“They are trying to take our guns!”
In light of years of school shootings, staggering numbers of all sorts of gun related violence, and tragicomic amount of gun related accidental deaths, one might expect the US government and judical system might take a nother look at the regulatory laws on gun ownership. One could expect, that the frequent and needless deaths of children at least would have evoked a nationwide and fairly universal popular demand to set better laws to regulate guns more. Alas no. There are wide swathes of people with enough presence of mind to have done all this and even a few presidents who have tried to address the problem, but they have achieved hardly anything. Why?
“In countries where the government has all the guns, tyranny and dictatorship reign.”
The excuses people give in defence of their “constitutional right to bear arms” are mind numbingly stupid. These seem to be either appeals to personal insecurity due to a society where crime is abundant and every numbskul might be toting a piece, or insecurity about the chance that their own government might turn into tyranny and it needed to be opposed by the citizenry. One would think that the solution to the first source of fear would quite obviously involve attempts to develope a more efficient police force, a more equal society with less desperate people to turn to crime and at very least better regulation of guns, but for some reason there are plenty of people, who do not see any of those as solutions. Instead they would arm the teachers. The second problem stems from the time when the US constitution was written. It was made by revolutionaries wary of a global empire they were braking of from, in a time when the native nations of America were still strong and the firearms mentioned had not seen rapid development from the flintlock musket in over a hundred years. The “founding fathers” had very little reason to expect weaponry to change in the foreseeanble future. Certainly they could not pass laws concerning modern automatic firearms, or what the future may hold for us in that regard. Their concern about armed militias was a question of federal army being too weak to protect the land but powerfull enough to set up a dictatorship. The modern US military is one of the most powerfull and certainly the most expensive armed forces on the planet. It really does not require any help from some random militias and even less from some individual gun owners. None of the reasons it remains unused to set up a dictatorship in the USA is a deterrence of the abundance of gun owners in the country. Any insurrection based on the efforts of random dudes weilding their AR-15 rifles would propably be fairly one sided and short lived.
“Criminals can always get illegal guns.”
Where do illegal guns come from? They were all at some point legal. There are no hidden factories making illegal guns from scrap metal anywhere. Many illegal guns are left over from wars and smuggled across borders. Those are mostly military grade assault weapons professional criminals use, but weapons smuggling is a risky business, though profitable. But hey, why make aquiring guns difficult for the would be criminal? Just sell them what they want at the local supermarket. Many illegal guns come from burglaries. A weapon in the house is not a deterrence, rather an incentive for a burglary, even in places where anybody can just step into a shop and buy one without any backround checks. Just like jewellery is an incentive for burglary in places where they are readily awailable in shops. The guns used at school shootings are however hardly ever illegal. The disturbed individuals who decide to commit a suicide by proxy and go to a school, or some other public place to shoot at some innocent bystanders most often got their assault weapons legally from the shelf of a store, or from some relative or other who had their guns legally even though they were happles enough to keep their automatic guns not in locked steel cabinets (as required in many countries) but at something like their night desk – I guess for children to find and play with it.
“from my dead cold hands…”
From the excuses given to not restrict gun ownership in the USA it becomes obvious, that the underlying reasons come from fear. That makes the discussion difficult, because the people who defend the all extending “right” to bear arms do it from a deeply emotional standpoint. They have abandoned reason to the extent, that they do not want to discuss various options, rather their view is this fierce black and white set up, where the options are reduced to everybody should be able to have a gun, or none at all. Their world seems to not hold the option of restricting guns from people who obviously can not handle the responsibility of carrying kone . This raises the question of how many of them are so dangerous imbecils, that indeed they do have every right to fear the possibility of being the type of people who would and should not be allowed to own a gun, if ever the licence to carry a gun (as in the rest of the western countries) was restricted.
June 16, 2022 at 4:31 am
For some reason, that country seems to be populated by nutwits only.
June 16, 2022 at 12:02 pm
Now, now. You are perhaps being a little harsh. There are plenty of good and intelligent people who would accept change in this matter and a few who have fought this problem for quite a while.
They say the subject has politizised to an extreme point, but what they are really referring to is politics being played like it was a commodity on the free market. One party has made it their marketting stratagem to advertise to the consumer group most easily persuated by advertising. That is the most ignorant part of people, who – by not really understanding how the world works – are voulnerable to fearmongering and other emotional appeals and as such subject to the message of corporations, like the ones who produce guns. Their entire society is so saturated with guns, that it is hard to see how unhealthy their relationship to the tools of murder has become.
June 16, 2022 at 12:08 pm
I admit I used a broad brush to paint but it looks to me like a form of group insanity, if such a thing exists, the nation’s relationship with guns.
June 17, 2022 at 1:00 am
[…] 2nd Amendment — World’s Pain […]
June 17, 2022 at 1:45 am
Given the brevity of the 2nd amendment, I have to assume the well regulated militia bit is integral. What I read is that the right to bear arms is specifically for the purpose of participating in a well regulated militia and not to intimidate senior citizens at a black lives matter rally. America has seriously lost it’s way.
June 21, 2022 at 11:38 am
Yes, it is obviously written in context to common English law, and what had been the custom in the colonies. Not as some universal truth about human rights. Muzzle loading flintlock muskets being the state of the art armament. Those are deadly weapons with one shot a minute and somewhat accurate as far as hundred yards, but helplessly obsolete already a hundred years later, wich was shown in the early stages of the Russo-Turkish Balkans war, as the Turks used Winchester repeater rifles agaist Russians armed with muskets.
June 17, 2022 at 8:51 am
[…] this excellent post by raut and then a counter […]
June 17, 2022 at 11:18 pm
I address all of your concerns in my own post. https://seek-the-truth.com/2022/06/16/the-gun-control-argument-is-flawed/
We often characterize our opposition’s ideas as “mind numbingly stupid” because either we haven’t taken the time to understand them or they have not been adequately explained. I take 4000 words to expand on the bullet points below.
1. we already have gun control in the U.S.
2. many people today, often those with public platforms, know nothing about guns
3. semi-automatic weapons have existed for almost 200 years.
4. mass shootings with rifles account for fewer than 1 in 1000 gun deaths.
5. more people die annually from hammers, fists, and other blunt objects than die from rifles. Handguns account for the overwhelming majority of gun deaths, and big cities are the problem.
6. the vast majority of gun deaths are self-inflicted.
7. ignorant politicians today (the majority stand for nothing, know nothing, and are hypocrites) drive the conversation.
8. mass murders at malls, schools, shopping centers are generally in gun-free zones.
9. a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun and often has.
10. disarming hundreds of millions of Americans is a lousy idea.
11. people committing gun violence are already violating dozens of gun laws
12. the increase in homicides beginning in 2020 coincided with the ridiculous demands (please note they have since been withdrawn) to disarm and defund the police.
13. the UK now restricts the purchase of knives because knife murders are out of control.
Do not be swayed by emotions of people like Whoopi Goldberg. Do not be swayed by others with hidden agendas. Those unsure about more gun control have legitimate concerns. I present the facts, clearly and comprehensively. Decide yourself what makes sense and what doesn’t. We can do something, but it should make sense.
I would be glad to discuss these ideas further should you want to take the time to study them. We often have different ideas about what to do because we have a different set of facts. Be better informed and you can better understand the nuances, can understand the oppositions concerns, and can better address the real problems, perhaps collectively. Political debate today doesn’t solve problems like this because folks just want to beat their own chests and condemn the opposition. We can do better.
June 18, 2022 at 7:42 am
Thank you for taking the time to reply my post. I read your post. I appriciate it, that you have tried to address the issue in rational terms.
1. Clearly not adequate enough. Compare to any other western nation.
2. Many people in the US who own guns seem to know nothing about guns. A far more dangerous problem.
3. So what? They are just as dangerous now as they were when they were first introduced. That however, clearly happened long after the 2nd amendment was implemented.
4. That only tells us how the amount of gun deaths is alarmingly high in general.
5. Fists can not be regulated, but guns can be.
6. Yes, there seems to be a correlation between easy access to guns and suicide. One more reason to regulate guns more.
7. I agree. Many of the politicians leading the conversation seem to be in bed with the gun lobby and economically dependant on the industry. I do not think it is hypocritical from a politician who has set themselves up as targets to the gun nuts and right-wing extremists require the protection of professionals, rather than think they could protect themselves by toting a piece.
8. A gun free zone means absolutely nothing, if the rest of the society is saturated with guns. Unless you start building walls with razor wire and armed guards, like in the Baghdad “green zone”.
