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The Cost of America's Gun Addiction
In a country with 283m firearms, we should not be shocked that 33 people are shot dead each day. We should be outraged
"Killing shocks UC Irvine campus" ran the headline in the Los Angeles Times recently after a man allegedly shot his ex-wife to death.
The article, which reported the slaying, focused at least as much on the shock in the community that such a thing could happen in a place like Irvine, California.
I felt sad, of course, when I read it. I felt a twinge of despair. Shock, however? Not the least bit. Of course it happened.
Every year, 12,000 people are shot to death in the US - accounting for more than two out of every three killings. That's an average of 33 people daily.
An additional 240 people get shot and injured every day, and more than 65 million Americans own a total of 283m firearms. Where, exactly, do we expect the 12,000 homicides to happen? Do we really think that the places with gangs and high crime rates are the only places where people are going to use their guns?
The widespread numbness to the especially high murder rates in our poor inner-city neighbourhoods is egregious enough. But that's matched by the widespread denial that the epidemic of gun violence is playing out every day in every kind of neighbourhood across America.
Of course it happened. The inevitable, psychology-laden post-mortem news coverage in the coming days will purport to explain why, exactly, this man allegedly killed his ex-wife - as if we need to understand in detail why such a shocking thing could have happened there. And if you knew the man, then you might be truly shocked that this specific person is being accused of this specific unspeakable act. You might need this complex explanation.
For the rest of us, though, the relevant explanation is far simpler. The man was angry. Deranged, probably. A lot of people are. He owned a gun, which is unmatched as a powerful and easy tool to kill people - either in the heat of the moment or with premeditation. If someone assaults you with a knife, you are five times less likely to die. So he used a gun, according to the police. It happens all the time.
I personally know three people who have been shot. My brother and his fiancee were shot and killed by her mother in a dispute over an apartment in San Pedro, California. A friend of my mother was shot and injured in the 2008 shooting at a city council meeting in a St Louis suburb.
How many people does the average American know? Since December in the Los Angeles area, victims have included a man in Koreatown who confronted someone who threw a beer can at his car, a woman at her home in Burbank, a well-know actor's brother in Beverly Hills and nine members of a family at a Christmas Eve party in Covina.
Of course it happened. In April, 13 people were shot and killed in a citizenship class in Binghamton, New York. Two were shot at a hospital in Long Beach, California. Three by a marketing professor in Athens, Georgia. Four at their home in Morro Bay, California. Two at a religious retreat in Temecula, California. Five children by their father in Graham, Washington. Two in a dorm at Hampton University in Virginia. All in April.
All of these shootings were followed by news coverage of how shocked the community was. But of course it happened. The massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech? It was tragic and horrifying, but it was going to happen somewhere. Five people at a Salt Lake City mall the same year? Of course.
And it's going to happen again. Every day. In the near future - this year, most likely - someone is going to open fire on a university campus. Another at a high school. Another in a restaurant. Some of the killers will have criminal records, but many will not. Some will have a record of psychological problems, but many will not. Six or eight people at a time will be killed. Fourteen another day. Seventeen. It will happen. Guaranteed.
If you believe that it is a worthwhile trade-off to lose thousands of lives every year in return for the unrestricted right to own and carry a 9-millimetre semiautomatic handgun or an assault rifle - a right that may or may not be guaranteed by a much-disputed phrase in the second amendment to the US constitution - then so be it.
However, for those of us who do not believe this trade-off is acceptable, then how dare we be shocked, shocked every time this happens? We need to stop being shocked every time someone gets shot to death in a "safe" community and start acting unsurprised and outraged instead.
Shock only perpetuates the problem of gun violence. Only when we expect that thousands and thousands of people in every kind of neighbourhood will die at the hands of other people with guns every year - only then, perhaps, at last, will we be able to generate the public support necessary for effective laws to seriously restrict access to guns.
And in Irvine?
"You just don't expect something like this to happen," one student said.
