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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: American 'gun culture' - fact or fiction?
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doctor-frog
small and green
# 2860
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I haven't been convinced by anything women on these boards have said, BTW; I am convinced, though, by the experience of my friend.
which is exactly why I hesitate to stamp on it. rape victims respond in as many different ways as there are women, and I see how deep this goes for you.
what I've said above, I stand by. But I'm not going to be the one to tell your friend she shouldn't have a gun in a country where it's allowed. I just hope she's sleeping better tonight than last night.
Posts: 981 | From: UK | Registered: May 2002
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
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
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doctor-frog
small and green
# 2860
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
However, I guarantee you, that telling me one of her opinions on guns could never convince me to generalize about her whole culture.
Well, then let me re-phrase. Granted for the sake of argument, it is not a 'typically' American response, it is all the same a very American response.
As I've said before, when the bodies in VT aren't even cold yet and the political discourse demands that the leaders come out within minutes to voice their antipathy to gun control, then what you have is a gun culture. It may not be the opinion of the majority of Americans any more than Stalinism was the preference of the average East German -- but they had a communist culture, if nothing else but by virtue of who ran the show, and until this silent majority of Americans changes the political discourse on handguns, there will indeed be a gun culture in America.
Posts: 981 | From: UK | Registered: May 2002
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Jason™
Host emeritus
# 9037
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
I find your response to my observation puzzling. Not only was it not intended to be snide, for the life of me I can't see what you are viewing as snide.
There was no fury, it was more like disappointment.
I (perhaps wrongly, I see) saw your comment as a way to subtly interject a patronizing "Yes, yes, some of you think it's not a gun culture, but as we can see by all of you who think you shouldn't outlaw guns, it obviously is, so we're getting what we wanted." If it's not how you meant it, then just consider it a response to how it sounded to some.
Posts: 4123 | From: Land of Mary | Registered: Feb 2005
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
I guess there is a pond difference thing here - and also perhaps a failure to realise how vast and various the US is. Statistically, however, the UK had gun ownership of 0.1% prior to the 1997 ban on handguns. US gun ownership appears to run at about 30% with just under 50% of households having a gun. (Because of the size of the US, of course, there could be some places where guns are relatively few and far between, and others where they are much more common)
From a culture where fewer than one person in a thousand owns a gun, a culture where three out of every ten people own a gun and a firearm can be found in almost half the households looks like a gun culture - at least in common parlance if not in the technical terms of anthropology.
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Except as TubaMirum has proved over and over and over, she doesn't live in a gun culture although some Americans do.
I t hink the main solution to this problem is for people throughout the world to admit that not everyone is the same. If you love guns, please remember most of America doesn't. If you hate guns, please remember most of America agrees.
Oh, absolutely I agree that not everybody is the same. But this is in Tuba's own words:/
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
My argument is simply that a person should not be prevented from purchasing a weapon for self-defense ...
Elsewhere she suggested that British women who'd been attacked should resent not having them readily available.
This from someone who has made all the other remarks (which, to correct my own wrongs, I've just gone back and read far more closely in this rapidly-expanding thread; and I see she's said more than I gave her credit for).
Notwithstanding that, other people have said that here in the UK, it wouldn't even occur to us to go out and buy a gun. Still others have suggested that victims of crime (including rape) have many options, of which the gun is merely one.
In that light, Tuba's insistence that they *should* be available to all --and the assumption that we should resent not having them -- is exactly what I meant when I stated in the OP that there's a gun culture in the US -- and, to clarify, I think it goes beyond ownership. It's the tolerance and passive acceptance of that they're out there and *should* be out there that I find problematic.
Look, Frog-Doctor: do me a favor and read, and report on, what I actually say and stop misquoting and ellipsing out what you don't like.
I've said - not once, but about 4 times now - that I support gun control, licensing, testing, registration, etc. I've said that they don't sell guns in Wal-Mart here, to counter your argument that that was ubiquitous. I've said that I don't live in a "gun culture." I've said that the VA Governor's remark was likely a refusal to get into the "gun control debate" two days after the incident. You refuse, apparently, to listen, because you're so intent on pushing your own ideology - but that's not my problem.
And BTW, I haven't heard one person here say that they - or their friends - had been violently raped but wouldn't consider purchasing a gun. I'm simply not convinced by anything I've heard here.
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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Jason™
Host emeritus
# 9037
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
I make the following assumption:
human nature ---> violent tendencies sometimes.
then, all other factors being equal ...
violent tendencies --> guns in America --> violent attacks and more gun crime
equal amount of violent tendencies for the sake of argument --> not so many guns in Europe --> violent attacks of the same level of viciousness, but not so much damage, because available weapons not nearly as efficient at doing their job.
So, you're saying that your opinion is that guns are causing the crime, and I'm saying it could be that the level of violent crime is driving the need for guns.
I find it hard to believe that if Cho Seung-Hui lived in the UK that he'd said to himself "I'd really like to make a name for myself by causing mass terror and destruction, but it's just so hard to get a gun around here. I guess I'll just settle with killing one or two kids with a knife and that'll be that."
