. Mostly, I rely on my faith witness, which probably won't go down well on a heated thread.
But we've finally got a conversation going, I think. That's progress.
sabine
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
and, damn, here it's half-past midnight and i'm up way past my bedtime!
elaborate on some of that, and I'll look forward to responding to you in the morning!
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
Actually, I may not get back to this before you get back to the thread (time diff and all) but I will reply.
sabine
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
On a different note, those of you who insist the USA is all one monolithic gun culture, would you call every other feature that represents a large minority to be a culture? For instance, is Britain an Asian-culture (in your sense of the world Asian not ours) since a large minority of Brits are Asian?
Depends what you call a large minority. Less than 8% of the population is from an ethnic minority - 4% Asian ethnic minority.
So you agree that if that figure rises to 30% you will consider yourself to live in an Asian culture even if you happen to live in a place where there are almost no Asians? To get a better example, I just picked mirrizin's brain: If thirty percent of your population is rural does that mean that someone who lives in an inner city ghetto lives in a rural culture?
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
When you talk about a Virginian "gun culture," are you referring to rural western VA or the DC suburbs?
Because those are two very very distinct cultures.
I know because I grew up in Maryland, which has a similar divide between its rural west and its urban east.
We're a salad bowl, not a melting pot.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
So you agree that if that figure rises to 30% you will consider yourself to live in an Asian culture even if you happen to live in a place where there are almost no Asians? To get a better example, I just picked mirrizin's brain: If thirty percent of your population is rural does that mean that someone who lives in an inner city ghetto lives in a rural culture?
No, I would probably say I lived in a country in which there was an Asian culture. (Incidentally if the 30% were so distributed that almost half the households in the country included an Asian member I might be hard put to say that I did not live in an Asian culture.) But I think raw numbers are only part of the issue in whether there is 'a culture'.
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
from me:
quote:
Anyway, I find the issue of how to dissuade people from thinking of weapons as the essential tool for solving problems much more engaging.
I wish I had more answers. Mostly, I rely on my faith witness, which probably won't go down well on a heated thread.
But we've finally got a conversation going, I think. That's progress.
from Doctor-Frog:
quote:
and, damn, here it's half-past midnight and i'm up way past my bedtime!
elaborate on some of that, and I'll look forward to responding to you in the morning!
I like where we left this, and wasn't sure I could respond this evening, but looking at tomorrow's schedule, I realize I will have much less flexibility for posting. So I'll say a few things tonight and hope to respond to your response later.
Any weapon is an efficient tool of power, IMO. Even chimpanzees know this. So it seems to me that in thinking about how to discourage people from abusing power with weapons, we have to think about power itself (or the perceived lack of it).
And we also have to separate out people who collect weapons but don't use them, people who feel the need to protect themselves but use the weapon mostly as reasurrance (i.e, don't use them as weapons), people who defend the citizenry and more often than not, are able to do that without using their weapons, etc. There are people who have access to weapons who don't abuse those weapons or have violent lifestyles.
The ones who do have violent lifestyles and have abused the weapons at their disposal are another matter. It's a complicated subject.
In the first place (but not most important, IMO) we have a media portrayal of impulsive responses that lead to a perception that people are likely to go off in a New York minute. In the developed world, we are bombarded (to use a violent metaphor) with this sort of image.
I was talking with a friend who lives in a small town that receives television news from the large city where I live. Her perception is that nothing much happens up here except car jackings, killings, bank robberies, etc. Why? Because that's what the news reports.
So, much of what people come to see as the "reality" of, say, the United States can be media driven. However, before someone jumps in and responds, let me say that I am *not* simply blaming the media.
There is also a way to obtain weapons. Weapon sales and trading exist on an informal underground basis, a formal above board basis, a covert international basis, and an above board international basis. Weapons are currancy and a means to wealth or power (depending on the situation). Even many indigenous people--who are so often portrayed as peaceful and close to the earth--understand the weapon as symbol of and tool of power.
I think it's more helpful to look at power and situations in which power comes into play to find answers to the violence that people put forth into the world with weapons.
Power is a complicated thing--part emotion, part talent, part skill. It can be used for the good, the bad, the ugly, or for the edification and uplifting of humankind.
It's my opinion that the more secure a person is with his/her sense of power (esp. inner power) the less that person will want to abuse power with a weapon. I'm not saying that people who own weapons are not secure in their own power--it's the abuse that seems tied to the power issue in my mind.
We all compensate for our perceived shortcomings in various ways. Using a weapon to commit a crime or oppress an entire population can be a compensation for power issues--or similarly, control issues, impulse control issues, grandiosity, etc.
Further, when people begin to see that their society requires certain things in order for a person to be considered a member in good standing of that society, but also see that they are systematically being denied the opportunity to obtain these things or achieve or bring themselves up, there is a kind of frustration that can go many ways--apathy, self-distruction, finding a "power tool" (and I'm not talking home improvement here). Many drift into the mistaken idea that owning a gun and using it to get what they need/want is a way to compensate for the power that society is denying them.
From a faith perspective, I believe that each person has within him/her a Divine Light, the Light of God, and it's my responsibility to attempt to treat each person accordingly. I don't measure up many days, but it's an ideal. But I often wonder how to encourage others (especially those who have given up or who are in the midst of a grandiose scheme of power lust) to see that they have the same Light within as everyone else.
When I think of something like ethnic cleansing, the use of child soldiers, etc. I have to ask myself, what happened that people came to feel that it was ok to kill and maim others simply because they are different?
And who is supplying the weapons? I doubt if there is a developed country that is not in some way implicated in arms trading, even if they are not doing the actual trading--there are many ways to support arms trading. Untangling that web would be difficult.
So, when I see a thread about how one country has a "gun culture" and I also see people who have actually taken up refuge in that country to get away from a more deeply engrained sense of using weapons for violence, I feel the need to speak up and suggest that labeling is the least effective way to deal with a very troubling issue, one that can be challenging to people of faith.
I was at a regional Peace and Justice Summit last weekend and bought a button that said Blessed are the peacemakers. I know, fluffy-wuffy idealism. But, until each of us in our own way (gun owner or not--wherever we are in the various lineages of religion)....until each of us makes it a point to commit some portion of their energy, no matter how seemingly insignificant, to putting Sermon on the Mount issues into even five minutes of the day, then....
...weapons will continue to have the shiny promise of a quick and easy way to get rid of what's troubling us. And I'm sure there will always be people who feel better tearing others down in order to feel better about themselves.
I much prefer taking a bit more time (like four pages of a thread) and finally arriving at a point where I'm having a conversation with someone I was previously having a disagreement.
But that's just me.
sabine
Posted by the_raptor (# 10533) on
:
Excellent post Sabine.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Professor Kirke:
I find it hard to believe that if Cho Seung-Hui lived in the UK that he'd said to himself "I'd really like to make a name for myself by causing mass terror and destruction, but it's just so hard to get a gun around here. I guess I'll just settle with killing one or two kids with a knife and that'll be that."
You'd be right to be skeptical. Either he'd have an idea of where to get one illegally or, as in the case of Dunblane, he would already be a legitimate gun owner. Alternatively, he'd build a bomb.
Getting a gun legally in the UK isn't difficult, it's just a hassle and one that most people don't even think about attempting. On the whole us English are either terrified of guns and that's why we tend to go off on one whenever we hear of a shooting incident stateside: that and some Brits do love feeling superior if they possibly can.
I spent a year living in Virginia. I saw only one gun in the whole of that time, and I asked to see that one. A friend of my then boyfriend had a few handguns. I had never seen a handgun in real life so I wanted to see his meanest and have a hold, etc (he made sure the chamber was empty first!). I was aware when I first lived there that people around me could be packing but I got used to the idea and life became just the same as back home.
I also shot my first gun in the States on a return visit, that time to Illinois, where my friend had half a dozen shotguns and she organised a shooting party in her back yard. It was great fun but kind of surreal - and I had a tendency to shoot the apples off the tree belonging to a next door neighbour. Had me and my mates decided to have a shooting party in my back yard here in England no doubt we would have all been arrested.
I think both the US and the UK have gun cultures, but very different ones. In the UK it is a highly regulated gun culture (but then most of life feels highly regulated here, unfortunately) and guns are associated with defined groups: farmers, those who shoot clays for a hobby (that would include me), hunters and of course criminals.
The concept of guns being just an ordinary part of life in the way that my ex-boyfriend's friend's guns were is just totally alien to the average Brit and tends to summon up Hollywood images of gunfights at the OK corral.
Brits may not be at all bothered about guns (except to fear them) but try taking away their booze and you'll have an outright riot. Last year the government hinted at banning booze from trains (oh how wonderful that would have been) but the outrage was so loud they retreated into their wussy little hole. No matter that pissed individuals cause problems on trains and no-one can escape. It's a Brit's right to get totally pissed wherever they go and heaven help anyone who gets in the way of that.
So while some of us might think we're oh-so-great because we don't generally reach for a gun in times of frustration, we also have our sacred cows and they can be just as unpleasant - try hanging out in a town centre at a weekend or ask a casualty nurse what hospitals turn into on a Saturday night (and if they've been attacked during their shift).
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
I have said it before and now will boringly say it again.
Brits tend to think about how much less safe they'd feel if other people were allowed to have guns.
Americans tend to think about how much less safe they'd feel if they weren't allowed to have guns.
Both have good reasons for not wanting to move from where they currently are.
[ 20. April 2007, 08:11: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
This is huge, Sabine!! (not that I'm fundamentally in disagreement with any of it -- so well said.) I'll pick up on two small points, because it's what I have time for. But I've certainly tried to pay attention to the whole thing.
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
I think it's more helpful to look at power and situations in which power comes into play to find answers to the violence that people put forth into the world with weapons.
As I've said above, I don't think there should be an either/or approach (nor do I imagine you think so, either, actually).
I think the symptom can be addressed together with the underlying illness. You give radiation therapy for cancer -- but you also give morphine for the pain.
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
Power is a complicated thing--part emotion, part talent, part skill. It can be used for the good, the bad, the ugly, or for the edification and uplifting of humankind.
... when people begin to see that their society requires certain things in order for a person to be considered a member in good standing of that society, but also see that they are systematically being denied the opportunity to obtain these things or achieve or bring themselves up, there is a kind of frustration that can go many ways--apathy, self-distruction, finding a "power tool" (and I'm not talking home improvement here). Many drift into the mistaken idea that owning a gun and using it to get what they need/want is a way to compensate for the power that society is denying them.
I think someone's already said that in Britain, we tend -- increasingly -- to use binge drinking as the outlet. Which in many circles then leads to violence. Notwithstanding the usual protests of 'It was so much better in my day', I gather from the statistics I read that binge drinking and related violence is indeed on the increase here -- and the A&E records will show it (self-inflicted damage; victims of random drunken violence).
I assume there's less death involved on the whole than there is when a different group takes up guns as their outlet. Having witnessed a US shooting once and been the 911 caller, I still maintain that I'd rather take my chances getting my butt kicked by a drunken Brit spoiling for a fight in the alley behind a pub than I would against a pissed-off American thug who took my money and shot me even when I co-operated and gave up everything I demanded, as was the case in the incident I saw. This is precisely why I'd want to treat the symptom as well as the illness. (And perhaps Tuba will take her own advice and listen to a few other peoples' personal experience, too; we don't all live in New York where apparently nobody likes guns.)
But it does beg the question: what is it in our societies that makes people feel so alienated and powerless that they behave this way? There were never really any 'good old days', but I genuinely think it's got worse in our lifetimes.
And, as you say, what is it that our governments are doing to respond to the problem? In the UK, we dish out ASBOs (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders) like breakfast cereal. (In some circles having one is now a badge of honour.) But we don't do such a good job of making long-term answers to people who feel on the fringes of society, and making them feel they have a stake. Then we turn around and pay billions into the armaments industry so that, if we can't have guns on our street, the Burmese and Indonesians (or whoever) can.
