4 ms·

> The more rational 'New World' comparisons would be Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and guess what: very low murder, very low rates of gun ownership. Who c

> The more rational 'New World' comparisons would be Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and guess what: very low murder, very low rates of gun ownership. Who could have imagined that British colonies who didn’t violently overthrow the British colonial government would end up being less violent overall? Also, who would have guessed that former British colonies that didn’t have millions of African slaves shipped in for cheap agricultural labor and treated as a perpetual underclass for centuries would be more peaceful places to live? Nah, must be the guns.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago
The US has the gun fetish because it has a perpetual racialized underclass, among other reasons. You're right the violence is tied to its history. But so are the guns. You cannot separate the two. As others have pointed out; personal firearms are pretty useless as a vehicle for resisting state oppression and tyranny. But they're useful for stopping slave revolts or, more contemporarily, guarding your McMansion. The problem in the US isn't the right to bear arms. It's that the wrong people are bearing them. The militia types are the authoritarian aggressors that they themselves fantasize about resisting.
- rayiner 5y ago
  Yeah both of these points are revisionist bullshit. Go read the primary sources. The gun fetish comes from our origin story being successfully overthrowing the British with civilian firearms. As to effectiveness: the Taliban just recaptured their country from a US backed military. The point of civilian gun ownership is to force citizen soldiers to decide between defecting and killing their neighbors. That’s exactly what happened in the Bangladesh independence war. The revolutionaries knocked over military depots in Dhaka to acquire firearms. Once the fighting started, Bangladeshis in the Pakistani military defected.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jollybean 5y ago
    While it's a bit much to suggest 'guns are because racism', I think it's a reasonable point to consider. Also, though there is some legitimacy with the 'Guns Stop Tyranny' issue ... it's unlikely to happen. The US will not be invaded by anyone, and the US government with all it's flaws is considerably more legitimate than most of the people with guns and has been for more than a century. If the US falls, it will be due to crumbling from within, and given what has happened in the last few years, I'm afraid gun owners, however responsible and conscientious, are as likely to 'Rise Up' against a pack of falsehoods and populism than they are any kind of legitimate reality.
    - rayiner 5y ago
      > While it's a bit much to suggest 'guns are because racism', I think it's a reasonable point to consider. Why? What’s the evidence other than juxtaposition? Arabs are also nuts about guns. People from pastoral honor cultures (like the Scots Irish ancestors of many southerners and Appalachians: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/the-scots-irish-vote/27853/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/the-sco...) often are. Is that caused by racism too? > Also, though there is some legitimacy with the 'Guns Stop Tyranny' issue ... it's unlikely to happen. This is “end of history” bullshit. You need guns because having to kill people is a central part of the human experience. Tens of thousands of my people died at the hands of the Pakistani army because they had to fight with sticks and rocks until they knocked over some military depots to acquire firearms: https://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/bangladesh-liberation-war-1971-muktijuddho-guerrilla-fighter-arms-freedom-1511812 https://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/bangladesh-liberation-.... The Afghans have now expelled two superpowers from their country with handheld weapons. Guns work. All of that stuff could happen in America too. Because history isn’t over, civilization is a thin veneer over nature, and there’s nothing fundamentally different about us versus them.
