End this love affair, please.

[aldona]

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 .

With all due respect to our American friends, my husband and I spent three weeks in your great nation about this time last year, and we saw lots that was wonderful and some things that weren't.

One thing that really shocked us was the amount of violence on TV, and the graphic detail in which it is depicted, right down to the gory details in news reports covering crimes and disasters. It is much more than we are used to here. (And Australians can be very rough and rugged - I shudder to think what folks from the UK, Europe or Japan would make of it.)

I guess the people are conditioned over time to accept violence as a normal part of everyday life. And I can see how a person would be more ready to carry a gun if he/she assumed everybody else had a gun and was ready to use it against him/her.

Here we sort of assume that 99% of people do not have guns, so the average citizen doesn't feel the need to have one. I'm speaking as a city slicker here, I appreciate the difference between country folk using a gun as a tool of their job, and someone using a gun on another person.

aldona

[Bravus]

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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.

Keep on telling yourself that, mate.

[olger]

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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..?

The trail begins in the hearts of people and ends at the modern-day city of Sodom - Hollywood. Along the way, we can spend the night at the doorstep of rock & roll. Sure, mens hearts are evil according to Jeremiah, yet these twin implantations & exploitations of carnality have much for which to answer. And they will on..

That Day.

olger

[lazarus]

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

This actually proves the opposite of your point. An America a high profile politician would not venture to go shopping alone because of security concerns. She was the foreign minister and she was in a supermarket buying groceries unaccompanied by bodyguards.

Take a look at the Swedish psyche...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3098430.stm

The stabbing brings back memories of the murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme 17 years ago.

Olof Palme

Palme was shot dead, while walking with his wife home from the cinema

Then, as no doubt there will be now, there were calls for greater security.

But in the end the Swedish will to live in a society based on trust, a society where even politicians, business executives and royalty can move about freely without fearing for their lives, won the day.

This may now change - not just in Sweden, but across the Nordic countries where a culture of openness continues to rule despite the ever hardening atmosphere elsewhere in the world.

Certainly, all Swedes must now be feeling keenly the necessity of measures to prevent such events occurring again, and to find those responsible.

But this is also a time when many will wish to call for restraint, to warn against knee-jerk reactions and to ring-fence traditional Swedish values, beliefs and culture.

Quote:

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

I love being here, I enjoy being a missionary . I'm not sure what Americans have that I don't have but I'm always keen to make a better life for me and my family.

[David Koot]

I'm not sure what Americans have that I don't have but I'm always keen to make a better life for me and my family.

Yeah, but you are in Maryland. Give California a try.

[lazarus]

I took a quick trip to PUC last year and I drove from San Fran up the Napa Valley. I fell in love with the place. Thinking of planting a church in one of those vineyards.

[David Koot]

There you go! That is my dream too--planting a church. Doing city evangelism right now, which I really enjoy, but I also want to plant a church. As for the wine country, well, it can be done, and needs to be done. They are very much into 'la dolce vita.' Would be interesting to develop an outreach along those lines! Reaching people for Jesus via 'the good life.' And what a place to do it! Here, within a short drive, you have the wine country, beautiful beaches and quaint beach towns, the redwoods, the Parisian society of San Francisco, Big Sur, Yosemite, etc. etc. etc. The good life, indeed. How to reach these folks?

Dave

[Woody]

Quote:

How to reach these folks?

One way is a tasting party. But I don't think that would go over well. However ... they sure would show up. lol

The question is ... how to give them a taste of Jesus that will leave a good taste in their mouth.

[John317]

Originally Posted By: John317

You won't understand the American psyche regarding guns, as well as many other aspects of the American experience, unless you're nothing but an American, born and bred here and have the blood of generations of Americans coursing through your veins.

There are millions of Americans who have similar attitudes to the ones that I have expressed. Are they some how "unamerican"?

Not at all. It's not "Un-American" to express an opinion opposed to having guns. I'm certainly not implying that all Americans agree about everything or that they should agree about this or about any other subject. Americans come out of many different backgrounds and experiences, so it is natural that they would see many things differently. What we're talking about here, though, is the way America and Americans as a whole have approached the subject of guns throughout our history.

Quote:

"You just don't understand us" isn't a really persuasive argument. I'm surprised you would make it.