By the same token, in the US not everybody with a gun is going to be the VT killer. But there are plenty of relatively rational people who, here, would be prime ASBO candidates, and there just pack a lot of heat and parade around the neighbourhood scaring the neighbours. Take away the guns, and I maintain you'll take away the efficiency of the damage they do. But they're always going to be on the fringes (and they're always going to consider the gun a valuable show of force) when they see the US government pouring billions of dollars into the defence industry and sending their children to die in Iraq (and now they're talking about the draft again? for what? Bush's own personal pissing contest?) -- but investing nothing in, say, a medical system that might keep them regularly on the books of some health-care professional.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I have said it before and now will boringly say it again.
Brits tend to think about how much less safe they'd feel if other people were allowed to have guns.
Americans tend to think about how much less safe they'd feel if they weren't allowed to have guns.
Both have good reasons for not wanting to move from where they currently are.
That is true.
However, what i find very difficult to understand is the view that individuals need guns to protect them from their own democratically-elected government. As far as I can tell, this view is limited to the USA (if we are exclduing countries that are not democracies). I have never knowing met a single British person who took such a view. Not even once.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
No, I find that bizarre as well. I'm sure legislators think about a lot of things when drafting legislation, but "if we do that the people will shoot us" is, I suspect, not amongst them.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
Getting a gun legally in the UK isn't difficult, it's just a hassle and one that most people don't even think about attempting. On the whole us English are either terrified of guns and that's why we tend to go off on one whenever we hear of a shooting incident stateside: that and some Brits do love feeling superior if they possibly can.
To be honest, I have seen real actual guns when I went to visit parliament, and occasionally on a farm where they were mainly used to shoot rabbits and so on.
I hate the idea of there being guns everywhere, although I except that in the inner cities they probably are because guns are seen as "cool" by confused teenagers. I'm much more worried about someone attacking me/my family/my friends/my property having a gun then I am about whether or not I have the right to have a gun, even despite some evidence that if I was known to have a gun people might be less likely to break into my house. However, I still think that the number of gun-related deaths is much, much higher in the USA per head than in the UK although do have more of some types of crime.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Sorry to DP but I rang out of edit time...
Littlelady, I had intended to ask you whether or not you saw This Week last night and, if so, what you made of the American woman they had on talking about guns? I hadn't realised that gun law in the US was up to individual states rather than a national policy, but perhaps I should have. If it is true that she has recieved "hundreds" of e-mails asking her how the Americans can be so "obviously insane" as not to be considering stricter gun controls in the wake of the tragedy then I can see why that is more than a little patronising and snobbish. However, I think it is perfectly possible to favour strict gun control without taking such an attitude.
I should also point out that whilst drunks on trains may be irratating, and perhaps frightening, they don't generally lead to people being rushed into casualty...
[ 20. April 2007, 11:56: Message edited by: Papio ]
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
However, what i find very difficult to understand is the view that individuals need guns to protect them from their own democratically-elected government.
the idea arose because the founders of the republic felt the need to arise against the (real or perceived) tyranny of the colonial master. tyrranical governments should not stand; therefore the principle was written into law.
but, natrually, what government (even where it's written into the founding documents) is going to say 'Oh, I see we've become tyrranical; we'll just go away now, shall we?' and then let the armed assailants go their way?
it doesn't happen like that. in the closest thing to a test case the US has ever had of this principle (The Recent Unpleasantness of 1861-1865), the breakaway side was ultimately put down with great force.
as I've said before, if the the president ever decided to turn the US military machine on its own people, there's damn little that groups like the Michigan Milita and the Southern Independence Party could do about it. They'd be the first up against the wall.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
if the the president ever decided to turn the US military machine on its own people, there's damn little that groups like the Michigan Milita and the Southern Independence Party could do about it. They'd be the first up against the wall.
Though, of course, there'd be a fair bit of warning that that was going to be possible. Because as things stand at the moment I'd expect there'd be precious few high-ranking officers in the US military willing to order their troops to turn on the US people, and even fewer in the rank and file who'd obey such orders even if given them. So, the president would have to move slowly to get to the position where the military would obey any such order. Even then, there'd probably be more than enough US military personal who'd disobey that a fight between those parts of the military loyal to the people and those loyal to the president would have to be fought before the militia got involved.
It's simply not going to happen anytime soon.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
I hadn't realised that gun law in the US was up to individual states rather than a national policy
I don't know what you heard but it may be more accurate to say there's a federal minimum level or baseline which the states can add to but not subtract from.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
You all are allowed to drink ON your commuter trains*? I promise I find that at least as odd as you all may find our guns. People on the trains are quite loud enough when t hey talk without needing added substances. Good lord.
*One can drink on Amtrak here I think, but one doesn't get as many annoying drunks there because the tickets are so disgustingly expensive.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
doctor-frog and 206 - thank you, that is interesting.
Gwai - yes, we are. I think some restrictions do apply, but I'm not certain what they are. Here, trains often sell alcohol to their passangers to be consumed on or during the journey.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
I don't think many people do drink on commuter trains. Though, it's probably allowed as the law won't be different.
The main complaints were from people wanting to drink on intercity trains. Which, unlike commuter trains, would usually have catering facilities including a bar selling alcohol on the train. So, like AmTrak - and just as stupidly priced.
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
However, what i find very difficult to understand is the view that individuals need guns to protect them from their own democratically-elected government. As far as I can tell, this view is limited to the USA (if we are exclduing countries that are not democracies). I have never knowing met a single British person who took such a view. Not even once.
I'm not a Constitutional scholar and don't have much time for posting today....
...but I do know that at the time the Constitution was drafted, the Federal Republic was much less cohesive than it is now. In fact, this nation did not start referring to itself as a unit in language until after the Civil War. Prior to the Civil War people said "The United States are" and after the Civil War, people said and continue to say "The United States is.
Up until (and through) that war, individual states had individual militias that were called up for (or voted to join) various conflicts, etc. They joined other militias from other states to form a larger fighting body--but there was a great deal of separation between states, each having come into the Union after having first been a separate political entity.
That's a partial background on that particular aspect of the ammendment to the Constitution.
Of course, state militias no longer function as they did back then--in fact, the National Guard (which is the evolution of the state militias) can be called up by the President or the Governor, but it's not likely that one Governor would aggress against another state without Big Trouble (like the President calling up the other National Guards to stop it).
p.s. Hoping to continue the conversation that doctor-frog and I started.....
sabine
[ 20. April 2007, 12:35: Message edited by: sabine ]
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
You all are allowed to drink ON your commuter trains*? I promise I find that at least as odd as you all may find our guns. People on the trains are quite loud enough when t hey talk without needing added substances. Good lord.
yeh. it can be really charming.
Just ask the late-night commuters who once had to witness the full-scale missionary position sexual frolics of one inebriated and (clearly) besotted young couple.*
*I kid you not; this is not a urban myth; it was in the papers.
edit - although, in fairness, in a country where commuter trains are fairly ubiquitous (unlike in America), usually the problems come from people who were drunk in the pub beforehand. I wouldn't blame the lion's share on in-train drinking, except in the instance of football turbulence when the train-ride up is the gearing-up time.
[ 20. April 2007, 12:37: Message edited by: doctor-frog ]
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I don't think many people do drink on commuter trains. Though, it's probably allowed as the law won't be different.
The main complaints were from people wanting to drink on intercity trains. Which, unlike commuter trains, would usually have catering facilities including a bar selling alcohol on the train. So, like AmTrak - and just as stupidly priced.
I'm sorry, Alan. I hadn't realised that there was a difference.
I agree that they tend to be rather overpriced, though.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
And we also have to separate out people who collect weapons but don't use them, people who feel the need to protect themselves but use the weapon mostly as reasurrance (i.e, don't use them as weapons), people who defend the citizenry and more often than not, are able to do that without using their weapons, etc. There are people who have access to weapons who don't abuse those weapons or have violent lifestyles.
The ones who do have violent lifestyles and have abused the weapons at their disposal are another matter.
I have been trying to provide some view of our gun culture that I think repudiates exactly your attempt to Balkanize each way that people may be attached to guns. Let me try one more time.
At least many of us in the US (OK, Gwai, I'm not talking about you. But this is a MASS phenomenon in this country. Failure to acknowledge that is a serious and destructive denial of reality), we have been raised with guns entwined in our self-image. We have undergone rites of passage into male adulthood that are specifically built around guns as icons of male adulthood, we live in a society that glorifies the lone individual who takes up arms against his enemies as the paragon of male virtue, both in folklore and in movies, we have an iconic identification with firearms at the heart of our sexual identity.
I know from personal experience that guns tap into that acculturated violence in a unique way -- bombs may be violent, too, but few of us fetishize bombs. Guns are the focus of our cultural confluence of personal strength, violence, justice, and sexuality. Is there anyone who imagines that this is not a heady cocktail?
We really do create a culture of violence with guns as the phallic totem around which we worship. Guns provide the focus for our acculturation into that pathological excess, and reinforce and foster our commitment to violence as the ultimate mode of self expression.
People who say that somebody could come up with another way of killing people if they didn't have a gun are missing the point -- the gun culture has shaped us into seeing violence as the reasonable and appropriate expression of our aspirations for justice, for recognition, for legitimacy. It is not at the point of the violent expression that we should intervene, but in the process of defining how a man rightly expresses his disaffection or his aspirations that we need to intervene. It really is the gun [/i]culture[/i] that needs to be changed.
--Tom Clune
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
I have been trying to provide some view of our gun culture that I think repudiates exactly your attempt to Balkanize each way that people may be attached to guns. Let me try one more time.
At least many of us in the US (OK, Gwai, I'm not talking about you. But this is a MASS phenomenon in this country. Failure to acknowledge that is a serious and destructive denial of reality), we have been raised with guns entwined in our self-image. We have undergone rites of passage into male adulthood that are specifically built around guns as icons of male adulthood, we live in a society that glorifies the lone individual who takes up arms against his enemies as the paragon of male virtue, both in folklore and in movies, we have an iconic identification with firearms at the heart of our sexual identity.
I know from personal experience that guns tap into that acculturated violence in a unique way -- bombs may be violent, too, but few of us fetishize bombs. Guns are the focus of our cultural confluence of personal strength, violence, justice, and sexuality. Is there anyone who imagines that this is not a heady cocktail?
We really do create a culture of violence with guns as the phallic totem around which we worship. Guns provide the focus for our acculturation into that pathological excess, and reinforce and foster our commitment to violence as the ultimate mode of self expression.
People who say that somebody could come up with another way of killing people if they didn't have a gun are missing the point -- the gun culture has shaped us into seeing violence as the reasonable and appropriate expression of our aspirations for justice, for recognition, for legitimacy. It is not at the point of the violent expression that we should intervene, but in the process of defining how a man rightly expresses his disaffection or his aspirations that we need to intervene. It really is the gun [/i]culture[/i] that needs to be changed.
--Tom Clune
Tom, my only, and I repeat only, disagreement with what you've been saying on this thread is that your examples, while extremely valuable and to the point, do not support the idea that this is culture is at the level of national identity. It may be a large sub-culture, it most certainly has culturally defining features, and involves many people in ways that you very astutely describe, but it is not part of an "American culture" for two reasons and maybe more. There is no one American Culture, and within the mainstream cultural flow of American Society, many sub-cultural aspects exist, guns being one of many.
Other than that, you have contributed some extremely good points to this thread. I do not wish to deny that the descriptions you provide exist or are not part of your and other people's experience.
I'm sorry that my posts continue to give you the impression that I am trying to sweep things under the rug, much less the reality of how many people see, feel, respond to, have iconic memories of, or live with subconscious ideas about guns. Guns are real and are part of the consciousness of quite a few people
But, just because something is deeply ingrained in many people does not make it something that is deeply ingrained in all people.