      - jollybean 5y ago
        1) During slavery, guns were essential in keeping Black people under the thumb. So for at least 1/2 of US history, guns were an essential fabric of society for that reason. In much the same way you could argue US gun culture comes from being 'at the frontier' - well - slavery was another big artifact of history. When the slaves were freed they were a huge portion of the population, and there was every reason to believe there would be retribution and revolts. Since then, there has been ongoing efforts to suppress that community, which rationally might engender violence. In pop culture, African Americans have been portrayed as violent, which can make people afraid, and since the 1980s there's been a huge uptick in violence within that community, which also makes people afraid (though the violence is mostly intraracial not interacial). 2) "This is “end of history” bullshit. You need guns because having to kill people is a central part of the human experience. " Your arguments here are very poor. First, the Army 'has guns' as a legitimate form of managed violence. Keeping the Army in check is a central part of managing the powers in a liberal democracy. If the Army gets out of hand, it's going to be very bad. 'Look what the Taliban' did is a horrendous argument, because the Taliban are totalitarian murderous overlords who murder for their own ideology and not the wellbeing of their fellow countrymen. You're basically arguing that 'Guns Work Because Look How Well The Nazis Murdered Jews!' That's an argument against the population having guns, because it seems to me the American Right Wing Taliban are the group the most likely to use guns and for all the wrong reasons. "All of that stuff could happen in America too." Yes, but it's unlikely to happen because the 'government goes bad'. It's going to happen because a demagogue like Donald Trump will rile up the gun-wading population to commit violence on the basis of a pack of lies. It won't start like that, it may just be a protest, but if starts to get out of hand, some blood is spilled and then each side uses that as justification for increasing the threshold. The last 6 months have revealed that Trump pressured the military hard for the 82cnd Airborne to be used against BLM protesters and the Pentagon refused. Thankfully, that's the Army standing up against authoritarian leaders. I don't think there has been in all of American history an example of where American citizens took up arms against the government in situation wherein they had some kind of moral legitimacy. Liberal Democracy stay intact with education, transparency, oversight, a free and rational press, legitimate institutions, independent judiciary. If it delves into individual militias fighting against government units 'it's all over'. Americans can then expect the quality of life of rural Pakistan. While there is some argument for 'Guns v. Tyranny' I can't see how it works out in practicality. One idea might be to require the government a Congressional vote to send any troops anywhere, for any reason, to further restrict US forces from being deployed in the homeland etc..
  - mbrodersen 5y ago
    The US had a huge amount of help from France overthrowing the British. Including full support of the French navy and large amounts of French professional soldiers. An inconvenient fact that Americans try hard to forget.
    - hollerith 5y ago
      The French didn't start committing troops or ships till the Americans won a major battle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Saratoga#French_aid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Saratoga#French_aid So that refines the question to: how important was the private ownership of guns in the American victory at Saratoga? Well, the Wikipedia article referenced above says that, "militiamen and supplies continued to pour into the American camp, including critical increases in ammunition, which had been severely depleted in the first battle." "General Fraser was mortally wounded in this phase of the battle, . . . The fall of Fraser and the arrival of Ten Broeck's large militia brigade (which roughly equaled the entire British reconnaissance force in size), broke the British will, and they began a disorganized retreat toward their entrenchments." So that got me curious about what "militia" meant exactly during this time frame. Well, General Ten Broeck's Wikipedia page says that 2 years prior to the action described in the last paragraph General Ten Broeck was colonel of the Albany County militia, which has a Wikipedia page, which starts as follows: "The Albany County militia was the colonial militia of Albany County, New York. Drawn from the general male population, by law all male inhabitants from 15 to 55 had to be enrolled in militia companies."
      - hollerith 5y ago
        (Replying to myself.) Washington didn't think the militia helped: >To place any dependence on the Militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender Scenes of domestic life; unaccustomed to the din of Arms; totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill, which being followed by a want of confidence in themselves, when opposed to Troops regularly trained, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior in Arms, makes them timid, and ready to fly from their own shadows ... if I was called upon to declare upon Oath, whether the Militia have been most serviceable or hurtful upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(United_States)#Confederation_period_(1783%E2%80%931787) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(United_States)#Confed...
  - mbrodersen 5y ago
    There is a big difference: The US Government will never leave the US. However everybody (including the Taliban) knew that it was just a question of time before the US would exit Afghanistan.
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  It's common knowledge that a lot of early gun control legislation was passed to prevent ethnic groups like the black panthers from gaining equal footing with groups who would harass them. Much safer to lynch an unarmed man after all. Claiming to be motivated by the plight of poor minorities given that history seems in remarkably poor taste.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    It's 'poor taste' to misrepresent history as much as you have in your statement. There were no groups running around 'lynching' Black people during the Black Panther era, moreover, the Black Panther era saw an explosion in gun crime across the US that was acute among the African American community. As much as gun laws are a part of the problem, the vast disparity in gun crime among different groups can't be avoided either.
    - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
      >There were no groups running around 'lynching' Black people during the Black Panther era No, but some of the very earliest gun control laws were aimed at only black citizens and were enacted during lynching's heyday. Gun control in America has a very sordid history when viewed through a racial lens, and its ties to the civil rights era and the drug war are less blatant but still insidious.
