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Is it a point even worth mentioning though? You wouldn't think of mentioning in a conversation about nuclear weapons that of course by not allowing individuals to own them, some people's liberties are being eroded. Technically that might be true, but really... so what?
Same with handguns. Nobody needs them.
Believe me, if the government is after you no weapon in the world is going to save you or allow to defend yourself for very long.
I am not against some people holding rifle and shotgun licences. They already do. I object however with anyone being allowed to own guns.
The only practical use of a handgun, other than its designed purpose of killing a human being, is target shooting. There is no reason why shooting clubs can exist where members practice and then leave their gun there.
As for protecting yourself from criminals, it certainly does not seem to make much of a difference in countries where every man, woman, child and the family dog owns a gun. On the contrary, all you are going to ensure is that every single burglar, thief and mugger will carry a gun themselves.
Well I don't - but its not really about that is it (though how you do target shooting without them I'm not really sure).
No it remains a silly analogy. It's a bit like saying because I believe it's alright to have consensual sex outside marriage that I think its alright for a sixty year old to have sex with a ten year old, as long as she consents.
We only need food, shelter, clothing (and arguably companionship), everything after that is a luxury. We don't need books - should we ban them? What about DVDs? Or luxury cars? Or air travel?
Liberty is not about what we need, but about what we want to do. And sometimes people want to do things we disagree with. And sometimes we put laws in place to stop them. I don't actually see anything wrong with that - but to try and argue its not about liberty seems a bit mad.
I still see the nukes analogy as valid. If someone is allowed to own a gun, why shouldn't they be allowed to own a nuke? Or a guided missile for that matter? Or an anti-tank mine?
It seems we both agree on the principle of a ban on guns but place different importance on its significance and impact. I myself am as unconcerned about someone's liberty being eroded for not being able to own a gun about someone who's not allowed to own a shoulder-launched RPG.
As far as I am aware, those very establishments do actually practice gun control, and legally disarm people who enter.
That could be a reason, or an unfortunate coincidence.
That is a crucial point, in that the 2nd amendment was added for that very reason. The right to bear arms was a right to bear arms against the government. That has been confirmed by the Supreme Court.
I'd dispute a 'direct link', even psychologists who carry out such studies rarely go as far as claiming they've proven a direct link but even allowing for that 'fact', people all over the world are 'subjected' to violence, in the home and through cinema, television, computer games yada yada. Most people are fine with it. There's very little evidence of mass desensitization or nuttiness. Yet it is America where these events occur the most.
The availability of guns cannot be overlooked but again: it is not the cause, merely the means. You outlaw guns, you would get people bombing schools and bombing post offices, etc. Turning it into a gun issue because guns are the means is distasteful really because it feels disingenuous. CptCoatHanger is the only person in this thread yet who has seriously asked why they take place in schools. Schools and post offices are the most common places of these sadly common events. To ignore this in favour of gun discussion is to deny a key part of the problem. There must be a culture, an environment, predominantly in school and office environments, which doesn't make these people go "YEAH I'LL GET THE MONEY AND GET THE GIRL LIKE I SAW ON TV" - what a ridiculous suggestion: how many of these people ever get any money or a girl, in fact anything besides hard jail time or death? - but instead makes them want to destroy these enviroments that they feel trapped in. Bullying, pressure, stress... they're bigger issues than people realise.
The supposed tenuous 'links' between mental illness that the media always shout about are another distasteful get-out clause. It's like arguing that suicide bombers are all insane: it doesn't work because there's so many of them. It at least seems distanced enough if you can put it down to 'disturbed individuals' like someone from the university said in that article, but it's just not true. It sounds good, doesn't it: distuuurrrbbbed individuals must naturally be violent, right? Mental illness equals aggression, yeah? If they reinforce this belief long enough, we might believe it.
It's a throwback to the early days of American Revolution and liberation from England, if you read the Bill of Rights you'll see that there's loads of stuff that don't even make sense in today's world. Yet it's the Constitution and Americans generally see that as the epitome of the American way and must be protected at all costs....
There have been shootings in other places (like a shopping mall, that was relatively recent), but the media usually focuses on school kids or uni students shooting up a bunch of white kids. If it was black inner-city kids, it wouldn't be news. If the students are intelligent, then its even better news, because obviously intelligent people never shoot up schools :rolleyes: My mum emailed me about this latest shooting, going "oh he was intelligent too, must have snapped." Grr, people don't just snap. Pretty much every shooter has planned it out beforehand, how do you think they kill so many people??
Back to the point: Guns are banned on most, if not every, school or university campus, so its more shocking. Plus dead kids can be sensationalized in the media.