I really respect the examples you have provided, especially those from your own life. They speak to the depths to which something can be experienced on a cultural level--but they do not support the idea that we all share your experience. Or that we all have been socialized the way you (and others with similar experiences) have been.
So, while you have contributed in some very important ways to our discussion, ways which have educated me, I continue to find it difficult to use your examples to see one overarching American gun culture.
I'm hoping that my continued assurances will allow us to have a conversation rather than a debate.
Peace!
sabine
[ 20. April 2007, 13:52: Message edited by: sabine ]
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
Just in case I haven't pissed anyone off for a while...
I've never heard of Anthony Gregory before but I agree with most of what he says in this long rabidly libertarian editorial.
He's not as diplomatic as I prefer but whatever.
quote:
The truth is the polar opposite of what the gun control advocates will conclude. For what we have at Virginia Tech is just one more example of gun control and government protection failing miserably at their advertised goals, and in fact making such a massacre more likely to begin with.
Back in early 2006, a plan in the Virginia legislature to allow for concealed carry on the state’s college campuses failed in subcommittee. A representative of Virginia Tech said that the bill’s defeat would make “parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.”
Perhaps it did make a lot of people feel safer. But the indisputable fact, which everyone should recognize by now, is that criminals don’t follow the law. Someone who is not going to obey laws against murder is not going to flinch at a law forbidding the carrying of weapons. And the notion that a gun law can eliminate weapons is just a fantasy, as any liberal who understands the failure of the drug war should by now see.
And one more time: given that the Pandora's box of a couple hundred million guns is open, I believe attempting to do away with them is worse than the alternative.
No matter what you think about a 'gun culture' it's a helluva situation we find ourselves in.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
I might agree that the rabid libertarian rant were it not for the fact that gun crime in the USA is vastly more numerous and happens vastly more often then in countries like the UK.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
Tclune, the problem with your saying that I'm some crazy exception is that I don't currently know anyonewho owns a gun let alone is obsessed with it. Why can't you accept that the whole country isn't the same? Around here we know who has guns--the gangs and the policemen. We try to avoid both!
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
I might agree that the rabid libertarian rant were it not for the fact that gun crime in the USA is vastly more numerous and happens vastly more often then in countries like the UK.
Which is why I think tclune is right. The problem with the "if the students had been armed..." post-facto solution is that it continues to feed the idea that guns are the solution to your problem.
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
I have to go to work, but just before I do, I had another thought.
Tom's excellent examples seem to be drawn from a male perspective, and that alone is not the sole contributor to an American Culture.
This passage alone is a case in point.
quote:
We have undergone rites of passage into male adulthood that are specifically built around guns as icons of male adulthood, we live in a society that glorifies the lone individual who takes up arms against his enemies as the paragon of male virtue, both in folklore and in movies, we have an iconic identification with firearms at the heart of our sexual identity.
This is eloquent and I'm glad for that perspective, but I'm not sure how many American women can relate to it. Yes, someone will come along and post that s/he knows women who own guns, etc. but I don't think that in general, women in the US have these kinds of experiences.
But again, the point I'm trying to make is that Tom is contributing some really insightful stuff--and we need to think about it and take it seriously--but as to the question of "American culture" we're going to need other voices as well as Tom's.
sabine
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
I might agree that the rabid libertarian rant were it not for the fact that gun crime in the USA is vastly more numerous and happens vastly more often then in countries like the UK.
I just found a few more things on the endless list of things I don't know:
How widespread was gun ownership in the UK before the stricter ownership measures were instituted?
Were guns confiscated or were there so relatively few it was unnecessary?
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
There was actually hardly any change in ownership. Very, very few people who are not farmers own or ever owned guns. That's why Brits tend to think in terms of less gun control meaning more other people having guns - most of us have no desire to have one.
Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
I have to go to work, but just before I do, I had another thought.
Tom's excellent examples seem to be drawn from a male perspective, and that alone is not the sole contributor to an American Culture.
This passage alone is a case in point.
quote:
We have undergone rites of passage into male adulthood that are specifically built around guns as icons of male adulthood, we live in a society that glorifies the lone individual who takes up arms against his enemies as the paragon of male virtue, both in folklore and in movies, we have an iconic identification with firearms at the heart of our sexual identity.
This is eloquent and I'm glad for that perspective, but I'm not sure how many American women can relate to it. Yes, someone will come along and post that s/he knows women who own guns, etc. but I don't think that in general, women in the US have these kinds of experiences.
But again, the point I'm trying to make is that Tom is contributing some really insightful stuff--and we need to think about it and take it seriously--but as to the question of "American culture" we're going to need other voices as well as Tom's.
It is a right of passage for many women also, at least in rual areas. They are taught how to handle a gun and the basics of how to use it. It is becoming more and more common as time goes on.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by 206:
How widespread was gun ownership in the UK before the stricter ownership measures were instituted?
Were guns confiscated or were there so relatively few it was unnecessary?
This article may provide a partial answer to your questions.
Note from it that what are basically our only gun massacres (certainly within the last 30 years) have immediately brought about the banning of the type of guns used in those massacres. That is a culturally appropriate response to an event. By that I mean that Brits tend to immediately move into 'ban it' mode whenever anything bad happens. Yet interestingly the stats provided by the article show an increase in gun crime. This indicates to me that something is changing in our culture and perhaps such stringent laws may work against us if such a change is real and continues.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by PataLeBon:
It is a right of passage for many women also, at least in rual areas. They are taught how to handle a gun and the basics of how to use it. It is becoming more and more common as time goes on.
So perhaps there is only a gun culture in rural areas
.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
This article may provide a partial answer to your questions.
Handguns were outlawed in Britain in 1997 and some 160,000 were surrendered to police. Even Britain's Olympic shooters fall under this ban, meaning the pistol-shooting team must train outside the country.
Wow: you people sure are a patient lot!
I know many people who own guns here and while bloodshed might not result from such a ban there sure as heck would be a lot of, ahem, civil disobedience by way of ignoring any request to hand over their guns.
Was there any significant amount of dissent? And I wonder if there's any way of knowing what percentage of the total 160,000 is.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
Littlelady, I had intended to ask you whether or not you saw This Week last night and, if so, what you made of the American woman they had on talking about guns?
No, unfortunately I missed it - I fell asleep on the sofa after getting back from my evening job! What a weakling.
quote:
However, I think it is perfectly possible to favour strict gun control without taking such an attitude.
I agree, but sadly ... I've heard too many of my own people get all snooty on this subject (and it seems green issues are having the same effect: oh how green are we Brits when compared to those wasteful Americans). I find it nauseating myself, especially when we have a reputation for other things such as being the country in Europe with the greatest number of drug users or the country in Europe with the greatest number of abortions or teenage pregnancies or whatever we score tops on in any given month.
quote:
I should also point out that whilst drunks on trains may be irratating, and perhaps frightening, they don't generally lead to people being rushed into casualty...
It depends whether they are inclined to a fight or a bit of rape. I've certainly witnessed some very close calls (on both commuter and Intercity trains - the law is identical for both btw). And of course the smell of vomit or urine in a train carriage is just peachy.
If it was up to me I'd regress where alcohol is concerned. The English cannot be trusted with booze. And I am fucking sick of stepping over vomit slicks on my way to work in a morning!
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
One can drink on Amtrak here I think, but one doesn't get as many annoying drunks there because the tickets are so disgustingly expensive.
Have things changed price-wise since 9/11?
There follows a sad confession. Since being a child when I watched Casey Jones on TV (ha!) I had always wanted to travel across America on a big silver train. (I don't believe I'm admitting to this ...) I finally got my chance on 9/11 and I sat on the best train seat I've ever experienced: leatherette at worst, big and comfy, with head and foot rest and cupholder. There was a really plush (in my British experience) dining car with real cutlery and real tablecloths and a choice of breakfast. Never have I enjoyed a train journey as I did that one - three hours of pure heaven looking out at the passing fields of Illinois corn and beans as the sun rose on a beautiful September day*. And I couldn't believe how inexpensive the ticket was!
*Of course that feeling disappeared when I finally got to Chicago and heard the news about the Twin Towers.
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
It isn't that people are worried about "what the government might do" to them per se. I agree that at this point, the government could nuke us all, and that a .22 is practically useless in that respect.
The worry is that the government will strip people of any self-determination. I know that there are situations in which I'd want to be able to protect myself - and there are plenty of poorer people who need such protection, BTW, because they can't afford alarm systems, etc. - and really: who is the government to tell me I can't do it? Again: there are many more people who die on the highway than who die from gunshot wounds. So where's the "ban the automobile" contingent? Does anybody even think of this?
As a matter of fact, I just read that in one year, almost twice as many people died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds than died from being shot by somebody else. Doesn't that point to another sort problem?
The answer is not to strip everybody, everywhere, of weapons for protection; sometimes they are needed. The answer is to figure out what's behind all this, and do something to change the culture. But that seems too hard, so people don't even think about it anymore. I don't think it is too hard, though.
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on
:
isnt self-inflicted gun-wounds another argument in *favour* of restricting gun ownership?
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by 206:
Wow: you people sure are a patient lot!
Passive is more the word I'd use. Until we get pushed too far and then we can explode. Well, we used to anyway. I'm beginning to wonder if we have any umph left in us at all or whether we're all just going to end up automatons.
quote:
Was there any significant amount of dissent? And I wonder if there's any way of knowing what percentage of the total 160,000 is.
On both occasions (ie at the time of both bans) yes, there was. That is, people who legally owned guns (or those sympathetic to the legal ownership of guns) protested strongly because they didn't tend to be nutjobs out to kill lots of people but just ordinarly, law-abiding citizens, yet they were the ones being punished. However, they were good boys and girls and handed over their pieces (or hid them, if they weren't so good!).
I don't honestly know if there is any way of finding out what the figure quoted means, but this site may provide you with some information, if you are really bored and desparate for something to do today!
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
isnt self-inflicted gun-wounds another argument in *favour* of restricting gun ownership?
Perhaps. But isn't there a deeper problem that we ought to address?
Why the band-aid, IOW? Why not work on getting depressed people the help they need? Anyway, I'm pretty sure that these people could - and do - find other ways to commit suicide.
As I've said before: I'm in favor of "restrictions." I'm not in favor a blanket ban, because the problem is elsewhere.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
One can drink on Amtrak here I think, but one doesn't get as many annoying drunks there because the tickets are so disgustingly expensive.
Have things changed price-wise since 9/11?
Yes. Trains are now about as expensive as domestic flights and they tend to take longer but they certainly ARE a good deal more comfortable!
I had a similarly enjoyable experience Amtraking to my in-laws for last Thanksgiving and it was very nice. We even rmemebered to bring snacks since the high food prices are usually the only downfall. I had never gotten to see the incredible beauty of the Appalachians and this time I just sat in the viewing car and was comfortably awestruck.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
isnt self-inflicted gun-wounds another argument in *favour* of restricting gun ownership?
Personally, I'm still trying to work out how passing a law to restrict the sale of paracetamol in one location actually stops people from overdosing (either deliberately or accidentally). Are you suggesting that people should be protected from themselves?
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
[tangent]
quote:
I'm beginning to wonder if we have any umph left in us at all or whether we're all just going to end up automatons.
If you've never read it, I think you'd appreciate C.S. Lewis' essay _Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State_.
One of his comments is 'We are tamed animals'.
(I can relate to that: sometimes I wonder what it would be like if we refused to roll over when the government oversteps its bounds. We'd probably end up in jail like Thoreau, but we also just might change the world.)
The essay is in his compilation _God In The Dock_.
[/tangent]
quote:
if you are really bored and desparate for something to do today!