- OrvalWintermute 5y ago
  > The US has the gun fetish because it has a perpetual racialized underclass, among other reasons. You're right the violence is tied to its history. But so are the guns. You cannot separate the two. The American gun fetish dates back to the earliest arrivals in the New World, in all areas of the country, both initial northern states, and later southern states, and the West. If you haven't spent enough time in the wild to encounter a grizzly, a 300 pound boar, a wolf pack, a coyote pack, or a solitary mountain lion intent upon considering you as a food source - consider yourself lucky. > As others have pointed out; personal firearms are pretty useless as a vehicle for resisting state oppression and tyranny. But they're useful for stopping slave revolts or, more contemporarily, guarding your McMansion. Au Contraire The Taliban, freedom fighters, or Terrorists, perhaps both, just seized pretty much the entirety of Afghanistan with roughly ~70k light infantry, against a force roughly 4x their numbers with much heavier armament. [1] This, after having fought to a standstill one of the nations with the best fighting force in a long guerilla warfare, vs airpower, advanced weaponry, drones, armor, you name it. Because they had willpower. > The problem in the US isn't the right to bear arms. It's that the wrong people are bearing them. The militia types are the authoritarian aggressors that they themselves fantasize about resisting. Flyover country has neither the presidency, the House, or the Senate, but the US wants not for authoritarianism. The unfortunate, and tragic fact is that the vast majority of the gun violence in the US happens in inner cities [2], typically with repressive gun laws. Sure, there will be the occasional red state nutjob too. If you truly and deeply cared about the horrible gun violence, you might ask why, where, for what reason, who, and why don't we know more about it? [3] You might seek to grasp a true understanding of the culture involved, the economics, education, or lack thereof, opportunities denied, the crime involved, or not, and to paint us a full picture. But you don't. Instead you leave us with a shallow political attack on others. Demonizing, rather the engaging in a civic manner. Pontificating, rather than questioning. Politicizing, rather than conversing. Take a break from the keyboard and have a socially-distant coffee with others. Your others. Have two. We're all human. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/world/asia/taliban-victory-strategy-afghanistan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/world/asia/taliban-victor... [2] https://www.thetrace.org/2020/09/mass-shootings-2020-gun-violence-black-neighborhoods/ https://www.thetrace.org/2020/09/mass-shootings-2020-gun-vio... [3] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/10/roseburg-attack-why-do-americans-care-more-about-mass-shootings-than-inner-city-violence.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/10/roseburg-attack-...
- rayiner 5y ago
  > The problem in the US isn't the right to bear arms. It's that the wrong people are bearing them. The militia types are the authoritarian aggressors that they themselves fantasize about resisting. Authoritarians control institutions. What do the “wrong people” control? If the January 6 nutters had taken the capital, who would have supported them? General Milley? The national guards of DC, MD, or VA? Any of the country’s corporations or other institutions? You’re confusing the Whiskey Rebellion for the Beerhall Putsch. Maybe give some consideration to the possibility that what’s really happening is that you’re a resident of the Capital clutching your pearls at the “threat” posed by people in District 12.
