Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: American 'gun culture' - fact or fiction?
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Littlelady
Shipmate
# 9616
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Posted
Gwai, I guess I was thinking of cultural starting points rather than individual views, but I agree that various shades of opinion are represented on here. However, so far as I can see the diversity is mainly represented by the American contingent. If I was to leave the discussion, I am fairly certain other British contributors would feel similar to Papio or Emma or Karl.
It is, of course, interesting to note that while the majority of Brits think guns are basically evil things and should be strictly controlled (if not totally banned), the people many Brits believe unanimously love their guns are expressing diverse opinion. That doesn't surprise me, but I wonder how many others have noticed it?
-------------------- 'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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Papio
![](http://ship-of-fools.com/UBB/custom_avatars/4201.jpg) Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
I don't think all Americans love guns. I think the overwhelming majority of conservative, right-wing Americans love guns with far fewer liberals loving them.
There are people on the ship who I like who have guns. But, you know, no guns in my home or on my land, under any circumstances, end of story.
-------------------- Infinite Penguins. My "Readit, Swapit" page My "LibraryThing" page
Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by sabine: Actually, there have been more than two sides discussed on this thread. Some of us acknowledge a serious gun "problem" and some of us acknowledge a regional or other kind of culture. So it's not totally a polatized thread.
But the discussion in the middle of the continuum hasn't really been heard amid the reactive back and forth. That's too bad because polarization and highly emotional responses based on annecdotal reports prevents any productive discussion from happening.
sabine
I don't mind the anecdotes; what gets me is the refusal to listen to other points of view. We've been told, point blank, that we all do live in a "gun culture," no matter what we see with our own eyes, or how the people we know live! It's ridiculous.
IOW, our anecdotes don't count; only the "gun culture" anecdotes matter, because there's a point to prove. We all admit that there are some areas in the U.S. that have a "gun culture"; what gets me is the absolute refusal to acknowledge that there are some that don't.
But perhaps we should start a different thread to talk about gun control and/or other solutions; the ideology here is set in concrete and it's not going to change.
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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Littlelady
Shipmate
# 9616
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Papio: I don't think all Americans love guns. I think the overwhelming majority of conservative, right-wing Americans love guns with far fewer liberals loving them.
I'm not sure about that, Papio. I think you may be conflating characteristics. The hunters I met were a mix politically, yet they would have fought long and hard to keep their right to own a gun. My then boyfriend adored Margaret Thatcher and he hated guns, as did one of the republican women I befriended while over there. The friends who had the shooting party were all lifelong democrats yet they were content to have a measure of gun control brought in. They didn't want to surrender their guns but they were happy to have their availability controlled. I think the situation is far more complex than politics alone, but that's just an English view.
quote: Originally posted by TubaMirrum: But perhaps we should start a different thread to talk about gun control and/or other solutions; the ideology here is set in concrete and it's not going to change.
Huh?
Personally, I don't believe America is a gun culture. I do believe there is a gun culture within America, however, just as I believe there is one within the UK and other countries too. I think gun cultures are those countries that reach for their gun and fire them off in the street when they celebrate something or get pissed off at something (or basically for any reason at all). America isn't remotely like that. [ 21. April 2007, 14:45: Message edited by: Littlelady ]
-------------------- 'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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Papio
![](http://ship-of-fools.com/UBB/custom_avatars/4201.jpg) Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
*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.
-------------------- Infinite Penguins. My "Readit, Swapit" page My "LibraryThing" page
Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by TubaMirum: I don't mind the anecdotes; what gets me is the refusal to listen to other points of view. We've been told, point blank, that we all do live in a "gun culture," no matter what we see with our own eyes, or how the people we know live! It's ridiculous.
IOW, our anecdotes don't count; only the "gun culture" anecdotes matter, because there's a point to prove. We all admit that there are some areas in the U.S. that have a "gun culture"; what gets me is the absolute refusal to acknowledge that there are some that don't.
Let me say that I recognize that some people in this country have not had the gun culture be a significant part of their growing up. Further, I believe that the percentage of such people is increasing over time -- just as smoking became socially reviled before it was actually outlawed in most places, guns are going through a similar shunning by a growing portion of the American population (although we're still pretty early in that cycle, hunting is becoming rare enough in the eastern US that deer are becoming a serious problem, for example.)