9. Only one of the three examples of this in your blog was a random citizen. The others were the police. Is this because there are actually very few examples of that happening. It did not need to happen, if the bad dudes had no guns in the first place. Right?
10. No, it is difficult. Not a lousy idea. Clearly you have an abundance of people owning guns who are totally happless of the responsibility it includes. It needs to be done.
11. We do not take down laws based on how people do not respect them. Do we?
12. I agree. Defunding the police because it’s performance has been sub-standard is a stupid idea. As stupid as defunding a school, if it produces lower than average grades, but it seems to be a model of resolving problems in your society. Professionals who can not get their job done need help, not punishment.
13. It is a lot harder to stop a dude running amock with a gun, than a dude with a knife and a gun armed dude can cause a lot more havoc in the same period of time. Right? One such incident happened in my hometown a few years back. The cops caught him in about five minutes after he had started. The UK police do not even carry guns, because they do not have to.
I am not really interrested about what some celebrity has to say about this. Nor do I see what the legitimate concerns you refer to might be. That the US military is used for a political coup, if the citizens give up their pistols? Or what?
I totally agree with your last paragraph and would like to discuss this issue with you, if you like. I think I know plenty of facts about the issue, but I am willing to learn more. Here in Finland where I live we have a lot of guns, but we also have a strict gun controll.
June 18, 2022 at 3:02 pm
Like you, rautakyy, I find many loopholes in the argument presented by STT. The biggest problem I see with this issue is that so many are influenced by the media. Legitimate and conscientious gun-owners are NOT the ones out killing other humans, yet for the most part, they are being lumped in with the crazies.
There ARE solutions, but not as long as the situation continues to be politicized.
June 21, 2022 at 1:57 pm
@Nan, for a very short moment I was baffeled by your comment. “STT” is the acronym for Finnish Information Bureau, a very reliable news agency we have here. Most Finns have from our chidhood become used to hear the acronym mentioned as a news source.
I actually rely the media a lot more, than the social media. It is detrimental, because people end up in bubles of shared prejudices. I agree though, that commercial media is also prone to cause havoc, if it is run in the sole interrest of profit, because then it feeds people scandals and confirmation bias. The best profits can be made either by serving the biggest possible majority, that is often ( luckily) fairly temperate, or by serving the most ignorant minority (as Fox News has done), for they are the most woulnerable group of people – the types, to whom morals and finding out how the real world works is somewhat challenging, even if they do not know it. Those to whom right and wrong are defined by following tradition, or by an interpretation of what they think is the super natural.
June 18, 2022 at 10:52 am
Seek, I’ll look to address your post at some point, but to touch upon the UK’s knife problem, whilst it is serious, the UK’s rate of knife murders is tiny, compared to the US rate of gun murders. Firearms currently account for something like 80% of all US murders. The US murder rate in 2020 was 7.8 per 100,000 people, so 6.2 per 100,000 US murders involve guns.
In the UK, the murder rate in 2020 was 0.9 per 100,000, with 40% involving knives. That means 0.36 UK murders per 100,000, involved knives.
So, as you can clearly see, the UK’s knife murder rate is very low, compared to the USA’s gun murder rate.
June 21, 2022 at 2:46 pm
@Ben Berwick, thanks for sharing the facts.
Perhaps it is a bit like comparing apples to oranges, when people compare the UK knife issue to US gun problem. BUT, what if it was not? What if the same solutions were offered to the similar, if not exactly equally serious problems? On one hand that knives be regulated, or on the other hand that citizens should start carrying knives, because it often might be the “good guy” with a knife, who stops the “bad guy” with a knife. Would you carry a knife, and if not, why not? I might carry a knife, but then again, I have a couple of decades of martial arts training, so if it ever came to that, it would most likely not be a fair fight – for the other guy.
I have often wondered how people come to the conclusion about who the “good guy” is. Many people seem to think, that Kyle Rittenhouse was the “good guy”, but I bet the people whom he killed thought he was the “bad guy” and they tried to stop him from doing something terrible with the rifle he was carrying in a public space.
June 19, 2022 at 5:33 pm
Sir – I believe I posted two comments yesterday which are not displayed. Please approve these comments, so the whole discussion can be displayed.
I address all your comments, one by one. Another blogger addressed the issue of knifings in the UK and shared with me. Perhaps you are sharing notes. The numbers are what they are. You make a good point on this issue. Still, I don’t think this is dispositive. I address this issue and additional ones made by the other blogger in the comment section on my post.
I should not, both you and he are commenting on political issues in the US, yet you do not live in the US. Because of that you are probably missing some of my argument. In the US, there is a great divide in the ideology between the two political parties. There is an even greater divide between “conservatives” which I consider myself and both political parties (we have a hard time fitting in with either party). It is so difficult these days to see how factions with such polar opposite views can share the same country. We must have common values or we cannot stay together as a nation. These common values seem to be evaporating.
Many of the problems we have with homicides in the US are because of policies advocated by one political party. Note that homicides in the US increased dramatically in 2020. There is a very obvious reason for that, one that has nothing to do with guns. We lived through this increase and we know what it stemmed from and who allowed it.
The problem on gun homicides in the US is largely restricted to large metropolitan areas which are almost exclusively governed by one political party. In the US, district attorneys put criminals on a merry-go-round. Folks are arrested dozens of times and let go over and over. It has been happening for decades, and it is largely a problem with one political party. George Soros, who came from Europe (and collaborated with the Nazi party in his youth) is funding the election of DAs who are largely responsible for this merry-go-round. In my post, I pointed to the example of NYC and Mayor Guiliani. Mayor Guiliani was one of the few Republicans elected to an executive position in a large US city in the last thirty years. His accomplishment in cleaning up the city was remarkable. I do not live anywhere NYC but I have traveled there dozens of times. I can attest to what he accomplished. Just compare Times Square before and after. Under the last mayor, DeBlasio (who is basically a communist), we are seeing a return to the NYC problems of the 1980s. Policies make a difference.
Dave
June 20, 2022 at 3:23 am
@Dave, I am truly sorry, but I can not find those comments of yours anywhere on my reader. At this point I fear the internet has eaten them. If it was not too much to ask, I would appriciate it, if you could make those lost comments again. Just as you said, so that the entire conversation could be displayed.
Yes, I have heard of the polarization in the USA. Here in Finland we have a multiparty system, that allowes people to seek out a party, that fits their particular values. Of course, it also means all of our governments are formed of coalitions so usually nothing changes quickly, unless an issue binds (almost) everybody on the same side – as with the recent descision about our application to NATO. In that way we have a “conservative” system, though we are a fairly progressive nation.
We have fairly short prison sentences here. Our prisons are more about rehabilitation, than punishment, or some sort of storages for bad people. They are government run fascilities, not private companies out to make profit from the inmates and the taxpayer. It has been proven, that harder sentences do not lessen crime rates and the rehabilitation programs work. Naturally there are other reasons for our relatively low crime rates, such as good social security, manouverability between social and economic classes, of wich the difference between is low. This in turn is possible through high and firmly equal quality standards of education, free education all the way through university and so on. Other reasons for low crime rates are ever more strict official attitudes towards any sort of racism and low population density – or as one Russian fellow once put it: “If you want to mug someone in Finland, you need to find that someone first.” He was visiting our capital on Midsummer eve (an ancient pagan festival) when all the people are in the countryside, or in the archipelago burning bonfires. Our police force is also very well educated for the job. Their education lasts for three years minimum and they need to have a college degree and military service done as an officer trainee done before they can even apply. Compared to many police in the US, who only have a brief half a year course for the job. That added to the constant risk of running into armed criminals and the fact that there often enough is only one police in a cruiser running into situations alone (here the minimum police patrol is two officers), sounds like a recipe for disaster just waiting to happen.
Anyway, you might want to look at those possibilities for your society before spending money on arming teachers, or even propping up security in schools. Such measures as having armed guards at schools.
The Finns kind of stood where the US is now. After WW2 there were a lot of loose and purposefully hidden guns in Finland from pistols taken as war memorabilia, to rifles, machine pistols and machine guns and even handgrenades. There has always been a lot of hunting weapons in Finland and because we were on the losing side, there was a legitimate fear of Soviet invasion and occupation. Officers were involved in hiding and distributing military grade weaponry and ammo to veterans all over the country. Many veterans suffered from PTSD and other mental problems, such as having become amphetamine users during the war. There were some serious shootouts between them and the police. Something needed to be done and not continue in the fantasy, that more guns are going to solve the problem of having too many guns in the society.
