“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:
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 27, 2022 at 2:04 am
I am by no means offended in any way. As you very well know, I myself have a tendency to extrapolate from a topic in the heat of discussion.
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.
June 27, 2022 at 3:04 am
@Dave, we are in no hurry, no hurry at all on my part at least.
1) Yes, I noticed. Do not know enough yet to comment.
2) sounds as if they went to repeal the laws in New York you praised to have worked so well during the time Giuliani was the mayor. But why? The 2nd Amendment only mentions freedom to bear arms in order for a man to join a well regulated militia. What militias are expected to come from there?
3) What you do in your own blog is entirely up to you, of course, but it was polite of you to ask. I trust you will represent me fairly, if you do quote me.
4) That is a good idea. At the very least it is a start on our journey toward objectivity.
I do not know much about the transgender issue. The way I see it, is that it is a personal matter and should not be morally condemned, as it in itself does no harm. This I am able to discern from the fact, that to my transgender friend it has been for the better. All too often people judge something to be morally wrong because they do not like it and then invoke tradition, gods and whatnot “authority” they can muster to back up their tastes. When, however on some level they realize that is not enough, they sometimes try to rationalize their bias, by appealing to all sorts of potential harm they could possibly corralate with the thing they simply do not like. The weakest continuing argument on this field is wether it is “natural” or not. It is a classic logical fallacy, but it keeps appearing over and again. On the other hand, the defence, that some human behaviour is genetic, is just as bad, because that is irrelevant to the question of wether it is harmful or not. Yet, that is the only way to determine, if it is moral and to what extent. In my view, transgenderism is an ancient cultural phenomenon resulting from overtly gender tied roles and expectations.
There I go on a tangent myself. However, I might visit your blog, when I have the time.
July 1, 2022 at 2:53 am
[…] I entered into a lengthy debate regarding gun control following my post: Gun-Control-Argument-is-Flawed. My critic posted the following counter and we engaged in a lengthy discussion on his page: https://rautakyy.wordpress.com/2022/06/16/2nd-amendment/ […]
July 1, 2022 at 2:57 am
Since the discussion here took this form, I wanted to make “bullet list” of my own.
I) I argue there is no constitutional right to bear arms in the USA, other than to join a well regulated state militia. The 2nd Amendment certainly mentions no other such situation. Thus an “interpretation” of it, that claims otherwise is a lie on the level of claiming that the core message of Jesus is to encourage self defence. (Just in case you have not read the Bible – it is not).
II) Even if there was such a liberty granted in the constitution, it would be high time to rethink the issue, because of the sheer amount of gun related deaths. The constitution of the USA is not a product of some divine mind, but a work of fairly intelligent, but fallible humans who made choises and compromised in their own time. Everyone has the right to defend themselves, but carrying a gun to do it is not a human right, it is a liberty granted by some poorly developed nations, where the police can not handle their job. In the US this liberty has led to the point where all too many people feel they need a gun for protection, while most of them could not handle one, if their life depended on it. The entire US society seems to be saturated with guns. Their number needs to go down from there being way more guns, than people. Selling new guns to any moron who wants one is not helping.
III) The correct response to the problem of too much guns is hardly going to be more guns. Just like to solve a problem of too many stabbings could not be to arm everybody with a knife.
IV) The fear of an insurgency by random gun owning citizens is not the reason US military has not been used for a political coup. Appealing to that as a reason for easy access to guns sounds nothing other than an excuse, but an excuse for what? Is a person making such an appeal affraid they would not qualify as a responsible enough to be eligable to carry a gun.
V) Any extra safety measures at places like schools are worth looking into, but they do not address the underlying problems of ridiculous amounts of guns and serious inequality combined with sickeningly competative culture.
VI) More guns in the hands of untrained civillians does not produce more safety. Any sense of security aquired that way is false, because it does not deter the criminals, who already live on the edge. It only means more gun related accidental deaths. More dead children.
VII) This is not an issue of all, or nothing. Regulation does not equal a total ban. It is a dagerous argumentative path designed to stall the necessary change, but it may ultimately become a self fulfilling prophesy, as the polarization grows, attitudes harden, hand held weapons are being developed into even deadlier forms and finally something is going to change. For better, or for worse.
In any case guns pose a problem to any society. It is a choise, wether that problem is contained, or not.
July 1, 2022 at 3:13 am
I addressed your basic premises and some of your comments in my latest post on this topic.
There was too much discussion here to cover it all. Please let me know where you believe I have gone off track.
July 1, 2022 at 1:22 pm
Thanks for the reply, Dave. I must admit I am a bit disappointed. You keep spelling my name wrong. If this is due to some disability of yours, I am sorry to mention it, but as your spelling is otherwise neat…
On tyranny. If you feel you are being oppressed by your government today, it would seem to render the massive number of guns owned by the citizenry a failed measure to oppose that tyranny. It would seem to not have helped at all and you need to come up with other solutions to that problem. Of course, that also renders that particular excuse for easy access to guns invalid. Though in general I think you do not know much about tyranny, if you think you live in one.
On COVID-19. You do need to widen your horizon in terms of news sources, as it appears the ones you focus on have failed you miserably. Children have not been forced to take any of the vaccines in question. Not in my country, yours, or anywhere. Nobody has. Any recommendations of said vaccines to groups of people less affected by said disease are for the herd immunity. There are people who are voulnerable to the disease and those who can not take the shot, because of medical reasons. Why would you not?
I am affraid you are overtly exxaggerating, or perhaps used for some political agenda, when you speak about tyranny. I guess this is a cultural thing and a common practice in your country, but I find it damaging to your own cause, just like youyourself do, when you try to expose it in the opinions of various people who do not share your political views, and cal them liers for it.
July 1, 2022 at 10:41 pm
Sir, I apologize for butchering your name. I struggle mightily with spelling. Spell check does not help so much with your name. I hope I was at least fair in representing your position.
I did not mention the vaccine mandates by name. I have done numerous posts on COVID, so I am well aware of the requirements. This is from my post:
“In the last two years, the government attempted to regulate our daily lives and demanded all Americans be vaccinated against COVID. They demanded children be protected from a disease they are not at all impacted by.”
Our government did attempt to impose a vaccine mandate on our military, government employees, and on large and mid-size businesses. Some mandates were voided by courts. Others are still being litigated. Employees and students were threatened with dismissal or expulsion if not vaccinated, not always by the government itself but by their employers or schools. Many were vaccinated against their will. Many actually lost jobs or been expelled from school for refusing to comply.
Our government has just now approved vaccinations for children between six months and five years. This is not a mandate, but there are consequences for those who choose not vaccinate, including consequences for children. My teenage children are not vaccinated and we have been pressured by officials at our school. We have given up some opportunities because they are not vaccinated. Vaccinating infants is also not a moral policy in my view. A recommendation from the CDC or FDA carries much weight. Many trust these sources and scoff at my criticism of them. I myself would like to trust these sources, but they have openly lied to us and have been manipulated by political ideology and political leaders. Dr. Fauci has nothing to say regarding the claim that Ivermectin is strictly horse medicine? OMG. I don’t need to be a doctor to understand their game.
I recognize that the type of tyranny that is present today in countries like China is not what we experience in the US. I wouldn’t want to live in a country like China, especially were I someone who disagreed with government policy (like I do now). The US is still a free country, but liberties are being chipped away. There is censorship in direct violation of our guarantee of freedom of speech. There has been an unfathomable turn in the wrong direction the last few years. Social media is acting at the behest of our government and being encouraged to censor more. A Colorado baker was sued multiple times for refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding. He was compelled by the state and they attempted to put him out of business for not doing so. Forcing some to work against their own will is a definition of slavery.
These instances may seem petty to you, but the examples abound and they are harbingers of worse to come. The slippery slope goes on indefinitely. We have a divided country. A sizeable portion believes in the liberties promised by our Constitution and a sizeable portion could not care less for them (they take them for granted). We will have a hard time maintaining these liberties if the balance swings further in the wrong direction. Cardinal Francis George said a few years ago:
“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”
Being from a small Scandinavian country, I wonder if you can fathom the massive scope and power of our government. Travel to Northern Virginia or Southern Maryland and see all those who have become dependent upon government jobs and government contracts. Government has become a dangerous and threatening implement. Its power is not wielded by honest or well-intentioned people for the most part.
COVID was an opportunity for a massive power grab. Our government is simply too large and the long-ago warning from Lord Acton regarding absolute power could have written to describe the US government of today. You believe we have too many guns. I believe our government has too much power. Same basic concepts. Many of us have always believed in limited government. The problem is that many see government as the solution to problems. They believe government is an impartial and fair arbiter. They could not be more wrong. Government has in fact become the new religion for many. If we don’t worship God, we will worship something else.
But what about the other items in my post? What about the numbers? The US is in middle of the pack when it comes to gun deaths (per capita) despite the overwhelming number of guns in the country. What about other possible solutions or explanations? I don’t have all the answers, but I can detect when I am being lied to. I can see that there are clear opportunities (easy wins) to mitigate problems–but these are not even considered. That’s a big problem in my view. Of course, no solution will fix all problems or end the concerns over firearms, but it is possible to make progress. I suppose the problem is what I heard someone say today: politicians are not in the business of solving problems; they are in the business of being re-elected.
The quote from Solzyhenitsen (did I spell that one right?) is very apt to our world today. When he came to the US after his release from the gulag, he shocked many with his criticism of our system, and our lack of concern for our own liberty. It must be protected and he recognized it more than forty years ago. https://russia-insider.com/en/solzhenitsyns-prophetic-1978-indictment-west-full-text-harvard-speech/ri21699
I have been shocked at the brazenness of our leaders to lie to us. They are openly deceiving and they are certainly aware that many can see through the lies, yet they continue because many believe, many want to believe. It is so hard to make headway because the lies, the delusion, has become normalized. Good people, who I think should know better, are sucked in.
July 2, 2022 at 6:12 am
@Dave, I am sorry to bring up the misspelling issue. It is my “Nom de Guerre”, but I am well known for it by many, so I appriciate it, if you can get it right. I do not feel particularly wronged by your quotes in your blog, altough it seems to me, sometimes you are not as much replying to me as you are repeating what you have already said in some previous post. By the way, I did not post my topic post as an “encounter” to yours. I posted my piece separately and then we were connected by our mutual friend Makagutu.