Like many have said, the fact that there are people who are so bent on killing many people -- that's the problem. It's not the guns. The guns, the violent video games, the blaming of teachers who "didn't see it coming", these are all distractions and scapegoats used for coping.
I'm confused about the idea of "availability", too. It seems to me that a person who is prepared to kill people would usually be willing to go to whatever lengths necessary to procure him/herself a gun. We've outlawed alcohol in the past and various drugs currently, and we all know how well that's working.
quote:
quote:
First of all, the problem isn't "guns that are available in Wal-Mart".
oh, yes it is.
Well, that's certainly a compelling argument.
You made an assumption ("If the problem is that guns are available in Wal-Mart, then...") that wouldn't be accepted as a premise by most of the people you're arguing with.
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
My assumption is:
Fewer available guns --> Less use of guns in violent crime
and
Less use of guns in violent crime --> fewer deaths
Again, availability. How exactly do we limit the availability of guns? Law-abiding citizens may turn theirs in and refrain from buying or selling new ones. With violent crime under consideration, though, it'd be the not law-abiding citizens I'd be concerned with.
Posts: 4123 | From: Land of Mary | Registered: Feb 2005
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
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.
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doctor-frog
small and green
# 2860
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Look, Frog-Doctor: do me a favor and read, and report on, what I actually say and stop misquoting and ellipsing out what you don't like.
Same applies -- errm ... would that MirumTuba?
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
This from someone who has made all the other remarks (which, to correct my own wrongs, I've just gone back and read far more closely in this rapidly-expanding thread; and I see she's said more than I gave her credit for).
by which i meant the kind of thing you summarise here:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I've said - not once, but about 4 times now - that I support gun control, licensing, testing, registration, etc. I've said that they don't sell guns in Wal-Mart here, to counter your argument that that was ubiquitous. I've said that I don't live in a "gun culture." I've said that the VA Governor's remark was likely a refusal to get into the "gun control debate" two days after the incident.
and again ...
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
And BTW, I haven't heard one person here say that they - or their friends - had been violently raped but wouldn't consider purchasing a gun. I'm simply not convinced by anything I've heard here.
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
which is exactly why I hesitate to stamp on it. rape victims respond in as many different ways as there are women, and I see how deep this goes for you.
what I've said above, I stand by. But I'm not going to be the one to tell your friend she shouldn't have a gun in a country where it's allowed. I just hope she's sleeping better tonight than last night.
Posts: 981 | From: UK | Registered: May 2002
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
As I've said before, when the bodies in VT aren't even cold yet and the political discourse demands that the leaders come out within minutes to voice their antipathy to gun control, then what you have is a gun culture.
Then you misunderstand what a culture is. What you are describing is political pressure.
quote:
It may not be the opinion of the majority of Americans any more than Stalinism was the preference of the average East German -- but they had a communist culture, if nothing else but by virtue of who ran the show, and until this silent majority of Americans changes the political discourse on handguns, there will indeed be a gun culture in America.
Running the show does not a culture make. That's politics, not culture.
And from tclune:
quote:
But I disagree with you and Sabine that this is a subculture. I was in a subculture when I was a druggie in the '60s. That was characterized by an identification as opposed to the rest of society (in that case, youth vs "grown-ups"). The gun culture has been pervasive enough that people have not felt that they were doing something "counter-cultural" in teaching their kids how to shoot and hunt.
There are many sub-cultures that are not "counter-cultural" in the sense that you are describing.
There are so many disturbing things about gun use in the world, why are is it so important that we continue to debate this as if we're finally showing up the evil underbelly?
Can't we move on to thinking about how to stop violence? In my work I see the results of people who've lived with a much greater degree of weapon use and acceptance than we will ever see here or in the UK.
so my questions are: Why is it so important to portray the US as a "gun culture?" Why? With a world in chaos, why is this stereotype so precious that it needs to be defended through four pages of a thread? What is being gained? What is being contributed to any solutions?
I've asked these questions before, and so far, the discussion continues along the lines of exposé. Sigh....
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
sabine
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"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 tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
On a different note, those of you who insist the USA is all one monolithic gun culture, would you call every other feature that represents a large minority to be a culture?
I don't know about monlithic, but it is a gun culture to my eyes. What I mean is that every socio-economic class in every area of the country has been brought up with guns and gun ideation (for lack of a better word). A male child who was not given toy guns like girls are gvien dolls was almost assuredly raised by parents who were consciously opting out of the culture. I am in my fifties. Of my age group, I doubt that one male in a hundred has never shot a gun. And that is apart from military service.
I think that it is becoming rarer for males to actually be trained in the use of firearms outside the military, unless they specifically seek it out. But, until very recently, a father would see to it that his son knew the basics of handling a firearm as surely as he would teach him how to catch and throw a baseball.
I would hope that the cultural component of firearms would be subsiding. But I disagree with you and Sabine that this is a subculture. I was in a subculture when I was a druggie in the '60s. That was characterized by an identification as opposed to the rest of society (in that case, youth vs "grown-ups"). The gun culture has been pervasive enough that people have not felt that they were doing something "counter-cultural" in teaching their kids how to shoot and hunt. At least not among my northern middle-class peers. My understanding is that the south and west are just more-so.