Schools or universities are often places where they have lots of people, so lots of targets for the shooter. And usually (though not always - some random guy shot up an Amish school last year) the shooter's connected to that place. Maybe they're trying to kill all the kids that bullied them & teachers that didn't stop the bullies, or maybe they just really hated their time at that school or uni. The VA-Tech guy was ranting about all the rich kids on his campus, so probably wanted to take out a few of them.
Some Americans, often gun-owners, don't trust the government. Hence why they have low voter turnout. They think the elections are all rigged, so there's no point in voting. So they don't pick their government, so they don't trust them. I think that's the argument that Kermit's referring to.
And in Vietnam (& other places), the American army lost to guerilla warfare, so some Americans will use this as proof that their guns can protect them against the government.
Personally, I think they need a complete overhaul of the government & attitude transplants for a lot of the population, but how do you do that??
Freedom!! The Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to a gun - if you agree with the National Rife Association (NRA), which I don't. I think the Amendment was written to give the states the right to have a militia, but unfortunately its written badly so it could be argued either way. Damn founders!
And plus a lot of people will have guns for self-defence, so leaving a gun at a target range won't be very useful for this. Who'd attack a target range??
Some studies seem to indicate that criminals are less likely to attack people they think are armed.
Sorry for the long post, but gun control in America is my dissertation topic, so I've done research on this kinda stuff
As to massacres (this almost exclusively white middle class phenonema by the way - I 've yet to see 4 17 year old's being shot on a Baltimore street corner make the world service) - I'm not convinced violent games, films, books, theatre, whatever, is particularly responsible for the increase in massacres -
I'm tempted to think that the same resentments and problems in society that can be negatively expressed in violent actions are also harnessed, sometimes cathartically, sometimes irresponsibily, by film makers or artists. I think there's a more fundamental theme running through the sociological make-up of America that explodes at times in these ways - rather than a cause and effect 'see it on screen - do it life' proposition.
Mind you - having less guns would mean less people being shot (did someone else already mention Chris Rock's suggestion of making each bullet cost $1,000 dollars? Hell of a lot less people getting shot at that price) - wouldn't necessarily make anything safer though.
Just because it doesn't make the world service, doesn't mean it doesn't happen though...
... and that is what I cannot get my head around, really.
The US is no different to many other countries, same films, access to guns, motives etc... so why does it seem to happen there a damned sight more than anywhere else. What makes the Applie Pie go rancid?
I know other nations are said to have high numbers of gun owners but I just wonder if they have one gun per every single man, woman and child, as the US average more or less stands at. Or if someone can just show up at a shop and walk away with a gun without anything more rigorous than a half-arsed on the spot check, or the filling of a form.
Maybe that is also the case elsewhere but for what I gather buying a weapon in the US is probably easier than buying an alcoholic drink.
It's harder than that to buy a TV in this country. Just the other day, I bought a battery for my car and had to fill a fucking form in for that too.
I can't possibly agree with the violent films being responsible for real life violence though. There has simply never been any evidence for it. In fact with regards to sexual assault, which is one of the other things blamed on access to certain images, statistics suggest that the reverse is true. Indeed, one might suggest that the ease at which such fictional violence can be accessed actually fulfills a desire that would otherwise manifest in other forms.
I would say that if you were to point to any societal and media influences, it would be the supposedly factual media creating a climate of fear, where everyone feels afraid enough to have to own a gun, lock their doors, etc. One point that I might stress in this regard is that there is simply enough people in a country like America for something really shitty to happen every day. And any free media is going to jump on that and sensationalise it. And the fact is simply that not enough happens in a country like Canada, for instance, to create the same climate of fear as the American media, or even the British media can. And of course, this is exaggerated by the sheer fact that there is far more crime in America, for many of the reasons that Jim pointed out.
But yeah, one thing that interests me is the fact that America doesn't even have close to the amount of suicide as countries like Finland, Japan, and other countries where these shootings are very rare. So that doesn't suggest an increased number of people feeling excluded from society or otherwise disillusioned. And yet frequently, we find that some who do kill themselves feel the need to take half a school with them. Maybe it's just an incarnation of the same problem, but in a society where guns are commonplace. Or maybe it isn't actually any more frequent in America than any other country with guns, it's just that America is bigger? I mean let's be honest, when we talk about higher levels of gun crime in America, we're not on about the occasional school shooting, which are still very rare.
Yeah man, just to make it clear I was saying it was terrible how little coverage crimes amongst the poorest in America seem to get noticed and reported, not that they don't happen.
I mean in 1999 you've got 28,874 people intentionally killed by guns and over 80 deaths a day (Hoyert DL, Arias E, Smith BL, Murphy SL, Kochanek, KD. Deaths: Final Data for 1999. National Vital Statistics Reports. 2001;49) - the vast majority being gang and drug related killings.