There are many things that i have blogged about that tend to get less than favourable comments thrown at me but three opinions seem to hit the buttons more than others.
The first is any criticism of Israels treatment of the Palestinians and the second is criticism of religion, both of which while i can respect and even understand the opposite view, i haven't heard an argument yet that has convinced me enough to change my opinion.
The third, and probably the one where my opinion tends to get most mauled is America's gun laws and this subject i just can't understand the opposite view whatsoever.
I listen and have had many gun owning Americans explain it to me in terms ranging from self defence to it being in the constitution but neither overcome my natural position of wide eyed horror at the thought of so many deadly weapons in society.
I accept that i may be a whiny, left wing limey with no knowledge of guns but i just can't get my head around why the majority of Americans are so keen to defend everyone having the right to own guns and the argument, it seems, is most vociferous after yet another mass shooting such as the one which left 6 dead and 13 injured in Arizona this weekend.
Being British, and most of us never so much as having held a gun, i admit that there is a cultural difference between us and Americans when it comes to guns. If you grow up with them all around then obviously you are going to be more at ease with them, a recent show on television had a British reporter in an American gun shop where you could buy guns designed for children. He was shocked and so was those of us discussing it the next day but that's because over here the thought of handing anyone a gun. let alone a child, fills us with horror while in America it seems almost natural.
As i have said many times before, America's gun laws is America's business and if they want to keep a small arsenal of weapons in their homes then their country is thousands of miles away from me so i'm not concerned, it's your country and if you are at ease with so many guns, then i'm willing to accept it.
Doesn't mean i can even begin to understand why you would be easy with it, but if you think the mass killings that seem to come around with alarming regularity are a price worth paying for your right to bear arms, then i have yet to hear the argument made to justify it.
27 comments:
First, tt is of note that Canada's gun laws are far more like those in the United States than those in most of Europe. Also, as I understand it, some European nations give guns (assault rifles) to people who have been in the military. The news probably isn't the best source of information to form statistical assumptions from.
Our laws work for us and have many practical benefits.
Crime-wise, the trade-off is a crazy guy shooting some people up every once in a while for a sharp reduction in certain types of violent crimes (I could make a nearly endless list, for starters look up the hot burglary rates in the US as opposed to Britain). Throw in the deaths from those British hot burglaries and on net our gun laws probably end up saving many lives. That we may have more of certain types of crimes is mostly a product of other things (having a large land border with a developing country ruled by drug-funded warlords, a more diverse population, ridiculous black-market creating drug laws, etc...; think of it this way, you know the BNP now? Imagine what would happen if Britain woke up tomorrow with 15 million Turks and a land border with Russia.).
Also, there are still things in North America that can eat people. Britain probably hasn't had any predators for at least a few centuries (and no, I would not consider something as harmless and puny as a fox to be a serious predator). Among other things, I've run into a few coyotes, two large wild cats (a bobcat and a cougar) that I can remember, wild pigs (that are 160 kg and that will eat anything).
--Nog
As ever, it’s important not to confuse correlation with causation. For instance, in the early 1980s the gun ownership situation in both countries was fairly similar (i.e. US = high, UK = low), but there were double the number of burglaries in the USA than in England & Wales. By the late 1990s this situation had reversed, and it was double in England & Wales what it was in the USA.
So what else had happened?... A study I read a while ago strongly suggests that the risk of punishment for criminal activity had decreased in the UK during these years, but had increased in the USA… Presumably the massive cuts in funding the police and criminal justice service would have contributed to this statistic, but it’s a complicated story… Also, unemployment become endemic during this period, which usually contributes to property crime rates skyrocketing in the affected areas. So you can’t just look at the gun situation. There’s no petrie dish we can conduct a control experiment in, and there’s a multitude of factors that will affect crime.
Ultimately though, I’m with you, Lucy. American gun laws are their own business.
Nog - Would you still consider it a price worth paying if it was your family that some crazy guy killed when shooting some people up? While they buried your parents and sister or brother, would you say its sad but hey, its worth it to keep the crime rate down.
Maybe its only a fair trade off if it is other peoples parents and nine year old sisters getting killed by crazys.
If someone shot up my family, I'd probably rethink a lot of things. But the vengeful and traumatized families of victims of atrocities and tragedies generally aren't the best public policy decision-makers. Take the death penalty. Like many people, I'm against the death penalty. But like most of those people, I might become for it if you murdered my family.
Only law-abiding citizens obey laws. There are already tons of laws against criminals owning guns.; and yet they get them anyways. Passing a law against general gun ownership will just reduce the ratio of armed good people to armed criminals. It is the same as passing a law against armed people in general. Hey, police officers use guns, tasers, and batons on innocent people every now and then. Why not? Because the police would obey the law, and the criminals would ignore it.
