Quite on the contrary, Leaper, I think that Yogi’s explanation is quite useful. It shows that guns make people certain people feel good, and they like bragging about inflicting violence on government agents. For some people, it’s a big ego boost.
And just because you can type ridiculous assertions and post them to a message board, that doesn’t mean you should, either.
Oops. I was trying to get Yogi’s post into that second quote.
In the OP I don’t think Leaper was wanting legal reasons why Americans like firearms. Leaper, I’m going to give it a shot and see if I can’t answer your question. I do think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned that it was part of our culture and our history.
When the Americas were colonized there was plenty of wilderness to go around. Many colonist lived in rather isolated areas and had to rely on themselves for protection against hostile natives or europeans. There were plenty of game animals to go around in the Americas. During this time in England hunting was generally reserved for aristocrats. In the Americas the common man was free to hunt without breaking any laws and risking punishment.
Of course we had the American Revolution in the 1770’s. There are letters from British officers to their leaders about the superior marksmanship of American troops. It may be possible that more Americans during that time were engaged in things like hunting pervious to the war. Not that Americans weren’t getting their asses handed to them by the British time and time again of course. Being the better shot doesn’t always win battles.
After the war you had greater expansion towards the west. You still had isolated groups of people who needed firearms for defense and to occasionally hunt. Then of course we come to the American Civil War. During the war firearm production skyrocketed and millions of guns were made available. After the war ended people took their rifles and pistols home with them.
Some time after the Civil War target shooting became a very popular sport in the United States. There were public schools that had both boy and girl shooting teams.
That’s a short little history and I suppose it doesn’t entirely explain everything. For example I would suspect that during colonization and shortly afterwards Canada was probably a lot like the US when it came to firearms.
Marc
I’ll take a shot at this OP.
The concept of human rights has different connotations in different societies and countries. In the US an awful lot of people believe that owning a gun is an inalienable right. I’m not here to argue the merits of that.
In other countries, let’s use Japan as an example, gun possession is not considered an inalienable right. In fact, if I can generalize for the Japanese, most Japanese find it the level of violence associated with firearms in the US to be an infringement on human rights. I’m not here to argue the merits of this viewpoint either.
This isn’t right or wrong, it’s a completely different viewpoint and different firearms culture.
One Canuck’s thought on guns…
Canada was settled much like the U.S. and firearms were a neccessity of life for people like settlers, hunters, and trappers. We had no war for independence like the U.S. but there have been violent conflicts in our history.
Strangely enough, it seems that our attitudes toward gun ownership are different and the percentage of people here who are militant about gun ownership are fewer. We don’t consider the right to bear arms (or arm bears) inalienable, your right to own a firearm should be based on a high level of personal responsibility.
We have strict laws concerning firearms possession and registration is mandatory. Handguns cannot be purchased without criminal background checks and special permits are required before you can even transport a handgun.
Because of this, you will find very few Canadians who own a handgun; the ones who do are either law enforcement, the military, or sadly, criminals.
Crimes involving firearms have been on the decline for the past thirty years and you are more likely to be stabbed than shot here.
I live in a city of nearly one million people and can go out at most any time feeling pretty secure and not worry about being shot at. I think most Canucks would agree with me on this.
Too many people aren’t stable enough to have children or drive a car, I would hate to see these people in possession of firearms.
So as long as my neighbours aren’t packing heat, I will be putting off my purchase of any weapons.
I’ll finish by saying that I like guns, I have owned a few lovely rifles in my life but no longer have a need for one. When the Mrs and I move to the country I will most likely look to purchase a decent rifle and a shotgun for the purpose of hunting and pest control. There was a time I could take the head off a gopher at two hundred metres with open sights, I’m one of those guys you wouldn’t want climbing a clock tower with a rifle in hand…
I have a great deal of difficulty believing that Americans were the first people in ten thousand years of human civilization to come to this conclusion.
The Bill of Rights is not important for what it recognizes. It “Recognizes” nothing - it’s just a law.
The Bill of Rights is important for what it PROHIBITS. The first ten amendments to the Constitution neither “grant” nor “recognize” anything - they specifically prohibit the government from doing certain things.
Well…It seems obvious to me that if guns are widespread and can be easily acquired in the whole country, nothing will prevent a criminal from using one just because they are forbidden in a limited area.
Now, if guns are very scarce, forbidden in the whole country and hence very difficult to obtain, and that the sentences for owning such weapons are very stiff, I would suspect than the average criminal (drug dealer, mugger, burglar,…) wouldn’t take the risk to bear one, and in most cases would have a hard time just finding one.
Interesting how the plea to not argue that it’s because we are The Chosen One of nations and everyone else are sheep was so blythely ignored. Good to see this moving back into serious debate.
So why is it that, culturally, US society is far more liberal towards the idea of an armed citizenry than that of virtually all other Western industrialized mostly-capitalist countries? I suspect there is no single answer but there may elements which may have some bearing on, for example, why Canada, which also had to blaze the trail of wilderness (and fend a couple of attempted invasions by the US), did not get so hung up on private ownership of as much firepower as you can handle.
The US’s Origin Myth (in the sense of a Tale that Explains things, not in the sense of “falsehood”, OK?) makes a big deal of two elements: (1) “rugged individualism” where you stake out to get yours and have to rely on your own (or your immediate neighborhood’s) wits and strength AND (b) making a clean full break with the past, including the vestiges of feudalism, under which protection of the people’s lives is a duty of the crown.
These mythical elements applied just as well to the early nation collectively as to latter immigrants individually. They combined with a reality of the past: for protection and security, for many years an American could rely better on his or her own wits than on a government agency. The Cavalry could not always be counted on to arrive in time on the prairie, the Sheriff did not always show up in time to stop the lynch mob (or was one of them!), the Chicago Police were on the take with Capone, etc.
Meanwhile notice that Canada or Australia get the trailblazing, but transition peacefully from monarchy to democratic rule, with the Crown still as kind protector of all; France makes crowned heads roll but there is no empty wilderness to tame so the “rugged individuals” are limited to politics or business; etc.
So during that same time as the US was building itself up on the idea that One Man could make his stand, in most nations of the Western culture “every man arm himself and prepare to defend his own house, the government can’t help you” meant that the country had collapsed, is occupied, there’s a revolt going on, the King’s dead, etc. Bad Things, pain, suffering. In the US it just meant, hey, it’s far from the nearest fort/police station. And since you can’t count on the State’s protection, you might as well arm yourself well. Self-preservation? The US chose individual, other countries chose collective.
jrd