--Tom Clune
So a "gun culture" is anyplace that doesn't express shock and horror about the fact that guns exist, then? Or that doesn't ban them completely?
Sorry, I think that's completely off-the-wall. Guns have always simply been tools. Fathers taught kids to use them in order to hunt; we didn't grow up in a rural area so that didn't happen in my household. I shot rifles at camp 30 years ago - and yet somehow I've never even considered shooting a person. After 9/11, I considered buying a gun, to tell you the truth - but I didn't.
If I moved to the country, though, I'd probably buy a shotgun myself. (I'd probably buy a better snow shovel, too. Does that make us a "snow shovel" culture, too?)
Why IS the purpose of this thread? If somebody wanted to talk about gun-control issues, that would at least be constructive. As it is, this appears to be just more gasbag rhetoric and finger-pointing. "Gun culture" my hind foot....
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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Lee12
Apprentice
# 10910
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Posted
I am Ohio resident who owns no guns, and I certainly agree that the US has a gun culture. As several on the board have said, guns have an "iconic" significance in America, primarily among men. Americans are quite at ease with registering and regulating their cars, driver's licenses and dogs, but a very strong minority become nearly hysterical at the thought of registering and regulating guns. That this reaction bears no relation to logic is shown by the fact that guns are involved in the deaths of a great many more people than are, say, drugs, yet "everyone" agrees it is essential to regulate drugs. For many people in this country, guns = masculinity.
I also don't think we should underestimate the influence of the NRA. They are extremely wealthy and make large contributions to our politicians. They are also extremely vocal, and anyone who opposes this powerful lobby must submit to the most vicious attacks and ridicule. Furthermore, the NRA are what the tobacco lobby used to be -- the "rabid racoons" of litigation. For instance, last year, Ohio tried to pass a modest little law focused on protecting police who have to search the cars of people they stop for possible criminal activity. The law proposed that, *if* the car's occupants had permits to carry weapons, the weapons must be displayed openly when the police came to search the car. The NRA was nearly hysterical at the thought of even this very minor restriction on a person's "right" to do whatever he wanted to do with his gun. The lobby put such intense pressure on the legislators *and* on the Ohio sheriff's association that the final bill passed, with the reluctant agreement of law enforcement, stated that the guns in a car didn't have to be openly displayed, but could in fact be hidden in the glove compartment if that's what the gun owner wanted to do with them. Apparently the right of a cop to survive a criminal encounter is trumped by the right of anyone who buys a gun to have his sovereign will with it.
Most Americans who think like me, however, have pretty much given up hoping to fight the NRA and its attendant gun culture. This most recent scene at VT will doubtless stir a few people up to try again to limit the spread of guns, but the gun lobby will triumph yet again. It's been a quarter century since John Hinckley shot Mr. Reagan and Mr. Brady, and if that horror didn't result in any changes, surely the lives of a few dozen innocent students will mean nothing at all.
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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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doctor-frog
small and green
# 2860
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Professor Kirke:
So, you're saying that your opinion is that guns are causing the crime, and I'm saying it could be that the level of violent crime is driving the need for guns.
errrm. no, Professor. I thought my flow chart made that clear.
I'm saying that human nature / human violence / the Fall of Humanity / Beelzebub whatever you want to call the evil side of human instinct -- that's whats causing the crime and the desire for violence.
After that I'm saying that, given the same human nature that applies worldwide, crime is therefore more efficient and deadly when more criminals can get their hands on guns. Or militaries or what have you. (To wit: the US military has the biggest defence budget on the planet, and consequently overwhelmingly the most killing power of any army.)
Posts: 981 | From: UK | Registered: May 2002
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Why IS the purpose of this thread? If somebody wanted to talk about gun-control issues, that would at least be constructive. As it is, this appears to be just more gasbag rhetoric and finger-pointing. "Gun culture" my hind foot....
I've asked this question several times (and in the post right before this one). For the life of me, I can't understand why it's so urgent that the US be defined as a "gun culture."
I'm in the business of culture, sub-cultures, and working with people who have suffered terribly, horribly and irreversably within true and pervasive mileux of weapon use--all outside the borders of the US.
In light of that, to have a thread like this seems almost unbelievable in it's reluctance to give up on the stereotype.
sabine
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
...and I might add, slow to give up on language that perpetuates the stereotype and slows down true discource.
s.
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
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Jason™
Host emeritus
# 9037
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
given the same human nature that applies worldwide
Do you think there could be factors that would exacerbate this nature in certain ways and make it more volatile or even more violent?
Is the availability of guns the only factor you'd consider to have any effect on human nature's tendency toward violence?
My answers (obviously) are yes, no.
Posts: 4123 | From: Land of Mary | Registered: Feb 2005
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Professor Kirke:
I find it hard to believe that if Cho Seung-Hui lived in the UK that he'd said to himself "I'd really like to make a name for myself by causing mass terror and destruction, but it's just so hard to get a gun around here. I guess I'll just settle with killing one or two kids with a knife and that'll be that."