But of course it did.
This article first appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
- Posted in
120 Comments so far
Show AllAs i lay in bed last night watching Ken Burns film on national parks i was reminded that the tradition of killing in this country has gone on unabated since the initial invasion. Now i sit staring at my computer screen trying to come up with something about guns and killing, that would make the die hard gun fanatics reconsider their "right " to possess guns. I can't.
But of course it will ... again.
Powerful article and absolutely reasonable reasoning.
But currently in my rural community those who own guns are freaking out. NOBODY IS GOING TO TAKE MY GUNS, a local fellow down the road said to me recently, and of course, it's the "liberals" who are after them. Currently he has twenty-five guns of all kinds.
He knows my political positions, but even still we manage to have conversations that do not escalate. I assured him that "liberals," such as myself were not after his guns.
But then he said that the NRA was warning everyone with guns that there were plans in the works to take them away.
We came to no real conclusions in our conversation, and I can't even say that his fears were diffused at all by what I said to him. But we parted peaceably as usual.
But the sad part is that we are so split apart in our country by ignorance exacerbated by the "reporting" and the "analyses" by the demagogues on radio and TV who lie and incite to fear and fury those who listen to them and believe. And believe they do.
But I will print this article out and give it to my friend when I see him again, and ask for his opinion.
It's worth a try. It's always worth a try.
/cm
I wish there were a gentle way to tell gun lovers that the NRA's second amendment spin is just PR while its mission is to help manufacturers sell more weapons and ammo.
By convincing gun owners that the sky is falling in, the NRA has been able to grow the industry.
Does anybody have any ideas how to break this news to gun owners without them calling you a terrorist?
Its kind of like trying to tell teabaggers that the insurance companies ARE the death panels Palin and her ilk talked about.
I get mail from the NRA screaming at me that I'm under assault from "the liberals" (and demanding money).
Then I get mail from the Southern Poverty Law Center screaming at me that I'm under assault from the NRA (and demanding money).
It's surreal, but threat inflation is a great fundraiser regardless of your point of view.
As far as the use of violence in the US, who sets the example? What's to dissuade a dead-end kid from taking what he needs by force, when he sees his leaders soberly planning to do exactly that?
deleted by author
You might manage less of a gun culture if you had a humane non coercive government that helped its citizens.
This means avoiding pretty much every aspect of the nanny state (no soda tax for instance) keeping taxes on the working people low, maintaining a solid national defense all the while having the state actually help people.
Even if the regressives who would reflexively oppose could be politically isolated I am not sure such a state is possible,here or anywhere else.
As C.S. Lewis said in God in the Dock
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
Please take your Ayn-Rand-cult ideas elsewhere. Do nanny states like Sweden or the UK have a gun violence problem?
Can you please explain how being free from worry about starving, free from worry about being homeless free from become bankrupt from medical care - or jut dying from lack of it, free higher education, free public transportation, feedom from workplace wage-slavery, or freedom from a poisoned environment, is "oppressive" or "coercive"? Have you ever lived outside the US, where they don't embrace the Ayn Rand cult. Don't these places exceed the US in every measure of living standard and happiness?
abprosper September 29th, 2009 12:39 pm,
Thank you for that logical post. Please do not leave CD. You are revealing the underlying disease of American culture. The Right Wing is terrified of the abuse of big corporate government. I agree with them. It's terrible. It's oppressive. It's tyrannical. But the very successful Social programs like Social Security, are not the problem. The problem is corporate and war welfare. Why we need to tolerate a destructive war/oil economy that drains the lifeblood out of every citizen who refuses to invest in a barbaric Roman Empire strategy is beyond me. If we keep on this path, we are doomed to fall as did the Roman, Spanish and British empires before us.
