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This sums my feelings up...
federica
Seeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
There is occasional discussion on this forum, regarding the difference between the generally-held opinion of many Americans, that the right to bear arms is a good and just constitutional item, and the Britsh opinion that arms and weaponry can change a person's mentality from one of "only shoot as a last resort" to one of "I have a gun and will use it if I want/need to."
This article I read today, on FB outlines a view I agree with.
What do you guys think?
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Comments
Before retiring as a Principal, although we had an excellent and safe school, there were a few times when we had a student bring a knife with a blade of more than 3", and once a gun (albeit unloaded). In all the cases we had, I did believe that the kids had no intention of using the weapon; in each case they wanted to show the weapon to kids who were bullying them to scare them off.
What I always worried about was that a kid who had no intention of using the weapon would get into a situation where he would feel he had no choice but to use it.
It reminds me also of a case here in the States, not long ago, where a policeman used a taser on an 8 year old girl. Really? A trained adult policeman can't control an 8 year old??? But what did he do? He had the weapon, so he resorted to using it.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." That's what our Constitution says. I think the Supreme Court is wrong (but, alas, they are the law of the land), because I think it is saying that there is a right to weaponry in a well -regulated militia. But that is not what we have here.
I think you're absolutely right, Federica.
Armistice Day!
If we look at why grunts are trained as institutional murderers, women as eye fodder, children as wage slaves/consumers and so on, it perhaps make us aware of why the capacity to be free of our cultural indoctrination is so useful.
So much of the cultural reinforcement from the useless and corrupt elites is to justify and praise their exploitation. War or conquest, fighting the demonised is always justified/sold before engaged in.
Ignorance can be personal or societal. The solution can be individual and collective.
That is what I think, as programmed by dharma practice . . .
Thank you @vinlyin. I must confess, I was concerned that there would be a defensive response (if you will please excuse the unintentional irony) and there may yet be those who find argument against the premise, but it's good to know the guy is not alone in his opinion....
I think you would find that Americans are very split on the matter. In one of my social groups, I would say half the people are gun owners (and a couple quite radical about it), while the other half of us want gun control. And although we don't talk about it often, when we do it sounds like half the room is talking like MSNBC, and the other half like FOX News.
From my own personal PoV, (and I admit my opinion may be skewed) it always seems to me that the anti-gun lobbyists are eminently logical in their rationale, and the pro-gun lobbyists always on a back foot and staunchly and stubbornly defensive.
Their arguments are strong - but only to them. Their views are - wait for it - easy to shoot holes in....
I live out here in Colorado now, and moving from the East I have found very different values. But what I am seeing a lot of our here -- not that it's a hard and fast rule -- is that the same people who are so pro-gun are disillusioned about much of life in America. They are -- to a degree -- anti-government, and anti-almost everything. They're not very happy people. They're bitter, although they can't necessarily tell you why. They hate taxes, even if it means the roads don't get plowed and the schools their own kids go to are lousy. They worship Wal-Mart and any other store that is non-union...because they tend to be in low paying jobs themselves. They don't want anyone else to have a pension because they don't. The first thing out of their mouths usually is, "Money is not the answer"...even when it is part of the answer. They complain about Obamacare even though they don't have insurance. They tend to have no curiosity about the world at large. They ridicule British and Canadian health care, even if they have no knowledge about it other than some cliched phrase.
Anti, anti, anti, anti. It isn't logic. It's a mindset.
When my three kids were little, the youngest came to me one day and said, "Papa, I want to build a gun." It was not a frivolous request -- something that might allow him to be more powerful than anyone else: What he wanted was the engineering know-how that would allow him, literally, to build a gun. I didn't have the expertise to instruct him, but it did occur to me that since guns take up a lot of attention in TV shows and news events, the issue of guns probably deserved some attention outside the knee-jerk palaver about whether guns were necessary/good or unnecessary/evil. The kids were in the 8-9-10 age range.
So one day, we all piled into the car and drove twenty miles south to a Smith & Wesson factory that also had a shooting range. Everyone in the car was excited: They were going to shoot real guns and real targets and it felt pretty grown-up ... how many of their friends had actually shot a gun? Not many. It was a woo-hoo, I'm-kool moment as we drove towards the factory.
After a certain amount of paperwork at the counter outside the range, I told the salesman behind the counter that I wanted each child to shoot something easy like a .22 (almost no kick and no noise) and then later to try whatever the most-commonly used caliber was ... a .38 or 9 mm.