jollybean 5y ago
This speculative argument falls flat in the face of actual data. More effective and regulated gun control and less access to guns is 100% consistent with less gun crime. That there was a revolution in 1777 doesn't change the fact both the UK and US were fairly equally involved in other kinds of political violence, I mean, you do realize the UK have been at war with others and themselves since the dawn of time? That they had their own 'revolution' and a Republic 100 years before the US? The Japanese have quite a violent history as well and yet have zero gun crime. Most regions in the US don't directly have a relationship with slavery and even accommodating for elevated levels of crime among those communities - gun violence is still very high. Guns are widespread and available to almost anyone in the US, and there's a huge amount of gun crime. Canada/Australia - more restrictions, less gun crime. Europe - quite heavily restricted, a small amount of gun crime. Japan - effectively totally banned, and almost 0 gun crime. Switzerland has militia training and ownership, but it's generally not pistols, and they definitely don't carry guns for personal defence. Their rifles are locked up in the basement. Mexico has tight gun laws, but they're not enforced. While there are concerns about freedoms, the formation of 'tyranny' etc. to contend with, there's no doubt that effective and highly restricted gun control has a significant impact. To anyone who's lived in Europe, Can/Aus/NZ and the US, it's just blindingly obvious, it's not a rhetorical argument at all, it boils down to trying to understand the reasoning of people who have difficulty conceding the reality of how safe it really is when there aren't that many guns floating around. Most police in the UK don't even carry guns, that's how real the implications are ... and it's not cause 'they didn't have a revolution'. EDIT - FYI here are the data points: USA: 4.5/100K gun homicides, 1.2 guns per/capita Canada: 0.5/100K gun homicides and 0.4 guns per/capita France: 0.1/100K gun homicides and 0.2 guns per/capita Japan: 0.0/100K (!!!) gun homicides and 0.006 guns per/capita It's crystal clear and unambiguous: for countries that have civil infrastructure, general lawfulness and the means to affect social policy etc. - fewer guns means fewer gun crimes. Obviously, there will be variations (i.e. Scotland has a crazy amount of stabbings) but prevalence of guns is a firs order issue. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...
- philwelch 5y ago
  > More effective and regulated gun control and less access to guns is 100% consistent with less gun crime. So what? I don't care about "less gun crime"; I care about "less violent crime". Talking about the subset of crime, violence, death, and injury that's caused by firearms is fundamentally dishonest. You could argue by the exact same logic that the lack of passenger trains in the US reduces train suicides compared to Japan. The specific tools are not the fucking issue. > I mean, you do realize the UK have been at war with others and themselves since the dawn of time? That they had their own 'revolution' and a Republic 100 years before the US? Sure. For instance, England and Scotland were intermittently at war for centuries, which resulted in a lot of the people living in the English/Scottish border regions developing a particularly violent way of life. These people were a huge pain in the neck after the unification of Great Britain. So a whole lot of them got shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to America. You know who else the British shipped to America? Violent criminals. This was one of the reasons we declared independence, actually. People think of Australia as a former penal colony, but that only started because we stopped letting them ship people here. Who else came here? The Puritans, whose other accomplishments included such things as burning witches and violently establishing that English Republic you alluded to. The normal, peaceful, law-abiding Brit who wasn't particularly interested in violence or religious fanaticism? Those are the guys who stayed behind in Britain.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago

The US has the gun fetish because it has a perpetual racialized underclass, among other reasons. You're right the violence is tied to its history. But so are the guns. You cannot separate the two. As others have pointed out; personal firearms are pretty useless as a vehicle for resisting state oppression and tyranny. But they're useful for stopping slave revolts or, more contemporarily, guarding your McMansion. The problem in the US isn't the right to bear arms. It's that the wrong people are bearing them. The militia types are the authoritarian aggressors that they themselves fantasize about resisting.

rayiner 5y ago
Yeah both of these points are revisionist bullshit. Go read the primary sources. The gun fetish comes from our origin story being successfully overthrowing the British with civilian firearms. As to effectiveness: the Taliban just recaptured their country from a US backed military. The point of civilian gun ownership is to force citizen soldiers to decide between defecting and killing their neighbors. That’s exactly what happened in the Bangladesh independence war. The revolutionaries knocked over military depots in Dhaka to acquire firearms. Once the fighting started, Bangladeshis in the Pakistani military defected.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jollybean 5y ago
  While it's a bit much to suggest 'guns are because racism', I think it's a reasonable point to consider. Also, though there is some legitimacy with the 'Guns Stop Tyranny' issue ... it's unlikely to happen. The US will not be invaded by anyone, and the US government with all it's flaws is considerably more legitimate than most of the people with guns and has been for more than a century. If the US falls, it will be due to crumbling from within, and given what has happened in the last few years, I'm afraid gun owners, however responsible and conscientious, are as likely to 'Rise Up' against a pack of falsehoods and populism than they are any kind of legitimate reality.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    > While it's a bit much to suggest 'guns are because racism', I think it's a reasonable point to consider. Why? What’s the evidence other than juxtaposition? Arabs are also nuts about guns. People from pastoral honor cultures (like the Scots Irish ancestors of many southerners and Appalachians: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/the-scots-irish-vote/27853/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/the-sco...) often are. Is that caused by racism too? > Also, though there is some legitimacy with the 'Guns Stop Tyranny' issue ... it's unlikely to happen. This is “end of history” bullshit. You need guns because having to kill people is a central part of the human experience. Tens of thousands of my people died at the hands of the Pakistani army because they had to fight with sticks and rocks until they knocked over some military depots to acquire firearms: https://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/bangladesh-liberation-war-1971-muktijuddho-guerrilla-fighter-arms-freedom-1511812 https://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/bangladesh-liberation-.... The Afghans have now expelled two superpowers from their country with handheld weapons. Guns work. All of that stuff could happen in America too. Because history isn’t over, civilization is a thin veneer over nature, and there’s nothing fundamentally different about us versus them.