He would certainly have found it very difficult to go out and buy one of these.
Without a rigourous police check and demonstrating a genuine need and first obtaining a licence, he would not have been able to buy anything legitimately - and in the UK not a handgun at all.
He'd have had to get involved with illegal and dangerous dealers, pay cash up front and would be unlikely to have obtained anything like a semi-automatic.
As it was he just walked into a store and made his purchase with little more difficulty and at no greater cost than buying, say, a laptop computer.
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
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doctor-frog
small and green
# 2860
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Professor Kirke:
Do you think there could be factors that would exacerbate this nature in certain ways and make it more volatile or even more violent?
Is the availability of guns the only factor you'd consider to have any effect on human nature's tendency toward violence?
My answers (obviously) are yes, no.
Same answers here.
I agree, e.g., with sabine that Uganda is one example. Darfur is another. And these are both places where suffering happens far more than in America. And I agree with her -- and presumably you -- that it would be a fine thing to discuss these things / other causes / etc. on this thread. (I don't want the 'gun culture' debate to get too repetitive or devolve into a pissing war.)
My OP was specifically in response to specific comments about 'gun culture' in America on a different thread, which is, I suppose, why it's played out focussing on America. It was kind of the point.
But, no -- I certainly don't think guns are the *only* factor. That doesn't change my view, however, that they are more freely available in the US than they should be and that medicine for the symptoms is often as valuable a step as medicine for the underlying cause.
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Why IS the purpose of this thread? If somebody wanted to talk about gun-control issues, that would at least be constructive. As it is, this appears to be just more gasbag rhetoric and finger-pointing. "Gun culture" my hind foot....
I've asked this question several times (and in the post right before this one). For the life of me, I can't understand why it's so urgent that the US be defined as a "gun culture."
sabine
I know. It's empty political rhetoric, I'd say.
I guess we're talking to the walls, essentially. I live in the urban Northeast, and nobody thinks about guns, much - except when they're talking about gun control. Most people want there to be way, way fewer guns around than there are; they want the gangs gone and to have less fear in their lives. So I find this conversation pretty strange, too.
The 9/11 hijackers killed 3,000 with box-cutters. And again: cars kill far more people than guns do - but you can get a bigger rise out of people about guns, I guess, both for and against. Especially right after one of these incidents, which have in fact occurred all over the world.
The difference is in the culture, but they won't listen....
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
Can't we move on to thinking about how to stop violence? In my work I see the results of people who've lived with a much greater degree of weapon use and acceptance than we will ever see here or in the UK.
so my questions are: Why is it so important to portray the US as a "gun culture?" Why? With a world in chaos, why is this stereotype so precious that it needs to be defended through four pages of a thread? What is being gained? What is being contributed to any solutions?
I've asked these questions before, and so far, the discussion continues along the lines of exposé. Sigh....
sabine
The reason that I think that it's important to recognize the cultural component more than the legal ownership issue is that the gun culture is corrosive to my way of thinking. Without recognizing that it exists, we cannot begin to be intentional about our approach to the issue of gun violence. Let me give you a couple of examples:
When I was younger, I worked armed security. I had to stop because I found that I had a real attitude when I was wearing a gun. My response to people arguing with me was to get angry, which was not my normal response to such things. I know that many people can wear a gun and not feel that they are "owed respect," but I was not one of them. And I don't think that I am alone in that. The gun made me more aggressive, pure and simple.
If you say "Say hello to my little friend!," or "Are you talking to me? You must be talking to me, because there's nobody else here," or "Do you feel lucky, punk?" everyone knows the reference, and an awful lot of people think of these things as the height of cool. Guns really do allow people who feel marginalized to feel powerful. And that is something that I share with the VT killer. This is not just a psychological problem -- it is a security issue that the gun helps create.
Until we stop thinking of guns as our savior, we are going to be awash in violence. Yes, most folks have enough of a "regulator" on their behavior to not shoot the guy who cuts them off in traffic. But the seduction toward violence of gun ownership is real and dangerous. We need to acknowledge that excess within us, and choose how we will respond to it.
That is why I keep harping on the cultural aspect of guns in our society. I am under no illusion that we will enter the new Jerusalem if we only outlaw guns, but focusing on our fascination with them is an important part of our spiritual growth ISTM.
--Tom Clune
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
Would it perhaps be more accurate to say there is a 'gun culture' in America, than America is a 'gun culture'?
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
Would it perhaps be more accurate to say there is a 'gun culture' in America, than America is a 'gun culture'?
How very judicious of you! I would be fine with that characterization.
--Tom Clune
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
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. ![[Smile]](smile.gif) but I am glad to see this:
quote:
But, no -- I certainly don't think guns are the *only* factor. That doesn't change my view, however, that they are more freely available in the US than they should be and that medicine for the symptoms is often as valuable a step as medicine for the underlying cause.
This is a reasonable statement to make, has very little to do with so-called "gun culture" and opens the door to some discussion.
