Tristan, did you really think I meant guns in and of themselves as objects? Not trying to be snarky - I’m asking because perhaps I wasn’t clear.
Also, tomndebb, I respectfully disagree that my view that there is some dishonesty within the gun debate is not relevant to this thread. We’re talking about how Americans relate to this issue. How those on both sides view and phrase the debate reveals how we relate to guns. I’m not attempting to call people liars pejoratively.
Wasn’t sure if you were actively moderating with your remark to me, per se. If you were, I’ll go by your judgment.
Did anyone bother to read my links? It’s just not true that there is a much stronger gun culture in the U.S. than in Canada. 39% of households in the U.S. have guns. 29.1% have them in Canada. That’s not that all-fired much of a difference.
Once again, it’s just the guns. There is no gun culture, only guns and numbers. Numbers are real and never lie. Notions of cultural signs and symbols are foisted on the gullible by abstruse French faggot philosophers.
Quite the contrary, there definitely is a gun culture in the US and we do talk about the philosophical and cultural aspects among ourselves. However, it is difficult to explain these things when you know your thoughts are going to be deliberately twisted and each word nit-picked to death. (I don’t mean by you in particular, Beware of Doug).
So I will instead use the words of others, who are more eloquent than I, anyway. Here are two of the more classic essays.
Sorry about double posting, but I just have to comment on that Metal and Wood “essay”. That was one of the funniest things I’ve read all week. Thanks for posting that, I could completely visualise the author, wild-eyed and spittle flecking from his lips, as he re-read that to himself. The best part was when he double-dog dared me. Thanks.
P.S. Is that author, Dennis Bateman, the same Dennis Bateman who was charged with first degree felony murder for a shooting in California in 2007? Probably not, but it would be funny if it was so.
[devil’s advocate]How can drugs be the source of a societal problem? A drug is an inanimate object. Ergo, there is no reason for the gov’t to regulate drugs.[/devil’s advocate]
Once again, is anyone reading my posts? The OP said " . . . gun ownership is much denser in the US . . . [than in Canada]" That’s just not true. The proportion of households with guns isn’t much more than in the U.S. than in Canada, only 39% as opposed to 29.1%. Regardless of whether there is more of a gun culture in the U.S. (if that term even means anything), there just isn’t that much of a difference between the U.S. and Canada in the number of gun owners.
Exactly right. What I put in my body is my business. We have an illegal drug problem because we made the drugs illegal and, therefore, a lucrative business for the criminal class.
Well said. I don’t know how you can support individual freedom and personal responsibility on the one hand, but suddenly throw that out the window when it comes to personal recreation.
I suppose we can argue whether 10 % is a big difference or not but the real point is how they view guns. Perhaps they see guns as a tool rather than a cause. In America many gun loonies make guns their cause, their hobby and the their religion . I see it as a distortion which makes them very difficult to deal with. They have won and just can not quit crying at imaginary assaults against their rights. Nobody could possibly take guns back. that ship has sailed. There are billions of them. But these loonies think if a community wants to take efforts to curb gun violence it becomes an immediate threat to their rights. it is so sad.
How can there be billions of them if there are only a third that many Americans?
I think that gun culture in the U.S. is like the death penalty. It’s claimed that having the death penalty makes the U.S. wildly different from other countries like, say, Canada. In fact, the death penalty is only applied with any significant frequency in the U.S. in about a third of the country. The other two-thirds of the U.S. either has no death penalty or it’s very rarely applied. (Only 37 people were executed in the U.S. last year, and nearly every single one was in a small set of states.) The same is true, I think, of the supposed gun culture. Approximately two-thirds of the U.S. is very much like Canada in gun ownership. Something like 30% of the households have guns, some for hunting and some for self-protection. Most people in this part of the U.S. don’t make a big deal of owning guns. There’s another one-third of the U.S. where it’s considerably more common to own guns and people make a big deal of it.
I’m tired of people taking an attitude that’s only true of a minority of the regions of the U.S. and treating it like it was true of all of the U.S. Two-thirds of the U.S. is like Canada in respect to the death penalty. It’s hardly ever applied. The death penalty only is regularly used in one-third of the U.S. In two-thirds of the U.S., the attitude towards guns is basically just like in Canada. The proportion of gun owners is the same and people tend not to make a big deal of owning guns. It’s only the remaining one-third of the U.S. that there’s a considerably larger proportion of people owning guns and making a big deal about it. I’m tired of this deliberate distortion of American culture to make it more different from other countries than it actually is.
Wendell, for the sake of argument, I’ll give you your numbers.
But the CIA World Factbook lists the population of Canada at ~33.5 mil. Approx. 30% of that is ~10 million.
The U.S. population is ~300 mil. Approx. 40% of that is ~120 mil.
While that has no bearing on relative “densities” of gun ownership, in absolute numbers, it does represent on hell of a larger “culture.” Looking at it from just an economic viewpoint, hunting, recreational/target shooting, home/self defense, all are catering to much larger numbers in the U.S., translating into serious $$$.
When you consider the “depth” of the entire firearms industry, from gun makers, ammo makers, and all the industries cranking out gun cleaning kits, targets, firearms accessories (from “furniture” to gun safes), to hunting apparel and paraphenalia, there is more than just a little vested interest for the firearms industry to “propogate” the “gun culture” in the U.S.
Considering Canada’s and the U.S.'s geographic and overall cultural proximity, I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t a good deal of economic “overlap” between the two counties “gun cultures.” Even if the marketing is different between the two.
Call me a materialistic weasel, but as in most things, I think that if you “follow the money,” the picture becomes much clearer.
Well, two things. First, it’s factually incorrect to say that two-thirds of the US is like Canada with respect to the death penalty. That’s because the death penalty applies throughout the United States, not just in some states. Death is the penalty for a variety of federal crimes, both civil and military. When the federal government killed Timothy McVeigh, it did so on behalf of all Americans. As long as the death penalty is available for federal crimes, it’s not correct to try to say that only a minority of Americans support the death penalty, or that two-thirds of the United States is like Canada with respect to the death penalty.
Second, in my opinion there is a world of difference between governments that kill felons, whether either “hardly ever” or “regularly”, and a government that never does so. This isn’t just a question of degree, but a fundamental difference in approach. Americans have instituted the death penalty nation-wide, and in some states; Canadians have abolished the death penalty for all purposes, including military offences.
I tend to agree, actually. I suspect, though, that this makes you a minority among gun-rights advocates, whose notions of personal freedom sometimes seem a bit gerrymandered, as **DrCube **points out. (Of course, gun-rights activists might accuse pro-gun-control liberals of the same.)
Especially when you consider that folks who advocate or oppose the death penalty aren’t exactly clustered all together into separate enclaves in the various states. As with ‘Red States’ and ‘Blue States’ the reality is a lot of purple with more of a red or blue tinge depending on how the state swings. The DP is the same…advocates and opposed folks are generally distributed throughout the country.
And of course, that goes even more so for guns. And you can’t base this solely on who OWNS a gun either…I’m a prime example of that. I don’t own one…I’m still highly in favor of the right of private citizens to keep and bear arms. So…just looking at the raw numbers of gun owners really tells us nothing. I’m not even sure polls on the question would be meaningful, as it would depend on the type of questions asked.