I didn't intend it to be an argument per se. It's more of an explanation of why people who grow up in another country may not be able to understand why Americans think the way we do about some things, including guns.

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Empirical data helps us to make sound decisions. Graphs and charts are important.

I agree that they are useful in an objective way. They perform a necessary function. But many aspects about a culture or national identity cannot be understood by analyzing graphs and charts and empirical date.

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When thousands of people die every year because of a cultural fetish some objectivity may save some young American lives.

If we want to save many of those lives, there are other things we could and should do before considering taking away the right of Americans to own weapons. That is a fundamental right of Americans. Perhaps you would disagree that it is a fundamental right, but there is no question that it has been a part of our constitution and a part of our understanding of it ever since the founding of our nation.

I don't agree with your assumption that guns are necessarily an American fetish. It might be with some people, but that certainly does not come close to exhausting the subject of guns in American society and history.

I think that the fact that you would reduce the subject to "a cultural fetish" argues in favor of what I said earlier, that in order to grasp the American feeling about guns, you really need more than graphs and studies. It's a matter of being born and bred here, of having American blood, eyes, and heart, etc. Being American is more of an idea and a feeling than it is anything else. Much of it comes from early childhood experiences: hearing stories about one's ancestors in the revolutionary war, the Civil War, and going hunting with one's father or brother-in-law, etc. These are things that are impossible to put into some kind of mathematical formulae.

Here's the dictionary definition of fetish. I don't see in this definition the place of the right of Americans to bear arms:

an inanimate object worshiped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit.

• a course of action to which one has an excessive and irrational commitment : he had a fetish for writing more opinions each year than any other justice.

• a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc. : Victorian men developed fetishes focusing on feet, shoes, and boots.

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Don't forget the demographic that suffers most from this fatal attraction is young people. Sound familiar?

What we as a country need to work on, then, is seeing that children have both parents in the family and that they are taught good morals and respect for human lives and the proper use of guns. I don't think the solution is taking away all guns from everyone. We don't take cars away from people because so many are killed by them. We teach people how to use the car properly and we try to enforce the laws that regulate them. Let's do the same as regards guns.

[John317]

The whole logic of 'we need guns to defend ourselves from people with guns' position just makes me laugh.

I betcha have no trouble grasping the hard logic of it in times of war, though. Makes pretty good sense, too, when you have a gun shooting at you. It can teach you a lot.

[Woody]

All I can say is that I felt much less safe when I lived in the UK than compared to how I feel now living in the US.

[David Koot]

One way is a tasting party.

Oh, aren't you funny! True enough, a wine and California cheese tasting party. Hold it in Sonoma, a community that TRULY has class. Would be a big hit. Followed up by an evangelistic meeting? Hmmm.

[Guest gem]

Get the hand outs and evangelistic brochures ready before you set up the cheese and wine tasting party, then hand them the invitations for the other "party".

[David Koot]

I betcha have no trouble grasping the hard logic of it in times of war, though. Makes pretty good sense, too, when you have a gun shooting at you. It can teach you a lot.

But don't you see, John, Bravus is a convert. He has become the liberal's liberal. Can't you just see him, with long, flowing locks, sporting a headband, wearing full leathers, riding a vintage Harley and "Born to be Wild" blaring in the background? Aye, mate, you'll never change 'is mind.

[John317]

I took a quick trip to PUC last year and I drove from San Fran up the Napa Valley. I fell in love with the place. Thinking of planting a church in one of those vineyards.

I agree it's a beautiful place.

While attending PUC, I "house-sat" for someone in the middle of one of those vineyards just down the hill from the college. There's no place like it, except maybe the Rhine Valley.

[John317]

Originally Posted By: John317

You won't understand the American psyche regarding guns, as well as many other aspects of the American experience, unless you're nothing but an American, born and bred here and have the blood of generations of Americans coursing through your veins.

I have spent time among the Navaho and among the Mexican people. I care about them and married one.

Would you pick up the Louis Amour book over there, John? [he says pointing with his lips].

I've read two books by Louis L'Amour. You bring up a good point, though. The reason L'Amour is very popular is that he knew America and knew what Americans like to read. The myth of the West is very large in the American psyche. (By "myth" I don't mean something that is untrue. I mean it as in "a traditional story, esp. one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon.")