June 19, 2022 at 5:53 pm
One more comment regarding Whoopi Goldberg and other celebrities. You and I agree celebrities opinions are not so relevant.
Do you know of LeBron James? He is a basketball player in the US who has 100 million followers on Twitter. He regularly spouts off on political issues. He is a wonderful basketball player, but an absolutely dreadful political commentator. Yet, he has a tremendous sway over public opinion. It is quite sad that so many who follow politics get their politics from celebrities who nothing about anything outside of their area of expertise. Folks like you and I who are trying to have a serious conversation are drowned out.
June 20, 2022 at 12:23 pm
Yes, many celebrities have participated, been used to influence and indeed made a mark in politics for ages. Why are people convinced by a sports professional, a singer, or an actor in political issues, but unimpressed by a scientist whose research is focused on some societal issue? I do not know LeBron James at all, but then again, I am not interrested in basketball. However, I am guessing, that the influence of a sports star, or an actor may come from their personal charisma, like with Charlton Heston, who was a superb actor and known for his interpretations of powerfull characters. A perfect poster boy for a political movement to appeal to people who either wanted to be like him, or be protected by someone like him. Nevermind, if he knew what he was talking about, or not. He was the right man to sell the idea he was marketting as the face of NRA.
Many celebrities feel obligated to use their visibility to promote some cause they believe in. It is the job of the general public to evaluate wether or not their heroes are right about those causes. One way I can see how a society can help people make more informed descisions is by providing better education to as many as possible to a degree as high as possible, preferrably for free. Because a society of ignorant people are subject to all sorts of populism, down right lies, “alternative facts”, conspiracy theories, wild claims about the supernatural and deliberate political influence from outside said society in question. An investment in equal quality education is an investment in economy, in a functioning democracy, in social equality, in a more tolerant and a more liberal society, in science, ingenuity, in healthier environment, healthier people, peace, but also in a stronger society, that can take what may come. A nother service a society can provide to the public is a national impartial broadcasting company (like the BBC), that is not bound by the commercial interests of the private ownership, to provide news coverage according to the journalistic work and integrity of their reporters, instead of serving the prejudices of their commercial target group audience. That sort of indipendent reliable news source increases trust in the society and downplays influence any celebrity become populist politician may have, because such celebrity characters always seem to base their own success on more division and polarization.
June 19, 2022 at 9:14 pm
Re-posting this comment from yesterday. Maybe it will take from a different computer.
Thank you for a calm and rational response. You didn’t accuse me of loving guns more than my children which is the way many try to put me in the corner.
1. On gun control in the U.S. The U.S. has a federalist system, so laws vary greatly from state to state. Power not granted to the Federal government is reserved for states. We can compare the efficacy of variety of laws among states. The states with the strictest gun laws, Illinois for example, still have a big problem with gun violence. Conclusion: gun laws are not making a difference. Will stricter national gun laws hurt people in Wyoming (who are not the problem) while not solving the problem in Chicago and other big cities (who are the problem)?
2. Ok, people pretend they know more than they actually do. Can you demonstrate how people with guns who know nothing about guns are creating a problem? If you can, you might have a point. The NRA, who people love to hate, does a considerable amount on gun safety education. People should know something about guns before using them. We agree on this point. However, I am not sure if such regulation is worthwhile. We have regulation to license car drivers but I doubt that makes our roads much safer (we license for reasons other than safety, but I think we don’t get much bang for our buck on safety).
3. My point with the history of semi-automatics is that gun violence today is not a result of new technology. Many misunderstand this due to lack of understanding of guns. Why has the debate intensified today and why is it more a problem than in the past when the same conditions have existed for a long time? I have some of the answers in my post if you can discern them.
4. Mass shootings. The only time the gun debate is restarted in the U.S. is after a mass shooting. For example, we “solve” this problem by instituting an assault rifle ban while ignoring the continual problem of handgun homicides in big cities. This shows folks like me that the gun control crowd is not trying to solve the problem the whole problem. Why? Their motivations are suspect and they give them away in any case. Attempt to solve the handgun problem in big cities and we will be with you. I gave an example of Mayor Guiliani’s administration. It is one of the most remarkable stories, but is ignored because he is a Republican and Republicans all love their guns more than children.
5. Hammers and knives can be regulated. I made this point only to show that the main problem is not rifles, but rifles, “weapons of war”, receive all the focus.
6. A person intent on suicide will find a way. We all know there are a multitude of ways, many less painful or frightening than shooting yourself.
7. You refer to us “gun nuts” finally. Why does Cori Bush deserve protection from “gun nuts”, but my wife should not be able to carry a gun when going into an environment that might have “gun nuts” of another kind? I can’t afford a security detail for her. Come on, Rep. Bush is being hypocritical. Why do you defend her?
8. Criminals know law abiding citizens will not carry in a gun free zone. It is a softer target. There are many safety features that will make schools, for instance, safer. Some such measures don’t even involve guns. I highlighted one: one ingress, multiple egresses. We don’t focus on these in the U.S. because the gun control crowd wants only one solution and will demagogue anyone who wants any other. Does that mean they love gun control more than kids? I would support a measure to harden schools in a sensible way. I think we could even find common ground on measures that do not involve guns, but it doesn’t get serious debate in our country. Ask yourself why? Who controls the debate here?
9. I gave three examples not because that was all I could find. Many such events are not reported nationally. They are “local news stories”. Kyle Rittenhouse was a local story that became national. Why? Without a rifle to defend himself, he would be dead today. These “good guy with a gun saves others” stories It destroys our media’s narrative. You can find more examples if you know where to look. We have 400 million guns in the U.S. and about 15,000 homicide gun murders. So, 1 in 26,000 guns in the U.S. are used to kill someone annually. How do you think we should take away the guns from the bad dudes without disarming the good dudes? That’s why I say the real goal is to disarm everyone. And what will be the consequences of that? Those who have guns still will be able to act with impunity.
10. It needs to be done? Take away 400 million guns from people who believe their safety, their business’s safety, and their families safety will be diminished? Allow the government who has repeatedly lied to us about so many things tell us they are doing it to make us all safer? People like Cori Bush are going to tell us it is for our own good? We don’t believe them. We see their hypocrisy. See, here is the heart of the argument. You believe we will be safer without the guns. We believe we are safer with the guns. This is why a real discussion is needed. Our leaders just yell at each other and question each other’s motives. Nothing will get done in this environment.
11. We have so many laws in the U.S. that we cannot possibly enforce them all. The point is every time there is a gun control debate, they introduce new legislation to solve the problem (and get some politicians more votes). It is generally just more laws that will be ignored or not enforced. We need fewer, more sensible laws that are respected and enforced. We don’t have that. Throwing good money after bad doesn’t fix the problem.
12. Glad we agree on this one point. With regard to schools, you have made my point. My kids went 8 years to a parochial school and received a better education than kids in schools which spent more per student. Money doesn’t fix all problems. Look at the correlation between funding and school performance. I think you will find other factors are far more significant towards improving outcomes.
13. Knife murders are now a big problem in the UK because they didn’t get to the heart of the problem. You want a knife for your kitchen, you have to order it through Amazon or you’ll be arrested for carrying home in your car. Isn’t that rather silly? Maybe you think it is a small price to pay. UK news sources think it is a problem:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47156957
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12149850/knife-crime-britain-record-high/
(Altogether, there were 179 offences per 100,000 population in the capital)
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/uk-six-knife-murders-per-week/
The real point is this: we can reduce the gun homicides in the U.S. without more gun control. Certain locales have already shown that more gun control doesn’t actually fix the problem. Wyoming has lots of guns but very few gun homicides. Why is that? The gun control crowd (nuts?) just won’t allow any other solution, won’t even contemplate discussion of any other solution. That’s a big part of the problem.
June 20, 2022 at 3:51 pm
I do not support the total and unrestricted possession of guns. Now, having said that, I found your arguments straight-forward and non-emotional … albeit I do not agree with much of what you wrote.
One remark that stood out to me was this — we “solve” this problem by instituting an assault rifle ban while ignoring the continual problem of handgun homicides in big cities, “Handgun homicides” rarely take out multitudes of people at a time, nor do they destroy the body as the ammunition from an assault rifle does — which means there is at least a remote possibility some could be saved.