I still do not see what use are the wild numbers of private handguns and some semi-automatic rifles against any “tyranny” you feel you are facing. Are they some sort of talismans to make you feel less oppressed and more free? A bit like the middle aged man who buys the motorbike to have a sensation of freedom, when their lives are spent in work and paying their mortgages, or what? For the situation to develope to the point of armed resistance like in Syria you do have a long way to go and as in Syria there are plenty of ways it could go sour, if it ever were to occur. You have a functioning democracy, the government you have, you have put in power yourselves. By the people, for the people. Your chosen delegates have created the system. In a democracy it is important that everyone acts for the benefit of the minorities, because you never know when the group you belong to may become one. As it appears to have happened to you personally right now – with your values and political views.
The COVID-19 is a dangerous pandemic, that has killed scores of people, not least of wich in the USA. Any government that has taken measures, like offer a free vaccination to it, is only acting responsibly towards the issue. If less was done and more people would have died, would you not have held it against your government? If the population does not reach a certain limit of vaccination, then there will be scores of people whose lives are threatened by this – even children. We do not yet even know how serious the long term reprecussions of the disease may become. Viruses are rapidly mutating diseases, so their counter measures need to change fast too. Sometimes this may seem inconsistent to the public, but sadly much of the countering is a guessing game. Those are guesses made by virologists and other professionals, so it is not as bad as it sounds, but they do disagree at times and it is time that tells who was right. What we do know, from all the international and national organizations monitoring the situation all over the globe, is that the vaccines have worked. Not as definetly as we would have hoped for, but still they have saved lives and businesses. They have not caused any serious side effects, regardless of the fear people were spreading about them very much indeed as part of Russian trolling to disunite the West and as a Right Wing political agenda all over the planet – though where in power Right Wing governments have adopted the same measures as all the others, at least after a while of stalling, wich has cost lives. The disease is more easily transmitting through people who have not taken the shots, so in effect they are still causing danger to people who can not take the shots. Inadvertantly and as a result of having been subjected to some political propaganda, ignorance and fear – that do so often walk hand in hand.
The Roman Catholic Church has a long and noble history as the organization, that founded the earliest universities, that altough meant to be shcools for priests, gradually became the hub of scientific discovery. It is also an organization of dubious power struggle in the history of the world, including torture and ugly religious persecution. Sadly, it is also a monolithic state within state, that has even fairly lately been exposed of harbouring child molesters and hiding their crimes systematically for religious, political and public image reasons, thus enabling them to do it more. In many respects it today fits the description of a criminal organization, so if their cardinals will be imprisoned by some government, it might not be wrong at all. Yet, I doubt that will happen. Bigger religious organizations seem to enjoy special discompensation, so that no matter what they do, what they suffer is rarely more than a disgrace in their public image. This of course encourages them to go on.
I do not know, if it is censorship in the actual meaning of the word, if the provider of a platform decides not to publish hatefull messages of propaganda based on lies, or if a government sets up laws to stop such. In a free market economy the provider of the platform has no responsibility to anyone to publish anything, that is against their company policy of values. If their company policy is in this regard in line with the state laws. In my country there is a very old law, that says it is punishable by law to seriously slander a person, and indeed the social media has brought up many such cases. The propaganda of Hitler relied on him getting his message through. He kept repeating the lie, that it was the Jews who had betrayed Germany during WWI again and again, so long that a number of people came to believe it was true. The rest is history. President Trump has kept repeating the lie, that he supposedly won the elections and allready there are quite a lot of people who believe him, altough the international observers to your elections, your own judical system and officials have found no traces of significant fraud in your elections. This is a dangerous road to take, as people believe in such lies, because they want to. The repetory nature of such lies alone seems to confirm many, that they have found the truth, especially if it confirms their former values, biases and prejudices. Just like it did in Germany.
My country is small, but it is a part of the EU, wich is a lot bigger and more diverse than your country. The EU parliament has not as much power as your federal government, but still our conservative, liberal and socialist run individual governments have managed to set laws to restrict gun ownership. We have had to, because our countries were saturated with guns after the WWII. Military grade weapons, that are still pouring in from our nearby Near-East and Africa. After the war in Yogoslavia, innumerable guns have spread all over the continent. We have mass shootings too from time to time. Like in Oslo, Norway just the other day, when a crazed dude attacked a gay bar right on the brink of Pride event. I guess he was annoyed for all the attention the LGBTQ community is getting. The Norvegian police caught him alive to answer for his crimes after he had managed to kill a meager two people (and wounded several others), though he was armed with a pistol and an automatic. I like your idea, that one should not give these shooters the publicity they seem to crave for. However, these are deeply disturbed individuals under heavy propaganda and often enough hold values that are in contradiction to the current social values of modern societies set deep in them, so it is not just publicity they crave for. It is not their sole motivator. It is not a motivator they have often even acknowledged to themselves, so it may not matter. The gay bar, the synagogue, or the shool may not be selected because they are, as you say “soft targets”, but rather because what they represent. Should all schools, synagogues and schools have armed guards? Would that solve the problem? What would then become the “soft target”? Cafes, hairdressers, sportsevents, department stores, tiny shops, pizzerias, churches and mosques? Should all of those have an armed guard or two and multiple exists? If the targets were selected because they were “soft targets” the list of such is endless and soon we would have more armed guards, than we have public service providers. I am guessing there are a lot more armed guards in your country than there are in mine – or the rest of Europe in general. Has it helped?
The fact that the US is in the middle in the gun related deaths, violence and murder statistics, right between the developing third world countries (like almost the entire Latin Americas) and the rest of the Western World. It does not tell you are doing fairly well, it is telling that you have failed miserably, though not maybe as bad as it could be. As you are well versed in mathematics, you propably understand, that small countries like mine and some smaller than that may have greater statistical fluctuation, because one murder here represents a greater percentage shift, than in a bigger country like Sweden or Germany. In general though, the US can be compared to the EU. Like the US has different areas of violence so does the EU. Both have big cities, where crime is bound to be more frequent than in the countryside and small towns. But there are no examples within the EU, that the strict gun laws would have led to tyranny. It is uncanny, how guns can be found when the proverbial “feces hits the fan” and armed resistance becomes the reality. Look at Syria. Look at Spain. Look at Finland. Just before our civil war began, there were many single shot hunting rifles in Finland, but they played little role in the war, both sides raced to get guns right before the shooting started and it started right when the guns were distributed. The lack of guns or ammunition was no problem in starting a fight against tyranny and oppression for either side in the war and both did firmly believe that was what they were fighting against. After the war, the winning side vented their tyrannical vengeance to those who had lost. No doubt, if the other side had won the result would have been the same.
I have run into this claim that the COVID-19 health measures were some sort of power grab. It appeared right when the discussion about health measures started. No such grab happened. Not in my country, or yours. Did it? If it was the perfect opportunity to grab more power for the government, then why did it not happen? All the measures were temporary, most have been lifted already, even though the pandemic is not at all over and there are still people dying. The unvaccinated being the more likely to die.
There are many different translitterations for Russian names, but I understand of whom we are speaking about. Solzhenitsyn is also known to have said in the 90’s, that Russians were willing to give up free healthcare, free education, absolute job security and a country without any taxes at all for the right to complain and that destroyed the Soviet Union. Do you agree with that? I think, in the light of what happened later, they were willing to crumble their society in hopes of stronger leadership and more traditional values. They certainly got what they wanted. They seem to be culturally drawn to these strong-man types. And have been for centuries. It is a form of cultural infantillism. To not take responsibility, but to lean on to some authority beyond their personal reach.
I too have often wondered the culture of outright lying in the politics of your country. President Trump kept claiming against all evidence, that there were more people in his inauguration than there were at Obamas. As if that was even an important thing. The childish need to compete seemed like the only motivator, but it was just so stupid, that it made me wonder how stupid his voters and followers can be? The lie itself may not have been about an important issue, like when he lied about not having lost the elections, but it was a clear sign of what was to come. That he cared not about the truth, but about satisfying his own ego, and that he knew half of US citizens would not even care, that he would not keep to the truth. Maybe he did it as a test of how much he could lie, before he would lose support. On a minor issue first, a position he could have easily withdrawn as humour, if he had needed to. But he did not have to and it made him more bold. Because that lie was about an easily verifiable issue not so much about the ignorance of the people. After that he could easily rely on a major part of the population to believe anything he said.
You said: “It is so hard to make headway because the lies, the delusion, has become normalized. Good people, who I think should know better, are sucked in.” I could not agree more. It is disturbing.
July 2, 2022 at 8:15 pm
Wow. You packed much into one comment. I have many thoughts on this, but I need to break it into manageable chunks. I will first address your comments regarding COVID-19.
I am a bit perplexed because it seems to me you are debating someone other than me regarding COVID. You make a number of non-controversial statements which I largely agree with. I do need to correct some points, however.
I was pro-vaccine when it was first instituted. My wife and I were vaccinated, but we both agreed not to vaccinate our teenage kids. A year later, I think we made the right choices. I have repeatedly made the following point throughout my many COVID posts: the vaccines are a good measure for some but not necessarily for all. You, your doctor, your family, your friends should influence your choice. Your age, current health, risk factors, etc. should all be considered. The government should not make the choice for you, but yet they have tried (in our country). I am not a doctor and I wouldn’t dare make a blanket recommendation for all. Why does Dr. Fauci get a veto? I made a decision for me and my family. I provide data to help others make their own decisions.
The demagoguery regarding the unvaccinated reached a fevered pitch for quite some time in our country. Much the same was done regarding those who did not wear masks. I believe, like you appear to, the vaccines have helped some and they had a purpose, but our vaccination strategy has been flawed. Vaccines have been forced down the throats of people who did not want to be vaccinated, and perhaps should not have been. In one of my posts, I wrote about Japan’s policy. They urge people to get the vaccine, but also make it clear it is a personal choice and strongly discourage any criticism of the unvax’d. They got it right. We did not.
Our country handled COVID policy very badly. Masks have been ineffective against COVID. I have written extensively about this, so I won’t expand further here. My children and many others were kept out of school for an entire year. The last two months of the 2020 school year were lost; schooling was remote, but was ineffective. The next year, they remained in remote learning until Spring. Some schools fared better at remote learning than others. Many kids lost a year of school. What a disaster–an unnecessary disaster. Millions of children were harmed greatly by this decision.