The Utopia wished by many here is just never going to happen without pressure. The rise of labor in the US did not happen by wishful passive hopefulness: it happened by Union black boots and ball bats: by letting scabs know that if they sold their souls to robber barons that they would never be safe from their co-workers or management either. Scabs live a hellish life: they are manipulated for short term gain by management of huge firms, then cast aside to fend for themselves when normalcy returns. So Management's Anti-Union Doomsday weapon was to scab all our big corp jobs to India and China. It worked, only it may kill their precious corporate monsters in the process, as the US economy was 70 percent consumer based. How's that going to fare with no consumers around, huh?
Which is why I suspect the new "Master-of-the-Universe" plan is to switch to a world war economy. Not very reassuring prospects for the survival of the species.
We started as a gun culture to preserve our individual freedoms and liberties. Without guns, no government turd who enters your home has any reason to behave in a respectful fashion. Without a local town-controlled militia, no incentive exists to discourage the Army from being deployed in your neighborhood such is being currently executed by NorthCom.
The days of your perfect safety and liberty are over, because every day, you allow the government to erode just one more little freedom away. One day, we all will wake up in 1984 because we were not armed and we did not say "stop."
TJ
"the subjects being Protestants may have arms for their Defense [and a "good and wholesome law of the province" requiring that every household] "shall be always provided with a well-fix'd Firelock, musket, accoutrements and ammunition...in order that the inhabitants of this town be prepared in case of sudden danger." - Boston Town Meeting September 12, 1768
Dear abprosper
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
To that quote I have to say WTF?!??
With all do respect. "It would be better to live under robber barons, (their) cruelty may sometimes sleep, (their) cupidity may at some point be satiated"
Is that supposed to be the motto of the US Chamber of Commerce? Dude we are living under that system now, do you actually think this logic works for the average person like me or you?.
I have yet to see their cruelty sleep as we bungle our way from one screwed up war to an other, killing innocent men, women and children, and calling it collateral damage.
These corporate pigs show now satiation in their cupidity. They screwed the pooch with all their credit default swap shenanigans and then they demanded and got trillions of dollars tossed their way to bail their sorry butts out. The author obviously does not understand tyrants like the ones we are living under. It simply is never enough for them, there is never enough money or violence to satiate these demons.
There was a thread on some other board headed "How many Guns do you keep by your bed for protection".
I did not read any of it but it struck me as rather odd.
I have none and feel perfectly safe when I sleep.
Please thank and pray for those who stand guard, so that you can sleep safely and in peace.
Yes, And their job is a heck of a lot easier given every tom dick and harry in the country is not packing 5 firearms and claiming it their right to do so.
I lived 7 and some years in the US, 5 people i knew rather well were shot, 4 died... 3 more i knew from afar were shot dead ...
5 co-workers were held at gun point over a 4 year period ...
I've lived about 33 years in France i don't know anybody, personaly or from afar, who got shot ... France has very firm anti-gun laws, not to say that violence doesn't exist in France...
Thanks to the fear mongers (the real patriots),people are scared that some Muslim nation will attack us again or shoot a nuclear bomb over here, so we always need more defense. Also we are scared that our own government cannot be trusted, so we put our trust in insurance companies. Then we are told that our own government has plans to incarcerate those who are not part of the "liberals" who are controlling the country, which means we need all the guns and ammunition we can get our hands on to protect our families from ourselves. After all, we may now have a president that is not a real born citizen, and what could be more scary than that?
What is alarming is that history tells us the ones to be concerned about may be the "real" patriots and religious groups that are so radical and outspoken. As long as they continue to spout all of the radical propaganda they can think of, and common folks believe it, we will continue to see violence. Instead of fear mongering, we need to be trying to get people employed so they see a better future ahead for their families.
Would the author, I wonder, feel better if that man had *stabbed* his ex-wife to death? Or would she then focus on that instrument, and demand that, as in Britain now, even Boy Scouts not be allowed to possess even a pocket knife?
Where will it end? How draconian a set of prohibitions would be needed to eliminate all violence? Force everyone to shuffle around all day in shackles that permit almost no movement?