Living with someone who owns and appreciates guns, I do not support a total ban. I do, however, believe much stronger “checks and balances” need to be put into place. Unfortunately, the emotional factor of those who have been affected by the several mass shootings makes it highly doubtful such action will ever take place. And ultimately, who can blame them?
June 21, 2022 at 4:20 am
Dave, you are wellcome. I thank you for having this conversation with me, altough I am an outsider to the problems your country is facing.
I have no idea how much you “love” guns, but to me you appear more like concerned citizen.
1. The EU has a lot of countries, none of wich are dictatorships. All have restrictive gun laws compared to the average US state. Gun violence is nowhere close to what you are facing, despite almost double the popumation of the USA andeven though there are countries in the area that have faced civil war during this generation. Economies, population dencity and cultures vary greatly, so the gun laws must be doing some good.
2. The amount of accidents with guns in the US, shows quite blatantly, that there are totally hapless gun owners, even though the number of guns goes a long way to explain them also. If a gun, that was bought to protect the home ends up in a tragedy, where a child plays with it and kils or injures a family member, what has been achieved? That sort of sad events do not happen much in countries where the law demands guns to be stored under lock and key.
3. We kind of agree in this one. The reasons are much more diverse. Poverty, desparation, commercialism, competitive culture, toxic masculinity, easy access and abundance of guns in general are to be blamed rather than auto feeding mechanisms of guns are more to blame. Yet, the semi-automatic rifle is a lot more dangerous weapon, than a breech loading musket, in the context of mass shootings, is it not? Such weapons need to be regulated, do they not? What harm could come out from regulating weapons, in comparrison to harm they are used to cause when they are not regulated?
4. Are the mass shootings a separate problem, or a part of a bigger problem? Is not the easy access to very effective weapons not part of this problem?
5. There is a reason modern armies are not armed with hammers and knives.
6. Yet so many chooses to do it with a gun and much more often so when guns are easily awailable. Of the people, who attempted suicide with pills a good number can be saved (I have saved one), but those who attempted it with a gun not many were recoverable. Sometimes a person really wants to die, but sometimes they are just in a state of very serious confusion.
7. never called you a gun nut, did I? I do not know you well enough to make that call. Is your wife trained to use her gun and committed enough to kill, if the time comes? If she is not, the gun may provide her with a sensation of safety, while putting her into a greater risk. Criminals are always looking for new guns to turn them into those illegal guns. Even if your wife is a natural born killer, this can not be a long term solution in your society, because most people are not killers. You need a better and more reliable police force, more equal society and less, not more guns.
8. As I said before a gun free zone amounts to nothing, if the surrounding society is saturated by guns. I do not know who controls the debate there, but the NRA seems to have a lot of support from the gun industry, politicians and citizens alike. We have strict laws about cun controll, yet the debate for more freedom to have guns is absent from my society.
9. You say you have more examples and then you bring up Rittenhouse, a minor with a rifle in a demonstration/riot. If all the people who attacked him because some of them thought he was a hazard to public safety and no doubt saw themselves as “the good guys”, had been carrying guns he would be dead. I am sure you must have better examples.
10. Implementing strict gun laws in Finland did not surmount to disarming everybody, though we had plenty of illegal guns to begin with. It meant better safety.
11. That is a separate problem you need to fix.
12. Agreed.
13. There is no particular problem with knives, or attempts to address such in Finland, even though the racist stereotype Finn according to our neighbouring nations always carries one. Knives are not typically seen as a big problem in most countries with strict gun control. See my point no:5
So, can we agree, that there is a problem with the abundance of guns – that is why your wife is carrying one, is it not? What would be your solution to this problem? What would make your wife feel safe enough, that she and so many others would not need to fear, or invest into this problem?
June 20, 2022 at 9:40 pm
To Nan’s comment: The U.S. does not have total and unrestricted possession of guns. Some states, in fact, have fairly restrictive gun laws. We all want to limit homicide gun deaths and keep the guns out of the hands of the bad guys. We just differ on approaches to it.
We should empathize with those who lost loved ones in mass shootings. We can possibly save some lives with new gun control laws aimed at solving this problem, but we may also lose lives from such actions. This is the danger of unintended consequences.
Handgun homicides are less spectacular than mass shootings such as in Texas recently, but they are also a bigger problem. Far more lives lost with handguns. The assault rifle ban didn’t solve the handgun problem. It’s impact was limited, if there was any at all. I am skeptical of more solutions which do not address the actual problem, especially in a political environment in which many use underhanded methods to achieve other political goals.
To Mr. Rautakky: I would point out that in 2020 we had a significant increase in homicide gun deaths in the U.S. The impetus of all this was death of George Floyd. More than 25 people were killed during protests of the death of one man. What sense does that make? Furthermore, “defund the police” became the mantra for many. George Floyd’s death was the responsibility of one person. Neither George Floyd nor Officer Chauvin should have been used as proxies for the rest of America, but that is exactly what happened. They were two flawed individuals who represented themselves only. For many, the death of George Floyd proved American police were overwhelmingly racist and their activities had to be curtailed. Defund the police was the most moronic policy ever imagined (it has since been abandoned); the damage it did and the lives lost from it were immense. The Floyd incident was an anomaly. Furthermore, the debate shouldn’t have been about race. Racism wasn’t even presented as a motivating factor in Officer Chauvin’s trial.
Many other incidents were lumped in as more examples of police racism. In one such incident, a policeman had his taser taken from him and the suspect was firing the taser at the officer. The man was shot for his action, but still many blamed the police. Additional examples abound. In the aftermath, police forces were abandoned by elected leaders: forces were pared, budgets cut, officers unfairly accused, police were told to stand down when they should have engaged, morale was permanently damaged, on and on. The predictable result followed: a massive increase in homicides in cities across the country as individual police thought twice about getting involved in an incident for which they might be unfairly accused. This increase had nothing to do with the prevalence of guns in our society.
America has had its issue with race in the past, but it was in the past. Today America is a true melting pot of nationalities, races, religions, and more. I encounter daily: in my workplace, in my neighborhood, in my church, at Wal-Mart, and everywhere else. Americans today are as tolerant a people as has ever been. Yet, the accusations of racism, from one political party towards another, never stop. It is the cause for every problem. It is total and utter BS.
You cannot convince me that the lack of police training is the source of our problem. It may be that attrition encountered in the last two years has left us in such a place, but that is due to moronic policies designed to achieve a political goal (foremost being the defeat of President Trump in 2020). The police in the U.S. are professional, well trained for their jobs, and vastly under-appreciated.
It is understandable to equate the problem of gun homicides with the wide accessibility of guns. However, I pointed out that semi-automatic weapons, with similar capacity have been available for almost 200 years. Why are mass shootings and gun homicides more of a problem today than they were in the past? The firepower and accessibility to lethal semi-automatic weapons has been a reality for almost our entire history. Why is the problem so much more acute today? There are other problems which should be addressed. The debate in our country inevitably centers around gun control. Measures are passed which have limited or no impact on gun deaths, infringe upon citizens rights to protection, or create more problems than they solve. We can engage in debate of specific measures, but we enter the debate skeptical given prior results. We are to trust and negotiate with the same morons who brought us “defund the police” two years ago? They are the ones to solve this problem?
The U.S. is a very different country than Finland although some states in the US are probably similar to Finland. Montana, for instance, is a large area, cold climate, and sparsely populated. The solutions which work well for New York City may not work for Montana. Solutions which work well for Finland may not work well in the U.S. either. Federalism is the American solution to a vast country with vastly different environments in the various states. It has worked well for 200+ years. We would not have a country without such a system. National gun laws which eliminate or severely restrict access would be a problem for a significantly large portion of Americans. It would spell the doom of individual and states rights, which are already under severe threat today.
California is the largest state in the Union. It has gone to hell. People are leaving the state in record numbers. We do not want the whole country to become like California. Many of us prefer a weaker central government which allows states to determine their own fate while leaving national security, currency, foreign policy, and few other enumerated powers to the national government. We still have hope in the U.S. because all states have not all gone the way of California.
June 21, 2022 at 7:34 pm
@Dave, it gives me hope and makes me happy, that in your community racism seems to be a thing of the past. Looking at the USA from outside, racism seems to be all but dead however. The fact that the obsolete term “race” is over and over pointed out in all sorts of situations, tells me it is still an issue for many a people. Racial profiling by some if not many police seems to be an issue too. The volume and the rage behind the BLM protests and the reaction by wich the varying police departments and the US government replied to them told me further, that race is an issue still. The way the police and government agencies reacted appeared not like professional crowd controll, nor like the sentiment of being ostracized by ethnicity or skin colour was widely understood in those organizations. There are many reasons to this of course and they are part of the bigger problem of economic imbalance. A nother is military gear being sold to the police. Why? Because it profits the weapons manufacturers, just like the fact that guns are sold in large volume to your people to protect themselves from each other, since they all have a gun.
