End this love affair, please.

[lazarus]

It's a rite of passage. Dad teaches his son how to shoot, the responsible use of a firearm, and to take care of it. It could be a saddle gun, or something like it that is all-around useful. When dad feels the boy is old enough and will be responsible, the gun becomes his. It is a HUGE day in the life of that young man. Now, he is no longer a boy, but a man.

I have no problem with that. This happens in rural England, France etc. American gun culture has evolved into something more than that I'm sure your would agree.

[Bravus]

Dave, I was playing my friend! You'd fired and owned all those big awesome guns, and all I had to bring to the discussion was a little .22 pea-shooter. So the 'compensating' comment was a simple joke, that's all - no judgement of motives or whole cultures implied!

[David Koot]

Congratulations on winning the Revolutionary war but as I recall a number other countries were successful in winning their freedom from the British empire.

[David Koot]

Dave, I was playing my friend! You'd fired and owned all those big awesome guns, and all I had to bring to the discussion was a little .22 pea-shooter. So the 'compensating' comment was a simple joke, that's all - no judgement of motives or whole cultures implied!

LOLOL I understand. It is something in my past, which I have left behind. But I had my moments! I know what it feels like to face death, to have someone draw down on you. And I know what it means to be on the other side of the equation.

Dave

[Woody]

Quote:

Why is America the most powerful nation on earth today?

God Blessed America

[Bravus]

...and, as Ben Franklin famously said, God helps those who help themselves. America has managed to help itself to a heaping helping of resources from all over the world...

But I'd argue that most of its dominance came out of Henry Ford's factory and America's science and innovation, rather than out of the barrel of a gun.

[lazarus]

I'm really not denying that Americans have displayed great courage and tenacity in the development of their nation but I think you overstate it.

Surely a nation with so great a character will turn its attention to ensuring its citizens are as safe from gun violence as other industrialized nations.

[David Koot]

Good point indeed, Bravus. I think you are right there. After all, it was Chairman Mao who said that "political power comes out of the barrel of a gun." I think probably the single most significant factor in gun ownership in America is the tradition of governmental power vested in the individual. The gun is a symbol of that power. Taking away people's guns is a symbol of totalitarianism. Gun ownership for individual Americans is a check and balance on the power of government.

Yet, for other cultures, such is not the tradition. Germany, France, England, Russia, etc., etc., do not have the strong tradition of the power of government vested in the individual. Hobbes put it well in 'Leviathan.' That has been the European way. And it certainly is, even more so, in totalitarian countries like China.

Dave

[jasd]

QR frame:

UK. WWII.

Eee! Eee! Eee! [/fisting tears from their eyes at the time]

Please! Please! Please! send us guns! Those nasty Nazis are coming, are coming; those nasty Nazis are coming - and we must have means to defend ourselves!

The [private] American citizens did just that. They sent the Brits their own privately held guns. Many of those guns are valued today in the tens of thousands of dollar$.

Post WWII, those same Brits who now delight in pontificating against the ‘gun culture’ of their neighbours across the Pond,

did not return those guns nor did they compensate! Indeed not. Moreover, post WWII they, once more

Eee! Eee! Eee! – for tinned goods. They received their pleaded-for tinned goods – and now with a semblance of National order, and contented tummies – they presume to dwell upon the supposed inadequacies of [Gd Bless] America.

I simply gag – Ugh! Yech! to be reminded of the perfidy of the UK re guns, and such...

Due to the respect I hold, generally, re the list – the above is submitted clinically with nothing to be personally inferred. [/playing nice]

[olger]

Jasd, you are the greatest !

"Eee! Eee! Eee! – for tinned goods. They received their pleaded-for tinned goods – and now with a semblance of National order, and contented tummies – they presume to dwell upon the supposed inadequacies of [Gd Bless] America.

I simply gag – Ugh! Yech! to be reminded of the perfidy of the UK re guns, and such..." Sheer genius !! 200 IQ's of pedantic brilliance.

olger

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

In Canada the crime rate is much lower and the gun ownership is legal. The crime rate has a little to do with gun ownership. It has to do with a cultural and societal norms.

[lazarus]

I think its a good thing that the Brits didn't send those guns back. They kept them for your own good!

Quote:

I simply gag – Ugh! Yech! to be reminded of the perfidy of the UK re guns, and such...