Obviously I am or I wouldn't be inflicting all these posts on you folks. Maybe I'm just trying to see exactly how much patience you have!
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on
:
I can't say ive sussed how limiting sale of paracetamol has helped. Surely someone would just go to two chemists etc? I believe there *are* statistics to say that it has helped but I cant see the logic as to how/why. My only guess is that there arent large bottles of tablets at home and so prevents rash decisions? No idea.
I would prefer not to have a gun in the house, partly to avoid accidents - whether a gun being turned on me when used in self defense or someone in the house making a rash decision (killing self or other in anger) I can't see either happening but would still rather not have one around . Im not necessarially anti anyone elses right though.
Posted by welsh dragon (# 3249) on
:
A lot of overdoses are very impulsive. If you can stop someone from topping themselves for 15 or 20 minutes, the moment passes.
So limiting access to means of death is quite an effective way of reducing suicide numbers. For example, reducing the toxicity of gas in the kitchen cut the numbers by quite a lot.
Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:
Originally posted by PataLeBon:
It is a right of passage for many women also, at least in rual areas. They are taught how to handle a gun and the basics of how to use it. It is becoming more and more common as time goes on.
So perhaps there is only a gun culture in rural areas
.
That I would agree with. There doesn't seem to be much "gun culture" where I am now, but their is an understanding that there is one in the rual areas and people try to find ways to balance the different needs of rual areas and urban ones.
Posted by doctor-frog (# 2860) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
I can't say ive sussed how limiting sale of paracetamol has helped.
it's helped the pharmaceuticals industry. I have sitting next to me at this moment a 500-count bottle of Walgreen's own-brand Ibuprofen that I had my family bring over last time there were here from the States. It cost $13 (that's £6.50 in real money
).
To buy the same amount of Ibuprofen from Boots (also own-brand) in 32-packs (AFAIK the maximum legal limit to packaging here), each little pill in its own nice, neat little blister-packed cell , it would cost me £84.
My Labour party membership card insists that Labour 'is a democratic socialist party'. It's when I look at that big $13 bottle of Ibuprofen that I'm inclined to say, 'like hell'.
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by welsh dragon:
A lot of overdoses are very impulsive. If you can stop someone from topping themselves for 15 or 20 minutes, the moment passes.
So limiting access to means of death is quite an effective way of reducing suicide numbers....
In which case Im completely in favour of restricitng sales to samll doses
In answer to little lady - then yes, I am in favour of protecting people from themselves in some cases (ie limit sales of drugs, seatbelt laws etc)
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by PataLeBon:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:
Originally posted by PataLeBon:
It is a right of passage for many women also, at least in rual areas. They are taught how to handle a gun and the basics of how to use it. It is becoming more and more common as time goes on.
So perhaps there is only a gun culture in rural areas
.
That I would agree with. There doesn't seem to be much "gun culture" where I am now, but their is an understanding that there is one in the rual areas and people try to find ways to balance the different needs of rual areas and urban ones.
I can't agree. Let me share one of the stories about one of the many people that I know who have been shot. A dear friend was travelling through Saint Louis a number of years back. A local radio personality had been listening to the police scanner, and decided that my friend was driving the same kind of vehicle that he had just heard police being alerted to because someone wanted in a child abuse case was believed to be driving it. He forced my friend off the road and shot him with his trusty sidearm, then ran off to announce to the world on his radio show that he had shot the perp.
It took the real police about 10 seconds to determine that my friend could not possibly have been the person that they were looking for. However, the DA refused to even arrest the radio personality because he was absolutely sure that he could never get a conviction -- the man was a "hero" for having delivered "cowboy justice" to a pervert. If it's so widespread that the DA throws up his hands, it ain't a subculture. So my friend is confined to a wheelchair for life with no one held accountable. This isn't a rural manifestation of the gun culture -- it's urban. And it could have been in just about any city in the country, with proper adjustments to the details for local sensibilities.
--Tom Clune
Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
isnt self-inflicted gun-wounds another argument in *favour* of restricting gun ownership?
Yes, or to make gun owners complete gun safetly training and store guns in a safe place.
It all depends upon one's point of view.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
tclune, and you would say such stories are somethinig besides over the top insane and unusual? Sounds like the DA was corrupt to me.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
Is there any cocnept of private prosecution in the States? If he could get the money, or find a lawyer willing to work and get a fee from any win, then he could have got the man charged with something - grievous bodily harm or attempted murder, at the very least sued for damages and compensation.
Having a gun for self-defense is one thing. Using that gun in a pre-meditated act (even one of 'justice') is a whole different kettle of fish.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
Is there any cocnept of private prosecution in the States?
O.J. Simpson was acquitted in his 'state' trial but subsequently lost a 'civil' case and was ordered to pay a substantial amount of money to the deceased's families.
IIRC there is some concern about how much he's paid but he's legally obligated to pay the full amount.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
tclune, and you would say such stories are somethinig besides over the top insane and unusual? Sounds like the DA was corrupt to me.
I doubt that he was corrupt, just hardened to the realities of the system and unwilling to invest overstretched resources in low-probability-of-conviction cases.
I lived for many years in Detroit, so the story is not shockingly outside my experience. But yes, it was something other than a daily occurence.
But you're missing the point -- it was outside the daily experience of people in Saint Louis, too. But it fed into a widespread fantasy of cowboy justice. That's what I think is one of many manifestations of the gun culture. It isn't necesarily about knowing how to field-strip a weapon, or how to go bird hunting without shooting your host in the face.
It's about structuring your psyche around firearms, one way or another. And I don't think it is an oddity of Detroit boys to do so. Detroit just doesn't have enough people to support all the Hollywood movies that are structured around fantasies of violent revenge, or vigilante justice, or gang-banging shootouts, or...
This is ingrained in way too many of us to be a localized blip. And the fact that the very first comment that GW made about the VT incident was about protecting our "right to bear arms" in the face of people who might bizarrely see it as a reason to consider changing the gun laws speaks volumes. Compund that with the VA governor being "sickened" by the thought of people seeing gun control as a reasonable response to the slaughter, and you might begin to suspect that we're either in Wonderland or something strange is under all this, and that strange thing is wrapped up in our thoughts about guns. It's really hard for me to undstand how people can have difficulty seeing this.
BTW, Alan, my friend talked to a few lawyers in St. Louis about pursuing a civil action on continency. None of them would take the case, because they agreed with the DA that the man was widely seen as a hero, and they just didn't think they'd get anything out of it.
--Tom Clune
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by welsh dragon:
A lot of overdoses are very impulsive. If you can stop someone from topping themselves for 15 or 20 minutes, the moment passes.
Yet a lot are also premeditated. When I trained as a Samaritan their approach was that if someone wants to commit suicide then that is exactly what they will do, regardless of what barriers may be placed in their way (and of course the Samaritans don't try to stop suicides from following through on their decision - or they didn't when I volunteered with them anyway).
Suicide by paracetamol poisoning is, I'm told, a particularly nasty way to go (can take a few days, bleeding from all orifices). A gun sounds preferable to me.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
Still, it seems that y ou shared that story, tclune to prove there is a universal gun culture in the USA. How does that prove it? It proves that there is a sex-offender-phobia culture in Saint Louis probably, but that seems different. Are you really saying the radio host wouldn't have been seen as a hero if he knifed the guy or shot him with a bow?
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
So...you're saying we have a gun culture in the same sense that the feudal Japanese had a katana culture?
I don't think we're that far gone yet.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Still, it seems that y ou shared that story, tclune to prove there is a universal gun culture in the USA. How does that prove it? It proves that there is a sex-offender-phobia culture in Saint Louis probably, but that seems different. Are you really saying the radio host wouldn't have been seen as a hero if he knifed the guy or shot him with a bow?
No. I am saying that the culture that finds cowboy justice appropriate grows out of the totemic significance of guns. We are formed by thoughts and fantasies of gun violence, in service of justice, in service of revenge, in service of personal freedom, what-have-you. It is not the ding an sich that I find troubling -- it is the culture surrounding the object that I find pathological. Even if the man had used a knife or bow, his ideation was molded around the firearms. That is what I am calling the gun culture.
I know that you genuinely have no idea what I am talkig about. I know you genuinely believe that this is a phenomenon limited to me and a few twisted friends. But you may want to step back and ask how we have gotten the laws, entertainment, and level of domestic and street violence that we have if it's just some sickos slinking around the edges of the culture. I may be wrong, but it sure looks to me like the society is rotten to the core in this regard.
--tom Clune
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
tclune:
Street violence in general has been in decline the last decade or so, unless I'm mistaken.
Violence has been endemic in society since the very beginning. It's even in the Old Testament. I don't think what you're describing is anything new under the sun.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by 206:
If you've never read it, I think you'd appreciate C.S. Lewis' essay _Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State_.
One of his comments is 'We are tamed animals'.
Well if the quote you provided is an indicator to the overall theme of the essay then I'd say yes, I would probably appreciate it!
I have a pet theory about our passivity: we still 'doff the cap'. Previously it was to the monarch and now it is to the government. We're still subjects; we've not quite made it to citizens. Not sure we ever will at this rate ...
Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
Violence has been endemic in society since the very beginning. It's even in the Old Testament. I don't think what you're describing is anything new under the sun.
However, I'm sure that even in Old Testament times, there were places that were more or less violent than others, for whatever reason. All I know is that Americans seem quite accepting of the level of violence in their society. According to the Globe and Mail, an average of 32 Americans - equal to the death toll at Virginia Tech - die every day from gunshots. And it seems like Americans are totally cool with that, as long as they don't all die in the same place at the same time, or as long as they're nasty gang-bangers or drug dealers or whatever. And when Nice People Like Us get shot, it's because they didn't have guns to defend themselves. OliviaG
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
I know that you genuinely have no idea what I am talkig about. I know you genuinely believe that this is a phenomenon limited to me and a few twisted friends. But you may want to step back and ask how we have gotten the laws, entertainment, and level of domestic and street violence that we have if it's just some sickos slinking around the edges of the culture. I may be wrong, but it sure looks to me like the society is rotten to the core in this regard.
Au contraire! I know exactly what you're talking about. I have definitely lived in a gun culture. Texas plains far from the town. Definitely a gun culture by your definition. However, I also know that where I am living now is different. I can't imagine living anywhere where that sort of taking the law into one's own hands would be okay. Sure as hell would get you arrested and in jail here. (The way to avoid the law here is to be a politician or rich, but that has nothing to do with guns.)
Still, you didn't answer my other question. Do you think the radio moron wouuld have been prosecuted if he had used a different weapon? For instance if your friend had stepped out of his car to find out what was happening and then been knocked out etc. by a martial arts type kick, wouldn't the radio host still gone to boast of how he was a hero who took out an evil sex offender?
[ 20. April 2007, 20:19: Message edited by: Gwai ]
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
All I know is that Americans seem quite accepting of the level of violence in their society. ...snip...And it seems like Americans are totally cool with that,
Can you back this up with evidence?
sabine
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
I had a moment of irony tonight, bearing in mind I've been posting on this thread.
I strolled down to my local Noodle King Thai takeout only to find myself following two guys across the road who both were carrying shotguns. They were in cases, of course, but even so it was a unique experience.
My guess is that the police might have had something to say to them if they'd been around. Me, I just had to keep fighting the urge to ask if I could have a look at their weapons please. Figured they might have gotten the wrong idea.
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
All I know is that Americans seem quite accepting of the level of violence in their society. ...snip...And it seems like Americans are totally cool with that,
Can you back this up with evidence?
sabine
enough are cool with it that it isnt changed or seriously challenged (or at least it appears that way at incidents like the tech shootings with people instatntly defending gun ownership). So although there are lots of people who are anti - taken as a country as a whole, to the outside it appears like a gun culture I guess.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Still, you didn't answer my other question. Do you think the radio moron wouuld have been prosecuted if he had used a different weapon? For instance if your friend had stepped out of his car to find out what was happening and then been knocked out etc. by a martial arts type kick, wouldn't the radio host still gone to boast of how he was a hero who took out an evil sex offender?