It is quite likely, that there are political opportunists riding this storm, but it is unlikely, that the storm was instigated solely by them. The BLM represents a long witheld sentiment by a large part of your population, though most of the people who share in it are ordinary everyday people, who do not want to participate in any sort of activity, demonstrations, or especially riots. Rioteers, be they storming the Congress building, or braking windows of shops, never seem to understand, that they themselves are cutting the edge off their own movement, because most people do not want violence. Most people do not want guns, but some feel forced to carry one – a bit like your wife. It is the job of the government to protect the citizens, not every citizen for their own lives.
The lack of police training is not the sole source of the problem. But it is a major factor combined with the fact that the US police has to be wary of the criminal being heavily armed all the time and all too often they are, because the society is saturated with guns and gun culture. The criminal may have an illegal gun, but just as likely a legally purchased gun, because of the easy access to the guns, if not in the same state, over the next state line for sure. The US police officer with their half a year training (however intence), that is short in comparrison to almost any other police force in the western world, has to consider the likelyhood of even an every day domestic disturbance situation ending up in a firefight, because of the easy access to guns in this, or the next state. Same applies to the lone police officer stopping a car and so on. No wonder their trigger finger is itchy. They are scared for a good reason, the culture of gun violence has been normalized around them and there are guns everywhere.
I agree, once again with you, that there are plenty of problems that surmount to the amount of violence both gun and otherwise. Easy access to guns is however one of the reasons, that so much of the violence is done with guns. It is not nearly the same wether the violence happens by guns, nor is it the same if the gun is a muzzle loading flintlock, or even a Winchester repeater rifle, or by a mock up assault rifle, like the AR-15. The reach, accuracy, impact power and especially rate of fire of the AR and modern bullets are far beyond it’s predecessors from a few decades ago, let alone a couple hundred years ago. That is why modern armies are not equipped with Winchesters. They simply are not deadly enough. The technology has changed during the last couple of centuries and it is having an impact on the society. To me the school shootings seem like a culmination point to a gun filled culture and reality.
I agree also, that some solutions that have worked in Finland or Europe in general may not be fitting for your country, but unless you have tested them, it is hard to say. The US history is full of gun violence from the very get go to the “wild west” and gangsters, but is it not time to end the vicious cycle, before it gets even worse?
You said: “National gun laws which eliminate or severely restrict access would be a problem for a significantly large portion of Americans. It would spell the doom of individual and states rights, which are already under severe threat today.” Why? Are you talking about a portion of Americans who should not own a gun? Because it would be impossible for them to pass some tests to see if they are responsible enough? Or because there are so many guns, that they are too affraid to get out of their house without one? What individual rights are we actually talking about here? Other than the universal “right” to carry a gun no matter what sort of dimwit one is? What threat are you referring to? The US military secretly planning on a military coup to set up a tyranny, that is only witheld because the US military is so affraid of the abundance of revolvers and AR-15 rifles of the general public?
I actually like shooting and guns, but I also think, that they should only be awailable to reasonable and responsible and trained adult people. Not just to any idiot who happens to walk into a gun store. I think they should be stored responsibly under lock and key. That is not too much to ask, is it? There are far too many gun related accidents in families in the US. At least they are far more frequent, than in any other western nation. Why would any responsible gun owner not want guns only to be sold to responsible people?
June 21, 2022 at 8:55 pm
AMEN/AWOMEN!!! Agree with every word you wrote!
June 22, 2022 at 3:01 am
Thank you Nan. Yes, well, on one hand I kind of understand what STT is getting at. When the US military invaded Somalia, one of the things they totally botched was the attempt to disarm a country saturated with guns. They managed to disarm the vegetable vedors at the market square, the Red Cross guards and taxi drivers in Mogadishu, but not the clan militias and the result was a disaster for those service providers, to the US military and to that entire country, wich got stuck in this Libertarian wet dream, in wich the small government does not bother individual citizens who “organize” everything from infrastructure (haphazard wooden signs, that might point to the airport – or not) to policing (racketeering and collection of payment for – “protection”) and even coast guard (out right piracy).
On the other hand, while STT brings up shortcomings of the political movement for gun control, instead of making suggestions as to how to make better measures to controll guns, he seems to oppose the entire need to do this, but to what ever end and why remains unclear to me.
June 21, 2022 at 11:18 pm
It is an interesting conversation, my friend. You hold your own in a debate.
I address your first two paragraphs first. You are not an American citizen, yet you know much about our current events. Can I ask how you come about this knowledge? Have you visited the USA? Perhaps, you have lived or worked here for a while? Maybe you know some American citizens who have described it to you? Or perhaps, you get this knowledge from media? Your source makes a difference. You get two antithetical views of our country from CNN and The Daily Wire. Or perhaps you have a local source or the BBC or another European outlet? Or maybe it is your progressive roots showing?
In the U.S. we have what I call one-channel media (I actually took that term from Yeonmi Park, a North Korean dissident who now lives in the US). CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, NPR, New York Times, Washington Post: they all spout the same message, a message which differs immensely from conservative new sources like the New York Post, The Blaze, The Daily Wire, and others (I generally don’t include Fox News in this group). The only comparison for the one-channel media is the Soviet Union news agency Pravda. Pravda reported the news the party wanted it to report. Our one-channel media is a similar propaganda outlet beholden to the Democratic party. There is little difference in the message of the party and the message of the one-channel media. They are one and the same. Many people want to trust these sources as reliable truth tellers. They are not in the least.
I wonder how you come to your conclusions about race and the police in the USA. Your views are quite similar to many in our country. They are well within the mainstream. But if you don’t see things for yourself or if you don’t obtain a balanced source of news, you can easily come to the conclusions you have arrived at. So, that’s why I asked.
Race in this country is a constant issue. You are correct on this point. Race is associated with almost every political issue. It is used as a club by one party to attack the other. My point is that it should not be an issue still. Racial profiling is a non-issue today. BLM is a fraud led by “trained Marxists” (their words, not mine). BLM is more racist than the people they target. Michael Brown’s father sued BLM because they used his son’s name for their personal aggrandizement. They did nothing for him or his family. The trained Marxists of BLM are living in lap of luxurious capitalism https://nypost.com/2022/04/05/the-6-million-mansion-blm-reportedly-bought-with-donated-funds/. Critical Race Theory and anti-racists like Ibram X Kendi are far more problematic than anything else regarding race in this country. Reverend Al Sharpton started a race riot in New York (https://larryelder.com/news/al-sharpton-led-first-anti-semitic-race-riot-crown-heights-twenty-three-years-ago-today/). He also championed a massive race hoax (https://nypost.com/2013/08/04/pay-up-time-for-brawley-87-rape-hoaxer-finally-shells-out-for-slander/ ), and yet Reverend Al is still today considered a well-respected black voice and is a long-time host on MSNBC. Why?
People in this country periodically raise the issue of reparations for descendants of slaves–150 years after our civil war to free them. How much sense does that make? Kamala Harris’s and Barrack Obama’s ancestors held slaves. They should receive reparations? Middle class whites like me should pay them? Some of my family’s ancestors died in our Civil War defending freedom for slaves. Yet, my family must pay out? Nonsense proposals like this add to our race problem. Robin DiAnglo makes millions on a book called White Fragility, and millions more on the speaking tour. Her ideas are absolute garbage. She too irresponsibly pours gasoline on the fire. The New York Times and Nicole Hannah Jones start the 1619 project which has fundamental historical mistakes that could be contradicted by a high schooler with a C average, yet she wins a Nobel Prize and tenure at the University of North Carolina. This is because she is high on the intersectional scale. This is also to sell a propaganda message and advance the Democrat party. It is all so transparent and so stupid to folks like me.
The Democrat party in America brought us the intersectional scale. The higher you are on the scale, the less responsibility they ask of you for anything. If you are a black female transgender you are at the top of scale, you are a victim of the highest power, and you will be criticized for nothing by our one-channel media–no matter what you do or how bad you become. Race is indeed an issue that divides the USA deeply, but it is not for the reasons you profess.
