Gun Culture

raburrell

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Since the car analogy is so popular, I'll point out that auto driver licenses are recognized across state lines, as are most other legal documents. Gunlovers and gays share a common problem in that not all states recognize other states' licenses as legal. Medical marijuana shares a similar problem. The fifteen states that can't agree on standards with the 35 that share reciprocity are the ones out of step.

INAL, but marriage is a contract between two people. A state gun license doesn't strike me as a legal equivalent.
 

muravyets

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In post number 143, rugcat brought up the Oakland gun death rate. rugcat also implied in post 190, that the cause of these deaths was due to "angry young men" having easy access to cheap guns.
The gun death rate in Oakland is tied to anger issues. Restricting access to guns will not fix these anger issues. Thinking it will, is indeed nonsensical.
I know what he said. I've been reading the thread. Your characterization is a huge misrepresentation of his argument. Your statements based on that misrepresentation are, therefore, invalid, i.e. nonsense, because they are based on a strawman of your own making, not on what rugcat was saying.

I'm thinking most people don't have the urge to throw stones or live in caves. So why restrict most people?
This is another logical fallacy. As the misrepresentation of rugcat's argument amounted to a Strawman (you effectively replaced his actual point with one of your own making, which you then proceeded to attack), this one is a textbook example of the classic False Dichotomy.

Having to use guns or having to throw rocks are NOT the only options on the table.

Wanting to own guns or wanting to throw rocks are not the only desires or mindsets among the pro- and anti- factions on gun control.

Being civilized with guns or living in caves without guns are NOT the only social options available.

Artificially and arbitrarily limiting the conceptual options to two unrealistic extremes, even when doing so merely for rhetorical effect, effectively shuts down serious discussion by negating all other realistic avenues for addressing the issue. It's a nice way to funnel the conversation into the direction one desires, if one can get others to cooperate. But it is not logically valid, nor is it intellectually honest.

A flourish added to the False Dichotomy is the implicit insult against gun control advocates. By assigning the concept of a civilized lifestyle to guns and the concept of a poor and savage lifestyle to lack of guns, you implicitly connect the idea of gun ownership with civilized persons and opposition to guns with savages or primitives. This loads hostility into your argument in its very presentation (not to mention loading it with irony, too).

All in all, there's really not much to be done with your argument except to conclude that you seem to be not actually open to discussion of a balanced and constructive approach to US gun laws and policy. Although you have given several disclaimers about favoring a balanced, multi-pronged approach, you still argue for a single-prong approach that has nothing to do with guns, gun laws, or gun crime, but focuses solely on restricting the liberty of the mentally ill without any next step being offered.

Therefore, my own take on this argument is that it is one of the many lines of argument offered under false colors on this issue, designed to steer the discussion away from guns, rather than deal with them head-on.
 

kuwisdelu

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What?

That's what I've been wondering, too. I used to think that addressing the multiple prongs of American violence should be as simple (if more protracted procedure) as chewing gum and walking at the same time. However, to be honest, after several years watching my fellow Americans grapple with complex issues, I'm not so sure about walking and chewing anymore. We may be doomed.

It's difficult, because ultimately, it's a local issue. It's a million local issues. It's kids who are abandoned, abused, neglected, who end up feeling like they have nowhere else to belong, and the culture of violence, in the form of gangs, etc., gives them that place to belong. Violence is the only way they know how to find strength.

In many ways, it's not really a mental health issue in most cases, but a societal health issue. And the only way you can get through and give them a place to belong is to solve it at a local level, with people who understand it at that level. But lots of local governments don't care, and lots of others don't have the resources to do it.
 

muravyets

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What?



It's difficult, because ultimately, it's a local issue. It's a million local issues. It's kids who are abandoned, abused, neglected, who end up feeling like they have nowhere else to belong, and the culture of violence, in the form of gangs, etc., gives them that place to belong. Violence is the only way they know how to find strength.

In many ways, it's not really a mental health issue in most cases, but a societal health issue. And the only way you can get through and give them a place to belong is to solve it at a local level, with people who understand it at that level. But lots of local governments don't care, and lots of others don't have the resources to do it.
I agree. One of the things that irritates me about the scapegoating of the mentally ill is that, while some of our recent shocking mass shootings have involved shooters with mental illness, not all of them have, and the vast majority of gun crimes are committed by entirely sane persons. Plus, there is no requirement for mental health or lack of same for a fatal gun accident to happen.