I'm pretty much a gun control gal myself--world-wide. Not only do I think we should exercise some control over the access to personal use of guns, but also to the arms trade, which puts a lot of guns into play.
How to do this when there are big bucks to be made by selling weapons is beyond me at the moment. The arms trade is someting that many countries are involved in. Making money is always alluring, and there are people who don't care that they make money by selling death machines (large and small).
Anger, hostility, vengeance, and cruelty will always exists--the issue is how to make it harder to inflict those things on innocent people.
I sense a discussion about how to control the sale of weapons is really another thread.
sabine
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
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.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Many of the posters from the US on these boards appear to be offended or in some way upset that the rest of us don't see it their way, but, hey, we don't live there. Its just how we see it. Lump it.
But why should we care how you see it, since as you say, you don't live here and, futher, won't listen to what we're saying?
You seem offended when we say that, though. Lump it yourself.
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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doctor-frog
small and green
# 2860
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Posted
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.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
and to everything you said in that post.
Posts: 981 | From: UK | Registered: May 2002
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
The reason that I think that it's important to recognize the cultural component more than the legal ownership issue is that the gun culture is corrosive to my way of thinking. Without recognizing that it exists, we cannot begin to be intentional about our approach to the issue of gun violence.
Tom, I think you may have misunderstood me. I'm not asking us to stop talking about the issue--I'm asking us to stop generalizing and misidentifying the issue so we can talk more productively.
As someone who works with culture and also with the victims of weapon violence, I think we do not support a good discussion of how to solve things if we don't first get our definitions clear.
And, in fact, I have already said on this thread that I think we *should* focus our attention on gun issues.
The rest of your post was spot on....even if it doesn't support the idea that there is a gun culture, it sure makes a case for the power of weapons and our (universal "our") relationship with them. Something needs to be done to make it less enticing to use weapons as a method of first resort.
sabine
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"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
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
The purpose of this thread would seem to be to illustrate two opposing views.
People outside the US (and some fraction of the population inside) see the US as an overall culture which includes the having of guns as a defining characteristic. Not everyone has this characteristic, but enough do that outsiders see it that way.
The vast majority of those in the US see themelves as aware that guns are a significant part of their "culture" (again, not everyone....) but that this is no big deal...to them.
To most people outside the US, the huge availability and carrying/usage of guns is peculair at best and threatening at worst. To those inside the US, the presence of guns is something you have to get used to/be resigned to.
Many of the posters from the US on these boards appear to be offended or in some way upset that the rest of us don't see it their way, but, hey, we don't live there. Its just how we see it. Lump it.
This post is filled with inaccuracies and yet at the end, there is a posturing, defiant statement. I'm reminded of a schoolyard for some reason.
sabine
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
Posts: 5887 | From: the US Heartland | Registered: Dec 2002
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doctor-frog
small and green
# 2860
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Posted
[edited out knee-jerk pissing contest response to TubaMirum.]
[ 19. April 2007, 23:23: Message edited by: doctor-frog ]
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
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
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
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doctor-frog
small and green
# 2860
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Posted
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!
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
Actually, I may not get back to this before you get back to the thread (time diff and all) but I will reply.
sabine
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
Posts: 5887 | From: the US Heartland | Registered: Dec 2002
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
On a different note, those of you who insist the USA is all one monolithic gun culture, would you call every other feature that represents a large minority to be a culture? For instance, is Britain an Asian-culture (in your sense of the world Asian not ours) since a large minority of Brits are Asian?
Depends what you call a large minority. Less than 8% of the population is from an ethnic minority - 4% Asian ethnic minority.
So you agree that if that figure rises to 30% you will consider yourself to live in an Asian culture even if you happen to live in a place where there are almost no Asians? To get a better example, I just picked mirrizin's brain: If thirty percent of your population is rural does that mean that someone who lives in an inner city ghetto lives in a rural culture?
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
When you talk about a Virginian "gun culture," are you referring to rural western VA or the DC suburbs?
Because those are two very very distinct cultures.
I know because I grew up in Maryland, which has a similar divide between its rural west and its urban east.
We're a salad bowl, not a melting pot.
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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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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
So you agree that if that figure rises to 30% you will consider yourself to live in an Asian culture even if you happen to live in a place where there are almost no Asians? To get a better example, I just picked mirrizin's brain: If thirty percent of your population is rural does that mean that someone who lives in an inner city ghetto lives in a rural culture?
No, I would probably say I lived in a country in which there was an Asian culture. (Incidentally if the 30% were so distributed that almost half the households in the country included an Asian member I might be hard put to say that I did not live in an Asian culture.) But I think raw numbers are only part of the issue in whether there is 'a culture'.
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
from me:
quote:
Anyway, I find the issue of how to dissuade people from thinking of weapons as the essential tool for solving problems much more engaging.
I wish I had more answers. Mostly, I rely on my faith witness, which probably won't go down well on a heated thread.
But we've finally got a conversation going, I think. That's progress.
from Doctor-Frog:
quote:
and, damn, here it's half-past midnight and i'm up way past my bedtime!
elaborate on some of that, and I'll look forward to responding to you in the morning!
