"Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Guns defend against people with smaller guns."
- American Dad
GilsDesk said:
"This topic incites a lot of emotional back-and-forth, but I think it's all about location, and what the criminals have or don't have. If you think of it in those terms, it's a lot simpler."
Good point. I've lived in Europe all my life, and I don't think I've ever even *heard* a gunshot outside a firing range.
Of course the question raised is, are so many people shot in the USA because of prevalence of guns, or for some other reason?
"Bowling for Columbine" gave a hint when it mentioned that Canada has lots of guns, but very little gun violence.
I know one chump who probably agrees with that...and is too dumb to know it's satire.
ReplyDeleteWhile I know that it's satire (probably intended to ridicule gun owners), the fact remains that no other tool has ever been invented that gives a smaller, weaker intended victim a better chance to escape harm when attacked by bigger, stronger aggressors.
ReplyDeleteDo blogs kill people?
ReplyDeleteBecause mine still isn't very big.
But that's about to change, I've just ordered 10 gigabytes of assorted penis-enlargement spam emails. Pills, surgery, meditation, inflatable voodoo dolls, horny rhino powder, the gamut.
This topic incites a lot of emotional back-and-forth, but I think it's all about location, and what the criminals have or don't have. If you think of it in those terms, it's a lot simpler.
ReplyDeleteIf I sent you back in time to the American west, circa 1876, and everyone around you carried a gun strapped to their hip all day, and a drunken criminal could start a firefight at any moment, you'd probably want to be armed and trained for that eventuality.
If I sent you to a clean, modern European city in which no one carried guns, and you felt perfectly safe walking around town, you would feel no need to go armed.
There are cities in America today in which you are more likely to find gun supporters, and they have some valid points. There are plenty of cities in which no one cares about carrying guns.
Another thing to think about is areas in which people are in large, helpless groups. Mentally unbalanced people seek out these groups for maximum carnage as they commit suicide. Places like that should consider arming the leadership (teachers, professors, security people) so that when something crazy like that breaks out, it can be cut off immediately. These people should be trained, of course, and not just gun-toting random people.
Many lives could be saved if we would think about some of these things more sensibly. If you had woods near your house in which wild, rabid dogs had been sighted in packs, attacking people, and you had to spend time in those woods, would be sensible to carry some kind of weapon?
But if the woods by your house were perfectly safe, or you didn't have any woods, maybe you wouldn't care.
Just a few thoughts.
"I think it's all about location, and what the criminals have or don't have."
ReplyDeleteGood point. I've lived in Europe all my life, and I don't think I've ever even *heard* a gunshot outside a firing range.
Of course the question raised is, are so many shot in the USA because of prevalence of guns, or for some other reason?
"Bowling for Columbine" gave a hint when it mentioned that Canada has lots of guns, but very little gun violence.
Of course, the universally armed "old west" was less murderous than many of the eastern US cities which had a much lower rate of gun ownership. "An armed society is a polite society" as Robert A. Heinlein said.
ReplyDeleteEven in America there is a denial problem where people say "it can't happen here"... until it does. You can't always know if the woods around your home has become the new territory of a rabid pack before the first attack, nor can you know if your town, where "nothing like this has ever happened before" is about to see "it" happen.
The smart thing is to be prepared and alert, but not to obsess.
When you are home alone and something goes bump in the night. Knowing there is a weapon close by can be very comforting.
ReplyDeleteThe idea is not to go looking for trouble, but when it comes looking for you it is best to be prepared.
Joe
Sometime I see crazy people around... Not many, but... if they had the right to have a gun... Oh my God...
ReplyDeleteThey DO have the right to have a gun, but they don't need a gun in order to harm you, do they? The real question is why would you not take responsibility for your own safety knowing that there are "crazy people" around?
ReplyDeleteYou know, a century ago (before WWI) no one looked askance at gun ownership. Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes would casually put his revolver in his pocket when the odds of meeting ne'er-do-wells on his adventures was high... or he'd have Watson bring along HIS revolver. Perhaps this was the height of civilization in the West, when violence was low, everyone had guns, and no one questioned the right to have and carry guns.
ReplyDeleteToday there is a lot of psychological baggage associated with guns, mostly from the folks who uncomfortable around them. Maybe it's because in our postmodern non-judgmental society many can't find the courage to call humans evil, so they ascribe a human moral condition to an inanimate object. Far easier to rage at a tool than at the person who yields it.
Ted Bundy, the notorious serial rapist and killer, liked to hide a hammer in his sling to crack unsuspecting females over the head. Does that make hammers evil? Or, how about the guns used to remove the yoke of Nazism from Europe and liberate the concentration camps? Were those guns evil? How about the guns used by the Nazi defenders?
Nope... any tool has the morality of its user. Guns, nukes, fighter planes, their moral stature depends upon the occasion of their use.
There are good points on all sides.
ReplyDelete"If you think of it in those terms, it's a lot simpler."Or a lot more complicated. To some people, simply from being born in another community, you become a potential criminal in their eyes, then they need guns because of their fear, and more often than not violence erupts from one spark too many amidst the stacked powder kegs.
ReplyDeleteI'll just mention in one word the example I know best about such a scenario: Lebanon.
It still hasn't chaged today.
Places like schools and colleges (I think there have also been some CHURCH shootings, anyway!) should consider, first of all, ensuring that these places remain what they are supposed to be originally: a type of sanctuary. Not some shopping mall where everybody can enter at will. A few competent guards and a metal detection portal at every entry would already work wonders.
What would ALSO work wonders, would be limiting the availability of guns just a wee bit. Make sure every prospective buyer has:
1 - A clean criminal record.