    - jollybean 5y ago
      1) During slavery, guns were essential in keeping Black people under the thumb. So for at least 1/2 of US history, guns were an essential fabric of society for that reason. In much the same way you could argue US gun culture comes from being 'at the frontier' - well - slavery was another big artifact of history. When the slaves were freed they were a huge portion of the population, and there was every reason to believe there would be retribution and revolts. Since then, there has been ongoing efforts to suppress that community, which rationally might engender violence. In pop culture, African Americans have been portrayed as violent, which can make people afraid, and since the 1980s there's been a huge uptick in violence within that community, which also makes people afraid (though the violence is mostly intraracial not interacial). 2) "This is “end of history” bullshit. You need guns because having to kill people is a central part of the human experience. " Your arguments here are very poor. First, the Army 'has guns' as a legitimate form of managed violence. Keeping the Army in check is a central part of managing the powers in a liberal democracy. If the Army gets out of hand, it's going to be very bad. 'Look what the Taliban' did is a horrendous argument, because the Taliban are totalitarian murderous overlords who murder for their own ideology and not the wellbeing of their fellow countrymen. You're basically arguing that 'Guns Work Because Look How Well The Nazis Murdered Jews!' That's an argument against the population having guns, because it seems to me the American Right Wing Taliban are the group the most likely to use guns and for all the wrong reasons. "All of that stuff could happen in America too." Yes, but it's unlikely to happen because the 'government goes bad'. It's going to happen because a demagogue like Donald Trump will rile up the gun-wading population to commit violence on the basis of a pack of lies. It won't start like that, it may just be a protest, but if starts to get out of hand, some blood is spilled and then each side uses that as justification for increasing the threshold. The last 6 months have revealed that Trump pressured the military hard for the 82cnd Airborne to be used against BLM protesters and the Pentagon refused. Thankfully, that's the Army standing up against authoritarian leaders. I don't think there has been in all of American history an example of where American citizens took up arms against the government in situation wherein they had some kind of moral legitimacy. Liberal Democracy stay intact with education, transparency, oversight, a free and rational press, legitimate institutions, independent judiciary. If it delves into individual militias fighting against government units 'it's all over'. Americans can then expect the quality of life of rural Pakistan. While there is some argument for 'Guns v. Tyranny' I can't see how it works out in practicality. One idea might be to require the government a Congressional vote to send any troops anywhere, for any reason, to further restrict US forces from being deployed in the homeland etc..
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  The US had a huge amount of help from France overthrowing the British. Including full support of the French navy and large amounts of French professional soldiers. An inconvenient fact that Americans try hard to forget.
  - hollerith 5y ago
    The French didn't start committing troops or ships till the Americans won a major battle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Saratoga#French_aid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Saratoga#French_aid So that refines the question to: how important was the private ownership of guns in the American victory at Saratoga? Well, the Wikipedia article referenced above says that, "militiamen and supplies continued to pour into the American camp, including critical increases in ammunition, which had been severely depleted in the first battle." "General Fraser was mortally wounded in this phase of the battle, . . . The fall of Fraser and the arrival of Ten Broeck's large militia brigade (which roughly equaled the entire British reconnaissance force in size), broke the British will, and they began a disorganized retreat toward their entrenchments." So that got me curious about what "militia" meant exactly during this time frame. Well, General Ten Broeck's Wikipedia page says that 2 years prior to the action described in the last paragraph General Ten Broeck was colonel of the Albany County militia, which has a Wikipedia page, which starts as follows: "The Albany County militia was the colonial militia of Albany County, New York. Drawn from the general male population, by law all male inhabitants from 15 to 55 had to be enrolled in militia companies."