I like where we left this, and wasn't sure I could respond this evening, but looking at tomorrow's schedule, I realize I will have much less flexibility for posting. So I'll say a few things tonight and hope to respond to your response later.
Any weapon is an efficient tool of power, IMO. Even chimpanzees know this. So it seems to me that in thinking about how to discourage people from abusing power with weapons, we have to think about power itself (or the perceived lack of it).
And we also have to separate out people who collect weapons but don't use them, people who feel the need to protect themselves but use the weapon mostly as reasurrance (i.e, don't use them as weapons), people who defend the citizenry and more often than not, are able to do that without using their weapons, etc. There are people who have access to weapons who don't abuse those weapons or have violent lifestyles.
The ones who do have violent lifestyles and have abused the weapons at their disposal are another matter. It's a complicated subject.
In the first place (but not most important, IMO) we have a media portrayal of impulsive responses that lead to a perception that people are likely to go off in a New York minute. In the developed world, we are bombarded (to use a violent metaphor) with this sort of image.
I was talking with a friend who lives in a small town that receives television news from the large city where I live. Her perception is that nothing much happens up here except car jackings, killings, bank robberies, etc. Why? Because that's what the news reports.
So, much of what people come to see as the "reality" of, say, the United States can be media driven. However, before someone jumps in and responds, let me say that I am *not* simply blaming the media.
There is also a way to obtain weapons. Weapon sales and trading exist on an informal underground basis, a formal above board basis, a covert international basis, and an above board international basis. Weapons are currancy and a means to wealth or power (depending on the situation). Even many indigenous people--who are so often portrayed as peaceful and close to the earth--understand the weapon as symbol of and tool of power.
I think it's more helpful to look at power and situations in which power comes into play to find answers to the violence that people put forth into the world with weapons.
Power is a complicated thing--part emotion, part talent, part skill. It can be used for the good, the bad, the ugly, or for the edification and uplifting of humankind.
It's my opinion that the more secure a person is with his/her sense of power (esp. inner power) the less that person will want to abuse power with a weapon. I'm not saying that people who own weapons are not secure in their own power--it's the abuse that seems tied to the power issue in my mind.
We all compensate for our perceived shortcomings in various ways. Using a weapon to commit a crime or oppress an entire population can be a compensation for power issues--or similarly, control issues, impulse control issues, grandiosity, etc.
Further, when people begin to see that their society requires certain things in order for a person to be considered a member in good standing of that society, but also see that they are systematically being denied the opportunity to obtain these things or achieve or bring themselves up, there is a kind of frustration that can go many ways--apathy, self-distruction, finding a "power tool" (and I'm not talking home improvement here). Many drift into the mistaken idea that owning a gun and using it to get what they need/want is a way to compensate for the power that society is denying them.
From a faith perspective, I believe that each person has within him/her a Divine Light, the Light of God, and it's my responsibility to attempt to treat each person accordingly. I don't measure up many days, but it's an ideal. But I often wonder how to encourage others (especially those who have given up or who are in the midst of a grandiose scheme of power lust) to see that they have the same Light within as everyone else.
When I think of something like ethnic cleansing, the use of child soldiers, etc. I have to ask myself, what happened that people came to feel that it was ok to kill and maim others simply because they are different?
And who is supplying the weapons? I doubt if there is a developed country that is not in some way implicated in arms trading, even if they are not doing the actual trading--there are many ways to support arms trading. Untangling that web would be difficult.
So, when I see a thread about how one country has a "gun culture" and I also see people who have actually taken up refuge in that country to get away from a more deeply engrained sense of using weapons for violence, I feel the need to speak up and suggest that labeling is the least effective way to deal with a very troubling issue, one that can be challenging to people of faith.
I was at a regional Peace and Justice Summit last weekend and bought a button that said Blessed are the peacemakers. I know, fluffy-wuffy idealism. But, until each of us in our own way (gun owner or not--wherever we are in the various lineages of religion)....until each of us makes it a point to commit some portion of their energy, no matter how seemingly insignificant, to putting Sermon on the Mount issues into even five minutes of the day, then....
...weapons will continue to have the shiny promise of a quick and easy way to get rid of what's troubling us. And I'm sure there will always be people who feel better tearing others down in order to feel better about themselves.
I much prefer taking a bit more time (like four pages of a thread) and finally arriving at a point where I'm having a conversation with someone I was previously having a disagreement.
But that's just me.
sabine
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
Posts: 5887 | From: the US Heartland | Registered: Dec 2002
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the_raptor
Shipmate
# 10533
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Posted
Excellent post Sabine.
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Mal: look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoe: Big damn heroes, sir!
Mal: Ain't we just?
— Firefly
Posts: 3921 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2005
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Littlelady
Shipmate
# 9616
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Professor Kirke:
I find it hard to believe that if Cho Seung-Hui lived in the UK that he'd said to himself "I'd really like to make a name for myself by causing mass terror and destruction, but it's just so hard to get a gun around here. I guess I'll just settle with killing one or two kids with a knife and that'll be that."