The wealthy almost never personally commit violence. They have many other options open to them, beginning with the court system. In contrast, the most violent are the criminal entrepreneurs who have no other means than violence by which to settle their business and personal quarrels.
For non-psychopaths, it all boils down to options. Lots of options, little violence. Few options, lots of violence.
As in all things, if we want peace we must work for justice, not the application of a new and more restrictive set of fetters.
The author did mention you are more likely to survive a knife wound.
My thought is that a gun is such an impersonal way to kill. With a knife you're front and center. You'd feel it penetrate and if it struck bone you'd have to push harder and maybe gouge it around; a gun requires about a 4oz pull on a trigger. A knife stab only makes a slit, but you can easily purchase different bullets that do more and better damage (hollow point, armor piercing, depleted uranium).
Or just compare the number of shooting deaths to stabbing deaths. That might be your answer right there.
Or could you imagine someone committing, say, 14 deaths with a knife in some crowded venue?
Probably someone is more likely to survive a stab wound only if it's not the intention of the attacker to kill. Most people also survive being shot by pistols and rifles, if it's not the intention of the attacker to kill.
And I'd agree that a gun is less personal (what a grisly -tho accurate- way to put it). I'd imagine that anyone not demented by the moment would lose their momentum and their lunch the moment the knife went in. On the other hand, would anyone not in dire mental straits be sticking a knife into someone to begin with?
I'm not sure it's fair to bring in the issue of mass-murder tools. Certainly some firearms would be much better for killing 14 people than a knife would be, but depending on the circumstances, a petrol bomb or bit of plastique would be better yet. That's what loonies in N. Ireland used who didn't have access to machine guns. Want to be sure you kill your target in a spectactular way, and happen his family too? Chuck a petrol bomb through the parlour window at night while they're all watching the telly. And, of course, we have the example of the poor souls in Palestine who, not having machine guns, blow themselves to bits in a final desperate attack on their oppressors.
But I think my main point is getting lost here, namely that it's not the tool that's the central problem. Someone who's determined to kill can always find a way, so focusing on the instruments is as seductive-but-pointless as focusing on the alcohol when trying to stop alcohol abuse, or on the tobacco when trying to stop someone smoking.
"But I think my main point is getting lost here, namely that it's not the tool that's the central problem. Someone who's determined to kill can always find a way"
Exactly - you can stab someone with a "sharp #2 pencil" or take over a plane with a box cutter...
Mairead (September 29th, 2009 8:04 pm) -- the problem with guns, as others have repeatedly pointed out in this thread, often without using the term "hazardous," is that they are hazardous. More so than knives or clubs. And modern guns are much more hazardous than the guns the founders had in mind when writing the Second Amendment.
Your chances of survival are much less if you're shot than if you're stabbed or clubbed by an aggressor, regardless of the intent of the aggressor.
Bombs are also hazardous. Making them will get you arrested. Thanks to the Second Amendment's coverage being limited to "arms" (interpreted now as firearms), we have good laws controlling the use of explosives in the country. Situations like Oklahoma City have prompted even more control. And, if we had more bombings like the ones you fantasize about in your post, I guarantee that the laws, and/or law enforcement, would be ramped up to deal with the problem.
It's not only individuals who are entitled to protection. Society is. When the individual's right conflicts with society's, a reasonable balance should be struck. Right now, thanks to NRA-type thinking, we have imbalance.
You've made two assertions that I don't believe you can possibly support: (a) that firearms are inherently "more [hazardous]" than knives and (b) that one's changes of survival are inherently "much less" if shot than if stabbed.
I started out to give my personal experience, which includes many knife injuries but no firearm injuries. But rather than do that, I'll just suggest a small thought experiment: securely lock up a loaded gun of any type you like, and your choice of knife-like object that's as big and sharp as you like, and see which one causes the most harm over some specified amount of time. My bet is that neither will cause any harm at all, except perhaps to the finish of whatever they're sitting on if they drip oil or something. Would you disagree?