I thought that I answered it when I said: "I am saying that the culture that finds cowboy justice appropriate grows out of the totemic significance of guns. We are formed by thoughts and fantasies of gun violence, in service of justice, in service of revenge, in service of personal freedom, what-have-you. It is not the ding an sich that I find troubling -- it is the culture surrounding the object that I find pathological. Even if the man had used a knife or bow, his ideation was molded around the firearms. That is what I am calling the gun culture."
You may not agree with what I am saying, but it is intended to address directly the question that you asked. My point was that I am not talking about the violence itself, but the molding of our character in such a way that finds such responses appropriate. In my experience, the culture* surrounding firearms is central to that shaping.
--Tom Clune
*Substitute a less troubling word if you like -- I mean the matrix of behaviors and attitudes that are instilled in people as part of forming their character to be "one of us".
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
All I know is that Americans seem quite accepting of the level of violence in their society. ...snip...And it seems like Americans are totally cool with that,
Can you back this up with evidence?
sabine
enough are cool with it that it isnt changed or seriously challenged (or at least it appears that way at incidents like the tech shootings with people instatntly defending gun ownership). So although there are lots of people who are anti - taken as a country as a whole, to the outside it appears like a gun culture I guess.
Good grief, how ridiculous. This is one of the most controversial issues in American politics. We are not all "cool" with the level of violence in our society, or else we wouldn't be arguing about it all the time.
[ 20. April 2007, 20:53: Message edited by: RuthW ]
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
enough are cool with it that it isnt changed or seriously challenged
I think appearances can be deceptive. There is an ongoing debate in the States about the role of guns. Many people want to see tough gun control, some want a measure of control, others want no control at all. And then there is the gun lobby, which is extremely powerful, and lobby groups play a much more significant part in American politics than they do in British politics. On top of that there is the small matter of the Constitution, which was written up when America was still forming itself and fighting off the spectre of colonial rule.
The assumption by many over here is that the only way people 'over there' will solve gun crime is to do exactly what we over here have done: make almost all guns illegal. But what that doesn't allow for is difference in culture, history, political landscape, etc. It's like Bliar banging on about turning us into a cafe culture like the French. But we aint the French. So 24 hour licensing laws won't turn us into a cafe culture. It just means that people can get totally pissed around the clock.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
Tclune,
but I thought I answered that point when I said my culture is NOT supportive of random citizens shooting people and that anyone who did it would radio host or not be in jail promptly!
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by 206:
How widespread was gun ownership in the UK before the stricter ownership measures were instituted?
Were guns confiscated or were there so relatively few it was unnecessary?
Good information is available on this Wiki page. Approx 0.1% of the population held handguns before the 1997 ban. The figures for licences elsewhere on the same page show in England and Wales and Scotland total Fire Arms Certificates numbered about 153,000 at the end of 2005. That is approximately 0.25% of the population. (This figure does not include shotguns)
Basically people simply handed in or destroyed their weapons. The licensing system meant that the local police in each area knew who held handguns so people knew that if they didn't hand them in then there would be a police officer coming round in due course to find out why. The handgun ban affected only 57,000 people in England and Wales and Scotland.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
Basically people simply handed in or destroyed their weapons. The licensing system meant that the local police in each area knew who held handguns so people knew that if they didn't hand them in then there would be a police officer coming round in due course to find out why.
Given our licensing system I cannot imagine how implementing that would work here.
It will be interesting to see if the 'gun culture' ever changes enough for a serious effort to be made.
I don't anticipate one any time soon because both sides are so entrenched but you never know.
Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
I think appearances can be deceptive. There is an ongoing debate in the States about the role of guns. Many people want to see tough gun control, some want a measure of control, others want no control at all. And then there is the gun lobby, which is extremely powerful, and lobby groups play a much more significant part in American politics than they do in British politics. On top of that there is the small matter of the Constitution, which was written up when America was still forming itself and fighting off the spectre of colonial rule.
The debate has been going on my entire lifetime and started before I was born. You'd think if there was a social consensus on gun control, it would have turned up by now. What scares me is the thought that the current situation is the social consensus.
OliviaG
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
The debate has been going on my entire lifetime and started before I was born. You'd think if there was a social consensus on gun control, it would have turned up by now. What scares me is the thought that the current situation is the social consensus.
OliviaG
Gun control was one of the big issues in Eastern (and I suppose other) cities before 9/11 and all that followed took it off the front page.
Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on
:
Shooting at NASA
Just to add more information to whether or not America has trouble with guns.
There are going to be many questions asked HOW someone could bring a weapon into NASA, and that close to mission control.
*sigh*
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
Again, America is a damned big country.
I would presume that the NASA problem is not a problem of widespread gun nuts, but a problem of lax security.
If gun nuts were all that insane and that prevalent, the murder rate would be a lot higher than it is.
[ 21. April 2007, 00:14: Message edited by: mirrizin ]
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by 206:
It will be interesting to see if the 'gun culture' ever changes enough for a serious effort to be made.
I don't anticipate one any time soon because both sides are so entrenched but you never know.
Actually, there have been more than two sides discussed on this thread. Some of us acknowledge a serious gun "problem" and some of us acknowledge a regional or other kind of culture. So it's not totally a polatized thread.
But the discussion in the middle of the continuum hasn't really been heard amid the reactive back and forth. That's too bad because polarization and highly emotional responses based on annecdotal reports prevents any productive discussion from happening.
sabine
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
quote:
Originally posted by 206:
How widespread was gun ownership in the UK before the stricter ownership measures were instituted?
Were guns confiscated or were there so relatively few it was unnecessary?
Good information is available on this Wiki page. Approx 0.1% of the population held handguns before the 1997 ban. The figures for licences elsewhere on the same page show in England and Wales and Scotland total Fire Arms Certificates numbered about 153,000 at the end of 2005. That is approximately 0.25% of the population. (This figure does not include shotguns)
Basically people simply handed in or destroyed their weapons. The licensing system meant that the local police in each area knew who held handguns so people knew that if they didn't hand them in then there would be a police officer coming round in due course to find out why. The handgun ban affected only 57,000 people in England and Wales and Scotland.
Yeah. Threads like this make me realise that, on the whole, us Brits are much less suspicous of government then Americans are (which isn't to say that we ever envied the Soviet Bloc) and much more supicious of "American-style" individualism (which isn't to say that Americans want to see the poor starve in the gutter). There are important differences between how an average, stereotypical Brit and an average, stereotypical American see the world. There are important differences in how and what Britains and Americans regard as a decent, fair, stable, well-ordered society. There are internal disputes in both nations as well, of course.
And that's cool. It would be boring if we were all the same.
Me? Even if I could stroll into Woolworths today and get a gun for a fiver, I wouldn't. Not today or ever. And I wouldn't want a gun in my home. Period/Full Stop.
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
But the discussion in the middle of the continuum hasn't really been heard amid the reactive back and forth. That's too bad because polarization and highly emotional responses based on annecdotal reports prevents any productive discussion from happening.
Agreed. I was referring to the 'powers that be' sides in this country, such as the NRA and the anti-gun organizations.
If only they could have the generally reasonable debate you see here.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
Even if I could stroll into Woolworths today and get a gun for a fiver, I wouldn't. Not today or ever. And I wouldn't want a gun in my home. Period/Full Stop.
Whereas I'd love to own one. There's a gun shop just down the road from where I live and I'm oh-so-tempted to walk in and find out what's on offer. But I know I just can't afford to buy one. I love shooting, even though I'm still useless at it (though I do manage to get a fab bruise on my shoulder every time I go, which isn't often enough to remember to bring some padding with me!). I enjoy the whole 'aim, fire, hit' thing. If handguns were still available in the UK, I'd probably be down at a shooting range missing the target on a regular basis.
I could never imagine myself shooting a living thing, though. Perhaps if I was on the edge of starvation in a wilderness with no local Tesco I could do it, but other than that it has to be inanimate objects for me. I still can't figure out why some people actually enjoy hunting, even after having endless discussions with Americans who routinely hunt. It's one thing to hunt for food out of necessity; another entirely to do it for sport and while I wouldn't dream of stopping hunting (it's needed in order to control animal populations or pests) I don't think I'll ever 'get it'.
Whether or not, if I owned a gun and it was stored in my home, I would be tempted to use my gun on someone who was about to do me or my loved ones serious harm I just don't know. I've never been in that position. I would imagine in the UK the greater danger to home ownership of a gun is it being stolen.
As it is, I have a hammer beside my bed instead, since I live alone. Much use that would be but it makes me feel better! I can certainly understand the story told earlier of the woman who had been raped purchasing a gun. It may be a false sense of security but when alone it can still make a person feel better to have something nearby that they believe (maybe mythically) would offer some form of protection in a terrifying moment.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
That's too bad because polarization and highly emotional responses based on annecdotal reports prevents any productive discussion from happening.
Sabine, I disagree really. Most of the contributors to this thread have been Americans and Brits, and I really think you couldn't get two more diverse stands on the issue of guns in the world. We're just at two totally opposite starting points. Given that reality the discussion on here I think has been interesting and informative.
I'm a bit unusual as a Brit because my year in America enabled me to understand where Americans (of all political shades) are coming from on this issue. It helped that I began as someone pro-American and inquisitive - I asked lots of questions and challenged strongly during discussion (mostly with gun-owning, hunting men!). It's perfectly possible to appreciate the opposite view but it takes a long time for people from different ends of the spectrum to reach that position, IMO. To then move on to a discussion about how to tackle the problems arising from gun abuse (on either side of the Atlantic, as it's increasing here) is going to take more than a few pages of a thread on the Ship to achieve!
Also, I think anecdotal reports are actually very relevant to this particular debate since the OP referred to a perception - of America being a gun culture. We can all cite stats and expert opinion to our hearts content but when we are dealing with perceptions then these are based very much upon individual subjective experience. If such is devalued then how can the two overall positions (plus the variations represented within those positions) ever be understood? But perhaps I am missing your point.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
Sorry, Sabine, to be so anecdotal, but this story is just too wonderful to let pass! There's your American gun culture -- what could be more American than an octogenarian beauty queen with a walker and a snub-nose foiling crime!
--Tom Clune
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
Great story Tom.
Her closing statement made me smile:
quote:
"I'm trying to live a quiet, peaceful life and stay out of trouble, and all it is, is one thing after another," she said.
I can just imagine her eye roll!
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
I don't think we really are polarized between Americans and Brits though, Littlelady. I'm an American who thinks we don't have a gun culture, as is Sabine (I think?) but tclune is I think American and he says we do. Papio's a Brit who wants nothing to do with guns while you're a Brit who enjoys them.
ETA: tclune, just note that the shooting old beauty queen thing happenned in Kentucky which I am quite happy to believe has a gunculture, and if I understand her correctly, sabine might be also.
[ 21. April 2007, 13:44: Message edited by: Gwai ]
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
Gwai, I guess I was thinking of cultural starting points rather than individual views, but I agree that various shades of opinion are represented on here. However, so far as I can see the diversity is mainly represented by the American contingent. If I was to leave the discussion, I am fairly certain other British contributors would feel similar to Papio or Emma or Karl.
It is, of course, interesting to note that while the majority of Brits think guns are basically evil things and should be strictly controlled (if not totally banned), the people many Brits believe unanimously love their guns are expressing diverse opinion. That doesn't surprise me, but I wonder how many others have noticed it?
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
If other Brits will notice it and accept that we're diverse, I'll be content.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
I don't think all Americans love guns. I think the overwhelming majority of conservative, right-wing Americans love guns with far fewer liberals loving them.
There are people on the ship who I like who have guns. But, you know, no guns in my home or on my land, under any circumstances, end of story.