Having said all that, there are very few things that I can think of that are so characteristic of such a large swath of American males as our having been brought up with guns as a formative part of our experience. Cars, sports, and church pretty much exhaust the list of other cultural icons of comparable scope.
I find Sabine's notion that every single person in the country must partake in order for something to be part of the American culture not just wrong-headed but absurd. By that notion, culture could not possibly exist on anything larger than the family level.
I have NEVER suggested or thought that every person in the country underwent anything comparable to my cultural experience with guns. I do not deny your experience, and I do not doubt your anecdotes. But it is a straw man to suggest that "culture" only applies to experience universally shared by every single person in the country. I DO believe that my experience was shared, with appropriate individual variation, by the vast majority of males my age or older, from coast to coast. That's pretty compelling as a national culture to my eyes.
--Tom Clune
ETA: the editing got screwed up. Sorry for the two versions...
[so I got rid of the bad one, just to avoid confusion - John] [ 21. April 2007, 19:51: Message edited by: John Holding ]
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moron
Shipmate
# 206
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Posted
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...
Posts: 4236 | From: Bentonville | Registered: May 2001
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Littlelady
Shipmate
# 9616
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Posted
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! ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
-------------------- 'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
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Amazing Grace
![](http://forum.shipoffools.com/custom_avatars/0095.gif) High Church Protestant
# 95
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Posted
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
-------------------- WTFWED? "Remember to always be yourself, unless you suck" - the Gator Memory Eternal! Sheep 3, Phil the Wise Guy, and Jesus' Evil Twin in the SoF Nativity Play
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by tclune: I DO believe that my experience was shared, with appropriate individual variation, by the vast majority of males my age or older, from coast to coast. That's pretty compelling as a national culture to my eyes.
--Tom Clune
The keywords there are "I believe" - which have no bearing on what actually is happening, or has happened.
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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Littlelady
Shipmate
# 9616
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Posted
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! ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
-------------------- 'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Littlelady: quote: Originally posted by TubaMirrum: But perhaps we should start a different thread to talk about gun control and/or other solutions; the ideology here is set in concrete and it's not going to change.
Huh?
Personally, I don't believe America is a gun culture. I do believe there is a gun culture within America, however, just as I believe there is one within the UK and other countries too. I think gun cultures are those countries that reach for their gun and fire them off in the street when they celebrate something or get pissed off at something (or basically for any reason at all). America isn't remotely like that.
Sorry. I didn't mean you, Littlelady.
I was referring to those on this thread who extrapolate from their own experience to "prove" us wrong about what we actually see and know. The point is apparently so important to them that all objectivity has been lost, and they won't listen to other voices.
So, I just suggested leaving them to have this thread and starting another on "solutions" - which is really not the topic here anyway. I still don't quite know what this thread is for, since many people seem bound and determined to come to a pre-ordained conclusion, but that's something we've already talked about here.
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Wesley J
![](http://forum.shipoffools.com/custom_avatars/6075.jpg) Silly Shipmate
# 6075
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Papio: quote: Originally posted by Amazing Grace: TBTG
I'm probably dense, but I can't work this one out.
What about 'Thanks be to God'?
[ETA: The shooters are denser.] [ 21. April 2007, 15:25: Message edited by: Wesley J ]
-------------------- Be it as it may: Wesley J will stay. --- Euthanasia, that sounds good. An alpine neutral neighbourhood. Then back to Britain, all dressed in wood. Things were gonna get worse. (John Cooper Clarke)
Posts: 7354 | From: The Isles of Silly | Registered: May 2004
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Littlelady
Shipmate
# 9616
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Papio: quote: Originally posted by Amazing Grace: TBTG
I'm probably dense, but I can't work this one out.
Thanks be to God? Just a guess ...
quote: Originally posted by Tubimirum: Sorry. I didn't mean you, Littlelady.
No worries.
quote: I still don't quite know what this thread is for, since many people seem bound and determined to come to a pre-ordained conclusion
Challenging and discussing those pre-ordained conclusions?