Sports were also delayed or canceled. My son at one point was told to wear a mask while running cross-country. Our pediatrician recommended against this, but some health department official (who is unreachable for comment or complaint) told the school this was needed. Anyone with common sense could see this is unwise policy. The hysteria over COVID impacted children enormously. Healthy kids were not impacted by the disease. They were never proven to be a significant vector for the disease. They were harmed by the policy more than any other group I believe.
Sweden was one of the few control cases which did not require masks, did not keep kids home, and did not politicize COVID policy. They did far better in terms of per capita deaths than the US. If Sweden were a US state they would rank around 44th lowest death rate out of 50. Schools continued unabated in Sweden, and it was not a problem, even without masks. The policy worked much better. Results were revealing and should be compared to the vast majority that did not follow this same policy. US policies did NOT work. They did far more harm than good. Our politicians didn’t even follow their own rules. The things they said were INSANE. Lives may have been saved on one hand, but more were lost due to horrible policy. You are correct the US did not do well. It is in the top 20 of per capita COVID deaths(from the disease itself). If it were a sporting even, Dr. Fauci would have been fired for such a poor record. It is not acceptable.
Vaccine efficacy has been waning ever since it was first administered. Dr. Robert Malone first sounded the alarm in summer 2021 saying that the vaccine duration was around six months. Booster duration is even less. Malone, the guy who actually invented the mRNA technology used in developing vaccines, was banned from Twitter for speaking up. This fact is now established, but was highly controversial a year ago. The government discouraged any message which would have a negative impact on vaccination rates. Why? Like I said repeatedly vaccines are good for some but not for all.
In 2021, our FDA (Food and Drug Administration) issued a myocarditis warning for mRNA vaccines. The threat was greatest for teenage boys. Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky never discuss this. Our government is now pushing vaccines on infants. I would not vaccinate an infant or pre-schooler were it my child, nor would our pediatrician. Most parents won’t either despite government advocacy. We are very glad now that our son was not vaccinated. Dr. Fauci, Dr. Walensky and others have DESTROYED their own credibility as well as the credibility of their institutions and science in general. This is a DISASTROUS consequence of our COVID policy. It will take a decade or more to recover the trust, if at all. They have lied to us repeatedly, and for what? Their results stink. We could have done far better as a country and avoided much of the collateral damage.
There is much discussion about vaccine side effects. Some theories say it can kill you in a few years or that we are being micro-chipped. I have listened but I haven’t ascribed to any such theories. I need proof. I will note however, many vaccines have had problems in the past. The initial polio vaccine was withdrawn and not re-introduced until 8 years later (look up: Cutter incident). The Swine Flu vaccine had problems as well and was also curtailed in 2008. Thalidomide was something that most probably don’t remember either. Our government has taken such a strident pro-vaccination, vaccinate everyone for COVID policy, that I wonder at the downplaying of the side effects for COVID vaccines.
Again, I look for proof before jumping on the bandwagon. The CDC’s VAERS database raises some red flags. The docu-dump from Pfizer (which was originally to be withheld for 75 years) raises red flags also. The dissembling of government medical officials raises even more red flags.
Every medicine has side effects; this one is certainly not an exception. All this discussion needs to be out in the open. It is not. The debate is suppressed.
The government is not a disinterested and fair arbiter in all of this. I listen to many opinions on the vaccine safety and efficacy. It seems clear the efficacy was greatly oversold. Safety I think should look at more closely as well. Dr. Fauci and others don’t want a debate on safety. They have ALL the answers apparently. Again, we have censoring of doctors who want to offer a different opinion. EXTENSIVE censoring. It is not anything remotely resembling hate speech, but medical professionals offering valid medical opinions. This is the PROBLEM.
The NE Journal of Medicine just came out with a study that said the vaccines are now completely ineffective against the latest Omicron variants. COVID mutates quite often. We have tens of thousands of variants of this virus. The current vaccines have now outlived their usefulness. This is the NE Journal which said so, not me. Yet, this is a consequence that even I could see coming. A vaccine developed for a strain that has mutated so far beyond the original is not going continue to be effective. Yet, our government continues to advocate for vaccinating more and more. If I hadn’t been vax’d yet, I wouldn’t do it now.
I agree it is a rapidly changing environment and we need to adjust policies to meet changing conditions. Our government has locked into one policy–all roads lead to the vaccine–and has actually discouraged any treatment of COVID. People are actually told to go home and wait for the symptoms to get worse before treating. This is an actual policy. This is unacceptable in my view. Many, many doctors have advocated for Ivermectin, monoclonal antibodies, HCQ, and other drugs to treat COVID. In many cases, medical professionals have been barred from giving such treatments. I was prescribed Ivermectin and I had to travel forty miles to a small mom and pop pharmacy to have it filled. Why? It is a safe drug. It is on the WHO list of essential medicines. Even if not effective against COVID, why would a pharmacy decline to fulfill a physicians’ order? How is it that the pharmacy knows better than the doctor? There is something very wrong here. This has never been done before. So much of what has happened in the last two years of COVID has broken the mold.
The problem from my standpoint is not that the vaccines are bad and government is wrong for encouraging vaccinations. The problem is that government has fouled up the policy and created numerous unintended bad consequences. The government is covering up its mistakes and they are infringing upon civil liberties, liberties that will be hard to get back if ever lost completely. I work for the government myself and I know how poorly they manage policy and how short-sighted we have become. These are massive problems that lead directly into some of my other concerns.
For more on my COVID posts: https://seek-the-truth.com/category/covid/
That’s all I have time for today.
July 3, 2022 at 1:48 pm
@Dave, thank you for clearing out your position on vaccination. We seem to agree on some and disagree on other aspects of the issue. I think as many as possible shoud get the shots. As many boosters as possible, because that is how vaccines work. They create the herd immunity for all, including people who can not have the shots, to be safe, but only if most people take them (about 95%). Many vaccines require boosters. I know about the Talidome incident and altough I am not a doctor either, I can assure you the international medicine research and control have taken giant steps since.
Sweden may have faired better than the USA, but they made some very poor choises early on and did not move to close their society as fast as the other Nordic countries and they paid a heavy price in lives lost. They relied much on their people to do the smart thing on their own accord just after having been adviced to. It was an underrestimation of the influence Russian troll factories have on both the nationalists and the immigrant population, as both of these groups have a mistrust in any governments and dependency of the social media. Later the Swedes adjusted their policy to more identical fashion with the rest of us and results have been better.
I still do not see any actual power grab by your government in any of this, and most certainly nothing even remotely relevant to easy access to guns. Have the guns you have protected your freedom in the case of COVID-19? Could they have been used for that and how? Are you going to take up arms against your government because of mistrust you describe feeling towards them?
July 2, 2022 at 2:13 am
Here is another perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkY5Z4g4zLA
It does offer a similar concern as I have regarding government control. According to this, governments in the 20th century have killed more of their own people than they have killed of enemy combatants in war.
I wrote the following in my first post on this topic. This video examines this premise more deeply:
The problem is more than guns themselves. Our culture lacks values and morality; there is a definite lack of respect of life in general and this leads to the taking of life for frivolous reasons (with homicides, abortion, euthanasia, and more). We have always had such problems, for sure, but they are worse today, worse because of how we view life, not because of the guns themselves. See my writings on life and the unbelievable comments from otherwise sensible people regarding taking of unborn lives https://seek-the-truth.com/category/life/
July 3, 2022 at 7:23 pm
Regarding President Trump, I agree with some of your observations. Obvious lies about his inauguration crowd size and the historic nature of his win (which was, in fact, very narrow) are a problem. During his first campaign, he also attacked Senator John McCain over his war record. McCain, in my view, was a lousy legislator and terrible presidential candidate, but his service record in Viet Nam was remarkable. He was a true American war hero. Trump’s comments were way out-of-line. I thought they would end his political career, but they did not. If you say good things about Trump, he will support you. If you criticize him publicly, he will attack you mercilessly. All this speaks to Trump’s character and character is an important factor when voting.
The problem in our country is that we have a two-party system. I reluctantly voted for Trump in 2016 not because I am stupid or ignorant, but because the alternative was horrifying. In a parliamentary system you have many more choices and can more easily find a candidate aligned with your own views. Just because I vote for someone doesn’t mean i am responsible for the things that person does or that I agree with all the person does. Too often we are forced into voting for the candidate we dislike the least. We have a pretty lousy crop of politicians right now, both Left and Right. I am not responsible for their excesses.
Having said all that, I will say that you need to take the full measure of the man. I had very low expectations of Trump when he was elected in 2016, but he far exceeded my expectations. Under his administration, our economy was the best he had ever been since the 1980s. America became the world’s leading producer of oil. Trump negotiated historic peace deals in the Middle East. I think as many as four. Afghanistan was stable (from an American perspective; we did not lose a single soldier for the last two years of Trump’s administration). He got illegal immigration under control. He was the first American president in forever to avoid entering a new war. He made numerous promises and he kept them, more promises kept than any politician I remember since Reagan. Last month, Roe v Wade was overturned. Trump said he would appoint three justices to overturn it and that’s exactly what he did. Of course, many will say these are not all accomplishments, perhaps even the end of the world, but from my point of view he did a good job. He also made many mistakes and we can acknowledge those as well. HIs last year, especially, was not so good. Dr. Fauci and his other COVID panel appointments were a disaster. He never corralled them as he should have.
His character, his ego, his unwarranted attacks on individuals remain a problem. If he would have filtered more of his comments, he might have done much better in the last election. In any case, the man before him and the one after have numerous character issues as well. Trump lied about crowd size and vote totals among other things, but Biden has lied about far more substantial things. Obama was a more polished politician and accomplished liar, but he too had numerous character issues. I still think character is important, but I had to re-think taking a hard stance after looking at Trump’s record. Do I want a politician who has numerous character flaws but gets things done or do I want someone who is considered a nice guy (Biden, I think is not) but leads the country to disaster? I eagerly supported Trump in 2020. I wish he would moderate on many things said, but he was an effective leader. I think MAGA is a great slogan, no worse than “Hope and Change” which I had no problem with either.