But while on the subject of "story" as it relates to guns and hunting, etc., a person would get some understanding of the American viewpoint by reading Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time, William Faulkner's The Bear, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Roughing It, James Fenimore Cooper's The Pioneers, The Pathfinder, The Pilot, The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, Capote's In Cold Blood, Mailer's The Executioner's Song, etc. One might also study American folk-tales. You can learn a good deal about the spirit and values of people by reading their folk-tales and poetry, a lot more, I'd say, than you can learn by studying graphs and charts.

[Bravus]

I've read almost all of those, and love Louis L'Amour. But almost all your examples are rural/fronteir - and i think all of us can see the need for rifles and shotguns in those situations. It's handguns and assault weapons in urban locations that bother most of us. Perhaps some Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent will convey the flavour.

[John317]

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

David, I think you hit on a very important point, maybe even the most important in the debate on guns ownership by citizens. If we let the government tell us we can't have guns and if it's able to take them by force away from us, it will no longer be true that our government is of the people, by the people, and for the people.

What do most other countries admire about America? The thing that makes this country great: our freedom. Now, that includes freedom also for people to do terrible things at times. (You can't have real freedom that only allows people to do good.) But if we let those things that people sometimes do destroy our freedoms, then we become no better and no different than any other country.

[Bravus]

Quote:

I betcha have no trouble grasping the hard logic of it in times of war, though. Makes pretty good sense, too, when you have a gun shooting at you. It can teach you a lot.

Despite my good friend's portrayal of me as an uberliberal, I agree: I really don't have trouble imagining it in wartime. But my point is that it's unhealthy to make the streets of your cities into a warzone. Soldiers are trained and disciplined in the way they use their weapons, civilians less so and drug dealers even less so.

My original comment wasn't meant as a jobe, more just as another example of the incomprehension. "We need guns to protect us from the people with guns" - but what if the other people don't have guns? What if no-one has guns but the police? Who do you need to be protected from? That's what I just don't get: "here's a problem, so the solution is to get more of the thing causing the problem".

[Bravus]

On the 'well regulated militia to control the government' issue. How long do you think the citizens would stand against the US military if it came down to that? Really?

[John317]

Historically, when only the police and the military have the legal weapons, the power fundamentally lies in the hands of the government and the criminals. The power in this country has always resided ultimately in the hands of the ordinary citizens. I don't think Americans want the primary power to be in the hands of the government. If a government has no fear of its citizens, that they could carry out an armed revolt, it will eventually ignore and abuse them. Thomas Jefferson thought it was a healthy thing for the government to fear the people. But what fear would there be if the people are completely de-fanged? You might have the same situation as you had in Nazi Germany and as you have currently in Mexico, where the government thumbs its nose at the people who must run and hide like scared rabbits during the battles between the criminals and the various corrupt police agencies.

[John317]

I've read almost all of those, and love Louis L'Amour. But almost all your examples are rural/fronteir - and i think all of us can see the need for rifles and shotguns in those situations. It's handguns and assault weapons in urban locations that bother most of us. Perhaps some Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent will convey the flavour.

Yes, you're right, of course. My point in talking about American literature is that you gain insight into the American experience by reading it. Those stories and the myths of the West still greatly influence us as a people, and are deeply ingrained in our national consciousness, even if many of the situations of our daily lives have radically changed.

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

How long do you think the citizens would stand against the US military if it came down to that? Really?

Not that I support the argument that the right to bear arms was to give citizens the right to overthrow the government (I do not believe that), but I must use only one word to answer the question. Iraq.

[Bravus]

Yeah, but the US has only sent about 150,000 troops to Iraq. Do you think they'd hold back resources against an insurrection on their home soil?

Anyway, let's all pray it never comes to that, because it would be a bloodbath of unprecedented proportions if it ever happened.

[Neil D]

My original comment wasn't meant as a jobe, more just as another example of the incomprehension. "We need guns to protect us from the people with guns" - but what if the other people don't have guns? What if no-one has guns but the police? Who do you need to be protected from? That's what I just don't get: "here's a problem, so the solution is to get more of the thing causing the problem".

I agree with the general intent and the logic...And to put the logic in a different perspective, it seems a very rather stupid logic if the problem is illegal drug use, and the solution is to purchase more illegal drugs...Or if you have a headache, and to make the ache go away, you need to hit your head against the wall resulting in more of a head ache...

I believe this could be a circular arguement...Ya think?