As to chance of death, I really think you ought to support such a claim with at least one credible citation. I just don't think you can do it, because there's far too much context dependency involved.
Mairead (September 30th, 2009 1:30 pm) -- I think you're in a distinct minority if you don't believe firearms are more hazardous than knives. Just as an example of the thinking of one group of people, the Texas legislature (and I would guess most legislatures) define "deadly weapon" as "A FIREARM or anything manifestly designed, made, or adapted for the purpose of inflicting death or serious bodily injury, or anything that in the manner of its use is capable of causing death or serious bodily injury." (Emphasis added.) All the stuff after "a firearm" was deemed unnecessary to characterize firearms; the legislature would have said "a firearm, knife, or . . ." if they thought knives were inherently as dangerous as firearms.
Also, to talk about guns and knives locked up is a bit ridiculous. You have to consider all of the uses one might make of the object, and whether considering those, injury or death is more likely to occur from use of firearms or knives. And if you're implying you survived knife fights, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be talking about it if the person(s) fighting you had shot you.
Guns have dangerous qualities just not involved with knives. What's the knife equivalent of the stray bullet? Accidental discharge? And how many people can you kill in a short time with a knife, compared to even a handgun (not to mention assault rifle)? Since knives are cheaper and easier to get than guns, why aren't most murders done with knives?
I don't have the time right now to research other aspects, but I do recall previously learning that although attempted but failed suicides rarely involve guns, successful suicides often do. What percentage of suicides are justified?
I truly, honestly can't believe you expect me to take your argument seriously, so I'm at a loss to understand your intention. The principal reason I'm sure you can't be serious is that nobody who's serious would claim that what some legislature (and ESPECially the Texas one!) does has any probative value.
Another reason I can't believe you're serious is that you claimed to have assumed that my mention of knife injuries might refer to some sort of street-gladiator history rather than food preparation in the kitchen. A person would have to have quite a bizarre turn of mind for that to be the first thing they think of!
The final reason is that you presume that people act promiscuously, waving and throwing knives around and repeatedly firing off guns without looking. This is so completely contrary to fact that it's just plain *silly*. I don't believe you're silly.
So what's your real motive?
I owned a gun once. A .22 caliber single shot bolt-action rifle, legally imported from Russia. The intention was to use it for sustenance hunting in a survival situation.
Some years after I bought it, I went into a period of clinical depression. I had thoughts of suicide, thoughts of violence. And I had a new born daughter in the house. I knew a tragedy was very possible.
So I legally sold the gun and disposed of the ammunition safely.
I have not owned a firearm since.
Guns are insidious.
Their very existence begs them to be used. For target shooting. For hunting. For violence. For criminal activities.
Military style assault rifles and handguns were developed with only one purpose in mind, no matter how they may have had their designs tweaked for target competition since. That design was to take a human life. Ask anyone who carries a concealed handgun for 'self defense' why, and you will likely get the answer of self defense, but closely followed by the fantasy of wanting to use it.
Look at the countries that have effective gun control. Look at the numbers of gun related deaths.
Gun control DOES work.
No civilian needs a rifle with a magazine of more than five rounds. If you can't kill your intended target when you are hunting with five shots, you should not be hunting in the first place. Civilian shotguns should be similarly limited. And target hand guns should be kept under lock and key at the target range.
There have been some articles recently on CD, Alternet, and others noting how ammunition manufacturers are unable to keep up with domestic demand.
This should worry you. A Lot.
A grand tragedy is in the offing, and when it happens, I, like the author of this article, will not be surprised.
Walk in peace.
Ammunition demand does worry me ALOT, can't find .38 special ammo any where.
Listen Man, you do not want to own a gun, bully for you, but do NOT push your rules on me and I will not push mine on you, deal?
Galenwainwright... (September 29th, 2009 2:17 pm) -- Thanks for your eloquent statement of truths so many want to deny.