    - hollerith 5y ago
      (Replying to myself.) Washington didn't think the militia helped: >To place any dependence on the Militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender Scenes of domestic life; unaccustomed to the din of Arms; totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill, which being followed by a want of confidence in themselves, when opposed to Troops regularly trained, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior in Arms, makes them timid, and ready to fly from their own shadows ... if I was called upon to declare upon Oath, whether the Militia have been most serviceable or hurtful upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(United_States)#Confederation_period_(1783%E2%80%931787) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(United_States)#Confed...
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  There is a big difference: The US Government will never leave the US. However everybody (including the Taliban) knew that it was just a question of time before the US would exit Afghanistan.
SuoDuanDao 5y ago
It's common knowledge that a lot of early gun control legislation was passed to prevent ethnic groups like the black panthers from gaining equal footing with groups who would harass them. Much safer to lynch an unarmed man after all. Claiming to be motivated by the plight of poor minorities given that history seems in remarkably poor taste.
- jollybean 5y ago
  It's 'poor taste' to misrepresent history as much as you have in your statement. There were no groups running around 'lynching' Black people during the Black Panther era, moreover, the Black Panther era saw an explosion in gun crime across the US that was acute among the African American community. As much as gun laws are a part of the problem, the vast disparity in gun crime among different groups can't be avoided either.
  - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
    >There were no groups running around 'lynching' Black people during the Black Panther era No, but some of the very earliest gun control laws were aimed at only black citizens and were enacted during lynching's heyday. Gun control in America has a very sordid history when viewed through a racial lens, and its ties to the civil rights era and the drug war are less blatant but still insidious.
OrvalWintermute 5y ago
> The US has the gun fetish because it has a perpetual racialized underclass, among other reasons. You're right the violence is tied to its history. But so are the guns. You cannot separate the two. The American gun fetish dates back to the earliest arrivals in the New World, in all areas of the country, both initial northern states, and later southern states, and the West. If you haven't spent enough time in the wild to encounter a grizzly, a 300 pound boar, a wolf pack, a coyote pack, or a solitary mountain lion intent upon considering you as a food source - consider yourself lucky. > As others have pointed out; personal firearms are pretty useless as a vehicle for resisting state oppression and tyranny. But they're useful for stopping slave revolts or, more contemporarily, guarding your McMansion. Au Contraire The Taliban, freedom fighters, or Terrorists, perhaps both, just seized pretty much the entirety of Afghanistan with roughly ~70k light infantry, against a force roughly 4x their numbers with much heavier armament. [1] This, after having fought to a standstill one of the nations with the best fighting force in a long guerilla warfare, vs airpower, advanced weaponry, drones, armor, you name it. Because they had willpower. > The problem in the US isn't the right to bear arms. It's that the wrong people are bearing them. The militia types are the authoritarian aggressors that they themselves fantasize about resisting. Flyover country has neither the presidency, the House, or the Senate, but the US wants not for authoritarianism. The unfortunate, and tragic fact is that the vast majority of the gun violence in the US happens in inner cities [2], typically with repressive gun laws. Sure, there will be the occasional red state nutjob too. If you truly and deeply cared about the horrible gun violence, you might ask why, where, for what reason, who, and why don't we know more about it? [3] You might seek to grasp a true understanding of the culture involved, the economics, education, or lack thereof, opportunities denied, the crime involved, or not, and to paint us a full picture. But you don't. Instead you leave us with a shallow political attack on others. Demonizing, rather the engaging in a civic manner. Pontificating, rather than questioning. Politicizing, rather than conversing. Take a break from the keyboard and have a socially-distant coffee with others. Your others. Have two. We're all human. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/world/asia/taliban-victory-strategy-afghanistan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/world/asia/taliban-victor... [2] https://www.thetrace.org/2020/09/mass-shootings-2020-gun-violence-black-neighborhoods/ https://www.thetrace.org/2020/09/mass-shootings-2020-gun-vio... [3] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/10/roseburg-attack-why-do-americans-care-more-about-mass-shootings-than-inner-city-violence.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/10/roseburg-attack-...