I think you are much too hard on his supporters, who see his character flaws, but don’t have many choices. Everyone is a critic. Easy to criticize from the outside as well. When faced with these choices, one has to make compromises, often uncomfortable compromises.
By the way, Trump may run again in 2024. I hope he does not. I think he is too old now and his time has passed. If Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Gavin Newsome, or any other Democrat opposed him in 2024, I would have to vote for Trump. I just cannot support any of the others. Does that make me evil? Am I ignorant and cannot see Trump’s flaws? Will I still support him if he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue (like Trump once said)?
Also, I will say the media treatment of Trump was despicable. Two things can be true at once: one, Trump has serious character flaws, spouts off too much, and needs to be called out for his excesses and two the media was way out-of-line and overboard in their criticism of Trump. They gave him credit for nothing and greatly influenced public opinion against Trump. Our Left media is basically a propaganda wing of the Democrat party. It is just awful. I actually LOVED how Trump treated the media. They needed to be taken down several pegs and most pols have been afraid to do it. Not Trump. He embarrassed them and they hated him for it.
Trump’s approval ratings are actually better now than Biden’s, despite the fact that the bulk of the Leftist press corps (which is far larger than the Right media) wants to lick his boots, cover for his obvious cognitive decline, and ask what flavor of ice cream he likes.
I’ll see if I can get to your other comments later in the week.
July 3, 2022 at 10:23 pm
I wish I were as well-spoken as rautakyy because there are SEVERAL points in your comment that are simply opinion only. But that seems to often be the case in many political discussions. And no, I’m not going to point them out to you. I feel certain you know what they are if you’re honest with yourself.
July 4, 2022 at 6:10 am
@Nan thanks. I have to admit, I do not know did Trump actually achieve something about the illegal immigration? He promised a wall and that Mexico would pay for it, wich must have been a lie, because his advisors must have told him Mexico is never going to pay it. The wall itself is a sad testament to stupidity as it is unlikely to stop any sort of immigration.
I wonder why so many do and have hated the immigrants – illegal and otherwise – in the USA when you are a nation of immigrants?
As for the overturn of Roe vs. Wade, it is my opinion, that the US Supreme Court has acted in contempt to the spirit of your constitution, imposing religious beliefs of some on others.
July 4, 2022 at 3:14 am
@Dave, you make an interresting case against the two party system. I admit, it seems hazardous, when looked from the outside. A multi-party system, such as ours is not without it’s problems, but altough it may seem complicated, we as a nation can move very cohesively when the time comes – as we are doing in joining NATO. Our current president Sauli Niinistö was not my first, or even second choise. He is a moderate conservative, with some liberal values, but he has my respect and the respect of a staggering majority of Finns. We even joke about it, how he is more popular than Saddam Hussein used to be.
I do not think Trump did much good to the US economy. He did not destroy it. I also appriciate the fact, that after trying he understood the US had long since lost the war in Afghanishtan and due to his extremely loyal support felt secure enough to negotiate a withdrawal from a war that initially did not have a clear goal, chance of success and indeed was draining money by the truckloads to fund corruption.
The oil industry grew as a result of long term goal of the USA to become energy indipendent. This is a process being built for decades and to Trump belongs the honour of being a link in that long chain as well as the shame of supporting frakking to that very end.
The peace treaties in the Near-East were a positive surprice, even though they merely sealed an existing status quo and did not accomplish much.
I share your sentiments about how Trump attacked and bullied senator McCain. It was shamefull. About Reagan we could propably start an entire new discussion, but lets not go there. Suffice to say I disagree with your statement.
Media and Trump seem to have a special love & hate relationship. He is a media person more than anything. His outrageous comments feed the media and in exchange the commercially levitating media provides him more and more coverage. He did not fight the entire media field though. Sometimes, it appeared that the “tail was wagging the dog” with the Fox News.
Now that we have established, that you have politicians in both parties who lie, but some of them have, despite, managed to build something too, how does that relate to the easy access to fire arms? At what point the lying would become so bad you felt you needed to take up arms against your own government? Is it really already on the level, that you think you need to arm yourself? To invest money to a gun for this purpose?
July 4, 2022 at 12:18 pm
Need to get the argument back to guns. I will get to it soon. It is a holiday (BBQ and fireworks here) and Wimbledon is in week two.
In any case, first drafts are never that good. I revised and extended my remarks on COVID. I address your latest comments in this post.
July 4, 2022 at 1:21 pm
@Dave, take all the time you need. You can find me here and I will have time to read your other blog posts. You obviously put time, effort and thought in them, so least I can do is read them through with thought.
July 8, 2022 at 12:20 pm
Since the posting of this topic there have been several shooting incidents. One in Norway, in Denmark, USA and Japan at least. Some US Republicans rushed to release snarly tweets, how such incidents in highly regulated countries somehow prove regulating gun laws do not prevent these kinds of incidents. They are kind of right, in that it is nigh impossible to prevent all gun related violence even by banning all guns. I have not heard anyone make that argument though, so it appears to bit of a red herring. They are also terribly wrong, as statistics show that gun regulation takes down gun related violence and accidents. As do more egalitarian society, that provides free help to people with mental issues, instead of free access to firearms and a police force better trained to face such incidences. Exactly like traffic regulation takes down the numbers of traffic accidents. Yet, totally unlike abortion bans, that hardly causes any less abortion, but makes it more dangerous to the pregnant woman. One wonders are these political representatives really this happless, or are their staff just really bad at fact checking, or is it, that they lack true leadership skills to turn the heads of their voters, even when they themselves are better informed. It would speak either to a scary level of incompetence, or truly corrupted and opportunistic attitude and total lack of morals. Or is it simply some form of dissonent cognition?
July 11, 2022 at 8:54 pm
Sir. I haven’t found time to address the remaining concerns, but I saw your latest comment.
What snarly comments do you refer to? I didn’t hear much about the shootings in Norway and Denmark. Nobody I listened to made snarky comments about these tragic events. I looked for stories of Republicans commenting on it, although I am sure some likely did. I would agree one such incident is not a trend in these countries.
The shooting of the former Japanese prime minister I understand was done with what appeared to be a home-made very crude weapon, obviously not one purchased at the local Wal-Mart. I did hear some snarky comments from US Democrats regarding Abe, as he was considered more of a conservative who had a much better relationship with Trump than Obama. This is regrettable that people appear to be happy about the deaths of individuals they disagree with politically.
I will have to review our prior comments as now I have lost the full thread of our discussion of guns. Maybe this is the one you are looking for me to respond to?
“I still do not see what use are the wild numbers of private handguns and some semi-automatic rifles against any “tyranny” you feel you are facing.”
It may be a hard sell because you do not seem to understand the problems with a massive over-reaching US federal government (perhaps because you don’t experience it first-hand) or the problems with a political ideology that is increasingly becoming divorced from reality and beholden only to its narratives. We have reached the “normalization of delusion”, a rather scary phase of our devolution in my view. You have referred to a few of those narratives yourself during the course of our conversation. Many assume these bizarre modern, progressive views to be as normal as breathing. I see the parallels between what Orwell predicted in his novels and what is actually happening today. Or perhaps we will descend into the world Huxley described in which group think is the only way to maintain societal order?
Ernest Hemmingway said change happens gradually at first and then all of a sudden. In my view, Western civilization is destroying itself and we have now arrived at the “all of a sudden” part of that journey. I worry much about the world my children will inherit and how much different it will be from the one I knew in my youth. I worry too about the rest of the world, which has benefitted so much from Western Civilization. Our once great civilization can no longer lead; a majority of its citizens cannot articulate or understand the purpose of our common values or find justification for continuing any of the things which once made it great.
Yes, our politicians are indeed hapless–on all sides of the aisle. You see this exactly as I do; they are indeed either corrupt or incompetent or both. These are the ones you think we should trust for our protection? Hand over all our guns to such people?
However, these leaders are merely reflection of our society as a whole, a society which has lost its way completely. Our culture has sought to destroy the values, traditions, and beliefs developed over centuries and replace them with ephemeral values developed five seconds ago. We have become a society which is no longer driven by logic and critical thinking, but by emotion and narratives (narratives which can easily change tomorrow); these are supposed to make us feel good about ourselves, but do nothing to sustain a way of life for generations to come. Reagan said we are always one generation away from such a disaster. The “all of a suddenness” of it all is what is so alarming to me.
July 11, 2022 at 9:31 pm
HA! That last paragraph could so EASILY have been written by a Democrat!! Especially the reference to emotion and narratives as these are CLEAR hallmarks of publicity-seeking Republicans.
July 12, 2022 at 4:56 am
@Nan, I have to agree with you there. Especially since he is referring to known Socialist Orwell. Though, I do not think Orwell was writing predictions, so much as a critique of where Socialism was going during his time. Especially in Russia, where in our time Democracy has taken the same route.
I also have to agree with much of what he says about the narratives lost to reality. But like you said, I see more diversion from reality on the Republican side. The fact, that Republicans seems far less likely to critique their own leaders like Trump, than the Democrats are to critique Biden, at least looking at it through the media I have at my disposal, tells a sad tale.
July 12, 2022 at 4:48 am
@Dave. I read about the snarky comments, as they aroused an outrage in Denmark. That is why these comments propably directed to the would be voters of these politicians got publicity here in the Nordic countries.
Congreswoman Lauren Boebert on Twitter: “There was just a mass shooting in Denmark, a country with some of the strictest gun laws in Europe. It’s time to admit that gun laws DO NOT stop mass shootings!”
Who ever said strict gun laws will stop all mass shootings? This is a red herring, is it not? By the way, only three people got killed.
Republican candidate Dr. Willie J. Montague on Twitter: “Praying for the people of Copenhagen, Denmark. Also praying the Left wakes up and realizes that mass shootings are not prevented by gun laws. Denmark makes it nearly impossible to get a gun, yet a mass shooting just happened there.”
It is not impossible to get a gun in Denmark. Only if you are a convicted criminal or you have mental issues are you restricted from having a gun. And you need to present a viable reason why you should have one. Self protection is not seen as a viable reason. Why would it? Guns are not a big problem in Danish society. Does Dr. Willie J. Montague feel he belongs to one of the restricted groups, or why would he say it is “impossible”? Does he just go and make wild claims, that he could have easily first checked out if they are even remotely true? He does not seem like a trustworthy politician. The shooter got a gun. It was an unfortunate event, as he was suffering from mental issues and felt he had not recieved help. Help, he was entiteled to and should have recieved, but through some error fel out of the loop. This was a long chain of unfortunate events. So many fail safe mechanisms failed with him, that it is almost like a freak accident.
