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.

---

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.)

---

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?

---

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.

---

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.

---

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!

---

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.

---

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?

---

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.)

---

quote:

---

As for 'gun culture' -- would you say you live in an 'LDS culture' -- even when people don't flaunt it?

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.}

---

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.

---

quote:

---

Following that logic, Britain must be knife culture.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Iole Nui:
Don't a lot of the illegal guns in the UK now come from the ex-USSR states?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trin:
It is not culturally or legally acceptable to own a knife for the purpose of self defence.

---

quote:

---

what kinds of knives are prohibited?

---

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?

---

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.

---

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?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mirrizin:

And if you ban guns, only criminals will own them

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hedonism_bot:
were more interested in fortifying the government against the people than vice versa.

---

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).

---

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mirrizin:
Are you telling them all that they're evil?

---

quote:

---

but if the violent can't get their hands on guns, then that eliminates a pivotal symptom of the problem.

---

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.

---

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?

---

quote:

---

Can anyone from America provide any insight or anecdote about how effective guns are as a defence?

---

quote:

---

O.P. by Dr Frog
a baseball bat is designed to hit a baseball.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by tclune:
I think that both of these kinds of killings would be reduced dramatically once the current stocks subsided.

---

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?

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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?

---

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.

---

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?

---

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?

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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?

---

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.

---

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.)

---

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?).

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

[ 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?

---

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).

---

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 ( ).

---

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.

---

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.

---

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?

---

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.

---

quote:

---

Seems they needn't have worried; as it turns out, we can order one from Wal-Mart online .

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

---

quote:

---

Cardinal rule: Don't produce it if you aren't going to fire.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

---

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!

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Professor Kirke:

A lot of the confusion is causality. {etc., etc., etc.}

---

quote:

---

First of all, the problem isn't "guns that are available in Wal-Mart".

---

quote:

---

Second, I find your assumption that "making them equally unavailable to all" would be so easy and foolproof to be rather naive.

---

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".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Psst: They don't sell guns at the Wal-Marts around here.

---

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"?????

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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?

---

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.

---

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TubaMirum:

My argument is simply that a person should not be prevented from purchasing a weapon for self-defense ...

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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?

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

First of all, the problem isn't "guns that are available in Wal-Mart".

---

oh, yes it is.

---

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

---

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?

---

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.

---

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).

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

---

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.

---

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....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by doctor-frog:
given the same human nature that applies worldwide

---

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."

---

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.

---

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

---

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

---

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'?

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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?

---

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.

---

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!

---

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."

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

quote:

---

I hadn't realised that gun law in the US was up to individual states rather than a national policy

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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?

---

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.

---

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?

---

quote:

---

However, I think it is perfectly possible to favour strict gun control without taking such an attitude.

---

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by 206:
Wow: you people sure are a patient lot!

---

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Emma.:
isnt self-inflicted gun-wounds another argument in *favour* of restricting gun ownership?

---

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?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Emma.:
isnt self-inflicted gun-wounds another argument in *favour* of restricting gun ownership?

---

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.

---

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 .

---

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Emma.:
isnt self-inflicted gun-wounds another argument in *favour* of restricting gun ownership?

---

quote:

---

Is there any cocnept of private prosecution in the States?

---

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.

---

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.

---

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?

---

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.

---

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.

---

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,

---

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

---

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?

---

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Emma.:
enough are cool with it that it isnt changed or seriously challenged

---

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?

---

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.

---

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

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

---

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

---

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Papio:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amazing Grace:
TBTG

---

I'm probably dense, but I can't work this one out.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Papio:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amazing Grace:
TBTG

---

I'm probably dense, but I can't work this one out.

---

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.

---

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?

---

quote:

---

Does it mean we live in a "Greek God" culture

---

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.

---

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

---

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sabine:
I'm sorry my thoughts appear absurd to you.

---

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.

---

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

---

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

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

---

© Ship of Fools 2016


UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0