A better solution is to enable more widespread gun ownership. Several years ago, a guy killed 30-something people in a restaurant here in Texas. One woman who had a handgun in her car watched both her parents get murdered. She didn't bring the gun in because it was illegal. Long story short, she got the law changed so that people (who have taken a short course, who are not crazy and who are not criminals) can get licensed to carry guns.
Similarly, about a year ago, a robber broke into a house of one of my neighbors while they were there. They always seemed like the "guns are scary and nobody should have them" types. But the day after they were robbed they bought a gun.
If your family was murdered in front of you because as a law abiding citizen you left your gun in your car instead of carrying it in your backpack, purse, or whatever, I suspect you might have a similar change of heart.
-Nog
Do you never wonder why America sees so many of these mass shootings nog?
If having more guns make you safer, why are the shootings not happening in countries with less guns freely available?
I'm not saying they don't happen but they seem a more regular occurence there.
Maybe there are other reasons as Cheezy suggests and not the ease of access to guns.
The really funny thing is, while my fellow Americans will never give up their firearms, the entire raison d'etre of the 2nd amendment is no longer valid.
Consider the amendment in all it's glory:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"
With the existence of the four branches of the US armed forces, the entire rationale for the 2nd, i.e. "A well regulated militia" is no longer "necessary to the security of a free state." Therefore, there is no more need for the people to "keep and bear arms."
The 2nd was written at a time when there was no centralized military for the young nation, and citizen militias were required for defense. The creation of a national army, navy, air force, and marines has rendered citizen militias obsolete, as is the 2nd.
But that's all irrelevant. Americans are a very possessive bunch, and once they own something, they will never willingly give it up. Especially something that makes the men feel as if they have enormous genitalia.
So, guns are here to stay. Got a problem with that?
I have no problem with that Richard, i'm on the other side of the world to you and your gun toting citizens militia.
I did see that the debate has gone quickly from blaming guns to blaming right wing tub thumping though getting nutters excited.
Lucy,
Why do you go thru this so often?
From a philosophical perspective (which is childish) I agree with you. There now, you happy?
From a realistic perspective however the genie is out of the bottle - the cat is out of the bag - Pandora is out of the box. Guns exist.
We can't get rid of guns, just like we can't get rid of narcotics, and we couldn't get rid of alcohol. And, we can't stop violent people from getting guns. Thus, I'm not going to voluntarily give up the only way to protect my family or my self.
I'll make a concession just for you: If you get rid of every gun in America except mine, then I promise to voluntarily give up my gun(s) and all 15,000 rounds.
Then we can only be abused by the police, and the military - wow, sounds like 1776...
Oh, I forgot about the Mexican drug gangs which are just a 3 hour drive from where I live. You have to get rid of all the guns in Mexico too...
Do we have a deal?
Q
"Then we can only be abused by the police, and the military - wow, sounds like 1776..."
Hey, support the troops you traitor! ;)
From a practical perspective, it's easy to see your point, Q. I read an estimate of 200 million privately owned firearms in the USA. Let's say there's an amnesty. Now, who complies with it? That's right, law-abiding people! The lawless will keep their's.
If I was living in certain parts of the USA, I'd think seriously about getting a handgun, or at least wouldn't think any the worse of those who had one.
Q said: Why do you go thru this so often?
Lucy replies: I only got through it after everytime a gun toting maniac shoots up Americans. Hence, i go through it often.
Lucy,
yeah, i'm 55 and i've never known anybody that was shot (well i know this one bubba that shot his own toe off). i did know a fellow computer programmer at haliburton that was stabbed to death in 1980and my cousin was stabbed and his liver was literally cut in half.
i've lived in the same town of 9,000 people for 11 years and there has not been one shooting. lots of guns in texas hillcountry towns...
I have never lived in a town or city where there was a mass shooting. in fact the closest was probably that thing 20 years ago up in mc donalds way off in east texas (300 miles away) unless you count that terrorist at ft hood (only 200 miles away) last year. but he used an army gun.
so its kinda hard to get all wacked out by a mass shooting even though they are terrible and destroy families.
if i or one of my many friends had been at the scene in tucson the shooter might not have done as much harm...
i have known several people that were killed by drunk drivers. maybe we should get rid of alcohol...
i've also known sevearl people that died from lung cancer (evern a few that never smoked). we should get ride of cigarettes... cancer is such a violent death.
q
Over 100 people were just killed by a stampede in India... quick ban public gatherings!!! SAVE THE PEOPLE!!!