Republican candidate Lavern Spicer on Twitter: “Shooting in Copenhagen Denmark where guns are BANNED? Oooooh child I can’t wait for the Left to explain how that happened!”
Again, guns are not banned in Denmark. Not at all! The access has been restricted to prevent gun violence and gun related accidents – and it works. In 2018 Denmark had 1,11 homicides with guns to 100 000 people. At the same time in Finland the count was 2,65 and in the USA in comparrison catastrophic 12,15. Not to mention all gun related accidents, that mean guns are the main reason for child deaths in the US.
I see you are worried. Yet, the gun issue as related to the fact that the world and societal values are changing seems quite abstract. How are any of your guns going to stop the change? Are you planning to use a gun to stop the change happening around you? How?
The world never stays the same. It changed from how it was when your parents were born and it will change from what it was when your kids were born. How could it not change from what it was when you were born? Was it perfect when you were born? If not, is it not a good thing it changes?
I do not know how you evaluate your own values, or do you take them as given from the previous generations, as seems to be the custom among conservatives. I have taken the bulk of my values from my parents, but they also taught me, that I have to evaluate and adjust my values, even the ones handed down by them, in relation to the world around and the changing conditions and especially better quality information. Values are only as good as the moral they are based on. The morals is only as good as the information it is based on. Information is only as good as the method of research it is based on. Moral evaluation is only moral, if it is based on situational ethics and an assesment of what benefit, or ill will follow from actions, or inactions on those values to oneself and to as many people as possibly affected by said action/inaction.
In my book the world has changed for the better and is changing all the time towards that. It is like three steps forward and two steps back, but we are getting there.
There are wars and famine in the world, but finally we are coming to the realization, that the globe we live on is one fragile place and we are all co-dependant on each other. That we are not tribes of countries or civilizations competing each other for the scraps the oligarchs (capitalists) leave us.
The Western Civilization has developed many great things, such as the modern form of democracy, that others have learned from, but it has also taken a heavy toll on the inventions it has had to offer.The others have suffered conquest, colonisation, exploitation of raw materials, destruction of identity and even slavery. This exhange has also happened between western countries. It is very difficult to name some singular values, that an entire civilization agrees, or has ever agreed upon. Some are on the rise and some are on the fall. Some have been forced upon large crowds, some have been taken up by new generations. Some inventions were brilliant when first introduced, like the steam and combustion engines, but later we have learned that there is a price for their overt use. One thing about the Western Civilization that can be said after the medieval times is, that it has not stopped from changing. It has not reached a zenit where the western culture would have rested in conservative lull, like for example China did for generations. Then look what happened to them. Change is the power of the Western Civilization, if there is one single nominator.
July 13, 2022 at 9:06 am
@Dave look, I read what you wrote about COVID-19 and masks. I am affraid there may be a bit of a correlation between them and guns. If people understood their purpose, how and what they are for.
It may be that you have misunderstood the use of masks, or perhaps someone you trust has misunderstood their use, or even been deliberately mislead about the issue. Partial truths are easier to believe, than outright lies, but they may be just as dangerous. Like the fact, that it is possible for the virus to get through a mask, because of the small size of the particle. However, that does not render the mask useless. Even the garden variety mask stops droplets, via wich viruses travel. Again, the collective use of masks gives us collective protection,especially when.we are collectively gathered in a crowded, or poorly ventilated places. If I have been infected, but I wear a mask I am far less likely to infect you, if we share space, than if I did not wear a mask. Why would you not pay the same courtesy to me?
You are worried about the political polarization, as am I. To me this is a most obvious example of the harm done to the Western Civilization by such the spreading of division and mistrust to our own governments and officials. That a simple medical issue has been turned into a political tool. I smell the Russian troll factories behind this, because here in Finland the very same people who had been saying that the masks infringe on our liberties started to spout out Russian propaganda on how the sanctions are unfair and how Ukraine is not a proper country. The same may, or may not have happened in your country, but it is not in the interrests of the Democrats, or the Republcans, that the division gets worse. It is in the interrest of Putin and anyone who wants the West to be weak to spread mistrust in your officials and they are doing it by expanding and exxaggerating already existing concerns, like the ones about the pandemic, or gun controll. Gun control is not an issue here at all. Among our many parties from left to right there are none who claims, that it is bad, or that it infringes on our liberty. Anyone can have a gun, but they need a licence, they need to learn to handle and store it safely. They also need a sane reason to own one. Self protection is not seen as a sane reason, nor is the fear that our government might turn into tyranny. Those are nonsensical reasons. There are accidents and crimes done by guns here too, but their relative amount is far less than in your country and in my book it means our system, if not perfect, functions better and I still do not understand why would you insist, that every looney should have a chance to get a gun, or why would you not demand a system where your guns are safely stored under lock and key.
Anyway, the masks may not help prevent the pandemic, if not used and stored properly, but guns used improperly may cause even a lot more havoc.
July 13, 2022 at 2:47 pm
rautakyy — IMO, this is a VERY big part of the unrest and distrust and internal fighting that is currently taking place in the U.S. —
… It is in the interrest of Putin and anyone who wants the West to be weak.
And I feel you can say this with authority since you are “next-door neighbors” and are able to see what’s going on in their backyard.
July 13, 2022 at 11:43 pm
We keep drifting from the topic of guns. It’s not entirely my fault at this point.
I have not misunderstood the purpose of masks. The CDC after the swine flu epidemic in 2008 recommended against widespread mask usage. Dr Fauci, the American Surgeon General, and virtually all American public health officials recommended against mask usage at the start of the COVID pandemic.
Yes, masks can keep prevent larger droplets from penetrating the barrier. This is the basis of your defense of masks? The problem with masks is the lack of empirical results. They have not proven effective at slowing the spread. All sorts of comparisons have been made between locales with mask mandates and high usage and others without them. COVID cases rise and fall in no correlation with mandates. Masks may have some marginal impact; I’ve never denied that, but masks are completely worthless with a strain like Omicron which is so communicable.
One former Biden medical advisor I quote said masks are like putting a screen door on a submarine. The screen door keeps out some water and it delays the eventually flooding, but does it accomplish anything in the end? Most folks I believe wear them because they want to believe they are doing something; they are contributing to the solution and they feel good about themselves for doing so.
Since I am not an MD, I do a good deal of research before writing on COVID. I did advise folks in my posts to at least wear a KN-95 if they choose to wear one. They are a bit more effective and not as impractical as an N-95. However, if you wear the same one all the time, keep it in your pocket and pull it out when needed, as most do, then you may actually be spreading more disease than you are preventing disease. If you wear loose fitting masks, as most do, you are getting far less benefit than you realize.
In one of my posts, I quoted a Florida group of parents that gave their school age kids masks daily for a couple of weeks. They wore masks for 8 hours and then used a fresh one the next day. They sent the used masks to a lab and found tons of serious viruses on the masks, far more than would ever be expected. For young kids too, kids who chew on masks, vomit into them and have all manner of unsanitary habits, they are actually counter-productive. One study at Duke University found that certain types of masks actually enhanced the spread of COVID.
I would be far more sanguine about masks if I saw better results. I was open to the idea at first, but have been totally underwhelmed by the evidence. The gains are minimal and sometimes counter productive. Most people don’t know how to use masks and don’t use them properly. Many doctors as well advise against them (although others are in favor). The overall case for masks is very weak, marginal at best, possibly worthless.
With regard to tyranny that you cannot see, I provide another example in my recent post. You expect me to provide a direct correlation between tyranny and how guns are going to prevent the further devolution of our society. If I have a gun at home, the President and Congress will act better and be more careful. I’m not saying anything like this. I do see a very serious threat to liberty from our government, media, and corporate interests. That is not directly countered by the freedom to own guns. The freedom to own guns does provide us more autonomy and freedom to better control our individual fate, especially in a future which is so very uncertain as today’s and elements which are so hostile to what used to be viewed as common interests and values.
I have provided many examples to show that there is not a strong correlation between the number of guns and homicides. I have shown there are many other reasons for a rise in homicides other than the availability of guns. That doesn’t mean there is no correlation between guns and homicides, but mass shootings like those seen at Columbine, Parkland, and others are not simply a result of increased access to guns. There are other serious problems, problems which are not addressed because the focus tends to be on a single solution. I don’t disagree with all you say. Criminals should not be allowed to purchase guns. Mentally unstable people maybe not either. Clearly many of the mass shootings are from people who should have been flagged by friends and neighbors. Red flag laws, for instance, often fail in those locales where they exist. There are other problems and solutions which we cannot seem to get too. Gun safety, I agree should be stressed. As I mentioned, the NRA is the biggest advocate for this, yet they are trashed as totally irresponsible and to blame for all gun violence. Just not true. I could re-iterate many of the points I have already made in this extensive narrative and my two posts on the topic. Some changes could be made to make things better. I am not against change or new laws per say. Still there are 20,000 gun laws in the US. Have we just not hit on the right combination yet? Or maybe we are looking in the wrong place for the solutions? I don’t believe the solution of eliminating guns, repealing the second amendment, will solve the problem here in the US. It is also not practical and not feasible politically or legally. What will happen with all the guns in circulation now? Do you really think people will give them up? Do you think we trust the politicians, the hapless politicians we all bemoan, to ensure our safety in the future?
I also have to leave home for the evening, so I will leave it at that for now.
July 15, 2022 at 9:24 am
@Dave, yes I have a tendency to go on a tangent too and I do appriciated when reminded of it. Where in your research did you get, that most doctors would advice against masks? The thing I was trying to make about the masks was that they, like guns are useful when used properly, but that most people are like the ones you referred to, who use the same mask over and over again pocketing it in between. Similarly a great number of people are as happless to the safe use of guns and as guns are far more dangerous than masks their use needs to be regulated.