I've asked time and time again; why can people carry large caliber hand guns, high powered rifles, assault rifles... yet I'm limited to a knife with with a 4" blade?!? Even if the knife is meant as a tool.
The 2nd amendment says "arms". It doesn't specify firearms.
Can anyone clarify this for me?
Very true. But the arms that the cops are especially fearful of are simply a persons body and their voice.
Let's remember that the right to bear arms only applies to white people with right-wing political viewpoints - i.e. viewpoints a typical cop would agree with.
The Pittsburgh police searched the Seeds of Peace food bus several times for "weapons". I dread to think of the massacre that would have occurred if even one leftist protestor thought that he was free to duplicate what the right-wing demonstrators freely do.
Same with any black man asserting his second-amendment rights.
If you don't want to keep or own a gun...don't. Other than that, its a Constitutional right that will never be repealed nor reversed.
Gun control has proven over and over to be completely worthless.
Anyone that thinks the vast majority of gun owners has anything to do with or are members of the NRA are deluding themselves.
Try restoring a bit more discipline in the schools and stop accepting the ready made excuses of violent kids and adults. Take a good look at the beating death of the kid that was killed this week....beaten to death, before you worry too much about guns.
The answer isn't that easy nor are guns the problem.
On Sunday evening while I was getting back, I came across three teenagers beating up a kid and I had to go in and diffuse the situation when no one was available. On things like that, guns may not be the problem. Otherwise, gun control is needed.
>>Gun control has proven over and over to be completely worthless.
Really? Can you give evidence to support your conclusions ? I suggest this Jingoism.
Many Countries in the World have various forms of Gun Control legislation and have very different results then that shown in the USA.
So just as an example. If Gun Control legislation worthless, would you agree it should be ok to sell Guns and ammunition to 10 year olds?
Countires with gun controls include Japan , Sweden, Germany Finland , Switzerland. Canada and Australia and Virtually every Eropean country.
Other countries with no controls include Iraq and Afghanistan the Congo and Somalia.
You were saying?
Your reasoning is very faulty. Just because Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin were male it hardly follows that all male leaders of a country must be mass murderers. When using such an arguemnt you can not ignore the countries that it convenient for you to ignore.
This like those Americans holding up a sign of Obama and equating him to Hitler because both wanted change.
maybe if cops weren't such sadistic, violent pricks, and administrators weren't so glad to unleash them and watch them be so...
the future looks pretty damn shaky, and one side is definitely packing...how 'bout the other? dialogue?
Which brings me to this thought.
If we can have senate hearings on steroid use in baseball -- why can't we have steroid tests on these over-sized, nasty temperament, ass-hole cops?
Just makes sense to me.
"Which brings me to this thought.
If we can have senate hearings on steroid use in baseball -- why can't we have steroid tests on these over-sized, nasty temperament, ass-hole cops?
Just makes sense to me."
Or the more dangerous power-tripper: The Congressman or the CEO. Both make daily decisions about whether to off-shore jobs or go to war, but neither is ever drug tested. Who's more dangerous when they enter your house? The jacked-up cop, or the crack criminal? The truth is both of them are. It's a dangerous world and calling 911 is not going to cut it for about 45 minutes.
Get over your fear of guns. Buy a safe and be safe. Don't drink and play with the thing. Always assume it is loaded and always assume it will go off the second you carelessly allow the barrel to sweep across the path of human flesh. If you are foolish enough to ever pull a gun on a person, you better be smart enough to pull the trigger. It is the last resort to protect your freedoms.
TJ
"Who's more dangerous when they enter your house? The jacked-up cop, or the crack criminal?"
The cop - because you'll always be to blame for taking him out, but be a hero for the crack head's demise.
"Get over your fear of guns."
I don't have a fear of them - I just think if we were back in the days of knives and swards things would be way different because the pussys wouldn't be killing people then.