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
Actually, there have been more than two sides discussed on this thread. Some of us acknowledge a serious gun "problem" and some of us acknowledge a regional or other kind of culture. So it's not totally a polatized thread.
But the discussion in the middle of the continuum hasn't really been heard amid the reactive back and forth. That's too bad because polarization and highly emotional responses based on annecdotal reports prevents any productive discussion from happening.
sabine
I don't mind the anecdotes; what gets me is the refusal to listen to other points of view. We've been told, point blank, that we all do live in a "gun culture," no matter what we see with our own eyes, or how the people we know live! It's ridiculous.
IOW, our anecdotes don't count; only the "gun culture" anecdotes matter, because there's a point to prove. We all admit that there are some areas in the U.S. that have a "gun culture"; what gets me is the absolute refusal to acknowledge that there are some that don't.
But perhaps we should start a different thread to talk about gun control and/or other solutions; the ideology here is set in concrete and it's not going to change.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
I don't think all Americans love guns. I think the overwhelming majority of conservative, right-wing Americans love guns with far fewer liberals loving them.
I'm not sure about that, Papio. I think you may be conflating characteristics. The hunters I met were a mix politically, yet they would have fought long and hard to keep their right to own a gun. My then boyfriend adored Margaret Thatcher and he hated guns, as did one of the republican women I befriended while over there. The friends who had the shooting party were all lifelong democrats yet they were content to have a measure of gun control brought in. They didn't want to surrender their guns but they were happy to have their availability controlled. I think the situation is far more complex than politics alone, but that's just an English view.
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirrum:
But perhaps we should start a different thread to talk about gun control and/or other solutions; the ideology here is set in concrete and it's not going to change.
Huh?
Personally, I don't believe America is a gun culture. I do believe there is a gun culture within America, however, just as I believe there is one within the UK and other countries too. I think gun cultures are those countries that reach for their gun and fire them off in the street when they celebrate something or get pissed off at something (or basically for any reason at all). America isn't remotely like that.
[ 21. April 2007, 14:45: Message edited by: Littlelady ]
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
*resists...urge...to...insult...Margaret...Thatcher*
Probably true, Littlelady. I'm just going on subjective impressions based on probably-not-very-accurate TV programmes.
I think you right that a large majority of British people hate guns and that a large majority of Brits also think that the attitude of the American pro-gun lobby is more than somewhat foolhardy.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I don't mind the anecdotes; what gets me is the refusal to listen to other points of view. We've been told, point blank, that we all do live in a "gun culture," no matter what we see with our own eyes, or how the people we know live! It's ridiculous.
IOW, our anecdotes don't count; only the "gun culture" anecdotes matter, because there's a point to prove. We all admit that there are some areas in the U.S. that have a "gun culture"; what gets me is the absolute refusal to acknowledge that there are some that don't.
Let me say that I recognize that some people in this country have not had the gun culture be a significant part of their growing up. Further, I believe that the percentage of such people is increasing over time -- just as smoking became socially reviled before it was actually outlawed in most places, guns are going through a similar shunning by a growing portion of the American population (although we're still pretty early in that cycle, hunting is becoming rare enough in the eastern US that deer are becoming a serious problem, for example.)
Having said all that, there are very few things that I can think of that are so characteristic of such a large swath of American males as our having been brought up with guns as a formative part of our experience. Cars, sports, and church pretty much exhaust the list of other cultural icons of comparable scope.
I find Sabine's notion that every single person in the country must partake in order for something to be part of the American culture not just wrong-headed but absurd. By that notion, culture could not possibly exist on anything larger than the family level.
I have NEVER suggested or thought that every person in the country underwent anything comparable to my cultural experience with guns. I do not deny your experience, and I do not doubt your anecdotes. But it is a straw man to suggest that "culture" only applies to experience universally shared by every single person in the country. I DO believe that my experience was shared, with appropriate individual variation, by the vast majority of males my age or older, from coast to coast. That's pretty compelling as a national culture to my eyes.
--Tom Clune
ETA: the editing got screwed up. Sorry for the two versions...
[so I got rid of the bad one, just to avoid confusion - John]
[ 21. April 2007, 19:51: Message edited by: John Holding ]
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
a large majority of Brits also think that the attitude of the American pro-gun lobby is more than somewhat foolhardy.
If we add 'some reasonably well-informed Americans are constrained by whatever logic they can muster to acknowledge the near impossibility of doing anything remotely effective to get rid of guns in America', we may be able to put this thing to rest.
And the gun control thread idea is a good one if any one has any motivation left...
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
*resists...urge...to...insult...Margaret...Thatcher*
It would have been fascinating to hear him and you in conversation: he was a convinced libertarian as well. Oh what fun that would have been!
Posted by Amazing Grace (# 95) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
Personally, I don't believe America is a gun culture. I do believe there is a gun culture within America, however, just as I believe there is one within the UK and other countries too. I think gun cultures are those countries that reach for their gun and fire them off in the street when they celebrate something or get pissed off at something (or basically for any reason at all). America isn't remotely like that.
Well, my little part of it can resemble that description at times, although they do it in their back yards rather than out on the street. TBTG that the local celebratory excesses are usually confined to New Year's Eve. (It tends to happen when people are drinking - booze and guns are a *bad* *bad* combo.)
Charlotte
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
I DO believe that my experience was shared, with appropriate individual variation, by the vast majority of males my age or older, from coast to coast. That's pretty compelling as a national culture to my eyes.
--Tom Clune
The keywords there are "I believe" - which have no bearing on what actually is happening, or has happened.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Amazing Grace:
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
Personally, I don't believe America is a gun culture. I do believe there is a gun culture within America, however, just as I believe there is one within the UK and other countries too. I think gun cultures are those countries that reach for their gun and fire them off in the street when they celebrate something or get pissed off at something (or basically for any reason at all). America isn't remotely like that.
Well, my little part of it can resemble that description at times, although they do it in their back yards rather than out on the street. TBTG that the local celebratory excesses are usually confined to New Year's Eve. (It tends to happen when people are drinking - booze and guns are a *bad* *bad* combo.)
Well there you go then! There is a gun culture within America!
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Amazing Grace:
TBTG
I'm probably dense, but I can't work this one out.
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirrum:
But perhaps we should start a different thread to talk about gun control and/or other solutions; the ideology here is set in concrete and it's not going to change.
Huh?
Personally, I don't believe America is a gun culture. I do believe there is a gun culture within America, however, just as I believe there is one within the UK and other countries too. I think gun cultures are those countries that reach for their gun and fire them off in the street when they celebrate something or get pissed off at something (or basically for any reason at all). America isn't remotely like that.
Sorry. I didn't mean you, Littlelady.
I was referring to those on this thread who extrapolate from their own experience to "prove" us wrong about what we actually see and know. The point is apparently so important to them that all objectivity has been lost, and they won't listen to other voices.
So, I just suggested leaving them to have this thread and starting another on "solutions" - which is really not the topic here anyway. I still don't quite know what this thread is for, since many people seem bound and determined to come to a pre-ordained conclusion, but that's something we've already talked about here.
Posted by Wesley J (# 6075) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
quote:
Originally posted by Amazing Grace:
TBTG
I'm probably dense, but I can't work this one out.
What about 'Thanks be to God'?
[ETA: The shooters are denser.]
[ 21. April 2007, 15:25: Message edited by: Wesley J ]
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
quote:
Originally posted by Amazing Grace:
TBTG
I'm probably dense, but I can't work this one out.
Thanks be to God? Just a guess ...
quote:
Originally posted by Tubimirum:
Sorry. I didn't mean you, Littlelady.
No worries.
quote:
I still don't quite know what this thread is for, since many people seem bound and determined to come to a pre-ordained conclusion
Challenging and discussing those pre-ordained conclusions?
Selfishly, I've found the thread really interesting as it has been dealing in perceptions rather than stats. I have found it intriguing to learn how Americans perceive themselves in this context. Although I've spent time in the States and discussed guns endlessly with Americans, it was always me -v- you guys if you like until I began to get a handle on the American perspective. Then, of course, I found out I really enjoyed shooting! So since then I've been having endless discussions with Brits ...
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
quote:
I still don't quite know what this thread is for, since many people seem bound and determined to come to a pre-ordained conclusion
Challenging and discussing those pre-ordained conclusions?
Well, maybe. But in that case, it doesn't seem to be working.
quote:
Selfishly, I've found the thread really interesting as it has been dealing in perceptions rather than stats. I have found it intriguing to learn how Americans perceive themselves in this context. Although I've spent time in the States and discussed guns endlessly with Americans, it was always me -v- you guys if you like until I began to get a handle on the American perspective. Then, of course, I found out I really enjoyed shooting! So since then I've been having endless discussions with Brits ...
I agree that it's interesting - once a person gives up on actually trying to communicate her point of view.
I totally disagree with tclune, for instance, that playing cowboys and soldiers when you're young constitutes a "gun culture." They were games, and mostly based in history as a matter of fact. My father fought in WWII - but we never had a gun in the house and they just weren't part of our lives in any big way. The emphasis was on obeying authority and school. I shot rifles at camp - bows and arrows, too, and I rode horses. Are we a "horse culture," then?
I used to imagine I was Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, and went to the local parks to find good wood to make bows and arrows. Does this mean I'm irretrievably violent? Does it mean we live in a "Greek God" culture, or a "bow and arrow" culture, or even in a "hunting culture"? Well, all I can say is that I don't.
(We also played out the story of Jesus Christ when I was a kid, BTW. I guess that makes us a "healing the sick" and a "crucifixion culture," too.)
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Oh. yes. It must be.
Posted by Amazing Grace (# 95) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
quote:
Originally posted by Amazing Grace:
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
Personally, I don't believe America is a gun culture. I do believe there is a gun culture within America, however, just as I believe there is one within the UK and other countries too. I think gun cultures are those countries that reach for their gun and fire them off in the street when they celebrate something or get pissed off at something (or basically for any reason at all). America isn't remotely like that.
Well, my little part of it can resemble that description at times, although they do it in their back yards rather than out on the street. TBTG that the local celebratory excesses are usually confined to New Year's Eve. (It tends to happen when people are drinking - booze and guns are a *bad* *bad* combo.)
Well there you go then! There is a gun culture within America!
Many of them, as it happens! Big place, don't you know
.
There's a heavy immigrant population in my nabe, although most of the problems seem to be with native-born Urban Yoot and their older-but-no-wiser counterparts.
As a calibration, my 6'4" burly brother was a bit skeered to be down here when he was in kollidge (when it was very much "the 'hood"), and there was active crack dealing happening a block away about two years before I bought my house. It's gotten a lot less "zesty" as the dealers got shipped out and house values keep going up, up, up.
Charlotte
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on
:
quote:
I have NEVER suggested or thought that every person in the country underwent anything comparable to my cultural experience with guns. I do not deny your experience, and I do not doubt your anecdotes. But it is a straw man to suggest that "culture" only applies to experience universally shared by every single person in the country. I DO believe that my experience was shared, with appropriate individual variation, by the vast majority of males my age or older, from coast to coast. That's pretty compelling as a national culture to my eyes.
That's only an assertion. There are a few people in my family who grew up in that culture, but I would not say that that was all of us, or even a significant majority.
Again, you're taking a part of US culture and generalizing it to the whole, IMO.
Or are you saying that liberal gun control fanatics are un-American...?
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Are we a "horse culture," then?
No, that's Ireland. And I'm very glad, too, because thanks to Ireland being a horse culture I won £170 on the Grand National last weekend.
quote:
Does this mean I'm irretrievably violent?
Nope. Just that you had some out there fantasies as a kid!
quote:
Does it mean we live in a "Greek God" culture
Well, some of your men ...
quote:
or a "bow and arrow" culture, or even in a "hunting culture"?