You'd be right to be skeptical. Either he'd have an idea of where to get one illegally or, as in the case of Dunblane, he would already be a legitimate gun owner. Alternatively, he'd build a bomb.
Getting a gun legally in the UK isn't difficult, it's just a hassle and one that most people don't even think about attempting. On the whole us English are either terrified of guns and that's why we tend to go off on one whenever we hear of a shooting incident stateside: that and some Brits do love feeling superior if they possibly can.
I spent a year living in Virginia. I saw only one gun in the whole of that time, and I asked to see that one. A friend of my then boyfriend had a few handguns. I had never seen a handgun in real life so I wanted to see his meanest and have a hold, etc (he made sure the chamber was empty first!). I was aware when I first lived there that people around me could be packing but I got used to the idea and life became just the same as back home.
I also shot my first gun in the States on a return visit, that time to Illinois, where my friend had half a dozen shotguns and she organised a shooting party in her back yard. It was great fun but kind of surreal - and I had a tendency to shoot the apples off the tree belonging to a next door neighbour. Had me and my mates decided to have a shooting party in my back yard here in England no doubt we would have all been arrested.
I think both the US and the UK have gun cultures, but very different ones. In the UK it is a highly regulated gun culture (but then most of life feels highly regulated here, unfortunately) and guns are associated with defined groups: farmers, those who shoot clays for a hobby (that would include me), hunters and of course criminals.
The concept of guns being just an ordinary part of life in the way that my ex-boyfriend's friend's guns were is just totally alien to the average Brit and tends to summon up Hollywood images of gunfights at the OK corral.
Brits may not be at all bothered about guns (except to fear them) but try taking away their booze and you'll have an outright riot. Last year the government hinted at banning booze from trains (oh how wonderful that would have been) but the outrage was so loud they retreated into their wussy little hole. No matter that pissed individuals cause problems on trains and no-one can escape. It's a Brit's right to get totally pissed wherever they go and heaven help anyone who gets in the way of that.
So while some of us might think we're oh-so-great because we don't generally reach for a gun in times of frustration, we also have our sacred cows and they can be just as unpleasant - try hanging out in a town centre at a weekend or ask a casualty nurse what hospitals turn into on a Saturday night (and if they've been attacked during their shift).
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'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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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
I have said it before and now will boringly say it again.
Brits tend to think about how much less safe they'd feel if other people were allowed to have guns.
Americans tend to think about how much less safe they'd feel if they weren't allowed to have guns.
Both have good reasons for not wanting to move from where they currently are.
[ 20. April 2007, 08:11: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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doctor-frog
small and green
# 2860
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Posted
This is huge, Sabine!! (not that I'm fundamentally in disagreement with any of it -- so well said.) I'll pick up on two small points, because it's what I have time for. But I've certainly tried to pay attention to the whole thing.
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
I think it's more helpful to look at power and situations in which power comes into play to find answers to the violence that people put forth into the world with weapons.
As I've said above, I don't think there should be an either/or approach (nor do I imagine you think so, either, actually).
I think the symptom can be addressed together with the underlying illness. You give radiation therapy for cancer -- but you also give morphine for the pain.
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
Power is a complicated thing--part emotion, part talent, part skill. It can be used for the good, the bad, the ugly, or for the edification and uplifting of humankind.
... when people begin to see that their society requires certain things in order for a person to be considered a member in good standing of that society, but also see that they are systematically being denied the opportunity to obtain these things or achieve or bring themselves up, there is a kind of frustration that can go many ways--apathy, self-distruction, finding a "power tool" (and I'm not talking home improvement here). Many drift into the mistaken idea that owning a gun and using it to get what they need/want is a way to compensate for the power that society is denying them.
I think someone's already said that in Britain, we tend -- increasingly -- to use binge drinking as the outlet. Which in many circles then leads to violence. Notwithstanding the usual protests of 'It was so much better in my day', I gather from the statistics I read that binge drinking and related violence is indeed on the increase here -- and the A&E records will show it (self-inflicted damage; victims of random drunken violence).
I assume there's less death involved on the whole than there is when a different group takes up guns as their outlet. Having witnessed a US shooting once and been the 911 caller, I still maintain that I'd rather take my chances getting my butt kicked by a drunken Brit spoiling for a fight in the alley behind a pub than I would against a pissed-off American thug who took my money and shot me even when I co-operated and gave up everything I demanded, as was the case in the incident I saw. This is precisely why I'd want to treat the symptom as well as the illness. (And perhaps Tuba will take her own advice and listen to a few other peoples' personal experience, too; we don't all live in New York where apparently nobody likes guns.)
But it does beg the question: what is it in our societies that makes people feel so alienated and powerless that they behave this way? There were never really any 'good old days', but I genuinely think it's got worse in our lifetimes.
And, as you say, what is it that our governments are doing to respond to the problem? In the UK, we dish out ASBOs (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders) like breakfast cereal. (In some circles having one is now a badge of honour.) But we don't do such a good job of making long-term answers to people who feel on the fringes of society, and making them feel they have a stake. Then we turn around and pay billions into the armaments industry so that, if we can't have guns on our street, the Burmese and Indonesians (or whoever) can.