Selfishly, I've found the thread really interesting as it has been dealing in perceptions rather than stats. I have found it intriguing to learn how Americans perceive themselves in this context. Although I've spent time in the States and discussed guns endlessly with Americans, it was always me -v- you guys if you like until I began to get a handle on the American perspective. Then, of course, I found out I really enjoyed shooting! So since then I've been having endless discussions with Brits ... ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
-------------------- 'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
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.)
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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Amazing Grace
![](http://forum.shipoffools.com/custom_avatars/0095.gif) High Church Protestant
# 95
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Posted
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
-------------------- WTFWED? "Remember to always be yourself, unless you suck" - the Gator Memory Eternal! Sheep 3, Phil the Wise Guy, and Jesus' Evil Twin in the SoF Nativity Play
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Bullfrog.
![](http://forum.shipoffools.com/custom_avatars/11014.jpg) Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote: I have NEVER suggested or thought that every person in the country underwent anything comparable to my cultural experience with guns. I do not deny your experience, and I do not doubt your anecdotes. But it is a straw man to suggest that "culture" only applies to experience universally shared by every single person in the country. I DO believe that my experience was shared, with appropriate individual variation, by the vast majority of males my age or older, from coast to coast. That's pretty compelling as a national culture to my eyes.
That's only an assertion. There are a few people in my family who grew up in that culture, but I would not say that that was all of us, or even a significant majority.
Again, you're taking a part of US culture and generalizing it to the whole, IMO.
Or are you saying that liberal gun control fanatics are un-American...?
-------------------- Some say that man is the root of all evil Others say God's a drunkard for pain Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Littlelady
Shipmate
# 9616
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by TubaMirum: Are we a "horse culture," then?
No, that's Ireland. And I'm very glad, too, because thanks to Ireland being a horse culture I won £170 on the Grand National last weekend.
quote: Does this mean I'm irretrievably violent?
Nope. Just that you had some out there fantasies as a kid!
quote: Does it mean we live in a "Greek God" culture
Well, some of your men ...
quote: or a "bow and arrow" culture, or even in a "hunting culture"?
No more than us. But ours is getting squeezed what with the ban on fox hunting recently and no doubt the grouse and deer hunters will be getting it next. The campaigners even mumble about fishing. If you do have a hunting culture and you enjoy hunting then my advice would be: be proud! You could be living in the UK.
Not that I don't like my country, you understand. It's just a bit of a pain in the ass living here if you like anything remotely un-fluffy bunny.
-------------------- 'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by tclune:
I find Sabine's notion that every single person in the country must partake in order for something to be part of the American culture not just wrong-headed but absurd.
Tom, I did not say that or mean that or believe that. I do, however, think that anything that would be cultural at a national level would be part of the socialization of all children. Whether they partake or not is up to them. Many of us have been socialized and gone on in life to change.
I'm sorry my thoughts appear absurd to you. I don't feel the same way about yours.
sabine
-------------------- "Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
Posts: 5887 | From: the US Heartland | Registered: Dec 2002
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
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
-------------------- "Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
Posts: 5887 | From: the US Heartland | Registered: Dec 2002
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by sabine: I'm wondering why the male-oriented, cowboy, gun-bonding-with-dad image keeps coming up in this thread as if it represents all of us?
I don't deny it or it's power for boys and men, and perhaps some women, but I wonder how we can discuss a perceived national gun culture and not use more diverse examples.
sabine
Ask most people in New York City, or in any other urban area, if they had this background.
The answer is no. In tclune's era, and in mine (which I think are the same, generally), New York and other large cities - and their suburbs - in America were populated by millions and millions of immigrants from other places: Europe and Asia, mostly.
Almost none of these people were cowboys or hunters; almost all of them were here to improve their lot in life. The focus was on working, getting ahead, and doing well in school so that you would do better than your parents did.
tclune may come from a different culture, but that was mine. I wish he'd stop telling us who we are....
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Littlelady:
quote: Originally posted by sabine: That's too bad because polarization and highly emotional responses based on annecdotal reports prevents any productive discussion from happening.