No more than us. But ours is getting squeezed what with the ban on fox hunting recently and no doubt the grouse and deer hunters will be getting it next. The campaigners even mumble about fishing. If you do have a hunting culture and you enjoy hunting then my advice would be: be proud! You could be living in the UK.
Not that I don't like my country, you understand. It's just a bit of a pain in the ass living here if you like anything remotely un-fluffy bunny.
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on
:
In other news: Gun-toting Miss America 1944 shoots out intruder's tires while balancing on walker.
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on
:
Awwww crud... try this link.
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
I find Sabine's notion that every single person in the country must partake in order for something to be part of the American culture not just wrong-headed but absurd.
Tom, I did not say that or mean that or believe that. I do, however, think that anything that would be cultural at a national level would be part of the socialization of all children. Whether they partake or not is up to them. Many of us have been socialized and gone on in life to change.
I'm sorry my thoughts appear absurd to you. I don't feel the same way about yours.
sabine
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
I'm wondering why the male-oriented, cowboy, gun-bonding-with-dad image keeps coming up in this thread as if it represents all of us?
I don't deny it or it's power for boys and men, and perhaps some women, but I wonder how we can discuss a perceived national gun culture and not use more diverse examples.
sabine
Posted by TubaMirum (# 8282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
I'm wondering why the male-oriented, cowboy, gun-bonding-with-dad image keeps coming up in this thread as if it represents all of us?
I don't deny it or it's power for boys and men, and perhaps some women, but I wonder how we can discuss a perceived national gun culture and not use more diverse examples.
sabine
Ask most people in New York City, or in any other urban area, if they had this background.
The answer is no. In tclune's era, and in mine (which I think are the same, generally), New York and other large cities - and their suburbs - in America were populated by millions and millions of immigrants from other places: Europe and Asia, mostly.
Almost none of these people were cowboys or hunters; almost all of them were here to improve their lot in life. The focus was on working, getting ahead, and doing well in school so that you would do better than your parents did.
tclune may come from a different culture, but that was mine. I wish he'd stop telling us who we are....
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
That's too bad because polarization and highly emotional responses based on annecdotal reports prevents any productive discussion from happening.
Sabine, I disagree really. Most of the contributors to this thread have been Americans and Brits, and I really think you couldn't get two more diverse stands on the issue of guns in the world. We're just at two totally opposite starting points. Given that reality the discussion on here I think has been interesting and informative.
I'm a bit unusual as a Brit because my year in America enabled me to understand where Americans (of all political shades) are coming from on this issue. It helped that I began as someone pro-American and inquisitive - I asked lots of questions and challenged strongly during discussion (mostly with gun-owning, hunting men!). It's perfectly possible to appreciate the opposite view but it takes a long time for people from different ends of the spectrum to reach that position, IMO. To then move on to a discussion about how to tackle the problems arising from gun abuse (on either side of the Atlantic, as it's increasing here) is going to take more than a few pages of a thread on the Ship to achieve!
Also, I think anecdotal reports are actually very relevant to this particular debate since the OP referred to a perception - of America being a gun culture. We can all cite stats and expert opinion to our hearts content but when we are dealing with perceptions then these are based very much upon individual subjective experience. If such is devalued then how can the two overall positions (plus the variations represented within those positions) ever be understood? But perhaps I am missing your point.
I think you are missing my point a bit. There may be two different starting points (I'm not completely on board with that, but for the sake of discussion....), but I think there is middle ground and several of us on this thread are in that middle ground. And yet, our posts seem to anger other posters and our words are taken to signify support for things that perhaps we don't mean or support. Of course, I can only legitimately talk for myself, but I suspect that others in the middle ground would agree with certain things.
There may be gun issues, there may be iconic, deeply embedded gun stuff among certain members of our society, there may be issues of violence and etc.
But to say that this constitutes an overarching gun culture requires more than just annecdotal reports.
But I suspect I'm not going to get this message across to those who don't want to consider it. No discussion is fruitful until there can be some sort of common ground, including definitions. As it stands, this thread is highly charged, aggressive at points, and fueled by lots of personal experience.
And I have no problem with personal experience whatsoever--it is what the story of our lives is made of. But to generalize to a whole nation based on personal experience is an extremely subjective way of looking at things.
If anything, I am trying to advocate for a way that we can each tell our tale and learn from each other--but repeatedly, my attempts have been seen as debate rather than attempts at discussion.
We Quakers are trained from an early age to be in it for the long haul when it comes to trying to find a way to settle differences, and I've stuck around on this thread for longer than I thought I would. I took the time to write a rather long post which hasn't even made more than a blip on the radar. I think perhaps I've done about as much as I can do to try to have a reasoned discussion.
And when it comes right down to it, I work with people who have seen or experienced violence on a level that few of us here will ever know.
I wish all you well in your attempts to be heard and to influence each other. I've read some amazing things on this thread, from many different perspectives.
This thread reinforces my own resolve that violence and the tools of violence are a major issue of our time and I hope someday to live in a world where we aren't so quick to use either.
sabine
Posted by Lee12 (# 10910) on
:
A link to a report on this subject from MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18247971/
As you'd expect, more American women and minorities are favorable to gun control; more white males are against it.
More Democrats than Republicans favor gun control, but Democrats also want to appeal to a rural base, which does not want gun control.
Bottom line, IMNSHO, America will control guns when the Sahara freezes over.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
I'm sorry my thoughts appear absurd to you.
I apologize for my rude remarks. I was feeling unduly defensive and reacting inappropriately. I have found your commnets gracious and thoughtful, and should have exercised the same care in my posting that you have shown.
--Tom Clune
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
Sabine, you raise a number of good points in your post. I’ll just try to respond to two of them.
quote:
There may be two different starting points (I'm not completely on board with that, but for the sake of discussion....), but I think there is middle ground and several of us on this thread are in that middle ground.
I’m not sure whether I was very clear earlier but I was referring specifically to the British and American starting points: the default British position is the absence of guns while the default American position is the presence of guns (as it stands now I mean). For example, your police are routinely armed. More of our police are now trained in weapons use, but it is still a specialist function within our police force: police do not routinely carry arms. America has a constitutional right to bear arms, Britain does not. That's the kind of thing I was thinking about when I referred to 'two different starting points'. I would suggest that these defaults (and others like them) do influence any discussion about guns and the perception of gun culture. But yes, on a broader basis, there is representation of middle ground on this thread.
quote:
I have no problem with personal experience whatsoever--it is what the story of our lives is made of. But to generalize to a whole nation based on personal experience is an extremely subjective way of looking at things.
I agree 100%. I remember when I first got to know my Illinois friend of the shooting party story she had some very strange perceptions of Brits. We've been friends now for 10 years and her perceptions have totally changed in that time because I was the first Brit she actually knew and I didn't fit the stereotype (I haven't worn a bowler hat for a very long time!). Countering stereotypes and generalisations can be a useful outcome of the subjective experience. My own subjective experience tells me that!
However, it can, as you suggest, also direct perceptions inaccurately.
I smiled when I read tclune’s story about his childhood cowboy games. I played similar games when a child, only mine was cowboys and indians, with appropriate clothing, toy silver pistols which fired ‘caps’ (creating a cool bang) and bows and arrows (with suckers on the end). Loads of children played the cowboys and indians game back then, but they don’t anymore. Does this mean the UK once had a gun culture but now doesn’t? I would say not. Cowboys and indians was just a once fashionable way of playing out the good –v- bad guys scenario that forms the basis for so many childhood games (and the cowboys and indians changed roles very often!). These days it’s all more likely to be played out on the computer. tclune was clearly brought up within a local culture that included guns; I wasn’t, yet I played a gun-based game; someone else in America won’t have experienced guns as part of childhood play and nor will many people in the UK. The marker is in the good –v- bad guys scenario, not the gun play itself IMO.
I would say the same about guns and American culture as a national concept. It is not the guns themselves which are a marker of American culture but the continued ongoing battle, if you like, between the various positions in relation to guns and gun use. That tension is, IMO, indicative of American culture as I perceive it. Alternatively, my own culture has a ‘ban it’ mentality whenever anything awful occurs. I have to say that I envy the freedom or determination or whatever quality it is that Americans have which provides them with the opportunity to thrash out these issues as citizens, rather than being subject to yet more regulation almost as a matter of course. Seeking greater regulation may appear to be a good solution when things are looking bad – and indeed in the case of the availability of guns in America it may be wise – but it is also sometimes a ‘be careful what you wish for’ moment.
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
I apologize for my rude remarks. I was feeling unduly defensive and reacting inappropriately. I have found your commnets gracious and thoughtful, and should have exercised the same care in my posting that you have shown.
--Tom Clune
Thank you, Tom--this has been a difficult thread for all of us at times.
peace,
sabine
Posted by MerlintheMad (# 12279) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
I'm wondering why the male-oriented, cowboy, gun-bonding-with-dad image keeps coming up in this thread as if it represents all of us?
I don't deny it or it's power for boys and men, and perhaps some women, but I wonder how we can discuss a perceived national gun culture and not use more diverse examples.
sabine
My personal example. My father has never owned a gun in his life, yet he comes from rural Utah. He never handled a gun that I know of. My brothers and sister also have never handled a gun even once that I know of.
I am the maverick in this respect: I purchased my first firearm at the age of 22: a .22 calibre Ruger 10/22 carbine. In my life, I have owned maybe a half dozen guns or more. Currently: the 10/22, a couple of handguns, and two shotguns. I seldom shoot anything. But I have gone out a few times with children (not all of them, it's been rather spotty "bonding" time with the guns).
I neither encourage nor discourage any of my kids from playing with toy guns: "airsoft" is the current favorite outdoor game in our neighborhood, and I look upon it favorably, letting our yard be the neighborhood "cops and robbers" playground.
I do not consider myself part of a gun culture at all. Guns in USA society are a fact of life, in the background for most people.
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on
:
I owned and regularly shot handguns about twenty years ago. I stopped doing so when I became worried about the company I was keeping. Now I know that I'm generalizing from my own particular experience, OK? So with that it mind...
I found handgun shooters in the UK to be rather paranoid and distrustful of society. Too many sentences in our conversations started with the paranoid they: they don't want... they won't let... they think we... and so on. There certainly was, although not a culture, a sub-culture of handgun owners in the UK. Politically they were fairly diverse, but all seemed to have some socio-political ideas in common.
(1) The Englishman's home is his castle. If you set foot in my house without my permission, I am entitled to hurt you.
(2) Society as a whole is too tolerant of crime and criminals.
(3) We need far fewer people in the UK (not necessarily fewer immigrants -- the gun owners I knew were not racist -- just fewer humans. Gun owners didn't like to share space with other folks, on the whole.
(4) Violence was OK so long as it was directed against `bad guys'.
There were other common values, I'm sure, but those are the ones I remember.
When there was talk of banning or regulating handguns, many gun owners made a big deal of how shooting was a sport, and harmless and innocent sportspersons were being victimized by society. But there are other sports that rely on the same mental and physical discipline that handgun shooting emphasises, which can legally be practiced in the UK. If you're that fond of your gun that you can't give it up, it isn't because you want to practice a sport with it, in my view.
As I said, a generalization, and a generalization from two decades back at that. But...
I would describe myself as peaceable, bordering on pacifist. It worried me that the character traits I found so disturbing in other gun owners might be ones that, subconsciously, I shared. So I laid down my guns, so to speak.
I guess I could legally own and shoot a rifle if I wanted to shoot. And I confess I have been tempted, from time to time. But, quite honestly, gun owners (in the UK) scare me. Although I enjoy shooting as a sport, I don't really want to be part of a group of people whom I find scary.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Is there any cocnept of private prosecution in the States? If he could get the money, or find a lawyer willing to work and get a fee from any win, then he could have got the man charged with something - grievous bodily harm or attempted murder, at the very least sued for damages and compensation.
