If I give a kid some money to buy whatever he wants, and we put a gumball machine in his room. How many people honestly think he’s not going to spend his money on a gumball? Now what if we gave that same kid a .44 magnum instead. We tell him he’s only to use it to protect himself. He gets a little older and has an existential crisis. He presently wants to kill himself, in that moment he remember he has a gun. Now how many people honestly think he’s not going to kill himself? Kids like candy, suicidal people want change. The most accessible and easiest option for change is obviously killing yourself. According to statistics, that seems to be the case. Majority use of guns in house holds is not self defense, it’s suicide followed by criminal action, homicide, and unintentional shootings.
I’m not a psychologist but I know if I have a piece of chocolate cake in my refrigerator I’m more likely to wake up in the middle of the night and go eat it, than I am to stay in bed if I had not had the cake in there in the first place. Why would this be any different for guns? The school shooting that happen recently I believe could of been avoided had that kid not have the weapon in the first place. I believe in majority of school shootings specifically, if they did not have access to a weapon they would not of committed the action. It’s a lot harder to build up the confidence to go stab all your friends at school than it is to load a clip into an AR15 and start pray’n’spraying their guts over the walls. Not to mention it’s a lot harder to kill a few dozen people with a knife than it is a gun. I believe this to be true for almost all gun related deaths. Suicide or homicide, both could be somewhat prevented and lessened greatly if a Gun was never in the picture.
Now I understand right wingers ideological outlook on the right to own a 1700’s flint lockrifle. It’s more ideological than anything, at it’s core it’s saying we the people own our government. People are not compelled to do stuff by the government, the government is compelled to do stuff by the people. But in reality we aren’t fighting a physical war against our government, we don’t need to and don’t have the resources to defend against the US government if they wanted to just send soldiers to our houses to cuck our wifes with automatic machine guns pointed at our faces. That’s not going to happen because we’ve advanced past that, the government will do things to oppress us in much more subtle ways that can’t be fought against with a gun. So I find that ideological concept right wingers hold to be stupid. Wanting to give your citizens power is great, but wanting to give them all samurai swords, guns, nukes, etc… is stupid and counteractive to the reason government exists, because people are stupid and require imaginary constructs to promote fear and order in their hearts for them to act like civilized people.
Here’s the problem I have with the “good guy with a gun” theory:
A single good guy with a gun, assuming a skilled and calm CCW owner, would probably be a big asset and have a decent probability of saving lives, in an active shooter situation. But why/how would it be just one? What if it’s 5, or 10, or more, in a crowded movie theater, or office, or school? If someone hears a gunshot, and then 10 guys draw their weapons, how do they know who to shoot? All that has to happen is one of them be an idiot, or just clumsy, and aim or shoot in the wrong direction, and then chaos could break out, with far more risk and danger to life and limb than the single active shooter.
It seems to me that the more guns a situation has, with real, non-professional-law-enforcement humans that aren’t all morally decent, strong-minded, and steely-eyed savior-heroes, the more chances for decent people to get killed.
To be entirely fair, I haven’t gotten the impression that gun-liking people want to arm everyone. They just want to arm themselves. Either for the comparatively rational reasons of wanting to hunt, target shoot, or collect them like barbie dolls; or for the wishful thinking that possessing an offensive weapon increases your defensive ability and/or ability to play Rambo, whether or not you’re trained with it.
You occasionally hear people saying things like “If there had been a guy with a gun there (me) they would have shot and killed all the bad guys without taking any injuries themselves while jumping sideways with doves flying in the background.” But that’s not the usual line - it’s usually just “keep your hands off my toys!”
Switzerland is a less diverse and smaller country. I’d assume there’s far less reason for people to be violent. In America it’s much more mainstream, and since our people have the mindsets they do, giving them guns like they do in switzerland would only promote them to commit even more crime. From what I read on google, switzerland gives weapons to former soldiers, they are trained properly so they are less likely to be promoted by having a gun to kill others or themselves. Also I’m assuming switzerland’s suicide rates are much lower, they’re probably a happier country overall. In America we have had decades of reinforced careless behavior while armed. From little kids in the 60s wearing cowboy hats and playing with fake guns, to suburban kids in newyork listening to a song about kicking in someones door brandishing a .44.
If you trained all your citizens and taught them how to respect and use a weapon, then of course they wont go around murdering each other at increasing rates. I still think it’s a dumb idea to give people weapons, and switzerland has a very high gun-related death rate as would be expected.
Because the media hasn’t propagated these ideas with a nice dose of identity politics… yet
I know this line isn’t the gist of your entire post, but a single “good guy with a gun” is not likely to be a big asset. I’m basing this on conversations with our school resource officer, who was a skilled sniper. It’s very, very difficult to shoot and hit one particular individual in a crisis situation, especially when there are a lot of distractions, such as innocent people running, yelling, etc. This is true even for calm, skilled cops. He said it’s not at all like it is in the movies.
I think a single, skilled, calm CCW owner would be dangerous most crises, though I do agree with your post as a whole.
This part I disagree with. You don’t kill that many people without aimed shots. Probably the shooter used the front sight post and aimed for center mass, which is why only about half the victims died. He didn’t “spray”, the rifle isn’t automatic and he wouldn’t have that much ammo.