The kids were still wired for glory as we walked onto the range. And there, what I wanted to have happen, happened: I approached the range master and told him I wanted him to instruct my kids. He knew what I was after and he complied. Parental instruction was less forceful and credible than instruction from an outsider ... I wanted the master to exercise his discipline and he did. The kids began to calm down and listen to this man. Point the gun down-range, keep your trigger finger off the trigger, how to use the safety, how to load, what stance to take, how to aim ... and all the other details. Bit by bit, the ease and glory of the TV receded. My kids were still excited, but there were rules and there were practical matters to attend to. Loading, for example, was not some instantaneous thing: You had to slow down and do it carefully... load the cylinder bullet by bullet ... a limited number of shots. Hitting the target as planned was not always assured. The small jolt of the .22 was out gunned by the .38, which jumped and made a hell of a lot of noise, even with mufflers on. It was more a surprise that they did hit the target ... it wasn't just "two to the head" as portrayed in dramas. Loading a clip took some major muscle. It was all a slow, meticulous exercise in which sloppiness and inattention and childish pipe dreams slid into bullshit land. They knew the actual-factualness of the procedure. They had felt the literal weight of a pistol. They had touched the bullets. They had been corrected, sometimes sharply, by the range master. As we left, each kid brought his best target along as proof of what s/he had actually learned and done.
The ride back in the car had a decidedly different tone. The daydreams had been given some experiential reference point. Guns had become a bit more like what they are -- a hammer with which anyone can find a good use or murder a mother-in-law. Keeping a fearful, philosophically-glowing distance from guns is more an invitation than it is a worthy warning: If you're afraid of something or loath it, there probably is no option (if you want a bit of peace) other than to get more intimately acquainted. That way you can forget about it until the need arises.
My youngest never did learn how to machine a gun, but I don't imagine the drive is what it once was.
Wow, @genkaku, it's hard to believe such amazing stories really unfold somewhere on this planet...that was wonderful.
I grew up in a small town back east and when I was 13, I went to the VFW Hall one evening that was packed with town kids waiting to earn their lifetime NRA cards. It really is funny the memories that get singled out, but I was jazzed to be there and learning the proper way to handle a real gun - not that I didn't have some exposure because my dad would take us out to the toolies to shoot mark (target practice) and he had a .9 mm Luger....plus my two half brothers and he would go hunting every once in a while.
When I think about it now, I don't know why I was so excited about it -- but I think it has something to do with a young curious mind wanting to become competent and above, with a skill of some sort. I think all the other kids felt the same way.
One philosophy is that guns are the great equalizer, 'reducing a power differential between the weak and the strong'. This is arguably a great way of manufacturing consent; a tried and true method to make peace counted in terms of nods in agreement.
The medium of language often fails for lack of patience, and mind reading ability (EQ?). Where minds are absent, minds are manufactured. If in doubt, shoot first and ask questions later. There's too many of them!
I find it amazing that the same Americans who argue vehemently against any regulations on guns and ammunition are often the same people who argue vehemently for strict regulations on drugs.
They argue that it is their right to have as many guns as they want, including automatic weapons, and they should not be required in any way to abide by rules or regulations, nor to obtain certifications. Despite the fact that their gun ownership puts OTHER PEOPLE in danger, their "freedom" to have guns trumps other people's safety concerns. All evidence suggests that gun restrictions and regulations reduce the number of gun deaths that occur. In the US, where gun ownership is prevalent, many many more people die per capita from guns than in other countries where gun ownership is less prevalent. Mass shootings are also significantly more prevalent.
According to the following article, 31,076 Americans were killed by guns in 2010. That's more than 85 people per day.
http://smartgunlaws.org/gun-deaths-and-injuries-statistics/
The same Americans also argue that people do not have the right to possess or use illicit substances. They argue that anyone caught doing so should be punished harshly, despite the fact that their drug use only puts the individual user in danger (DUI excluded). For all their talk about freedom, they also insist that people are not free to ingest what they would like to. All evidence suggests that prohibition and punishment for drug use has nothing but negative consequences on individuals and society. Drug use is not reduced by prohibition. More lives are ruined. Otherwise law abiding citizens are treated as criminals. The same people touting "Freedom" in regards to firearms do not value "freedom" in this instance.
I try to vote for whatever measure provides the most freedom... sometimes it favors the MSNBC crowd, sometimes the Fox folks.
I just wish the FOX folks cared about freedom for everyone, not just WASPS.
I agree. Sometimes their bias towards sensationalizing news stories to pander to the stereotypical old, rich, angry, white guy wears a little thin. They tout all these values, but all they do, really, is tell what they want you to think is wrong and who to blame for it.
Sad movie.
It's amazing how they all ("news"casters and political analysts and politicians alike) use the same exact talking points for the same story. They will use the same phrases over and over. Only some of us notice how choreographed the whole thing is. Most people just take it all in and get completely brainwashed by it. If they keep saying the same things over and over, then they must be true! Right? (Psst...wrong.)
In all fairness, if you had to talk 24/7, you might find yourself using "the same phrases over and over".