There are a lot of ways to approach both the policy issue of access to guns and ammunition and the social issues of discontent and lack of socially acceptable opportunities. But the issue of lack of care for the mentally ill is entirely different and separate from gun issues. The only overlap is that better regulation of the gun trade would make it harder for the mentally ill to acquire guns. It would also make it harder for terrorists, criminals, stalkers, abusers, alcoholics and drug abusers, etc., to acquire guns. Keeping them out of the hands of the mentally ill is just a side benefit, and a minor one at that when we compare the number of gun crimes committed by the mentally ill with the number of gun crimes overall.

But no, I guess we are expected to throw the crazies under the bus and, satisfied with our choice of witch to burn (figuratively), carry on with gun business as usual, certain that our magic has made it safe to have this lethal shit cluttering up our lives. No need at all to address the pervasive social problems that feed anger and fear among people, nor the cultural language that glorifies violence as a solution to problems, nor the practical dangers inherent in various kinds of guns and our habits in using them. Nope, stigmatize a marginalized group whom many people fear anyway, and we're done and done. Party on. I guess that must be the reasoning. At least, it seems so.
 

Don

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Your tax dollars (and elected officials) at work.
New York state has spent nearly $6 million over the past three years on subsidies for Remington Arms Co., the two-century-old factory in Ilion that makes firearms including semiautomatic rifles used by the military and police and like those used in the recent mass killings in Connecticut and Webster, N.Y.

Though several elected leaders in this tough-on-guns state want tighter restrictions on those military-style weapons, none say it’s time to stop supporting the local company and risk the nearly 1,000 jobs it provides in the central New York community.
Obviously, whoever said "You can't have your cake and eat it too" was no politician.
 

benluby

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Your tax dollars (and elected officials) at work.

Obviously, whoever said "You can't have your cake and eat it too" was no politician.


Want to know the reason that they are literally paying Remington to stay there? Because Remington doesn't like their attitude, with the constant bandying and threats they get from politicians and such, and get much love from pro-gun states, that the politicians do NOT want to watch 3,000 jobs just up and leave the area, which would be a death knell.
 

Xelebes

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Your tax dollars (and elected officials) at work.

Obviously, whoever said "You can't have your cake and eat it too" was no politician.

Or more likely politicans are trapped in pretzels by recognising or having to recognise gun manufacturing as a top industrial sector.
 

backslashbaby

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I agree. One of the things that irritates me about the scapegoating of the mentally ill is that, while some of our recent shocking mass shootings have involved shooters with mental illness, not all of them have, and the vast majority of gun crimes are committed by entirely sane persons. Plus, there is no requirement for mental health or lack of same for a fatal gun accident to happen.

There are a lot of ways to approach both the policy issue of access to guns and ammunition and the social issues of discontent and lack of socially acceptable opportunities. But the issue of lack of care for the mentally ill is entirely different and separate from gun issues. The only overlap is that better regulation of the gun trade would make it harder for the mentally ill to acquire guns. It would also make it harder for terrorists, criminals, stalkers, abusers, alcoholics and drug abusers, etc., to acquire guns. Keeping them out of the hands of the mentally ill is just a side benefit, and a minor one at that when we compare the number of gun crimes committed by the mentally ill with the number of gun crimes overall.

But no, I guess we are expected to throw the crazies under the bus and, satisfied with our choice of witch to burn (figuratively), carry on with gun business as usual, certain that our magic has made it safe to have this lethal shit cluttering up our lives. No need at all to address the pervasive social problems that feed anger and fear among people, nor the cultural language that glorifies violence as a solution to problems, nor the practical dangers inherent in various kinds of guns and our habits in using them. Nope, stigmatize a marginalized group whom many people fear anyway, and we're done and done. Party on. I guess that must be the reasoning. At least, it seems so.

I think it can depend on what aspect of gun violence we're looking at. There is not much denying that some of our rampage killers were mentally ill to an extent that they should have had restricted access to firearms, imho. I would also bet that a lot of familicides involve gun use where the folks involved could have told you that they thought the person was not stable enough to own a firearm.

It doesn't have to be scapegoating the mentally ill just because that's what the NRA is trying to do. Our local mass killing was by a man whose family tried to have him committed before the rampage. The failure of the mental health system here at the time on weekends led to the execution of 4 beautiful people and the injuring of 5 more. Had he just been committed that night, he wouldn't have been out shooting 'demons' as they drove by.