Sabine, I disagree really. Most of the contributors to this thread have been Americans and Brits, and I really think you couldn't get two more diverse stands on the issue of guns in the world. We're just at two totally opposite starting points. Given that reality the discussion on here I think has been interesting and informative.
I'm a bit unusual as a Brit because my year in America enabled me to understand where Americans (of all political shades) are coming from on this issue. It helped that I began as someone pro-American and inquisitive - I asked lots of questions and challenged strongly during discussion (mostly with gun-owning, hunting men!). It's perfectly possible to appreciate the opposite view but it takes a long time for people from different ends of the spectrum to reach that position, IMO. To then move on to a discussion about how to tackle the problems arising from gun abuse (on either side of the Atlantic, as it's increasing here) is going to take more than a few pages of a thread on the Ship to achieve!
Also, I think anecdotal reports are actually very relevant to this particular debate since the OP referred to a perception - of America being a gun culture. We can all cite stats and expert opinion to our hearts content but when we are dealing with perceptions then these are based very much upon individual subjective experience. If such is devalued then how can the two overall positions (plus the variations represented within those positions) ever be understood? But perhaps I am missing your point.
I think you are missing my point a bit. There may be two different starting points (I'm not completely on board with that, but for the sake of discussion....), but I think there is middle ground and several of us on this thread are in that middle ground. And yet, our posts seem to anger other posters and our words are taken to signify support for things that perhaps we don't mean or support. Of course, I can only legitimately talk for myself, but I suspect that others in the middle ground would agree with certain things.
There may be gun issues, there may be iconic, deeply embedded gun stuff among certain members of our society, there may be issues of violence and etc.
But to say that this constitutes an overarching gun culture requires more than just annecdotal reports.
But I suspect I'm not going to get this message across to those who don't want to consider it. No discussion is fruitful until there can be some sort of common ground, including definitions. As it stands, this thread is highly charged, aggressive at points, and fueled by lots of personal experience.
And I have no problem with personal experience whatsoever--it is what the story of our lives is made of. But to generalize to a whole nation based on personal experience is an extremely subjective way of looking at things.
If anything, I am trying to advocate for a way that we can each tell our tale and learn from each other--but repeatedly, my attempts have been seen as debate rather than attempts at discussion.
We Quakers are trained from an early age to be in it for the long haul when it comes to trying to find a way to settle differences, and I've stuck around on this thread for longer than I thought I would. I took the time to write a rather long post which hasn't even made more than a blip on the radar. I think perhaps I've done about as much as I can do to try to have a reasoned discussion.
And when it comes right down to it, I work with people who have seen or experienced violence on a level that few of us here will ever know.
I wish all you well in your attempts to be heard and to influence each other. I've read some amazing things on this thread, from many different perspectives.
This thread reinforces my own resolve that violence and the tools of violence are a major issue of our time and I hope someday to live in a world where we aren't so quick to use either.
sabine
-------------------- "Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
Posts: 5887 | From: the US Heartland | Registered: Dec 2002
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Lee12
Apprentice
# 10910
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Posted
A link to a report on this subject from MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18247971/
As you'd expect, more American women and minorities are favorable to gun control; more white males are against it.
More Democrats than Republicans favor gun control, but Democrats also want to appeal to a rural base, which does not want gun control.
Bottom line, IMNSHO, America will control guns when the Sahara freezes over.
-------------------- Jesus said unto them, "Whom do you say I am?" They replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of our very selfhood revealed." And Jesus replied, "What?"
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by sabine: I'm sorry my thoughts appear absurd to you.
I apologize for my rude remarks. I was feeling unduly defensive and reacting inappropriately. I have found your commnets gracious and thoughtful, and should have exercised the same care in my posting that you have shown.
--Tom Clune
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Littlelady
Shipmate
# 9616
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Posted
Sabine, you raise a number of good points in your post. I’ll just try to respond to two of them.
quote: There may be two different starting points (I'm not completely on board with that, but for the sake of discussion....), but I think there is middle ground and several of us on this thread are in that middle ground.