Haha. Yes. We could suggest that maybe they should just talk less. I doubt they would take our advice.
But what I mean is that it is obvious that they all get together and come up with a plan to say things a certain way. (ex. "Obama is shredding the constitution!" or "This is class warfare!" {against the rich, ha!})
Then they all use the same exact phrase, making it obvious that this is some politcal strategy that they concocted, rather than any kind of insightful analysis.
EDIT: I don't mean to only pick on the Republicans. Democrats do this too. But Darnit, the Republicans are about 73x worse than the Democrats when it comes to this stuff. Still I can't bring myself to vote for almost any Democrat either.
Bernie Sanders for President
This explains a lot! Kind of scary, too. Those unhappy and uninformed people form a voting block.
@genkaku Interesting story. I experienced the same when I helped teach archery at summer camp. Little kids would come to the archery range all hyped up about shooting a bow and arrow, and the instructor (who'd been doing this for years and had seen this many times before) would start out telling them that before they could shoot, they had to learn the parts of the bow. So the first session was all about that, and the arrows. Of course, some of the kids would get bored, they wanted to get to the good stuff! The next session reviewed that, and proceeded to teach proper stance and use of the leather finger guards, etc. So it wasn't until the 3rd session that they got to shoot, and by then, the impatient ones had dropped out, leaving the more serious ones.
Pretty clever strategy. But that's what you have to do, to guarantee safety.
Reminds me of my experience in high school auto shop. I never even got to wash a car, never mind touch a carburetor. Couldn't get past the paperwork.
Any domestic violence reports that you are involved in they immediately take your firearms. Guilty or not.
You have to have a legal reason for owning one and a bolted safe a certain thickness in the house. Most guns around here are no more than .222
You have pass a course to get the firearm and have your safe inspected by police. You have to have all your guns paperwork to buy rounds at a registered dealer plus all associated id. You can also only by a certain amount of ammunition.
Only farmers with a lot of land and recreational/sporting shooters can apply for a firearm.
So basically your a farmer or your part of a club. Outside of that you can't get one.
I think it's a good thing, it's much harder to kill someone without a gun. And more than one person is even harder. I'm really glad about our gun laws.
I don't know, I watch Fox and MSNBC, it helps to understand the bias coming from both sides... I find that MSNBC is more blantant than Fox, but that may just mean that I lean a lil more to the right. Those who lean a lil, or far, to the left probably experience just the opposite.
So my views on firearms... I guess I could support no handguns, and especially assault rifles, but until the views in America have changed enough to make me comfortable that guns are not so readily available to criminals, I'll exercise my current right to own one for protection... I know there are stats available that show owning a gun can present a danger in your home, but it's my assessment and call.
It's similar in the UK and I feel lucky to live in a country where guns are not in general circulation.
Me too, @SpinyNorman.
You can't compare gun laws between UK and USA, really. One of the reasons USA has such a fetish for individual gun ownership is the thousands of years the English royalty and aristocracy banned weapon ownership by the masses back where our founders came from. The upper class in England were the land owners who taxed and made the rules and owned all the land. Since you weren't allowed to hunt on their land even if you lived on it...well, people came to assume owning weapons only came with owning land and being of the Gentry class. The brief popular rebellion by Cromwell and company only made the upper class more determined after that to keep weapons away from the unwashed masses.
So in America, when they decided (at least on paper and for white folks only) that anyone could own land and no rich person could take it from you, and people had the right to hunt on land in spite of the Native Americans or government claiming to own it, then the right to own weapons came with it. Cement that attitude with the myth of the Wild West where real men carried guns, and it's now an emotional attachment. The English citizen, however, grew up in an entirely different culture.
The English citizen, however, grew up in an entirely different culture.
It's a shame you colonials didn't take the feudal system with you then.
and the colonials may have ended up with a system resembling the feudal system if it wasn't for the determination to force the feudal system
Oi, oi, oi..... fisticuffs only, start at 20 paces apart and gradually drift in opposite directions, I thank you....
Actually, the lust for weapons in the U.S. probably began BECAUSE of the Brits.
Typical colonial, blaming the Empire.
Yup. And proud of it.
You do know Americans love all things British? I think we celebrated Princess Diana's wedding and mourned her death as much as anyone. I lived there for three years and got to know the country and our picture of that culture is about as accurate as what they probably think of us. There's more to the USA than politics, big cities or Texas. But then again, most Americans aren't aware Scotland and Ireland and England are different peoples. That recent little thing you had with Scotland voting for independence confused the heck out of us. That would be, for us, like one of our states voting to leave the union.
I think there are some states which deserve to be dropped by the Union.... :
Or split in half! You know, where the normal folks live could be "Tex". Where Ted Cruz lives could be "As(s)".
Ah if only.... we'd have the haves and the have-nuts.....