By the same token, in the US not everybody with a gun is going to be the VT killer. But there are plenty of relatively rational people who, here, would be prime ASBO candidates, and there just pack a lot of heat and parade around the neighbourhood scaring the neighbours. Take away the guns, and I maintain you'll take away the efficiency of the damage they do. But they're always going to be on the fringes (and they're always going to consider the gun a valuable show of force) when they see the US government pouring billions of dollars into the defence industry and sending their children to die in Iraq (and now they're talking about the draft again? for what? Bush's own personal pissing contest?) -- but investing nothing in, say, a medical system that might keep them regularly on the books of some health-care professional.
Posts: 981 | From: UK | Registered: May 2002
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I have said it before and now will boringly say it again.
Brits tend to think about how much less safe they'd feel if other people were allowed to have guns.
Americans tend to think about how much less safe they'd feel if they weren't allowed to have guns.
Both have good reasons for not wanting to move from where they currently are.
That is true.
However, what i find very difficult to understand is the view that individuals need guns to protect them from their own democratically-elected government. As far as I can tell, this view is limited to the USA (if we are exclduing countries that are not democracies). I have never knowing met a single British person who took such a view. Not even once.
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Infinite Penguins.
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
No, I find that bizarre as well. I'm sure legislators think about a lot of things when drafting legislation, but "if we do that the people will shoot us" is, I suspect, not amongst them.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
Getting a gun legally in the UK isn't difficult, it's just a hassle and one that most people don't even think about attempting. On the whole us English are either terrified of guns and that's why we tend to go off on one whenever we hear of a shooting incident stateside: that and some Brits do love feeling superior if they possibly can.
To be honest, I have seen real actual guns when I went to visit parliament, and occasionally on a farm where they were mainly used to shoot rabbits and so on.
I hate the idea of there being guns everywhere, although I except that in the inner cities they probably are because guns are seen as "cool" by confused teenagers. I'm much more worried about someone attacking me/my family/my friends/my property having a gun then I am about whether or not I have the right to have a gun, even despite some evidence that if I was known to have a gun people might be less likely to break into my house. However, I still think that the number of gun-related deaths is much, much higher in the USA per head than in the UK although do have more of some types of crime.
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
Sorry to DP but I rang out of edit time...
Littlelady, I had intended to ask you whether or not you saw This Week last night and, if so, what you made of the American woman they had on talking about guns? I hadn't realised that gun law in the US was up to individual states rather than a national policy, but perhaps I should have. If it is true that she has recieved "hundreds" of e-mails asking her how the Americans can be so "obviously insane" as not to be considering stricter gun controls in the wake of the tragedy then I can see why that is more than a little patronising and snobbish. However, I think it is perfectly possible to favour strict gun control without taking such an attitude.
I should also point out that whilst drunks on trains may be irratating, and perhaps frightening, they don't generally lead to people being rushed into casualty...
[ 20. April 2007, 11:56: Message edited by: Papio ]
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Infinite Penguins.
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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doctor-frog
small and green
# 2860
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
However, what i find very difficult to understand is the view that individuals need guns to protect them from their own democratically-elected government.
the idea arose because the founders of the republic felt the need to arise against the (real or perceived) tyranny of the colonial master. tyrranical governments should not stand; therefore the principle was written into law.
but, natrually, what government (even where it's written into the founding documents) is going to say 'Oh, I see we've become tyrranical; we'll just go away now, shall we?' and then let the armed assailants go their way?
it doesn't happen like that. in the closest thing to a test case the US has ever had of this principle (The Recent Unpleasantness of 1861-1865), the breakaway side was ultimately put down with great force.
as I've said before, if the the president ever decided to turn the US military machine on its own people, there's damn little that groups like the Michigan Milita and the Southern Independence Party could do about it. They'd be the first up against the wall.
Posts: 981 | From: UK | Registered: May 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by doctor-frog:
if the the president ever decided to turn the US military machine on its own people, there's damn little that groups like the Michigan Milita and the Southern Independence Party could do about it. They'd be the first up against the wall.
Though, of course, there'd be a fair bit of warning that that was going to be possible. Because as things stand at the moment I'd expect there'd be precious few high-ranking officers in the US military willing to order their troops to turn on the US people, and even fewer in the rank and file who'd obey such orders even if given them. So, the president would have to move slowly to get to the position where the military would obey any such order. Even then, there'd probably be more than enough US military personal who'd disobey that a fight between those parts of the military loyal to the people and those loyal to the president would have to be fought before the militia got involved.
It's simply not going to happen anytime soon.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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moron
Shipmate
# 206
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Posted
quote:
I hadn't realised that gun law in the US was up to individual states rather than a national policy
I don't know what you heard but it may be more accurate to say there's a federal minimum level or baseline which the states can add to but not subtract from.
Posts: 4236 | From: Bentonville | Registered: May 2001
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
doctor-frog and 206 - thank you, that is interesting.
Gwai - yes, we are. I think some restrictions do apply, but I'm not certain what they are. Here, trains often sell alcohol to their passangers to be consumed on or during the journey.
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