I’m not sure whether I was very clear earlier but I was referring specifically to the British and American starting points: the default British position is the absence of guns while the default American position is the presence of guns (as it stands now I mean). For example, your police are routinely armed. More of our police are now trained in weapons use, but it is still a specialist function within our police force: police do not routinely carry arms. America has a constitutional right to bear arms, Britain does not. That's the kind of thing I was thinking about when I referred to 'two different starting points'. I would suggest that these defaults (and others like them) do influence any discussion about guns and the perception of gun culture. But yes, on a broader basis, there is representation of middle ground on this thread.
quote: I have no problem with personal experience whatsoever--it is what the story of our lives is made of. But to generalize to a whole nation based on personal experience is an extremely subjective way of looking at things.
I agree 100%. I remember when I first got to know my Illinois friend of the shooting party story she had some very strange perceptions of Brits. We've been friends now for 10 years and her perceptions have totally changed in that time because I was the first Brit she actually knew and I didn't fit the stereotype (I haven't worn a bowler hat for a very long time!). Countering stereotypes and generalisations can be a useful outcome of the subjective experience. My own subjective experience tells me that! However, it can, as you suggest, also direct perceptions inaccurately.
I smiled when I read tclune’s story about his childhood cowboy games. I played similar games when a child, only mine was cowboys and indians, with appropriate clothing, toy silver pistols which fired ‘caps’ (creating a cool bang) and bows and arrows (with suckers on the end). Loads of children played the cowboys and indians game back then, but they don’t anymore. Does this mean the UK once had a gun culture but now doesn’t? I would say not. Cowboys and indians was just a once fashionable way of playing out the good –v- bad guys scenario that forms the basis for so many childhood games (and the cowboys and indians changed roles very often!). These days it’s all more likely to be played out on the computer. tclune was clearly brought up within a local culture that included guns; I wasn’t, yet I played a gun-based game; someone else in America won’t have experienced guns as part of childhood play and nor will many people in the UK. The marker is in the good –v- bad guys scenario, not the gun play itself IMO.
I would say the same about guns and American culture as a national concept. It is not the guns themselves which are a marker of American culture but the continued ongoing battle, if you like, between the various positions in relation to guns and gun use. That tension is, IMO, indicative of American culture as I perceive it. Alternatively, my own culture has a ‘ban it’ mentality whenever anything awful occurs. I have to say that I envy the freedom or determination or whatever quality it is that Americans have which provides them with the opportunity to thrash out these issues as citizens, rather than being subject to yet more regulation almost as a matter of course. Seeking greater regulation may appear to be a good solution when things are looking bad – and indeed in the case of the availability of guns in America it may be wise – but it is also sometimes a ‘be careful what you wish for’ moment.
-------------------- 'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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sabine
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# 3861
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by tclune: I apologize for my rude remarks. I was feeling unduly defensive and reacting inappropriately. I have found your commnets gracious and thoughtful, and should have exercised the same care in my posting that you have shown.
--Tom Clune
Thank you, Tom--this has been a difficult thread for all of us at times.
peace,
sabine
-------------------- "Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
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MerlintheMad
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# 12279
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quote: Originally posted by sabine: I'm wondering why the male-oriented, cowboy, gun-bonding-with-dad image keeps coming up in this thread as if it represents all of us?
I don't deny it or it's power for boys and men, and perhaps some women, but I wonder how we can discuss a perceived national gun culture and not use more diverse examples.
sabine
My personal example. My father has never owned a gun in his life, yet he comes from rural Utah. He never handled a gun that I know of. My brothers and sister also have never handled a gun even once that I know of.
I am the maverick in this respect: I purchased my first firearm at the age of 22: a .22 calibre Ruger 10/22 carbine. In my life, I have owned maybe a half dozen guns or more. Currently: the 10/22, a couple of handguns, and two shotguns. I seldom shoot anything. But I have gone out a few times with children (not all of them, it's been rather spotty "bonding" time with the guns).
I neither encourage nor discourage any of my kids from playing with toy guns: "airsoft" is the current favorite outdoor game in our neighborhood, and I look upon it favorably, letting our yard be the neighborhood "cops and robbers" playground.
I do not consider myself part of a gun culture at all. Guns in USA society are a fact of life, in the background for most people.