rayiner 5y ago
> The problem in the US isn't the right to bear arms. It's that the wrong people are bearing them. The militia types are the authoritarian aggressors that they themselves fantasize about resisting. Authoritarians control institutions. What do the “wrong people” control? If the January 6 nutters had taken the capital, who would have supported them? General Milley? The national guards of DC, MD, or VA? Any of the country’s corporations or other institutions? You’re confusing the Whiskey Rebellion for the Beerhall Putsch. Maybe give some consideration to the possibility that what’s really happening is that you’re a resident of the Capital clutching your pearls at the “threat” posed by people in District 12.

jollybean 5y ago

This speculative argument falls flat in the face of actual data. More effective and regulated gun control and less access to guns is 100% consistent with less gun crime. That there was a revolution in 1777 doesn't change the fact both the UK and US were fairly equally involved in other kinds of political violence, I mean, you do realize the UK have been at war with others and themselves since the dawn of time? That they had their own 'revolution' and a Republic 100 years before the US? The Japanese have quite a violent history as well and yet have zero gun crime. Most regions in the US don't directly have a relationship with slavery and even accommodating for elevated levels of crime among those communities - gun violence is still very high. Guns are widespread and available to almost anyone in the US, and there's a huge amount of gun crime. Canada/Australia - more restrictions, less gun crime. Europe - quite heavily restricted, a small amount of gun crime. Japan - effectively totally banned, and almost 0 gun crime. Switzerland has militia training and ownership, but it's generally not pistols, and they definitely don't carry guns for personal defence. Their rifles are locked up in the basement. Mexico has tight gun laws, but they're not enforced. While there are concerns about freedoms, the formation of 'tyranny' etc. to contend with, there's no doubt that effective and highly restricted gun control has a significant impact. To anyone who's lived in Europe, Can/Aus/NZ and the US, it's just blindingly obvious, it's not a rhetorical argument at all, it boils down to trying to understand the reasoning of people who have difficulty conceding the reality of how safe it really is when there aren't that many guns floating around. Most police in the UK don't even carry guns, that's how real the implications are ... and it's not cause 'they didn't have a revolution'. EDIT - FYI here are the data points: USA: 4.5/100K gun homicides, 1.2 guns per/capita Canada: 0.5/100K gun homicides and 0.4 guns per/capita France: 0.1/100K gun homicides and 0.2 guns per/capita Japan: 0.0/100K (!!!) gun homicides and 0.006 guns per/capita It's crystal clear and unambiguous: for countries that have civil infrastructure, general lawfulness and the means to affect social policy etc. - fewer guns means fewer gun crimes. Obviously, there will be variations (i.e. Scotland has a crazy amount of stabbings) but prevalence of guns is a firs order issue. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...

philwelch 5y ago
> More effective and regulated gun control and less access to guns is 100% consistent with less gun crime. So what? I don't care about "less gun crime"; I care about "less violent crime". Talking about the subset of crime, violence, death, and injury that's caused by firearms is fundamentally dishonest. You could argue by the exact same logic that the lack of passenger trains in the US reduces train suicides compared to Japan. The specific tools are not the fucking issue. > I mean, you do realize the UK have been at war with others and themselves since the dawn of time? That they had their own 'revolution' and a Republic 100 years before the US? Sure. For instance, England and Scotland were intermittently at war for centuries, which resulted in a lot of the people living in the English/Scottish border regions developing a particularly violent way of life. These people were a huge pain in the neck after the unification of Great Britain. So a whole lot of them got shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to America. You know who else the British shipped to America? Violent criminals. This was one of the reasons we declared independence, actually. People think of Australia as a former penal colony, but that only started because we stopped letting them ship people here. Who else came here? The Puritans, whose other accomplishments included such things as burning witches and violently establishing that English Republic you alluded to. The normal, peaceful, law-abiding Brit who wasn't particularly interested in violence or religious fanaticism? Those are the guys who stayed behind in Britain.