I agree, that social issues like gun related violence, violence in general and politics related to violence and gun related accidents are formed of many other issues. There are no simple solutions, but there are partial solutions, that need to be addressed wether they resolve the entire problem outright or not. The major problem behind the gun problem in your country seems to be, according to what I can gather from you, a profound lack of trust. There is a wide mistrust in the police to be able to protect you from all the guns loose around your country, so you feel you need extra protection by carrying guns. Right? There is mistrust in the police to do their job impartially, regardless of assumed “race”. Wether justified, or not this mistrust affects the poeple, does it not? Even to the extent of bemoaning to defund the police. There is similar a mistrust to your health officials to the point, that even the president of the nation can not compell a major part of the population to take the free shots, that in countries where people have actual and much more harsh reasons to mistrust their authoritarian governments the vaccines would be taken in far greater numbers, if only people there had such easy access to them. Correct? There lies such mistrust in old and renowned news agencies, that have made all sorts of commitments to journalistic conduct, that people see it fitting to compare them to the Pravda? The entire field of media is declared untrustworthy in the social media, where the most ridiculous conspiracy theories, from the Q-anon and the “pizza gate”, to “flat earth” and “young earth” are wildly spreading. The mistrust in your political leadership has sank so low, that people would vote for an obvious opportunist and ignoramus such as Trump, if only to stop the actual politicians (from either party) to gain power?
There are other reasons to gun related problems, than just the guns. Social gap between the rich and poor. Lack of social mobility. Racialization of that gap. Competitive culture. Illiteracy. Corporate influence in politics. Poor funding of police and schools. Complicated and ineffective legal system stuck in reprisal, punishment and compensation instead of rehabilitation and prevention. But the common nominator to all gun related problems is guns. Clearly there is correlation between easy access and gun related deaths. You can not brush aside the fact that guns are the number one reason for child deaths in your country, altough looking at our conversation so far, it can be simply ignored as if it was worth it.
I feel we are getting somewhere with this, however. You and I agree, that mentally ill, convicted criminals and minors should not have access to guns. We further agree, that there should be education on gun safety. You say your country has all of this, but perhaps – looking at the fact how badly your country is doing in all of this, in comparrison to other western countries – we could agree it is clearly not enough? You practically seem to agree to all sorts of aspects of gun control, but you seem to fight against a form of gun control and totalitarian disarmament hardly anybody has even suggested. Why?
You say you look at statistics and like to do research before deciding on your position and I appriciate that. In that light the notion your lawmakers will make better descisions (somehow) because you have guns at home, has not served you particularly well, now has it? You have very high rates of gun related deaths, crime rates, mistrust of the government and illiteracy for a country with such high GPD and you bemoan the terrible amount of gun laws that seem to amount next to nothing, because your police and legal systems can not live up to the standards set for them. Right?
The vast amount of guns is a problem, but you say nothing can be done. I say something can be done and even though it is a slow process other nations have gone through it and you should get started before it really becomes too late.
You do not need to revoke the 2nd Amendment, you only need to read what it actually says. Have you never read it? This is the same as with the Bible, people think it says all sort of things it does not and ignore totally what it actually does say, because so many who appeal to it have never read it, just bits and pieces interpreted by others.
July 15, 2022 at 3:07 pm
That last paragraph sums things up so very eloquently! 👍❤
July 16, 2022 at 2:04 am
I didn’t say most doctors are against masks, only that some are for and some against.
Guns are the number two cause of deaths for children per this site: https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2018/12/21/child-death. Car accidents are #1. Should we take away teenager’s right to drive? I have two teenagers driving now, so I am very concerned about this risk. We do much to make roads safer, but still have this problem. We can always do more. We can change the highway speed limit, require every road to be a divided, and do better enforce speeding laws (among other things). Some such changes might be practical, but many are not. We cannot eliminate all risk. We have to accept some risk or we will create more serious problems by trying to eliminate all such deaths.
We can restrict gun access and likely reduce childhood gun deaths. I agree. We can take other steps as well. I am for all almost steps that can be taken to reduce this number. Who wouldn’t be? We can also create other negative unintended consequences by focusing on this risk alone. In mathematics, we talk of alpha and beta risks. For instance: the risk of convicting a guilty person versus the risk of letting an innocent one go free. You can decrease one of these risks, but only at the expense of the other. You cannot decrease both risks simultaneously. The Soviet Union had very few guilty people go free, but that was achieved at the cost of many innocent people who were unjustly convicted. The US takes the opposite stance; we can countenance a guilty person going free at times if it means very few innocent people are convicted. We determine the latter is the more serious risk. Again, both risks will always exist, and you cannot eliminate all. You can criticize folks for ignoring one risk, but we must balance all the risks and do what is best for the society in general.
So more should be done to eliminate childhood gun deaths. I think it is a horrible stat for sure. Is the solution only to restrict gun access? Will that lead to more problems?
The second amendment is very short. The problem is in the interpretation. You have to read more of what the nation’s founders said about it to understand what they meant. The second clause, if you focus on it, seems ironclad, but if you believe the first clause is the only reason for the second, you come to a totally different conclusion.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
You have more that I haven’t addressed yet. I will give it another go later. I have a race to run in the morning, so I need to end for today.
July 16, 2022 at 3:38 pm
You write: … we must balance all the risks and do what is best for the society in general.
IMO, this is what we’re trying to do by establishing laws and restrictions against –in particular– the AR-15s. Gun ownership overall isn’t necessarily the problem (my other-half owns several guns). It’s the access to the ones that are being used by the crazies to senselessly kill (groups of) innocent people/children.
But unfortunately, there are those who go ape-shit because they think ALL guns will be banned … and that will NEVER happen in this country. It just won’t. And you know it.
August 1, 2022 at 3:05 am
@Dave, as a researcher of history, it appears as quite clear to me what the second amendment means and why it was formulated as it was. It needs to be looked at in the cultural and political context it was written in. That leaves very little interpretation room. The newly founded states needed a military, but did not have stable enough revenue to create one capable of fending off the global empire they had broken from. A nother option would have been draft, but that – just like taxation to build a standing army – reminded too much like the British empire. So, they worded the law to look like voluntary service in a regulated state militia and paying for the necessary equipment by oneself was one of the new freedoms they had given to people. This was a way to ensure also, that the frontiersmen would make less trouble, as it became possible for them to join the society, and be regulated at the same time. Most certainly the newly founded government did not think dudes sitting at home with their muskets would somehow make the government make any better laws. They may have written beatiful propaganda about it, but it is a bit absurd to think, that is how they saw their own social morals – incited to do better out fear for violence.
Here in Finland we are only experimenting on drivers licences for kids under the age of 18 years. The test has brought good and bad results. Neither driving a car, nor owning a gun are basic human rights. They are liberties regulated (well or poorly) and granted by the society to an individual based on an evaluation of that individual being responsible enough to not take exessive risks at the cost of others.
July 16, 2022 at 11:33 pm
Ok. I believe I didn’t go ape-shit over anything, but maybe you weren’t referring to me.
You can limit AR-15s and other rifles, but you are limiting only certain types of semi-automatics while allowing others. It’s like having a couple fewer choices at the ice cream store. People are still going to partake and probably not lose any weight. When they had the assault weapons ban in 1994, they kept a whole bunch of weapons legal, some more lethal than the ones banned. It was a stupid law, but it made some people feel good and got a lot of votes.
You are right we are not going to ban all guns in the USA. I have made that point repeatedly. There is not the political will to do it. It would require a Constitutional Amendment for which there is nowhere near critical mass. Even progressive politicians in safe seats, like AOC, say they support the second amendment.
The only way the progressives will attempt do this is to chip away at rights in a clandestine manner: say they support the second amendment, but work towards its dismantling in other ways over time. They have certainly tried. The current court has stepped into the breach recently and rolled back gun legislation. The recent Congressional gun legislation is pretty minor as well. They will keep trying.
Our politicians are not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of getting re-elected. Keeping the gun issue at the forefront is good for them because it gets them a lot of votes, your vote and your kids vote and your grandkids vote, on and on. They don’t want to actually solve problems because then it would no longer be a vote getter. Republicans did this with the abortion issue for 50 years. They didn’t want to solve the problem their constituency voted for. Solve the problem and people might find new issues to vote on, ones that the other party might capture them for. Politics is a damned cynical business. I don’t know why so many people look to these folks to solve our problems.
The situation is not much changed today. I don’t have the answers either, but I am trying to analyze things as they actually are, and determine what might be possible and what might make sense.
July 18, 2022 at 6:32 pm
A point of agreement here. Nan said: You said gun ownership is not necessarily the problem. It’s about limiting the access of those who should not have guns. Mr. Rautakyy said: You and I agree, that mentally ill, convicted criminals and minors should not have access to guns. We further agree, that there should be education on gun safety.
Ok, these sound good. It is good that we at least agree on a solution if not the methodology for achieving it.
How we go about limiting access is the real problem. How to keep the guns out of the hands of folks who should not have them while not trampling on the rights of those who are responsible with guns? Gun laws tend to impact the law-abiding more than the non law abiding. This can make the problem of gun violence even worse. Much of what I have written is criticism about how we have gone about limiting access. Gun laws have generally not been effective. At times, they have also been politically motivated, poorly thought, or come with unanticipated consequences.
We also don’t trust leaders who have come up with so many lousy solutions in the past. I’m sure my disdain for most of political leaders has come through. I’m more and more for term limits and government as a service to others rather than a career (President Biden has been an elected official for nearly FIFTY years; that is all he has done). I want a limited federal government and gun laws left to states. The more local the control we have, the more accountability politicians will have and the better fit laws will be.
Also, the other criticism I have is that so many are focused on gun restrictions as the ONLY solution. I think there are many other mitigating measures which could be applied. People like me are criticized when we turn the focus away from limiting guns to something else. We are told we are aiding and abetting criminals, are evil people, etc. This does not help the discourse or help us get to any solutions.
You seem to think that I am worried about the second amendment being eliminated tomorrow, and so I will oppose ANY law which might limit guns in any way to help bolster it. No. The second amendment is unlikely to be revoked in a legal fashion. It is under attack by more clandestine means, but I think there is still enough political support to keep it around for a while still. Reasonable gun laws that will address the common problem we agree on are fine with me. We have lived with restrictions on gun ownership for a long time. Nobody is proposing rolling back all restrictions or opposing any new ones which might actually be effective. Most of the laws proposed have had problems (as Forrest Gump said: stupid is as stupid does) but we can address each individually.