Sorry,
I wasn't referring to you Unforgiven,
I was addressing all the readers in general: the doubtful anti-gun left, of who many are my friends. I am a left-leaning, Jeffersonian-Libertarian (the third biggest party,) and like the great man, say: "Let them take arms". Jefferson's immortal response to Shay's Rebellion:
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure."
Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President
Source:
November 13, 1787, letter to William S. Smith, quoted in Padover's Jefferson On Democracy, ed., 1939
http://booksDOTgoogleDOTcom/books?id=imMmIlv1G7MC&pg=PA268&q=&f=false#v=onepage&q=&f=false
I applaud the author for having the courage to tell the truth on America's addiction to guns. My parents came from India and while there is so much to enjoy, gun violence remains a serious concern. If gun control hadn't existed in India, the US would already have classified India as a terrorist nation. I do not believe in violence and I am a strong supporter of gun control.
As that old gunslinger Dick Cheney would say, "So?"
It's not guns. It's dysfunctional capitalism.
Price is making the argument that gun ownership should be restricted because guns can potentially kill people. If that's a good argument, the War on Drugs is a fantastic idea, and we should also ban cars on the same grounds (cars kill more people than guns). Knives are pretty suspicious, too, so let's get rid of those. How about keeping nail scissors and tweezers off airplanes, too?
If the United States really has 283 million guns, any ban on guns would be completely unenforceable, and the enforcement that did happen would disproportionately impact minorities and poor people. It's already illegal to kill someone, no matter how the killing is done. We don't need to impose arbitrary, burdensome restrictions on law-abiding people who want to go hunting, go target shooting, or simply collect guns.
It's simplistic to blame guns for the American homicide rate. It's pretty obvious that there are LOTS of problems with American culture that encourage violence, and none of those would disappear because Congress decided that 5 bullets in a rifle is OK, but 6 are too many. Thinking gun legislation will turn the United States in to France is magical thinking.
The whole point of civil liberties is that people don't like each other's habits, and there's an impulse to interfere with people's pursuit of happiness even if it harms nobody. I think gun culture is creepy, but everyone is entitled to one as long as they're not harming other people with it.
The idea behind the Second Amendment, that governments can become so tyrannical that citizens must defend themselves from it by force, is not ridiculous. Right now, the government shoots nonviolent demonstrators with rubber bullets. When those bullets become real, it's better that people can shoot back. The possibility of things getting much worse in the future is always there, and it would still be there if we replaced everyone in the government with hand picked enlightened leftists. Bush tried to undermine the Posse Commitatus Act of 1878 in, like, 2006. Isn't it great that Congress had the foresight to imagine future abuses of power over 100 years ago?
Rightwing militia types may be wrong about pretty much everything else, but they're not wrong about the right to bear arms. I don't have or even like guns, but I have an imagination.
I'm reminded of seeing a rather tough looking guy walk into a quick-stop shop packing a good sized hip holstered pistol.
The young man behind the counter practically fainted verbalizing his anxiety, a dreadlocked couple at the counter said very directly that they wanted to be able to have guns; I said though I didn't want to prevent anyone, I had never owned or used and preferred not to.
It was an anonymous exchange, civil, and not without emotion. We parted with a new sense of people around us.
Many exchanges occurr anonymously - more I think than we tend to recognize.
There are responsible gun owners who aren't massacres waiting to happen. I've owned a Lee-Enfield SMLE Mk. III which was kept unloaded and locked in a gun safe unless I took it for it's only purpose: target shooting.
There are people who are responsible enough to own guns and then there are those who shouldn't be within 100 yards of one.
Go watch the numerous videos and read the few, suppressed articles about the G20 summit, the militarized police state that occured, the riots the police enacted, and the innocent, peaceful press, protestors, and students who were abused with tasers, tear gas spray, tear gas grenades, flash/bang grenades, billy-clubs, steel toe boots, and permanent hearing loss "sonic canons".
Then think. Do you really want these police, military, and private military groups to be the only ones who are armed in this nation?
Wake the freak up, or lick boot... if you're lucky.