There is one in the news right now that should make us all consider the mental health system very seriously, too:

...Stokes has not cooperated with police. According to a police report from the Bellagio attack, she had been feeling "like she wanted to hurt someone" and recently had seen her doctor.
She was carrying razor blades in both hands when she began slashing Rhone's face about 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 21, the report said. Both Stokes and Rhone worked at the resort....

http://www.lvrj.com/news/bail-for-brenda-stokes-raised-to-600-000-185055651.html

She killed a 10-year-old girl as well as slashing her co-worker. The doctor apparently prescribed her Xanax, which she didn't take. Xanax?

There are all kinds of cases where the mentally ill person tried to get help, or their family did, and the sort of help they got was not the least bit adequate. That does affect our murder and injury rates, as it would! It is inexcusable. I don't care what the idiots at the NRA say, it is no reason to ignore a problem that we definitely have.

We have to take a thoughtful look at the problem, imho. It's not an easy one, because it is hard to predict when 'a mentally ill person' will be violent. The problem we know we have is, even if they and their family are screaming it from the rooftops, we have no real safety net to handle that. We just ignore it or turn them away for lack of money to pay for intensive treatment. It's wrong and dangerous.
 

Xelebes

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The problem, bsb, is that we're not ignoring the mental health equation. No one here has. We acknowledge that mental health care needs to be improved as much as an introspection of the current gun culture. What we are objecting to is the picking of one over the other. Both need to happen together. Because as it stands, picking one as a first and foremost is a diversion from discussing and acting on the other.

We're just asking you to understand this nuance.

As a case in point, we do have another thread to discuss mental health care in the US and abroad. It is not getting similar posts but those who have expressed their wish of greater or more robust gun control have also expressed the wish for greater or more robust mental health care in that thread.
 

backslashbaby

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The problem, bsb, is that we're not ignoring the mental health equation. No one here has. We acknowledge that mental health care needs to be improved as much as an introspection of the current gun culture. What we are objecting to is the picking of one over the other. Both need to happen together. Because as it stands, picking one as a first and foremost is a diversion from discussing and acting on the other.

We're just asking you to understand this nuance.

As a case in point, we do have another thread to discuss mental health care in the US and abroad. It is not getting similar posts but those who have expressed their wish of greater or more robust gun control have also expressed the wish for greater or more robust mental health care in that thread.

Yes, I am one of the posters in the thread.

I'm sure I can understand the nuance of a problem being more complex than some folks make it out to be.

If you look at muravyets' post, she distinctly points out:

"...the issue of lack of care for the mentally ill is entirely different and separate from gun issues. The only overlap is that better regulation of the gun trade would make it harder for the mentally ill to acquire guns...."

If the only overlap is solved by better regulation of guns overall, then that does not address the mental health system, no.

She is not saying what you are saying. I can only imagine that your schooling me on what everyone is saying may be a result of not noticing the nuances of the individual posts, ironically enough ;)
 

muravyets

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When I say I am annoyed by "the scapegoating of the mentally ill," obviously I am referring to the specific statements by specific individuals or groups in the media which are clearly attempting to put the focus on the mentally ill as the problem, and not lack of regulation on general access to all types of guns. Also, clearly, I do not agree with said scapegoating and don't intend to let the NRA or whomever get away with it.

So to clarify, better and more effective regulation of the gun trade would make it easier to make sure that people do not get guns if they should not have guns, for whatever reason including but not limited to, specific kinds of mental health warning signs for significant likely risk of danger to others.

Thus, let's look at two hypothetical gun buyers. Buyer A suffers a mental illness that gives him paranoid and violent command hallucinations. Buyer B is mentally healthy but is an abuser with a long record of police complaints and arrests for domestic violence and terroristic threats against his spouse, and said spouse is now suing him for divorce and is pregnant.

I say that background checks and waiting periods should raise a flag on both those buyers and they should both be denied access to guns. Plus, police should be alerted to their desire to buy a weapon (in fact, police should do the background checks and licensing).

But they should both be denied for the same reason. Buyer A should not be denied because he's sick. He should be denied because his specific condition poses a reasonable risk of danger to others. Exactly the same as the sane guy whose history and behavior flag him as very likely to try to murder his spouse.