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CrookedCucumber
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# 10792
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I owned and regularly shot handguns about twenty years ago. I stopped doing so when I became worried about the company I was keeping. Now I know that I'm generalizing from my own particular experience, OK? So with that it mind...
I found handgun shooters in the UK to be rather paranoid and distrustful of society. Too many sentences in our conversations started with the paranoid they: they don't want... they won't let... they think we... and so on. There certainly was, although not a culture, a sub-culture of handgun owners in the UK. Politically they were fairly diverse, but all seemed to have some socio-political ideas in common.
(1) The Englishman's home is his castle. If you set foot in my house without my permission, I am entitled to hurt you.
(2) Society as a whole is too tolerant of crime and criminals.
(3) We need far fewer people in the UK (not necessarily fewer immigrants -- the gun owners I knew were not racist -- just fewer humans. Gun owners didn't like to share space with other folks, on the whole.
(4) Violence was OK so long as it was directed against `bad guys'.
There were other common values, I'm sure, but those are the ones I remember.
When there was talk of banning or regulating handguns, many gun owners made a big deal of how shooting was a sport, and harmless and innocent sportspersons were being victimized by society. But there are other sports that rely on the same mental and physical discipline that handgun shooting emphasises, which can legally be practiced in the UK. If you're that fond of your gun that you can't give it up, it isn't because you want to practice a sport with it, in my view.
As I said, a generalization, and a generalization from two decades back at that. But...
I would describe myself as peaceable, bordering on pacifist. It worried me that the character traits I found so disturbing in other gun owners might be ones that, subconsciously, I shared. So I laid down my guns, so to speak.
I guess I could legally own and shoot a rifle if I wanted to shoot. And I confess I have been tempted, from time to time. But, quite honestly, gun owners (in the UK) scare me. Although I enjoy shooting as a sport, I don't really want to be part of a group of people whom I find scary.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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quote: Originally posted by Alan Cresswell: Is there any cocnept of private prosecution in the States? If he could get the money, or find a lawyer willing to work and get a fee from any win, then he could have got the man charged with something - grievous bodily harm or attempted murder, at the very least sued for damages and compensation.
Having a gun for self-defense is one thing. Using that gun in a pre-meditated act (even one of 'justice') is a whole different kettle of fish.
Indeed. It would be attempted murder in this country, and AFAICS, rightly so.
-------------------- Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Twilight
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Re the rape victim. There has been some good evidence that nothing improves a victims sense of safety and empowerment like a good class in self-defense. There's nothing like re-enacting the event -- this time with skills like where and how to inflict debilitating pain on the would be attacker. Sense IRL the assault usually comes from behind and the gun-toting purse is the first thing to go flying, a woman is much better off knowing how to stomp her heel into his instep and poke her fingers in his eyes than how to shoot a gun.
Re the question of "Is America a gun culture"? This goes to my theory that the big, swaggering John Wayne types who claim that we won't get their guns until we pry them from their cold dead hands -- are really large mush wads. Whenever they think about guns their eyes tear-up, remembering the first time their daddy took them hunting. That's one of the main reasons this is such an emotional subject for some Americans. It is the defining 'bonding" moment for many American father/sons. If only they would accept the fact that they can do the same thing with a baseball and two gloves.
From the Telegraph: quote: Democrat leaders in Congress have asked the group to back a bill that would force the states to provide mental health records to the FBI, to prevent disturbed individuals buying guns.
This just infuriates me. We would give up our right to a private doctor, patient relationship, before we would give up our "right" to sell automatic handguns.
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Alan Cresswell
![](http://ship-of-fools.com/UBB/Avatars/admin.gif) Mad Scientist 先生
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quote: Originally posted by Twilight: From the Telegraph: quote: Democrat leaders in Congress have asked the group to back a bill that would force the states to provide mental health records to the FBI, to prevent disturbed individuals buying guns.
The implication of that Telegraph quote is that states already have some form of mental health records. It isn't asking doctors to give mental health records to the FBI. Presumably states already have a record of involuntary stays in a mental institution, without all the accompanying information about diagnosis etc that's confidential between doctor and patient. Committing someone else to a mental institution must involve some legal process, so the act of committal is in the public record.