q
Cheezy,
I thought about that traitor aspect but you get my point - a little dig at Brits... :-)
q
That's the point that i have been hammering away at q. There are campaigns to reduce drinking and driving because people get killed by it and there are campaigns to reduce smoking because many people die of it. It seems, and i am sure you will correct me, after each shooting the gun debate gets shouted down by gun owners and 2nd amenders and it all just carries on as before.
lucy,
i'll be disagreeable by agreeing with you (tricky huh!). yes the NRA and many gun owners shout it down every time. believe it or not i'm not in that group. since they are doing the dirty work i'm able to just groan and look the other way.
another way of looking at it is that every minute of every day many americans, including powerful high-level pols are trying to get rid of guns. they use such incidents to escalate the fear and alarm and WELL BEYOND THE ACTUAL RISK.
the risk of being shot in the US is only a few percentage points higher than the UK and both are low. there 310 million americans: under 50 will be shot in "mass shootings", a few hundred will be shot in the act of another crime, the bulk of the shootings are gangs and druggers shooting each other.
did you note my personal experiences in previous post (zero experience with shootings in 55 years - and i lived in Houston Texas for 4 years - that is the redneck capital of the universe - of all universes - Nog, help me here).
I think you are making a mountain out of a mole hill... and if a member of my family is shot i won't project that onto the whole world and change my views... maybe i've spent too much time examining and pricing risk (30 years of underwriting - the foundation of insurance, investment, and banking). naaahhhhh - its good to be able to detach the emotion from the reality!
q
-Q is right about the practical conditions here in Texas. Lots of ranchers and regular homeowners have guns, but the only people shooting at other people are criminals and crazies who get their guns illegally.
-Neither Q nor I are suggesting that crazy people and criminals should have access to guns, or anything more menacing than a toothbrush for that matter. If someone is proposing legislation that will actually reduce the numbers of criminals and crazies with guns without affecting the other 99% of us who aren't insane or convicted felons, I would wholeheartedly support it!
The argument that I'm hearing is this:
Some (exceedingly crazy and lawless person) did a bad thing with X, therefore legislation should be passed pushing owners (including absolutely sane and otherwise law-abiding people) of X.
Cars run over people (more people than guns shoot), should all people be banned from driving because of a few bad drivers? People drink themselves to death (and what good reason is there for anyone to drink), so should we ban alcohol? People die when they are outside during storms, so should be pass laws punishing people who go outside during storms?
Where does the line get drawn? Alcohol is near useless except for the recreational reduction of mental capacity. How does some of the reasoning used against gun ownership not apply to alcohol and other potentially dangerous commodities?
Why would we only apply an anti-gun measure to normal citizens? Police break laws. I remember a year or so ago, a police officer committed a mass shooting with his government issued assault rifle). And we should also count the instances where police use their weapons (guns, batons, tasers, or whatever) under the guise of their official capacity in improper ways.
Bless their hearts, some segments of the military don't make up an exceedingly high-IQ demographics. And innocent people get killed by armies by accident all the time. Why not pass a law punishing anyone in the military who carries or uses a gun?
In short, I can't make sense of any anti-gun legislation that:
-A) Doesn't account for the practical limits and unintended consequences of legislation in affecting people's behaviors.
-B) Restricts gun-ownership for reasons that should apply to the ownership of analogous commodities.
-Nog
lucy,
if the comment you removed was ugly i thank you...
q
For some reason nog whenever this discussion comes up, regardless of where it starts, it always ends up with one person saying cars kill people so why not ban cars and i say something along the lines of the cars reason for being is to get you from A to B and if they kill someone, it is by accident or malfunction but a guns reason for being is to kill things so which one should be regulated moe tightly.
I do have a policy of never deleting anyones comments q and would have to find out how to do it first if i did want to delete one so hopefully if it was an ugly comment, the author realised and deleted it themselves.
we can delete our own comments - Doh... really?
q
Eh... Web browser error, I posted the same comment twice. It said exactly what the comment below it says.
How did you delete your entry?
q
lucy,
1.) if guns kill, do typewriters, pencils, and pens make spelling errors?
2.) what is easier to manage 300 million guns or a few thousand crazy people? the numbers tell us we should leave guns alone and try to get rid of the wackos...
q
1) Why assk me abut speeling erorrs? You tryeing to tell mee somefing?
2) Seems to me neither is being managed very well.
lucy,
how do you explain that we've had wackos and lots of guns since 1776, but didn't have problems with either until 1960?
q
I don't know much about the Wild West but wasn't that a bunch of wackos with guns?
lucy,
ha ha ha, there were no western europeans past the mississippi river back in 1776.
you've seen too many hollywood movies! by the way, did you know that the american indians learned scapling from the french?
q
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