In my last post, I proposed a few measures which I think might be effective: 1) arming a very small number of school officials (or other officials in “gun-free” zones) 2) more police training for these specific situations to avoid disasters like poor police coordination Uvalde 3) do not publicize assailants names or give them any form of publicity whatsoever. You might not like these, but I think they are reasonable and cost-effective solutions. I think they would help mitigate the problem, certainly not solve it altogether. They should not be labeled extreme right-wing nut job solutions. I don’t like the extreme label in any case (it is BS and a liberal narrative).
I also discussed the type of policing advanced by NYC in the 1980s and how effective it was at reducing crime. It has not been tried too often. I have talked about the problems of poor administration: criminals shuffled through a revolving door, “defund the police”, a lack of support of police from politicians, DAs who have been elected by those with a political agenda, and a dishonest narrative from media. These add to the problem. Eliminate or highlight such problems. Many will deny these are even a problem. We get nowhere with the discussion because it comes down to pointing fingers.
Finally, I talk about the importance of a culture of life. This is the most subjective point and maybe the most controversial. We live in a culture that has diminished the life of children via abortion, has diminished the life of the elderly via euthanasia, and has even diminished the lives of criminals via capital punishment. When we do not value life in all situations, we influence a portion, a very small portion mind you, that does not respect life in all situations. We have a culture that believes in anything goes with regard to sexual proclivities. People don’t like taboos, traditions, guilt, shame, or anyone else’s moral values, but these have traditionally been a brake on our excesses. We need barriers and restraints to people’s activities, especially for those at the margin of our society who would seek attention by gunning down a large number of individuals or turning to a life of crime.
Again I will say, I do not have all the solutions. I am not trying to say my way is right and yours is wrong. We have not effectively dealt with some very real problems. I want to point out why I think we have been ineffective and what other steps we can take to mitigate the problems. We will never get rid of the our violence problem because we must live with our fallen human nature.
August 2, 2022 at 12:12 pm
@Dave, it seems we are quite a lot in agreement, but indeed there are some issues we see differently. Gun laws have been mostly successful in European countries despite the facts that Europe is much more diverse culturally, economically, politically and in terms of legal systems. We have had many wars here and have one currently ongoing. After a war there is always a lasting major influx of weapons onto black market, yet gun related crime, or deaths are nowhere near how bad things are there. Why? Why is it, that in Europe it is not considered even normal, that people would have a gun to protect their property or even their family? Do Europeans not love their families? Why have European countries sucseeded in this and the US failed so miserably?
The minor solutions you propose are not in conflict with proprer gun regulation, nor is the 2nd amendment. The silly interpretation, that it is not about regulated militia service, but about some all ehompanasiko licence for any moron to have a gun is in conflict with it.
The countries, that have free access to abortion, or have made euthanasia legal on some level are not suffering from exessive gun violence or deaths, so there is no correlation there. Countries that have very liberal gun laws, such as the USA are. You may have a point with capital punishent. It does not seem to serve as much of a detrrent for violent crime.
July 19, 2022 at 10:06 pm
I’ve posted on the July 16, 18, and today. It is your turn to respond.
Another “good guy with a gun” story from today: https://www.theblaze.com/news/good-guy-with-gun-st-louis
You told me this doesn’t happen very often. I did an internet search “good guy with a gun” and found a bunch more stories.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/collection/good-guy-gun-stopped-bad-guy-gun/
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/twelve-stories-about-good-guy-gun-progressives-wont-128052
I know you can’t trust everything on the internet. But I also don’t trust the narrative that a good guy with a gun is an American myth. Every belief on the Left follows some narrative. Homage must be done to the narrative. Counter narratives must be attacked or hidden from view.
July 20, 2022 at 3:16 pm
I trust you did make note of the fact that most of these “good guys with guns” were defending their homes/families … which many believe is one of the FEW justifiable reasons to own a gun.
Also, in a couple of instances, the shooters were police, security, armed guard, etc., not average citizens.
This is not to deny there are times when a good guy with a gun “saves the day.” But the statistics nowhere near match those of the bad guys with guns.
July 30, 2022 at 5:09 am
@Dave, just as easily you could dissmis the “good guy” stories as exeptions, that confer the right wing narrative. Any myth owes it’s plausibility to some events in reality. An old house gets to be called haunted because it squakes. The noise is real, but the conclusion, that it is caused by some supernatural agent remains unproven. With a total saturation of a society with guns means, that there will be instances, when a good guy gets to stop an armed assailant, but that does not mean, by far, that the problem of exessive amount of gun deaths has been solved. Nor does it seem to do much to stop gun related crime in general. For example: why are there so many home invasions, that people feel they need a gun? This is not a reason in Finland to own a gun. Obviously none of the invaders who do this are at all persuaded to stop by the fact, that there might be a gun in the house. In fact, they may even be attracted by guns, because those are easily movable property, that always sells. Especially so, if the guns can be found about the house, not secured by strong boxes. The invader always has the upper hand, no matter how many, or what sort of guns the home owner has, simply because they are not likely to stand guard of their house for 24 hours. There are alarm systems, but those are passive and mechanical and can be neutralized. Perhaps the invaders do not even care, if they come in force and are ready to accept minor casualties and / or are high. In any case the resident is likely found in bed when the attack begins, so all the odds are stacked against them. Some survive and some even manage to fight off the invader, but they are the exeption, not the trend.
July 20, 2022 at 9:17 pm
You are repeating my own argument. I own a gun to protect my home and family. Protecting your business is another good reason. At large public events there are generally police to protect folks, so I don’t feel the need to carry a gun. The problem is that in other instances, away from the crowds, the police can’t arrive in time to catch a shooter in the act. I know some women who also feel the need to carry away from home in certain situations, but that it understandable as well. However, I think we are generally in agreement on this point.
The good guy stats don’t match the bad guy stats? I am not sure I see your point. We meticulously track of all gun deaths. That’s not hard to do. We don’t keep track of gun deaths prevented. It’s impossible to accurately measure in any case. There is a deterrence factor as well when folks know you might be armed.
August 2, 2022 at 6:00 am
@Dave, you do understand, that there is much less armed crime in countries with stricter gun controll laws. In other words there is no deterrence of any kind involved on national level.
July 24, 2022 at 12:57 pm
What is going on with Sweden? I have heard of an increasing problem with rape and “No Go” zones. “No Go” zones seem like a very bad idea; they appear to be a problem with mass immigration from a few years back.
I don’t know a lot about Sweden, it’s politics, or it’s crime, but occasionally we hear about our Scandinavian neighbors. This is your neighborhood, so maybe you could enlighten us on its problems. Tripling of gun deaths in the last decade despite strict gun laws does tell us something about the potential impact of stricter gun laws in other places. Forbes wrote the following regarding Sweden:
Even though Sweden has some of the “world’s strictest” gun control laws, it is faced with increasing gun-related violence because of illegal firearms smuggled in from countries in the western Balkans, according to a 2019 paper in the journal Forensic Sciences Research. The Swedish government licenses guns and requires owners to receive a year-long training that encompasses writing and shooting tests.
Eight in 10 shootings in Sweden were connected to organized crime, a study by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention said. That ratio was “significantly” higher compared to other countries in Europe, the Guardian reported. In 2018, Sweden had the highest gun deaths in Europe, surpassing Italy and eastern Europe, due to increased criminal gang activities, the Guardian said. Deaths involving guns tripled in that country between 2012 and 2020, Bloomberg said.
July 27, 2022 at 6:05 am
@Dave, that is a good question. First of all, Sweden has gun related death rate at 1.3 per 100 000 people, while Finland has 2.41 and the USA 12.21 respectively. So, if their rate has gone up a bit, they still have a lot of catching up to do, if they want to do as bad as either of our two countries.
The Swedish police is using the gang related violence as a political means to gain more funding. They failed the organization already a couple of decades ago, when a right wing government wanted to cut down government spending, and now they are reaping the harvest. The Sweden Democrats, a fairly new right wing party, that is riding the dubious momentum of spreading fear and hatred against immigrants and is in opposition (because no other party wants to tarnish themselves on co-operation with their campaingn of hate) has made a big number out of this and the tabloid press have followed suit.
There is a problem in Sweden alright. A few years back, when Sweden was downgrading their military, they stored a bunch of weapons in a remote location. That installation got hit by professional thieves and ever since a number of military grade weapons from hand grenades to bazookas have been used by criminal gangs. To downplay this embarrasing event, their police and military have made a lot of noise about the military issue weapons pouring in from the former Yugoslavian area. That too is a real problem. However, why Sweden and not so much other European countries? After all, Sweden is not exactly beside Yugoslavia and there are not especially many immigrants from those countries in Sweden. The easy answer offered by some politicians is immigration as if people who look different would be more likely to be criminals just because of that, but it does not really answer the question.
In every plausible lie there lies a grain of thruth hidden in them. Sweden has been very generous in receiving refugees all around the globe. Some even from the USA, seeking political asylum during the Vietnam war. They have managed to immerse the most varying number of cultures into their wellfare society most often run by the Social Democratic Party, but there are bound to be problems, when people with different values meet. In general Swedes are rich and the latest wave of refugees are always poor, when they come. These tend to huddle together in common areas of cheap housing and have all sorts of problems in fitting in. Most often those problems are produced by the combination of poverty and cultural shock. Powerty is met by a consistent social security system, but the cultural shock is a more difficult problem to deal with, because Sweden has an extremely liberal culture, while refugees tend to come from the most conservative dark pits of the world.
The increase in Swedish gun violence is fighting between criminal gangs, that are not hitting some “soft targets” but the other armed criminals. Sometimes innocent bystanders get hit by the poor and random shooting by these gansters. The best way to resolve their problem is propably already underway, by re-organizing their police force, and certainly not by increasing the amount of guns in general in Swedish society.
August 1, 2022 at 9:07 pm
[…] at World’s Pain, a rather long and detailed discussion related to the Second Amendment (and a few other contentious issues) has been taking place between Dave, a U.S. citizen, and […]
August 7, 2022 at 7:03 pm
I hadn’t been back for a while, and I see the debate continues. Perhaps some of your friends will comment as well. I have moved on to other topics, but I will take some time to review all that we have discussed to this point. I am sure I have forgotten or missed some key point along the way.