The goal should not be to say, "This whole group of people who are in no way monolithic and very very few of whom pose any danger at all to anyone should all be put on the spot as the cause of gun violence." That's what the NRA and others would like us to do with people suffering mental illness, but we should not do that. Instead, I think we should say, "Individuals who want to own dangerous weapons need to prove it is reasonably safe for them to have such weapons, and to that end, gun buyers must undergo vetting and licensing by governmental authorities." That might have at least as much chance of picking out the Jared Loughners and the Seung-Hui Chos as it would of filtering out the likely spouse murderers and obsessed celebrity stalkers.

Also, I should say that I'm not interested in parsing out aspects of gun violence. There is no gun violence that is good in my opinion. Nothing is going to change that viewpoint for me. Very, very, VERY rarely, gun violence may be unavoidable -- as when the police have no choice but to use deadly force. But I will go to my grave saying that it is NEVER a good thing, nor should it ever be a socially acceptable thing. Under extremely rare circumstances, it may be forgivable, it may be the correct choice, it may be the lesser of available evils, but it is never good.

To me, the problem part of gun culture is the violence part. The glorifying of violence. The parsing out of okay-violence from not-okay-violence. The social acceptance of violence as an appropriate response to some things. That's a problem. As a society, we need to address it.

And to be honest, parsing out aspects of gun violence feels to me like it would be wandering off into the realm of distraction from our nation's serious problem. It's like derailing into a discussion of what time of day is appropriate for cocktails of various kinds when the actual topic at hand is someone needing an emergency intervention for being alcoholic to the point of self-destruction. It's a problem of proportion in perspective.

And to be further honest about, when I hear people like Wayne Lapierre say the crap he says, I do feel like I'm listening to the addict tell me that someone else is causing the real drug problem. His own addiction has nothing to do with it. So we should just go bother that other person and leave him to drink his booze or smoke his crack or whatever.
 

muravyets

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Yes, I am one of the posters in the thread.

I'm sure I can understand the nuance of a problem being more complex than some folks make it out to be.

If you look at muravyets' post, she distinctly points out:

"...the issue of lack of care for the mentally ill is entirely different and separate from gun issues. The only overlap is that better regulation of the gun trade would make it harder for the mentally ill to acquire guns...."


If the only overlap is solved by better regulation of guns overall, then that does not address the mental health system, no.


She is not saying what you are saying.
I can only imagine that your schooling me on what everyone is saying may be a result of not noticing the nuances of the individual posts, ironically enough ;)
Wow, backslash, that's a heck of an example of taking a detail out of context and thus entirely missing the point.

I'm just going to refer you back to the entirety of that post as well as the entirety of the post I wrote in follow-up. Please don't tell others what I'm saying until you've addressed what I have actually said, thanks.

ETA: Oh, and yes, gun control and mental health care are separate issues. One will not solve the other. Controlling guns will not provide care to the mentally ill, and restricting the rights of the mentally ill will not stop gun violence. Do you deny this? If so, please explain how gun control and mental health care are connected beyond the narrow band of overlap I mentioned.
 

backslashbaby

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Wow, backslash, that's a heck of an example of taking a detail out of context and thus entirely missing the point.

I'm just going to refer you back to the entirety of that post as well as the entirety of the post I wrote in follow-up. Please don't tell others what I'm saying until you've addressed what I have actually said, thanks.

ETA: Oh, and yes, gun control and mental health care are separate issues. One will not solve the other. Controlling guns will not provide care to the mentally ill, and restricting the rights of the mentally ill will not stop gun violence. Do you deny this? If so, please explain how gun control and mental health care are connected beyond the narrow band of overlap I mentioned.

I looked at the entirety of the post and responded to the first part you were addressing. The second part of your post did no big turnaround on your first point, so I don't think I did take it out of context.

I couldn't very well address your follow-up post, as it was not there yet ;)

I was telling him what I thought you'd said. I quoted it. I explained what I was responding to, with a quote. If things need follow-up discussion, that's cool with me, but I certainly wasn't trying to twist anything.

I'm glad you gave a follow-up post. Works for me.
 