The Branch Davidians at Waco Texas had lots of guns and we see how the Government took care of them. The firepower of the US government dwarfs what any citizen group can put together. If you think a few guns can protect you from the government, I'd recommend thinking again.
@ Tom,
Nearly 300 million guns is not "a few guns". It is a national militia for home defense. No it can't go up against any government force, but offense or "winning" is not the intent of a citizen militia. Deterrence from 1984 type government/corporate intrusion into the home is the intent of the right "to keep and bear arms."
And if you declare yourself Jesus, like David Korish did in Waco, TX, with the Branch Dividians, you can expect a visit from the control-nuts in the government to deploy the ATF tank to your doorstep. Don't wig-out. Just arm yourself legally within the law. Keep your head screwed on, and don't advocate radical outlaw behavior. If the government requires social workers to invade your house, let em. If the government requires inspection of your firearms, let em. Argue about it later. If you make friends with local law enforcement, maybe this won't happen in the first place.
It's not a crime to weld your gun safe to the floor and loose the combination. A lawyer would then have to be retained to work out the details.
Progressives sitting around cross-legged soaking up rubber bullets is not effective anymore. This world is so violent, nobody will cover it. Nobody will care. Itt is time to change tactics within the law.
Do things within the law, and you will have no worries.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
"Just arm yourself legally within the law. Keep your head screwed on, and don't advocate radical outlaw behavior."
And what if your progressive views are considered radical outlaw behaviour?
"And what if your progressive views are considered radical outlaw behaviour?"
rfloh, I'm guessing you're not American by the spelling of "behaviour,"
Views are not behavior, they are only your opinions protected under the First amendment. For example, Samuel Adams did not himself toss things overboard during the Boston Tea Party, but he later hailed the event as ordained and expected by God in his newspaper review in the Boston Gazette. We do the same thing here at CD. We comment on items of the day which is protected speech by the First Amendment. For example: If one of us says: "Timothy McViegh was a patriot and a hero to all Americans because he attacked the government in Oklahoma City", that is protected speech under the Constitution.
The Federal Mafia may not like it much, because just like when a cop is shot today, unnecessary force is always deployed in a unconstitutional manner to affirm the belief that the oppressive Federal Government always knows best and is beyond review or reproach. From the perspective of Patriotic Americans, the so-called "Patriot Act" is radical and must be repealed just as the infamous Sedition Acts once were.
Most measures since 911 in fact, are radical departures from democratic society and have to somehow be put in check by the citizens. We can't go on with this farce of eternal war with make-believe boogie men like Bin Laden who used to work for CIA and whose brother was a financial partner in GWB's Abusto Energy company.
Enough is enough. The "War on Terrorism" is as big a farce as "The War on Drugs"; both in fact, cooked up by the very same bush crime family to stiff taxpayers. We have fifteen intelligence agencies. If they can't keep track of bad guys and keep us safe, then let's get rid of them.
We can't live in a state of fear my fellow CDer's. Brave men like Pat Tillman died in a phony war for your freedom. Use it or lose it. I'm reading the best seller "Where men win glory" about the scam in Afghanistan. Bush claimed Tillman was a hero fighting for NeoCon values. Nothing could be further from the truth. His diaries and letters proved GWB lied again. Chicken Hawks wanted to use NFL Tillman, who gave up millions in his football career, to go fight after 911 as a propaganda piece to further the war machine. Rumsfield sent his only commendation ever to a soldier to seduce Tillman. Pat got over there and realized it was a scam for oil and promised to tell everybody when he got home. The USarmy shot and killed him (afterwards claiming the boogieman did it.)
Now that's a radical departure from free speech, wouldn't you say? We are not the radicals. The KGB Feds are. We simply want the highest law in the land obeyed. A reasonable demand from reasonable citizens.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
My point is that to the authoritarians, any dissent is "radical outlaw behaviour".
And in case you are wondering, I oppose gun laws.