Before I address your latest comments on guns in the US, I would like to know where you get your views on race, profiling, police, and BLM in the USA. Perhaps you have first hand experience in the US or perhaps you are under the influence of sham media.
June 22, 2022 at 3:27 pm
This suggestion is hilarious when one considers the content of the comment … perhaps you are under the influence of sham media..
(I’m sorry! I couldn’t help myself!)
June 23, 2022 at 3:02 am
@Dave, I get most of my newsfeed from YLE the national Finnish broadcastng company. It is tax funded, but vehemently independent and impartial and reliable because it does not need to echo the political views of its owners or some chosen target audience. A few years back there was an outrage, when the previous prime minister tried to influence their integrity. Only very few people who believe in the most outrageous conspiracy theories tend to question their integrity. They have several reporters around the globe including the USA. I read several newspapers like the fairly liberal Helsingin Sanomat, fairly conservative Turun Sanomat and some editorial magazines like the respected journalistic publication Uusi Suomi and the socialist green Voima, from time to time. We have the council of jounalistic media consisting of journalistic professionalists from different backrounds and value bases, that monitors the media outlets here and make announcements if any of them brake the journalistic codes of conduct, but most of those go out to the tabloids, wich I do not bother to read at all. I also follow the BBC, Deutche Welle and Le Monde Diplomatque. I have a university education on archaeology and religion studies, so I am actually trained in source criticism. It is very hard to fool me.
I have never been to the USA, but my wife has travelled there. I have been to the Soviet Union a couple of times and to Russia several times since (I speak a little Russian, as has been befitting for a Finnish recon reservist) and I do remember Pravda.
I have friends in the USA and some who are immigrants from there to here. My friends consist of people with varying value bases from Conservatives to Liberals and Socialists alike because I have a very active hobby life. I do not discriminate and I do find different views stimulating. Altough with people who share my values I feel most at rest.
I am not on Facebook, Telegram, Twitter, Instagram, or any of those sort of social media outlets, precisely because I find them to be devicive. They form echo chambers, harbour conspiracy theories and provide the loudest voice to the most outrageous claims. Does this satisfy your question?
How about you? Where do you learn about the world outside the USA? Because, it appears as if you had a bit limited understanding of how gun control works in the rest of the world. Or are you even interrested?
June 23, 2022 at 9:56 pm
You sound fairly well informed, although I know little of the sources you provide. You also speak well and have reasoned arguments. In the U.S., most of our news sources have some sort of political bent. Sources like CNN are wildly biased and have destroyed their reputation as independent new sources. I like to follow The Blaze and Daily Wire along with numerous podcasts. Most of the sources I follow have a conservative bent, but I believe cover the issues fairly (I wouldn’t go to them otherwise). I do regularly sample liberal sources. RealClearPolitics is a good site which covers both sides. I have numerous friends, colleagues, and relatives with an opposite political view and they challenge my views. I started debating issues like this with my father and brothers 40 years ago. Like you I avoid social media. I agree it is an echo chamber and even worse in many other aspects. I have a couple of degrees in mathematics which I believe helps me in addressing issues logically, efficiently, and cogently. I have worked in IT for many years. I am beyond retirement age but continue working. I also spent four years in the US military before moving to IT.
Not having been to the U.S. I think disadvantages you a bit in the conversation. Your sources may not provide you a complete picture of life here. I can’t really say for sure. Of course, many who have lived their entire lives in the U.S. lack a good perspective.
You are correct I am not as well versed on politics and issues outside the U.S. I know a little, but not enough to debate you on the merits of something like Finland’s entry into NATO. I might form an opinion over time, but I don’t know enough of your history or the views of the average Finn to speak definitively on the topic. I’m sure there are many commonalities between our two countries, but likely many differences as well.
I am always interested in learning. Yes, please tell me more about gun control in Europe. What measures have been taken? When and why? Americans are more independent folks–or at least they have been in the past. We don’t like to rely on government. Our current government and media are very, very suspect at the moment. Government has grown too large; politicians on both sides are largely out for themselves and are not in tune with the people they represent. Even I was shocked at the dishonesty emanating from our government during the recent COVID pandemic. We did not stack up well compared to others around the world. A vast swath of our media is totally dishonest. I am glad you trust your sources, but our media is a joke. Donald Trump was not well liked but many, but one thing he did effectively was expose the media for the sham they are. No other politician had effectively done it before him. I am not a Trump acolyte by any means. I like many things he did and I think he made many mistakes. I don’t want him to run again, but he would clearly be better though than the disaster currently running the country. Our country did well under Trump, especially the first three years, not so much the last year.
Relinquishing the power and control the people have by giving up our Constitutional rights seems like a very bad idea to me. The government and the police should protect our national sovereignty and our individual rights, but they are a constant threat to infringe upon them, and there are many limitations as to what they can actually protect. By the time the police arrive, it is generally too late. Giving up rights like the second amendment leads to peril for our future, especially given the state of affairs today.
One question for you: how would protect the safety of the women in your environment? In a strict gun control regime, a woman is at a severe disadvantage. The gun is the great equalizer and a woman with a gun can protect herself against an attacker. In an environment without guns, men are always at an advantage.
Another question for you: why is it in a country with 400 million guns, we don’t see so many more gun deaths? 15,000 gun deaths a year, means 1 in 26,000 guns are involved in a murder annually. That percentage is minute. If the prolific nature of guns are a problem, why is there not so much more violence in our country? And why is that violence concentrated to a few locations? Some locations with many guns have almost no gun deaths. The USA is a very large country with very many different environments to compare. You shouldn’t look at us as a monolith.
As I noted, lethal semi-automatic weapons have been available for almost 200 years. The increased lethality of weapons the last few years is not a significant factor in increased gun deaths. If it were why then do the vast majority of murders involve just one person? Hysterical periodicals like The Nation complain of unbridled access to automatic weapons, but that is not a correct statement. There are no automatic weapons on our streets and the access to guns is not completely unbridled(albeit not as strict as in your country). Mass shootings of more than 3 people are horrific but they are a drop in the bucket as I showed earlier. Why is gun control a problem we have to deal with only now? Our Civil War, 160 years ago, was the bloodiest war in our history, in large part because of the lethality of the weapons used (and the combatants inexperience with such weapons). Why has this problem not been with us since then? We have dealt with effectively at times and ineffectively at other times. The wide access and lethality of weapons has remained a constant.
June 23, 2022 at 10:12 pm
Just wanted to insert –and for general information– according to mediabiasfactcheck.com:
The Blaze and Daily Wire are both rated as heavily Right Bias with Mixed Factual reporting. Real Clear Politics is rated Right Center bias with Mostly Factual reporting.
CNN is Left Biased for editorial positions; Left-Center for straight news reporting. Factual reporting is Mixed.
June 25, 2022 at 5:57 am
@Dave, I am on my Midsummers eve holiday (remember that ancient pagan festivity I referred before), so I try to address your questions quickly.
First question: Do guns actually equalize anything though? Is it actually a threat, that men who attack and harras women, respond to? Your country has more guns than people, but does it mean men do not attack or harras women there? Or even that they do it less than elswhere? A lone woman walking home from a party or a night club in the small hours of the morning is quite common event in my town, how about yours? Are there studies, that show women having ended up in less domestic, or other violence situations, because they owned a gun? I doubt that. How many women have been killed by their very own guns? You have written a lot of comments, but you never replied to my point about how prepared your wife is to use her gun, to kill, or injure some would be attacker, or how much does she have training in gun use? Women are best protected just like everyone else. An equal society, that creates less crime. Awailable good quality education, that elevates the civic morale and standards of behaviour. Well trained and fully funded police force, that has a short response time. Prison system that actually rehabilitates criminals back to the society, rather than just stores them away. Restrictions on the awailability on guns, training of gun use and storaging for gun owners. These measures have been found working, unlike increasing the number of guns.
You seem to think UK has solved nothing by gun controll, because knife attacks have become more frequent, as if it was as easy to kill many people with a knife, as it is with a gun. I think you are intelligent enough to know it is not. You also seem to give the impression that to solve the problem of gun carrying criminals is that more people aka “the good guys” carry a gun, but how would you solve the increase in knife violence in the British society? With more of the “good guys carrying knives”? Would you say, that it often takes a good guy with a knife to stop the bad guy with a knife? Should British women start to carry knives to protect themselves?