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Here are my thoughts about the points I tried to raise in the OP about the relationship between guns and culture. Apologies for a long post and if I'm covering old ground, but here goes.
In the UK nowadays you might step into a country pub and find a framed 18th century poster on a wall informing you that all "guns, flintlocks and muskets must be surrendered to the landlord upon arrival", and this simply reflected the times. In those days of highwaymen and villages where every stranger was a potential target, people carried protection. Yet despite this, there were no mass killings like we see today. Back then the population of around 5 million was sparse, but has since grown steadily until we're a nation of 60 million plus, stuck on an island where most people live in an area smaller than Wyoming. We have to try and get along, so in the UK an accepted idea evolved amongst both government and electorate that it just seemed sensible for the well being of the culture to remove guns. Without this approach we would probably all be killing each other right now, flintlocks and all. As it is, we do still get the odd disaffected sociopath getting hold of firearms and striking out but the national feeling is it’s still unacceptable, because these people don’t indiscriminately kill other people, their guns do.
I’m not an expert on America but my feeling is that in a similar vein it was an empty continent, and up until recent times the state felt a mandate to fill this land with people. Settlers ventured out into the wilderness in droves, armed with their guns, which were both a means of obtaining food and protection. Around 40 years ago the US government decided they didn’t need any more people. But in the intervening years neither they nor their populace came to realise that guns were no longer required to establish themselves in a hostile environment, because it had been conquered. Nowadays the only real reason an American needs a gun is to protect themselves from another American with a gun.
As for France, where guns are easily available yet mass killings ar rare, I’d venture that France has the same population as England but is 5 times the size, with lots of empty space between people. I readily admit to clutching at straws with that, but was hoping there might be a French AWer who’d answer it for me!

PS I’ve ignored the American revolution, 2nd constitutional amendment et al as factors because this post is well overlong already.
 

kuwisdelu

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I’m not an expert on America but my feeling is that in a similar vein it was an empty continent, and up until recent times the state felt a mandate to fill this land with people.

Well, it was empty of white people...

Nowadays the only real reason an American needs a gun is to protect themselves from another American with a gun.

Hunting?
 

MacAllister

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Folks, from here on out, instead of deleting or porting posts, we're going to pretty ruthlessly time-out anyone who can't manage to post to this thread without the snitty, personal, passive-aggressive bullshit potshots. We don't care which side of the debate you're on. You're all grownups, so act like it.

Most of you are doing admirably well grappling with a difficult topic, and you have our profound gratitude. But a handful of folks posting here are just counting coup -- and it's starting to get really stale.

Just, yanno, so everyone's been forewarned.
 

backslashbaby

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Quote:
Originally Posted by ReallyRong
I’m not an expert on America but my feeling is that in a similar vein it was an empty continent, and up until recent times the state felt a mandate to fill this land with people.

Well, it was empty of white people...

Quote:
Nowadays the only real reason an American needs a gun is to protect themselves from another American with a gun.
Hunting?


I was serious about rabies and coyotes and wild dogs, too. I was joking about the bear because we hardly ever see ours, but I was serious about bear in other places. There has even been a rabid bear that tried to eat a vehicle with very scared dudes inside!

I really would have a gun anyway. I don't need some crazy Rambo gun, but I don't understand the reluctance to see a need for a gun other than to kill humans. Maybe I should try to find a video of a rabid animal attack.

It's part of the culture here to have guns for hunting, target shooting and protection from wild (big) or rabid animals. We do extend that to include protection from home intruders, and I can see how that does not compute in other places, but why does it go back to 'no reason to have a gun except killing humans'?

We also shoot mistletoe out of the trees at Christmas :) Guns are not automatically anti-social, but of course behavior with guns will quickly and easily earn that title in the community.

For the entire historical perspective, it gets much longer than your post! One important thing to remember is that we had a huge civil war not so long ago, and we are a nation of immigrants and slaves and the children of these mixed cultures. We are not a nation of indigenous, homogenous peoples, very sadly for the Native Americans. The nation was formed in bloody, violent, armed revolution, and we are a colony far away from the colonial powers who started the whole thing.

We have an egalitarian philosophy and yet we've always had a large split between the rich and poor. The numbers of our poor are astounding. We more resemble South Africa than Europe proper, imho. And that makes sense, doesn't it, as former colonial land? That's why I keep saying that we couldn't really suddenly be Europe if we tried. Lots of places couldn't.

If the population who lives on the land are scarred from bloody colonialism, bloody revolution and civil war, then doesn't that need to be remembered? How soon do those scars go away?

The people of Algeria tried to literally attack Paris in the 60's. Algeria is far away from Paris. What if all of the French people -- including the Algerians -- had lived on the same land? Or the Kenyans and the British living side-by-side in the UK? It's just very different if the colonial victims live a long way away from their oppressors, imho.