Oh, and the facts don’t back up your assertion that we are ‘murdering each other at increasing rates’…perhaps counter intuitively, it’s the opposite in fact. The amount of gun violence today is less than it was in the 80’s or 90’s, despite the fact that there are both more people and more guns in the country.
Also, ‘switzerland has a very high gun-related death rate as would be expected’…cite? What do you base this on?
It’s still a stupid idea. Culture doesn’t change human nature. In the same circumstances as many Americans I’m sure guns have been an enabling force for people’s actions. As it appears to be with switzerland being noticeably high on the yearly gun related death scale. Just because american culture enables and reinforces misuse of guns doesn’t invalidate the fact guns are potentially too dangerous for uninformed regular citizens to have. Which is why Switzerland apparently trains everyone to use guns.
In your opinion it is. I disagree. I think it’s no more a ‘stupid idea’ than allowing folks access to tobacco or alcohol, both of which kill more people per year on both a global as well as in just the US than guns do on either. I don’t disagree that gun control is necessary to a working society, but I don’t think your arguments are compelling and are based on your own opinion and assertion it’s a ‘stupid idea’.
Oh, no doubt. And so? Are you asserting that the gun laws passed since the 80’s are responsible for the lowering of the murder rate by guns in the US? What do you have to back up that assertion (well, this might be a hijack so I’m not asking you for a cite…just roughly)?
Yes, I’ve used that cite myself. Again…and so? How does this demonstrate your assertion?
BTW, to put this in perspective, I looked up gun deaths for Switzerland and 57 homicides in 2015. Out of a country of nearly 9 million and 3.4 million guns.
Should a country have a right to develop and test nuclear bombs? That’s how I feel about people having the right to wield guns outside of hunting, defense, and trade. In Japan during the 1600s they made it so only hunters and soldiers could have guns, and hunters could only have the guns in certain areas and they couldn’t sell them to non-hunters/soldiers. Now the Japanese have some of the lowest gun-related crimes and deaths in the world. Their culture was developed around treating arms with respect and handling them properly all of the time. Not like American culture which has taught us to treat them carelessly. At most you’ll learn not to look into the barrel of the gun or point it at anybody, but people still do that even in public.
The fact is if you have more guns you have more crime committed with guns. Guns, are easy to commit crime and kill people. So, less guns = less crime committed with guns. The whole point is to prevent gun crime and violence. Of course there will be crime, and there will be gun crime. But at least we can make gun crime, violence, and injury lower, all we have to do is try. Too bad many Americans have been bought out of the idea of even trying because of the the NRA and both political narratives by the media. The anti-gun narrative fuels the pro-gun narrative, mean while there is some guys making a lot of money somewhere watching it all unfold while his stocks shoot up thanks to all the gun wielding cowboys out there.
As far as a civilization working goes, sure if we were all smart enough to not blow our selves up then maybe just maybe it’d be okay to arm everyone. But until that day, we’re staying under the umbrella of constructs imagined by our predecessors. I’m sure if human civilization advances far enough into the future we’ll have an absolute anarchy. But as long as humans hold their instinctive nature then that’ll never happen. We’re still very much alike the animals on this planet as much as we try to convince ourselves our intelligence and bodies are enough to make us more than animals.
Partly responsible yes. I’d assume theoretically if there are laws passed regulating guns that they contributed to the lower rate of gun murders.
I don’t see everyone walking around with a fully automatic. I’m guessing something had to of worked to stop people from having fully automatic guns. Seems like now they just have semi-automatic guns with rapid fire features.
Ok, I’ll play along. No…unless of course they do it regardless, then they have the ‘right’ because they could do it. Where does that leave us, and how does this relate to what we are discussing?
Uh…the Japanese did it so that they could maintain absolute power for the ruling classes and keep the others in their places. They also didn’t allow anyone to have bladed weapons during that period except the ruling classes for exactly the same reason.
I find it unpalatable to do similar things for similar reasons to achieve such a goal in a population, and regardless it’s a bit late in the day to do that in the US…you’d have needed to do it better in Europe before the US was founded then transplant the same environment here and enforce it. So, you’d need a lot of authoritarian measures, a lot of deaths and a time machine at this point.
Horseshit. They learned what their place was, instilled by the iron fist of the warlords from the top down and re-enforced by their devotion to their emperor. Plus the devastation of losing a major war and being utterly crushed and occupied then living in the shadow of their occupier and those on the other side of a cold war who were worse.
There is a lot to admire in the Japanese…I do. But the shogunate period wasn’t something to strive for.
Certainly. Just like if you have more cars you will have more deaths due to car related accidents. And if you have alcohol you will have more alcohol related deaths. And if you have tobacco you will have more tobacco related deaths. Societies decide what is or isn’t acceptable.
For instance, Japan has a MUCH higher suicide rate per capita than the US does (well, they have the highest in the world, so higher than anyone). They also have a very high rate of alcohol related deaths. In China, they have a tremendously higher tobacco related deaths…as well as auto related deaths. Many European countries have higher rates of alcohol or tobacco related deaths per capita than the US does. To me, these are trade offs. Our society, to date, chooses to accept more deaths for some things, including guns, than we’d have if you could take those things away. All societies do this.