Second question: As you are well versed in mathematics, I expect you can understand, that the numbers you put up indicate a serious amount of gun deaths. You singled out murders from all the gun related deaths. It is quite alarming, that guns are the main cause for child deaths in the USA. This tells a tale of tragic amount of accidental gun deaths, that are the result of easy access to guns, a reckless culture about guns, poor training for gun use by a vast amount of gun owners and poor legistlation of the storing of guns. The relation of the guns used to kill someone to total amount of guns represents the fact that most people do not want to kill anybody even if they own a gun. Especially if they are the “good guys”. It appears many of these guns are bought out of the fear of gun related violence. The sheer total amount of firearms should also tell you, that those who DO wish to kill people with guns can do it more easily. They are not really repelled by the thought that there are other guns about. Are they? To the criminal mind guns are an everyday risk, just like the traffic and much, much more so in a society saturated with guns just like traffic is such in a society saturated with cars. The mass shootings are often enough just suicide attempts by proxy, so they are not repelled at all by other people carrying guns. You speak of soft targets, like schools, but that is not the reason the school shooter chooses to start their killing in schools. Schools represent something about the society to them. They were often bullied at schools. Yes, it is more likely they start it at a school partly because, if they started at a police station, their rampage would be so much shorter, but that is not a good enough reason to increase the amount of guns in a school, as it would further increase the risks related to accidental deaths and that would propably not deter the shooters from schools anyway.
An increased number of murders in any society has many reasons. One of those reasons can be the awailability of guns. Do you think it is not a reason at all in your society? The increased number of murders by semi-automatic rifles is partly explained by the combination of easy awailability and increased effectivity of said weapons. Is it not? They also seem to have become fashionable items in some groups of people. You honestly can not claim with a straight face, that the winchester repeater rifles are nearly as deadly as the AR-15 even though the Winchester has once been in military use and the semi-automatic AR-15 is a kind of adult toy version of the modern military rifles (and in that regard a bit weird and unnecessary item to own in the first place), or that the Colt Peacemaker is as lethal as a Glock, even though these are all very dangerous weapons and in the untrained hands very, very dangerous to the user also. That is, if you know anything about guns.
The amount of guns in your society has always been high, but now it has multiplied to manyfold. Why do you need more guns than people? What ever for? Finland has the most guns in a western country after the US and while you have more than 120 guns per 100 people we only have 32 guns per 100 people. At the same time guns are evermore lethal. Their capacity of ammo is greater. Their rate of fire is higher. Their accuracy has increased. These are all facts. Are they not?
The culture and attitudes regarding guns have changed. To the colonist of the 17th and 18th century a gun was a bit of a necessity, if they lived in the countryside. It was mainly for hunting, but for would be robbers also, when any sort of police or other help might be far, far away. The US military was insignificant, so the newly founded indipendent states felt they needed militias for protection of the indipendency. After all, they had broken off from the most powerfull empire on the globe at the time. To the 19th century city dweller, a gun was not nearly as necessary as to the frontiersman, or the “cowboy”. But there is no frontier any more. The British empire does not threaten the USA any more, the threats that exist are not much deterred by some random militias, and never were by individual gun owners. The US military is mighty enough to protect your country without any help from militias or individual gun owners. Is it not? However, if used in such a fashion would be strong enough to believe they could easily succumb any insurrections by some militias, or individual gun owners, so it is just not true to claim those individual gun owners somehow prevent the US from becoming a military dictatorship. You have to look for reasons that development has not occurred from elswhere. If you honestly are affraid of that possibility, you need to start looking for other methods of preventing it, because individual citizens owning guns is not going to stop it. No matter how many guns they do own.
The culture around us changes all the time. There is no stopping of this development. Despite the best efforts of Conservatives. Leonid Brezhnev was the most successfull conservative leader in the world. He dragged cultural evolution as much as possible. He thought he could stop the evolution of culture to an ideal he had in his mind. In reality though, the world moved on and his party and the surrounding society were not ready for the changed world – so did the Soviet Union collapse. By the way, it was quite possible to own a gun in the USSR. There are plenty of guns owned by the citizens in Russia, but look at what is happening there now.
There are many countries that have severe regulatory laws on gun ownership, use and storage, none of wich have succumbed to tyranny, or dictatorship because of that. That includes all the other western nations and a number of developing countries. Why would you think this is a real risk particularly in your country? Because of poor press, that you keep mentioning, or something else?
June 22, 2022 at 6:18 pm
Ha. How very clever.
The sham media I am describing is the one that stands in front a burning building while calling the scene “a mostly peaceful protest”. It’s the sham media who puts Reverend Al, a lifetime race hustler, on TV regularly and defers to him as a legitimate voice on racism. It’s the sham media that tells us of the benefits (and only the benefits) of CHAZ/CHOP, the 1619 project, “defund the police”, CRT, and other such nonsense. It is the sham media which labels Ivermectin as strictly a horse drug and calls everyone who it takes a fool, Ivermectin which has been prescribed to humans billions of times, won a Nobel Prize for medicine in 2015, is on the WHO’s list of 300 essential medicines, a medicine which proved successful in treating COVID in the U.S., Japan, India, Mexico (just to name a few). It’s the same sham media that can’t figure out why Merck trashes its own drug while banking hundreds of billions off of its new medicines and vaccines, the same sham media which provides foot massages to President Biden in lieu of tough questions, the same sham media which ignores Biden’s serious lack of cognitive capacity and pretends he is actually running the country and might run for re-election in 2024. It’s the sham media that North Korean dissident Yeonmi Park describes as no different than the one-channel media in her native country. I could go on for days if I only had the stamina and could remember it all.
That’s the sham media I am describing. Which sham media might you be referring to?
June 22, 2022 at 6:36 pm
Gosh-a-Mighty! Your comments sound soooo much like what a Republican would say/write. SURELY I’ve misinterpreted … !
June 22, 2022 at 7:45 pm
The Democrat party will get us to hell quickly. The Republican party will get us there a few months later. That’s my view of the two parties.
Less government control the better. Our system is “of the people, for the people, and by the people”. The more we devolve control from government to the people the better. Government is needed for a few things, but only a few enumerated things.
June 23, 2022 at 10:56 am
Found this article on RealClearPolitics (a good site to follow no matter your political persuasion). https://www.city-journal.org/precision-prosecution-and-violent-crime. The author reminds us there are no new ideas in law enforcement, just good ones that have been forgotten. He discusses repeat offenders who are continually arrested and let go by a broken court system. He mentions Jacksonville which has reduced crime in the last year. He didn’t discuss the problem of DAs who are the ones letting these folks go (police keep arresting them over and over), but he did mention the San Francisco DA who was recently recalled. Our problem in the USA is one of bad policies in dealing with criminals and a lack of will to enforce existing laws.
June 23, 2022 at 11:19 am
This comment from The Nation, highlights the sham media. There are about a half dozen inaccuracies or downright lies in this one sentence, including the charge that automatic weapons are rampant.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democrats-republicans-dangerous-extremists/
The evidence is voluminous, though rarely is it thematically connected. Campaigning against “dangerous extremists” does that. What else can you call political leaders who condone overthrowing a democratically elected government, incite white nationalists yet don’t disavow their violence, allow Covid-19 to spread and kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, want to imprison women who have abortions, support unbridled access to automatic weapons, ignore the climate crisis, menace LGBTQ youth, and routinely disregard norms and laws? And are led by an ex-president who—in a first—put his vice president’s life in jeopardy.
Find out for yourself how many were arrested on January 6 for weapons violations? How many were killed on January 6? An overthrow of the government with no weapons, no institutional backing on the ground, and no loss of life, that was shut down in about two hours. The government function was never interrupted. The exaggerations abound on this one.
Loss of life due to COVID in 2020 (under Trump) and 2021 (under Biden) was consistently 40,000 per month. Why is it that only Trump was killing people? Biden had a vaccine during his entire tenure while Trump did not. The loss of life has finally declined in 2022, but that’s mainly due to Omicron and natural immunity.
Nobody has called to imprison women who have abortions. Nobody. This is a total lie.
Nobody is menacing LGBTQ youth. That’s the topic of my next post. We simply do not want to affirm behavior we believe is not good.
Disregarding norms and laws? Who exactly is doing that? Who wants to ignore or eliminate the first and second amendments, for example?
Trump didn’t support Pence on January 6, but there is no evidence that he tried to put his life in jeopardy. Such claims demand factual evidence.
And, of course, we have the racism claim, which is part of every single attack on every single issue, yet has no basis.