While others simply gag in malls, schools, and on city streets with alarming regularity at the sight of gun victims.

[Bravus]

The gun ownership rate in Canada is also much lower, though: it's legal but all guns have to be registered (there's been a huge scandal over the cost of that program). I think the per capita ownership figures for Canada are much lower than in the US, despite the way the law is.

In developed countries there is a very strong correlation between gun ownership and gun deaths, with a few outliers.

[Bravus]

Yeah, the US gun ownership rate is about 85% and the Canadian is about 24%

[Dr. Shane]

I favor more restrictions for guns in the US. However the problem is the people and the culture. The idea that banning guns would solve the problem is kind of like the idea that banning abortion will stop it. The root of the problem needs to be dealt with. Gun crimes are only a symptom of a much deeper problem just like abortion is a symptom of a much deeper problem.

[fccool]

...at the sight of gun victims.

I did not know that they make guns now that are running around and shooting on their own . Gun is a weapon of choice in hands of the aggressor. It could be anything. Outlawing that "anything dangerous" based on a misuse of a few people would get us nowhere. It would be barking up the wrong tree. According to some sources, the leading cause of death in US is medical errors. Let's do away with the hospitals shall we?

[Neil D]

Quote:

Gun crimes are only a symptom of a much deeper problem just like abortion is a symptom of a much deeper problem.

Ok, I gotta ask...what do you think the problem is..?

[Dr. Shane]

Ok, I gotta ask...what do you think the problem is..?

That would be worth some investigation, wouldn't it? One might even think it more important than baseball players pumping up with drugs.

[Bravus]

fccool - when was the last time you heard of a multi-victim knife rampage? Sure, a gun is only one way of perpetrating violence, and it's the choice of the perpetrator. But a gun is an extremely efficient and effective means to this end, because that's what it's specifically designed for. And 'the violent are always with us'.

[Neil D]

Quote:

Ignoring the chatter from the cheap seats

Hey ... I may be cheap ... but I ain't an ol'Koot.

[fccool]

fccool - when was the last time you heard of a multi-victim knife rampage? Sure, a gun is only one way of perpetrating violence, and it's the choice of the perpetrator. But a gun is an extremely efficient and effective means to this end, because that's what it's specifically designed for. And 'the violent are always with us'.

Hmm... 9-11? Was it effective? Were guns used? Serial killers go on for years unnoticed raping a killing who knows how many with whatever they could find. There are people today killed by such people. We get shocked by the gun murders ... but then there are headlines such as...

Alleged Serial Strangler Charged

Accused Of Murdering 11 Prostitutes And Mentally Ill Woman In Mo

Coral Eugene Watts - aka The Sunday Morning Slasher; although only convicted of two murders, at one point admitted to killing 80 people in Texas and Michigan; possibly guilty of 100 murders

Gerald Stano - convicted murderer of 41 women

These are a few people who got caught. There are others who just run around killing... with no guns. Too loud...

Would you like to address my question about the leading cause of death being medical malpractice? Would you get rid of the hospitals based on medical malpractice deaths? I know it sounds absurd, but that's the application of such logic.

[Bravus]

No, because hospitals are not specifically designed to kill, guns are. It's not a sensible comparison.

And serial killers also seem to be an almost exclusively American phenomenon, with a few exceptions like Fred West and that guy in Russia.

That tends towards the 'something deeply wrong in the American psyche' explanation. I've been steering away from that one out of respect, but it's where many of the other posts in this thread lead...

(and d'oh, I seem to recall bowing out of this thread earlier)

[fccool]

Not all guns are designed to kill. But I agree that most are. Nevertheless I see that the consensus is that it does have something to do with American psyche. Michael Moore attempted to discover what it was, but I don't think he did a good job .

[David Koot]

And David, I may be cheap, but, in your case, I ain't easy...

What did you have in mind, Neil?

[David Koot]

That tends towards the 'something deeply wrong in the American psyche' explanation. I've been steering away from that one out of respect, but it's where many of the other posts in this thread lead...

Nah, nuthin wrong with the American psyche. Violence takes place anywhere. A few years back, some guy stabbed the PM of Sweden while she was walking in public--in Sweden. Etc. etc. But as for criticism of America . . . quite often, the same ones critizing would really like to be here, and wish they had what Americans have. So, the criticism is their way of coping with it.

Dave