You credit Mr. Rautakyy for using common sense arguments. I am simply the “antagonist”. I am fine with being characterized as the antagonist, but I think I have used some common sense arguments as well. I have never claimed to have the definitive solutions, but neither does anyone else.
There are some points of common ground I think we have found, but I think much of our disagreement stems from our different world views: conservative vs. liberal. I find the liberal point of view guiding your thinking on this issue (and I suspect many other issues). You need to be able to see where such ideology influences your view on this issue (and others). It is hard for me to keep from expanding and sticking only to the gun issue when other points of contention are referenced. You need to be able to detach yourself from the liberal orthodoxy when it distorts your views on this matter.
My goal is to seek the truth, wherever it leads, whether it confirms or rejects my original viewpoint. My encounters with liberals and liberal ideology often demonstrate that support for the narrative is the objective for the liberal. Any view which does not support the narrative is heterodoxy and anyone who does not support the narrative has suspect motivations (and is often labeled in order to be discredited). I always get to the point in debate with liberals where a question posed simply cannot be answered (and so is ignored) or something which I simply cannot accept as truth is believed as gospel by those on the other side.
August 7, 2022 at 7:53 pm
Dave, there will always be a dividing line between liberal and conservative thinking. IMO, the problem arises when either side “digs in” and refuses/avoids looking at it from the other person’s POV. I also feel “labeling” is detrimental to any discussion/disagreement.
As I’ve mentioned before, I was raised around guns and my other-half enjoys target shooting. However, from my perspective, this is not the issue. The issue is that some individuals seem to think they have the “RIGHT” to own guns (ANY kind of guns they want) … and they justify this thinking by referencing only a portion of the Second Amendment.
Yet it has been demonstrated on numerous occasions that there are CERTAIN guns that are extremely harmful and have literally slaughtered adults and children in the wrong hands. Nevertheless, a segment of individuals continue to scream about their Second Amendment “rights” and refuse to consider that SOME limitations on gun ownership might be worthy of consideration.
If you want to call this “liberal thinking,” then so be it. I call it common sense.
August 9, 2022 at 12:40 pm
@Nan, agreed. There were hunting weapons at my home, when I grew up in the countryside. A hidden Mauser pistol was found from my best friends house, propably put there either during our civil war or after WWII when a lot of guns were hidden. In the first case by Communists on the losing side and equally possibly by veterans fearing a Communist takeover in the second. By my age I have seen quite a few of guns with similar stories, that typically end up with antique sellers, collectors, or the police, because people who find them are not really interrested in holding on to them. I served in the military and I like a bit of target practice, but I think a gun gives the person holding it power, that in turn demands responsibility not to abuse it. It is our job as societies to see, that as few irresponsible people as possible wield such power and I think it actually has very little to do with Conservatism, or Liberal “narrative”. There is this strange misconception, that those are some value sets. Leonid Brezhnev was about as succesfull as a conservative leader can be. He was an authoritarian leader, who managed to stagnate almost all progress in a superpower for the duration of his reign. He shared a bunch of values with the modern day right-wing Conservatives from the Western nations to the Taleban, but was also a Communist. Guess what he thought about gays, marriage equality, or the position of women in the society?
Dave may however have a point, that is perhaps the discussion in your society could be more constructive. Is it because there really is some Liberal “narrative”, or perhaps because of the use of such strike words, as if they would make all the facts represented by the other side somehow invalid?
Certainly school shootings are only a tip of the iceberg. I think the gun problem begins at home. If a gun is presented as the only solution of the problem of too many guns, then eventually otherwise sane people become scared enough to buy a gun to safekeep their homes and families. Does that increase safety, or deteriorate trust? It certainly increases the risk of child victims of accidental gun deaths.
I think, in the US most lethal military grade weapons need only allowed to people directly involved in well regulated military militia (such as the national guard) exactly as stated in the 2nd amendment. Gun sales need to be regulated. The owners need to be educated about safe use and storage of their guns. Mentally challenged people need to be ruled out in the education process. The safe storaging needs to be demanded and monitored by the police and the police needs to be trained to use lethal power unlethally. The police need to be funded to face the intermediatry decades from a society saturated by guns to a normal functioning society. All additional ideas, like more exits in schools should be also considered, but not in the spirit of blaming the victim. These are easy goals in comparrison to changing the culture to any desired direction, like to be more equal economically, less competetive, or indeed become more appreciative of human life (as Dave very humanely hoped it would and I agree).
August 9, 2022 at 2:58 am
@Dave, I find it a bit funny, that you should label me “liberal”, especially in this issue, when it is quite obvious, that the gun laws in the USA are very liberal indeed in comparrison to any other Western nation and if ever anyone would move to change our Finnish law into that direction, you would find me positively conservative of our current laws because of the reasons mentioned abowe in our discussion. The opposite of conservative is not liberal, but progressive and the opposite of liberal is authoritarian. Perhaps it is your two party system, that paints the world into black and white, when in reality it is not just that, or even some shades of gray, but multicoloured.
I would never characterise you as an “antagonist”, much rather I thank you for giving me perspective into how people might come to defend the current interpretation of the 2nd amendment, even though as it seems to me a total failure to understand history and manage a society.
We have a common goal in seeking the truth. I try to base my views on fact and logic, while recognising the influence of my cultural heritage. I am a humanist and a socialist. Partly due to my family backround, but mostly because fact, logic and contemplation have led me here. In the sense, that my parents (and grandparents before them) gave me a nug to this direction makes me a bit conservative and their collective live and let live attitude makes me a bit liberal, but my socialist ideology stems from my chosen humanism, that demands we built societies, not just for the winners, but for everyone, including those that need help from others.
August 14, 2022 at 3:18 pm
Perhaps it was a mistake to use the term liberal. I am speaking from a US perspective in which the lines between liberal and conservative are often starkly defined.
On the other hand, someone like Pope Francis can be considered politically liberal and yet still very conservative on social issues like abortion, gay marriage, transgenderism.
To be a conservative is not be an authoritarian. I am socially conservative like the Pope and I am politically conservative in that I want to conserve the institutions that have served our country well the last several hundred years. The USA has been a great country and it has influenced the views of countless others and done much good for the world as a whole. We saved the world twice from tyrannical regimes in the 20th century. As conservatives, we want to conserve the good that has come from this country and its institutions. Progressives or liberals (at least in our country) want to change so much so quickly. GK Chesterton talked about the “Democracy of the Dead”. We need to respect the knowledge an institutions provided by our ancestors, and change them slowly. This is in no way authoritarian. In my country, the authoritarians mostly appear of the Left (although, as you should know by now, I see countless bums on the Right too).
I think with your progressive and socialist tendencies you would fit in with the liberal ideology in the US. We clearly disagree on subjects other than gun control. Although I think we also established some agreement with regards to gun control.
In any case, I will try to put the focus back on gun control if I can find the time this coming week.
August 16, 2022 at 11:43 am
@Dave, aside the topic, there is a fairly simple lithmus test for wether Conservatism, or Liberalism produces objectively better politics. Imagine you are somebody else, but while you can not decide who you are (your gender, ethnicity, health status, or social position), but you can choose a country, what country would you choose? Would you rather live in for quite long liberally run Norway, or rather traditionally extremely conservative Saudi-Arabia? Both are rich countries, but they have very different take on minorities and women. Wich country mainly run by conservatives would you choose to live in over any run by liberals, if you did not know your social status before the choise of country? I bet none, if you know anything about the world.
August 16, 2022 at 3:26 am
@Dave, I guess, I would agree more with the US poeple who label themselves as Liberals, than those of you who view yourselves as Conservative in this and a bunch of issues. However, I do not see myself as a Liberalist as such.
Anyway, my topic was, and still is, the 2nd Amendment. I do not see how it would require there could not be proper gun control. Control of what sort of guns are awailable to the public, to whom among the public at all, or what requirements on their storaging and skils to weild them could be expected by the law from a person to own one.
As to the reasons why a civillian needs a gun, there are a number of sane ones. Like for example hunting, voluntary “well regulated militia” for defence of national soveregnty, or a collector of antiquites. A hunter needs to know how to use their gun, otherwise they only end up wounding animals, or humans – so, there needs to be training and a test. A militia member needs training and monitoring, because without those they are not only a pointless hazard, but utterly useless, if their services are ever needed. A collector should be restricted on how effective functional weapons they hold in private premises, because otherwise they simply become the self help storage for illegal guns. Wich is true about any gun owner who does not store their gun responsibly.
Self and home defence guns are a psychological trap. A lie the person tells themselves to deal with the fear of violent crime produced by a deeply economically divided society. They are not likely to save the lives, or even property of the gun owner. Individual anecdotes of it having happened are not representative of the reality.
Democracy does not require the constant threat of an armed uprising and a revolution to function. If it does, it is poorly arranged. Hence, that is not a good reason to own a gun, that you constantly keep your elected government under threat of violence.
I understand, that at its core conservatism is about prudence. It is motivated by the sometimes legitimate concern for things to change too rapidly. Wich is why the conservatively inclined person is so easily affected by appeals to fear. Fear like, gun control could mean the taking away all guns. As if that was the only option to organize gun control. Fear of the armed criminals, as if the saturation of the society with guns would work as a deterrent to the criminals and reduce gun violence, when clearly all statistics and comparrison shows it has the opposite effect.
The strength of your nation does not lie in every moron toting a piece, but in progressiveness, towards wich it has guided the rest of the world. The Islamic world was once a guiding light of progress to the world, then the crusades and Mongol invasion took place, and they grew prudent and after the period of Colonialism eventually extremely conservative. They suffer the consequences even today. Do not take their path.
August 16, 2022 at 6:49 pm
Another solid response! I do wish others were as level-headed as you.
August 17, 2022 at 2:57 am
@Nan, oh, thanks. It is an interrestting discussion for me, as I seek to understand various cultures and their basic assumptions. The why people believe as they do. The positive thing is that we are not so different me and Dave, altough we come from opposite political and value bases and different continents. Perhaps it is because of our shared western heritage (though, he seems to share more values with the Taliban – yet another culture and a facet of the globe). Even with our disagreements we have been having this civil conversation and found some common ground.