2 - A certificate from an official psychologist that they're not latent psychotics. A great many of those "crazy shooters" demonstrate a story which clearly said a good deal of time earlier "schizophrenia".
Not enough social workers around, that's for sure. Monitoring and helping of troubled youngsters is still direly lacking in even the most advanced countries.
Sure, guns ARE tools. Violence itself is. And so is a hammer. But here's the thing: unlike hammers, guns are tools designed specifically for killing. War is ALSO a very often misused tool in international relations.
And... Ted Bundy? Isn't that the same bloodthirsty sadist who tried to blame all his crimes on porn?
If the correlation between tobacco and cancer were as important as porn and rape/murder, I'd WANT my children to start smoking immediately. Because smoking would then decrease the risk of cancer by 30 to 50%.
As for "less violent times"... I recommend you do juuuust a little bit of research before asserting such claims. Violence has only increased today in one thing: ITS COVERAGE.
About 15 years ago, I found a book in my usual store, called "miscellaneous crime news of the Twenties-Thirties".
In a nutshell? Life was bloody damn precarious in these days, and the newspapers were literally full of absolutely terrifying crimes.
Western societies today are safer than EVER. Because we have highly organized police and justice, and their results are constantly under public scrutiny. Oddly enough, perhaps we've never felt more insecure than today.
Movies such as the Death Wish series would be unrealistic today. New York has much tighter citizen protection now, the events that created vigilante Paul Kersey (murderous street gangs running amok) have become practically obsolete.
To be frank, in the name of individual freedom, I have only two things to criticize firearms about:
1 - Anybody can get one, and those who do often intend to use them. For all the wrong reasons, NOT in self-defense.
2 - An unforgivably huge number of gun victims are killed by accidents -or malice- in their own home, by the gun that was there, either by their own hand, or that of somebody they knew and trusted.
As Batman said, "Guns don't kill people, but they make killing people too damn easy for my taste".
Power implies responsibility.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure the political power can "simply" be trusted to frame the use of guns.
Instinctively? I'm anti-guns, because I just don't like either them or violence. In videogames? Sure. I also hugely enjoy reckless driving in videogames. NOT in real life (so much for "GTA made me do it"). Like a candymaker's son, growing up in Lebanon gave me an indigestion of gunfighting. As the local proverb goes, "A gun, in the hand of a shit-head, will wound". السلاح في يد الخرى يجرح
But I'm just as positive that prohibiting guns altigether would be an open highway for any oppressive regime. Something which the American Constitution makes pretty much impossible, I think, with the right to bear arms.
I must confess, seeing the regional news, that a majority of people being armed in Israel DOES save lives. (But please don't tell anybody I spoke positively of our traditional enemy!) When some Palestinian worker goes nuts and drives a construction machine into the crowd, which is pretty much the poor man's equivalent of a crowd shooting, the nut usually is promptly neutralized by more than one citizen, scaling the bulldozer, pulling out their pistol, and shooting.
In fact, the same thing is how several activist college shootings in Israel prematurely ended.
The question of the origin of violence in Israel, however, remains open. Did you know that the jewish colonies in Palestinian territories have NEVER ceased to expand? The political power doesn't want to work on preventing violence, hence the high need for guns.
Like you said, Capain. "There are good points on all sides."Or, as my motto goes (one of them, that is): "Everything with moderation and sense."
More than guns, I'm anti-extremism.
But it seems sense AND moderation are rare commodities these days in the world.
Perhaps I should sell mine, for the common good? Don't rush, people, there's enough for everybody, and then some! ;-)
Note to self : complete that huge post on my blog about campus shootings and put it online some day.
Re "Bowling for Columbine"... I saw a part of it. Aren't there actually MORE guns per inhabitant in Canada than in the USA?
Kent is right, in a world and Universe where anything can potentially happen, being a little prepared and alert is basic wisdom.
While hoping one never HAS to make use of that preparation, like Joe said.
Si vis pacem, para bellum. Be ready for war to ensure your peace. (Free translation)
Aniko,
Alas, with the anarchy from the war years and those that followed... most of the crazy people in Lebanon DO have a gun. At that point, there's little choice left.
"The State should do something", yes. Unfortunately, many of those crazy people received their guns PRECISELY from some politician. And it's all very official! :-(
As for your argumentation, John Clifford, war is sometimes a necessary evil, but trust me, that's a truly repulsive tool.
Every time there is war, the laws of Society become moot, and the people who are without principles become sure of their impunity.
I've seen it all. Seen too much.
Better spare you the stories, I'm sure you'll all just take my word for it. War is an abomination because, at the very least, it takes away one's right to live without violence should he choose to.
This very day, I fear for several of my cousins, which I love, because they're involved into politics. In Lebanon this is synonymous with trouble.
Too many guns around, too little sense around...
Perhaps this was the height of civilization in the West, when violence was low, everyone had guns, and no one questioned the right to have and carry guns.LMAO
ReplyDeleteSure, nutjob, violence was low. Okay. This is what I love about you dolts, you never let a few facts get in the way of forming an opinion!
Pascal:
Sure, guns ARE tools. Violence itself is. And so is a hammer. But here's the thing: unlike hammers, guns are tools designed specifically for killing. Gun nuts like this douche John Clifford aren't going to be convinced by this line of reasoning. They know the dictionary defintion of the word, but still don't know what it means.
I think he might find himself more at home on the blog of some like-minded nut. Does Limbaugh have a blog? Or Bill O'Reilly?
Eolake is too polite to tell you you're full of shit.