I'm assuming that the bill in Congress is designed to close a potential loophole in the system that exists if people move between states (and then an application for a handgun license may not pick up on any relevant information known to the authorities where they previously lived). It doesn't seem unreasonable to put the enforcement of a federal law into the hands of a federable agency, and then ensure that that agency has access to all relevant information to do their job.
[just adding the quote cos I didn't realise this would be top of the page] [ 23. April 2007, 14:05: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
-------------------- Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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moron
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# 206
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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.
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Teufelchen
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# 10158
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206, I'm not about to shoot your theory down. It looks reasonable to me.
T.
-------------------- Little devil
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Alan Cresswell
![](http://ship-of-fools.com/UBB/Avatars/admin.gif) Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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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.
-------------------- Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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Littlelady
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# 9616
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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.
-------------------- 'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
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Littlelady
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# 9616
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Posted
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!)
-------------------- 'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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Horseman Bree
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# 5290
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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.
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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MerlintheMad
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# 12279
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quote: Originally posted by Horseman Bree: ISTM that I saw this summarised on a previous thread by Karl:Liberal Backslider in this manner:
"Americans tend to talk about how much safer they feel if they have a gun, while Brits tend to talk about how much less safe they feel if someone else has a gun".
Probably too much of a generalisation, but it fits the spirit of what was said above.
Isn't this just another way of revealing how different individual liberty is perceived? It goes back to the topic of origins: As I said in another thread weeks ago: America's "experiment" (first time in history) was with personal property. But better said, it was and is, all about individual liberty as compared to corporate liberty. Europe, the UK, et al, are all about corporate liberty. You have to show good reason why the government should allow you to have that gun. But in America, the government doesn't say: "Why do you have that gun?" Rather: "Why are you using that gun HERE?"
To change the perspective of Americans to that of Europeans about guns, you would have to redefine our concepts of individual liberty and ownership of private property.
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Soror Magna
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# 9881
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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
-------------------- "You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
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
-------------------- "Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
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Soror Magna
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# 9881
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Oops. My bad. Guess you'll have to shoot me. OliviaG
-------------------- "You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
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 ]
-------------------- "Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
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JonahMan
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# 12126
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Posted
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
-------------------- Thank God for the aged And old age itself, and illness and the grave For when you're old, or ill and particularly in the coffin It's no trouble to behave
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MerlintheMad
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# 12279
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by JonahMan: quote: Originally posted by MerlintheMad: Isn't this just another way of revealing how different individual liberty is perceived? It goes back to the topic of origins: As I said in another thread weeks ago: America's "experiment" (first time in history) was with personal property. But better said, it was and is, all about individual liberty as compared to corporate liberty. Europe, the UK, et al, are all about corporate liberty. You have to show good reason why the government should allow you to have that gun. But in America, the government doesn't say: "Why do you have that gun?" Rather: "Why are you using that gun HERE?"
To change the perspective of Americans to that of Europeans about guns, you would have to redefine our concepts of individual liberty and ownership of private property.
I'm interested to explore how this view squares with the Patriot Act which strikes me as infringing much more on personal liberty than stronger gun controls - I know that there was a lot of opposition to the act and to its continuation a few years later, but nevertheless it did become the law. This isn't a dig - I genuinely don't understand how this happened in a country which prides itself on its democratic principles and upholds the liberties of its citizens.
Jonah
The resistance to the Patriot Act (what a name!) is all about encroaching government upon individual liberty. Percisely. It was passed reluctantly, because greater national security was required in the face of perceived terrorist incursions, and, a need to facilitate the Fed in pursuing terrorist activities within our own borders. It has been used that way on the whole, afaict. I have not heard of any abuses of the FBI's "right" to enter a domicile without a search warrant, and seize people and property, etc. Had this occurred, there would be a hue and cry of outrage. The P.A. has been used to track down and arrest those with suspected terrorist activities. It could, if not repealed when no longer necessary (the promise, I believe, as part of passing it into law), become a tool of "legal" oppression for U. S. citizens and imigrants here.
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