Climate crisis is another topic the could be discussed for a long while. When first elected, nearly four years ago, AOC said the world would end in ten years. I suppose we have six years remaining. We’ll all die from climate after she becomes president. After Hurricane Katrina, we were doomed for ever more violent hurricanes per the climate activists. What followed was the longest stretch in US history without a major hurricane striking the US coast. Perhaps we need just a bit calmer perspective in dealing with the climate crisis?
June 24, 2022 at 11:36 am
Fact checkers themselves are often extremely biased. I have not heard of the fact checker you referred to, so I can’t say much about them.
I did a quick check on what they think about Ivermectin. I have written about COVID more than anything else in the last year plus since I started blogging (more than 40 posts with extensive detail). What does mediabiasfact think about Ivermectin? They mention many sites, I have never heard of, but did comment on one Front Line Critical Care, which is run by Dr. Pierre Kouri. Dr. Kouri testified to the U.S. Congress regarding Ivermectin in December 2020. Dr. Kouri is a highly credentialed physician and has far more experience treating patients for COVID than Dr. Fauci (who has none that I am aware of). Mediabiasfact calls FLCC psuedoscience. Based on what? Based on the fact that the NIH and WHO disagree with many of FLCC’s conclusions. The suspect ones in my view are the NIH (Collins and Fauci), the CDC (Walensky and Redfield specifically), the FDA, the WHO, and others who we should be able to rely on. If you rely implicitly on these authorities, you would think FLCC is false, but if you think for yourself and have listened and watched what these agencies do and say, you are thankful for sites like FLCC which provide a service that is not done by our government or international medical agencies. Here are a couple of my posts that provide concerns about who is telling us what:
https://seek-the-truth.com/2022/03/08/quick-hits-vaccine-safety-who-killed-ivermectin/
https://seek-the-truth.com/2021/11/21/covid-game-changer/
Savannah Hernandez is an independent reporter who does a “woman on the street” segment. She asks questions and almost never debates in her clips. This one clip is interesting in that she is shut down during a pro-choice rally. They don’t want her asking questions. Censorship is a big problem in our country today. This is not the best example of it, but it is one I came across this mornings so I share.
June 25, 2022 at 3:12 pm
@Dave, Nan and others, the possibly faulty media and fact checkers, nor Covid are the subject of this topic post. You may write in the comment section about those, if you feel they are relevant. I do not sensure you, unless you become abusive, wich I trust will never be the case. I would like to remind you, that for this conversation to remain coherent, it might be better to refer to these other issues only if they are truly relevant to the 2nd amendment or in general gun laws.
However, since they are now in the open, I try to respond to some of the concerns presented by Dave.
Ivermectin: I think the FLCCC have dug themselves into a bit of a trench. Good scientist should never back into a corner. They should always be ready to recognize when they have been wrong. As I understand it, there were early reports that this medicine could have some positive effects, but later on it has remained unproven it really helps. Some of the early research have since become under suspicion. This is not just about some group of doctors against their native officials. Their claims have not been supported by any international, or national medical agencies and indeed the WHO. Thus by the occams razor, it is not likely the FLCCC are right. I am not a medical professional, so I have to go with the majority of professionals and reliable institutions in comparrison to this one group, that has had serious disagreements within itself.
COVID-19 death tally. Trump was in charge of the USA, when the pandemic hit and his early reaction was denial. The death tally could be a lot smaller, if his government had taken stricter action in the beginning. They had ideological reasons not to and they served an audience of denialists. By the time Biden was in power, the disease had already spread far and wide. It is among the Trump supporters where all sorts of ridiculous conspiracy theories about the Corona (and the elections) take root and among whom the most denialists are to be found (regarding both climate change and COVID-19). Biden has not forced the vaccinations on anybody, thus his administration can only hold the spread in as much check, as the vaccination does. Like many vaccinations it needs several shots and a certain percentage of the population to have taken it, to produce herd immunity to protect those who can not take the vaccine because of medical or emotional reasons. If the latter group is – because of political influence and general distrust in their government – fairly big, then they are at more peril than those who have taken the shot. It may be a bit fascistic to abandon the part of population, that for various reasons have not taken their shots, despite them being on offer for free, but at what point can you force people to take the vaccinations. If they can not understand why they need it themselves, how can you explain to them that they need to do it for some other people, like those few who can not take it due to medical reasons?
Sensorship: On the video Savannah Hernandez makes the claim, that the feminist men silence the women, but if you look through the video there is no evidence of such. The men in the demonstration do not force the women to be silent. Instead what they do is that they warn women being approached by Hernandez, that she is a politically biased reporter. Some of the women refuse to talk to her, while others – without being sensored in any way – respond to her questions. She is exxaggerating the events to a point of a lie. Such conduct may occur by any biased people, but it should be obvious when looking at the footage. Similarly, you previously referred to Democratic biased US press as being like the Pravda. That is quite unfair, they are nothing like the Pravda, because there is a long way from indipendend news agencies having a political bias, to a single media outlet in absolute controll of the government and total silencing of any other media. Was Fox News like the Pravda, for having pro-government bias during Trump administration? What about all the other similarly biased news sources? No, they were nothing like the Pravda. I hope you do understand this fairly big difference. This sort of exxaggeration is not very constructive and it may drive you into extremist views, because it is not about seeking the truth, rather an attempt to embellish a particular point of view.
Abortion: If nobody has called to imprison women who have abortions, then what are the punishments going to be for having one? It is going to be made illegal in a number of states, is it not? There has to be a legal reprecussion for braking the law, right? Is the idea simply to fine them? Are they only going to punish the medical professionals for doing their job? So, a coathanger methdo would be totally legal, without any reprecussions?
Climate Change: As far as I know, nobody responsible has said there is going to be the end of the world after a decade, but many research papers say, that to stop the change might be too late after a few years, if nothing will be done. Perhaps we do need to be a bit calmer about it, but being calm is not enough. We also need to do something.
LGBTQ youth: I doubt nobody is asking you to affirm a behaviour your personally think is not good. There is little doubt wether these people have been under the pressure of the surrounding society for ages and today as they have risen for their rights, they have once again being targeted by many. Some even menace with violence.
Pence: The mob that entered the Capitol Hill despite the fact, that the police tried to stop them, did chant out loud at a point that they wanted to hang Pence, because they thought he had somehow betrayed Trump by not believing in his lies about him not having lost the elections. The mob believed those lies and acted accordingly. Pence escaped narrowly the mob, but what would have happened if he had stood his ground and faced the mob, remains unknown. Trump himself was not there, despite having promised to the mob to be there, but it was him who had put these ideas to the heads of his most stupid and fanatical supporters. What did he expect to happen? There were 5 deaths. Luckily the gun control laws in Washington DC are strict enough, that the mob was not carrying guns in the demonstration. The regulative gun laws worked just fine. The government work was actually disrupted, when the representatives and their aides were evacuated from their offices and the grand halls, as the mob was already in the hallways of the building, as seen on various films about the incident. Did I get something wrong?
Racism: Was not mentioned in the paragraph you quoted.
Automatic weapons (back to the topic): I found no charge that automatic weapons are rampant, from the text. It said: “…support unbridled access to automatic weapons…” Wich is not quite the same. I do not blame you for such a support, but there are people who do. Are there not? If you have not run into them, I have. However, it might be, that the writer is exxaggerating, just like Savannah Hernandez did and you did when you mentioned the Pravda. Not a good choise of words, if that is their gist.
June 25, 2022 at 4:17 pm
rautakyy — mia culpa for my part in deviating from your post topic. It is a VERY important topic and I did not intend in any way to make light of it.
June 25, 2022 at 5:52 pm
You’re right. Too many balls to juggle.
On gun control, there are a few new current events: 1) the US Senate passed actual gun control legislation this week. I withhold my judgment at the moment. 2) the US Supreme Court handed down a major ruling on gun control in New York (overturning it). 3) I see you provided a response to my latest inquiry. I will digest it later. Perhaps you would be okay if I included your comments in another post of mine? 4) I would like to do more research on numbers in the US and other locations. Can we determine from the numbers where the problem lies? 5) Did you share any of the gun control regimes from Europe or other locations? I would be interested in hearing those, so I could make an assessment of whether they could be of value here in the US.
Please share your thoughts on this topics if inclined and have time after vacation.
Dave
p.s. one more self-serving notice. I did post on another topic today. I am trying to cover all the cultural issues facing our world. I have posted on transgenderism several other times as well. https://seek-the-truth.com/2022/06/25/pride-and-pride-month-a-fad-and-a-problem/. Please feel free to leave a comment on my blog.