Having a gun for self-defense is one thing. Using that gun in a pre-meditated act (even one of 'justice') is a whole different kettle of fish.
Indeed. It would be attempted murder in this country, and AFAICS, rightly so.
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
:
Re the rape victim. There has been some good evidence that nothing improves a victims sense of safety and empowerment like a good class in self-defense. There's nothing like re-enacting the event -- this time with skills like where and how to inflict debilitating pain on the would be attacker. Sense IRL the assault usually comes from behind and the gun-toting purse is the first thing to go flying, a woman is much better off knowing how to stomp her heel into his instep and poke her fingers in his eyes than how to shoot a gun.
Re the question of "Is America a gun culture"? This goes to my theory that the big, swaggering John Wayne types who claim that we won't get their guns until we pry them from their cold dead hands -- are really large mush wads. Whenever they think about guns their eyes tear-up, remembering the first time their daddy took them hunting. That's one of the main reasons this is such an emotional subject for some Americans. It is the defining 'bonding" moment for many American father/sons. If only they would accept the fact that they can do the same thing with a baseball and two gloves.
From the Telegraph:
quote:
Democrat leaders in Congress have asked the group to back a bill that would force the states to provide mental health records to the FBI, to prevent disturbed individuals buying guns.
This just infuriates me. We would give up our right to a private doctor, patient relationship, before we would give up our "right" to sell automatic handguns.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
From the Telegraph:
quote:
Democrat leaders in Congress have asked the group to back a bill that would force the states to provide mental health records to the FBI, to prevent disturbed individuals buying guns.
The implication of that Telegraph quote is that states already have some form of mental health records. It isn't asking doctors to give mental health records to the FBI. Presumably states already have a record of involuntary stays in a mental institution, without all the accompanying information about diagnosis etc that's confidential between doctor and patient. Committing someone else to a mental institution must involve some legal process, so the act of committal is in the public record.
I'm assuming that the bill in Congress is designed to close a potential loophole in the system that exists if people move between states (and then an application for a handgun license may not pick up on any relevant information known to the authorities where they previously lived). It doesn't seem unreasonable to put the enforcement of a federal law into the hands of a federable agency, and then ensure that that agency has access to all relevant information to do their job.
[just adding the quote cos I didn't realise this would be top of the page]
[ 23. April 2007, 14:05: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
Posted by 206 (# 206) on
:
quote:
I have to say that I envy the freedom or determination or whatever quality it is that Americans have which provides them with the opportunity to thrash out these issues as citizens, rather than being subject to yet more regulation almost as a matter of course.
It has its merits.
I've come up with a theory about this thread: many of the differences in opinion may result from what might be termed 'historical accidents'.
How about this: when guns were first being mass produced the UK was much further along in the areas of food distribution (minimizing the need to hunt) and law enforcement (minimizing the need for self-protection).
Plus, whatever massacring of indigenous peoples necessary to 'develop' the land had long since been accomplished and therefore no 'gun culture' developed.
The US, not as 'advanced', found guns very convenient resulting in a 'gun culture'.
I expect some historian types will come along and shoot my idea down.
Posted by Teufelchen (# 10158) on
:
206, I'm not about to shoot your theory down. It looks reasonable to me.
T.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
I'm not too sure the history of gun ownership in the UK necessarily reflects the thesis outlined by 206. Britain did, until relatively recently, have a fairly high rate of private gun ownership. The first significant gun control laws were enacted in the early 1920s at a time when gun ownership in the UK was high, with a large number of military weapons in circulation following the war. Though the control of crime was part of the reasoning behind the 1920 Firearms Act, part of the reasoning was a concern about civil unrest following the Russian Revolution. The 1937 Act almost completely banned automatic weapons, and that also was inorder to counter the possibility of civil unrest with a growing fascist movement in Britain. It was only really in the 1960s that the UK government and population started to see criminal activity rather than armed rebellion to be the biggest reason to restrict firearms.
It's true that hunting for food has never been a big reason for gun ownership in the UK (not because people weren't hungry, but simply that the majority of the poor had no way to get to anywhere where there might be something to hunt. If you were in the countryside there were rabbits, and that was about it - a justification for shotguns, but you don't need high power rifles to get Bugs). And, self-defense was removed as a valid reason to own a gun in 1946.
Basically, in the UK, the general view has (for practically as long as anyone can remember) been that guns are a tool with a limited number of legitimate uses, but tools that are dangerous and pose a potential threat to public safety and order and so need to be tightly controlled. With protection of public safety right up near the top of the list of action related to guns. Which is why, if you want a gun here you need to show a good reason why you need and need to prove that you can be trusted to have it without endangering the public or the peace of the realm - which would include approval from your doctor. It seems that in the US the system works in exactly the opposite - rather than prove you are a fit person to own a gun, the authorities have to show you aren't; rather than you demonstrate a good reason to own a gun, it's assumed simply to have a gun is a good reason.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Which is why, if you want a gun here you need to show a good reason why you need and need to prove that you can be trusted to have it without endangering the public or the peace of the realm - which would include approval from your doctor. It seems that in the US the system works in exactly the opposite - rather than prove you are a fit person to own a gun, the authorities have to show you aren't; rather than you demonstrate a good reason to own a gun, it's assumed simply to have a gun is a good reason.
This reflects the point I was trying to make earlier that the British and American starting positions are at opposite ends of the spectrum and why it is so difficult for the two groups to find common ground when discussing gun ownership. Your step by step guide, Alan, so clearly highlights why the British feel as they do about guns. The association of ideas - guns = danger - has been so long in growing and is now so engrained in our national psyche (on the whole) that it is very difficult for most Brits to envisage how even the smallest step back towards where we stood before that first Act can be anything other than something to be feared. I think the thumbnail history is also an interesting commentary on how fear can control a large section of the population.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
I think that's an excellent precis on our gut reactions. Many British somewhat reasonably think that guns=danger. Many Americans somewhat reasonably think that letting the government make many rules=danger.
And the British have more rules than we do. And we have more guns. I don't think that makes a culture but it makes a point.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
Gwai: well, it sure seems to indicate what each country fears the most! (And I'm not at all sure whose fear is the most accurate!)
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on
:
ISTM that I saw this summarised on a previous thread by Karl:Liberal Backslider in this manner:
"Americans tend to talk about how much safer they feel if they have a gun, while Brits tend to talk about how much less safe they feel if someone else has a gun".
Probably too much of a generalisation, but it fits the spirit of what was said above.
Posted by MerlintheMad (# 12279) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
ISTM that I saw this summarised on a previous thread by Karl:Liberal Backslider in this manner:
"Americans tend to talk about how much safer they feel if they have a gun, while Brits tend to talk about how much less safe they feel if someone else has a gun".
Probably too much of a generalisation, but it fits the spirit of what was said above.
Isn't this just another way of revealing how different individual liberty is perceived? It goes back to the topic of origins: As I said in another thread weeks ago: America's "experiment" (first time in history) was with personal property. But better said, it was and is, all about individual liberty as compared to corporate liberty. Europe, the UK, et al, are all about corporate liberty. You have to show good reason why the government should allow you to have that gun. But in America, the government doesn't say: "Why do you have that gun?" Rather: "Why are you using that gun HERE?"
To change the perspective of Americans to that of Europeans about guns, you would have to redefine our concepts of individual liberty and ownership of private property.
Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on
:
Another historical US point - the militias referred to in the 2nd Amendment would have been state militias, not the national armed forces. It's a states' rights thing, balancing the individual states against the federal government. In theory, if the federal government completely loses the plot, the states can still preserve order. One wonders what it would take, however, to rouse a state militia. OliviaG
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
Another historical US point - the militias referred to in the 2nd Amendment would have been state militias, not the national armed forces. It's a states' rights thing, balancing the individual states against the federal government. In theory, if the federal government completely loses the plot, the states can still preserve order. One wonders what it would take, however, to rouse a state militia. OliviaG
Olivia--further back in this thread I explained the history of state militias, what they evolved into, and how those bodies can be activitated today.
sabine
Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on
:
Oops. My bad. Guess you'll have to shoot me.
OliviaG
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
Oops. My bad. Guess you'll have to shoot me.
OliviaG
Well, if you really think you've done something that requires punishment, I'd be happy to take you to a Quaker Meeting for Business (I was at one that lasted 6 hours over the weekend).
Seriously, though, I wasn't criticising you. The answer to your question is embedded in the thread--I just don't have the time to dig around through seven pages to find it.
So I'll paraphrase: When each state joined the Union, most of them already had militias because they were independent political units prior to joining the union. Those militias continued to operate as more-or-less independent state militas up until the Civil War, and left their states to join a larger body (Union or confederate). Prior to that, they had joined the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. But when they joined a larger fighting army, they did so at their own discretion. Hence, the "well armed militia" reference.
Eventually, the state milita system morphed into what is now known as the National Guard--there is a National Guard for each state. The National Guards can be called up by a Governor of a state or by the President. The chances of the Governor of one state making war against another is so rare as to be nil--and, it might even be illegal.
That's not to say that a Governor couldn't and hasn't called up the National Guard to restore order within a state.
sabine
[ 25. April 2007, 02:12: Message edited by: sabine ]
Posted by JonahMan (# 12126) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
Isn't this just another way of revealing how different individual liberty is perceived? It goes back to the topic of origins: As I said in another thread weeks ago: America's "experiment" (first time in history) was with personal property. But better said, it was and is, all about individual liberty as compared to corporate liberty. Europe, the UK, et al, are all about corporate liberty. You have to show good reason why the government should allow you to have that gun. But in America, the government doesn't say: "Why do you have that gun?" Rather: "Why are you using that gun HERE?"
To change the perspective of Americans to that of Europeans about guns, you would have to redefine our concepts of individual liberty and ownership of private property.
I'm interested to explore how this view squares with the Patriot Act which strikes me as infringing much more on personal liberty than stronger gun controls - I know that there was a lot of opposition to the act and to its continuation a few years later, but nevertheless it did become the law. This isn't a dig - I genuinely don't understand how this happened in a country which prides itself on its democratic principles and upholds the liberties of its citizens.
Jonah
Posted by MerlintheMad (# 12279) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
Isn't this just another way of revealing how different individual liberty is perceived? It goes back to the topic of origins: As I said in another thread weeks ago: America's "experiment" (first time in history) was with personal property. But better said, it was and is, all about individual liberty as compared to corporate liberty. Europe, the UK, et al, are all about corporate liberty. You have to show good reason why the government should allow you to have that gun. But in America, the government doesn't say: "Why do you have that gun?" Rather: "Why are you using that gun HERE?"
To change the perspective of Americans to that of Europeans about guns, you would have to redefine our concepts of individual liberty and ownership of private property.
I'm interested to explore how this view squares with the Patriot Act which strikes me as infringing much more on personal liberty than stronger gun controls - I know that there was a lot of opposition to the act and to its continuation a few years later, but nevertheless it did become the law. This isn't a dig - I genuinely don't understand how this happened in a country which prides itself on its democratic principles and upholds the liberties of its citizens.
Jonah
The resistance to the Patriot Act (what a name!) is all about encroaching government upon individual liberty. Percisely. It was passed reluctantly, because greater national security was required in the face of perceived terrorist incursions, and, a need to facilitate the Fed in pursuing terrorist activities within our own borders. It has been used that way on the whole, afaict. I have not heard of any abuses of the FBI's "right" to enter a domicile without a search warrant, and seize people and property, etc. Had this occurred, there would be a hue and cry of outrage. The P.A. has been used to track down and arrest those with suspected terrorist activities. It could, if not repealed when no longer necessary (the promise, I believe, as part of passing it into law), become a tool of "legal" oppression for U. S. citizens and imigrants here.
© Ship of Fools 2016
UBB.classicTM
6.5.0