<p>Actually, GP, there’s a “gun culture” all across America, not just “some parts” and it’s really not that “incomprehensible.” I live in suburban California. I know lots of people with guns. Many guns per household in some cases, including machine guns (or so the boast goes.) There have been no “stranger” shootings in this community… well, ever, as far as I know. One young guy was shot by some people he was doing drugs with, and there have been some commercial robberies with guns in nearby areas, but… still, we’ve got lots of guns. </p>
<p>The real myth is that there is a cabal of “gun grabbers” who “don’t understand real Americans” concentrated in enclaves on the coasts. And no, I don’t think that any meaningful “compromise” will happen, in large part because the myth of gun ownership increasing the security of a family home will be defended with a maniacal zeal by those folks who want to believe that it’s true, facilitated by spin polished by the companies that profit from gun sales. I’m not “against guns” - I’m against people owning guns “for safety” when it actually makes them - and everyone else in their vicinity - less safe. So I’m in favor of a reality check for people who have bought the NRA Kool-Aid.</p>
<p>People think that all efforts to do something about gun-facilitated violence failed after Sandy Hook. I disagree. I actually think that the most significant step of all was taken: the NRA-backed ban on objective research into the actual risks vs. benefits of gun ownership was overturned. Actual facts and data can now be obtained and analyzed by CDC and others funded by the federal government. I think the biggest coup the NRA accomplished in years past was to get that ban enacted by Congress, allowing them to fill the vacuum with spin, anecdotes and propaganda.</p>
<p>Certainly, the most determinedly benighted will continue to believe that owning a gun will make their family safer, even after the studies start rolling in. The even more deranged won’t really care - they’re too caught up in their Kenyan-socialist-U.N.-Agenda-21-black-helicopter world view to care. But I honestly think that the majority of Americans are pretty rational. Once the reality that having a gun in your nightstand in your colonial McMansion in your gated community actually means that it is more likely that you, your spouse, your children or your neighbors will get shot than if you don’t do that, fewer people will do it. And we’ll all be better off. No “gun-grabbing” required; just a little “reality recognizing.”</p>
<p>Well, there has been progress. Apparently, the percentage of households with guns has declined from 50% to 35% in the last 30 years. However, it is estimated that there are around 300 million guns in the US. There are definitely too many guns out there, particularly in the hands of the mentally unstable. </p>
<p>You may be right that eventually we will pass more effective gun control laws, but I still think it would happen more quickly if each side trusted that the other does not have an ulterior motive or hidden agenda.</p>
<p>The gun discussions are always interesting to me. I was raised in the south by hunters, spent school vacations with widowed great-aunts who slept with guns under their pillows for protection, and now live in the rural south with neighbors who have been on family land for 200 plus years and keep their freezers full of venison, eat rabbit, squirrel, etc. I was taught you never point a gun at another person unless you intend to kill and you had better do so. My Dad kept the guns in a locked case, ammunition in a locked drawer, and a baseball bat under the bed in case of home invasion. My husband and I never had guns when we had children in the house. Now we do, because if a rabid animal wanders by there is no animal control to come take care of it. There are other varmint issues. We have no reason to hunt, because our neighbors are incredibly generous.</p>
<p>A few of my rural neighbors are concerned about home invasion. A couple would welcome the opportunity. One young man, reading about a robbery in a nearby city, said he was going to shoot any stranger who came on his porch and that he had the legal right to do so. I replied that if someone was trying to get into my house, I was just going out the back with my cell phone. He assured me that as soon as I called him, he’d come shoot the intruder for me. Heaven help anyone who has car trouble on our road. If you are ever driving through the rural south and breakdown, you might just want to stay in your car until morning when someone comes by to see what you are up to. Maybe call AAA if you can get a signal on your phone. That’s what I’d do. When my sister was a young woman, she kept a gun in her glove department when she was driving rural roads alone at night. These days she just has her cell phone.</p>
<p>In our area, I am pretty sure this concern white people have with home invasion is a hold over from the time there was a legitimate concern an enslaved population might revolt. I also think the activities of the klan and klan-like groups after the war made whites worried about retribution.</p>
<p>ETA: thinking about frugal doctor, and his doctor friends who have experienced home invasion… my doctor Dad never kept any drugs at home or carried any doctor-looking equipment like a doctors bag or stethoscope. He was concerned about being targeted for that reason. That isn’t a concern for most of us. imho</p>
<p>I grew up in the rural South, where everyone hunted and people had gun racks on walls in their homes. Rarely did anyone shoot anyone else. Children learned to hunt early, and they respected guns. These were shotguns and rifles.</p>
<p>Many people still have guns like this. I know plenty of hunters who keep guns, and I know law enforcement officers who have guns (in locked gun cases) at home. I’m not worried one bit about those guns. What I’m worried about is the nut jobs (they call themselves “the good guys”) who are building up arsenals of weapons meant to kill people – guns capable of firing multiple (sometimes a hundred) rounds without reloading.</p>
<p>The vast majority of people I know who own guns want to see more restrictions on guns. They would be glad to have their guns registered. They speak in favor of banning large rounds of ammo. </p>
<p>A person can call him/herself a “responsible gun owner,” but no responsible gun owner has an arsenal of multi-round weapons (or even one – no one besides someone in the military or a SWAT-type law enforcement officer needs a 100-round weapon). No responsible gun owner carries a gun in her pocketbook where her child can get to it (yes, that happened; she shot herself trying to grab it before her child did). No responsible gun owner puts a gun in his carry-on luggage when going through security (“I forgot I left it in there” is what they tell TSA). No responsible gun owner leaves a gun in an unlocked garage where it can easily be stolen (like one of NC’s congresswomen did recently).</p>
<p>When are we going to require gun owners to BE the responsible gun owners they say they are?</p>
<p>Kluge, I am describing the significant disconnection that our coastal (specifically NE and W) have with the rest of America. This is real and also transcends the gun issue. Urban areas are not universal. I would bet that the gun culture of Dallas and Phoenix differs from the gun culture of NYC and Boston. Without understanding or acknowledging these regional differences, you will never achieve any compromise. Your points are well taken and I have to say they are much more polite than my best friend presented to me. The moment the anti gun rhetoric began, I tuned my friend out. Which is truly unfair but that is what happens when the debaters don’t seek common ground. I was accused of being brainwashed by the NRA. I believe the NRA is wrong on so many arguments. The fact is that the NRA supports firmly held beliefs in the second ammendment. </p>
<p>Goldenpooch is correct that gun ownership is down in America. However, those who own guns have increased the amount of guns they own. When Democrats discuss gun control, the gun advocates buy more guns. Gun control measures will never pass in the part of the country with conservative gun ideologies, especially if the goal is not to compromise.</p>
<p>Alh, I would never approach a home (anywhere in the US) at night seeking help if my vehicle broke down. I fear being perceived as a potential criminal.</p>
<p>^right. I have had people come to my door who broke down. I don’t automatically assume criminal. I assume someone with a problem. I don’t invite them in, but I do call them help. I don’t answer the door with a gun.</p>
<p>ETA If I were a physician with drugs in the house, I might have to rethink this approach.</p>
<p>People are confusing responsible gun owners with criminals and crazies. These are separate categories and taking guns away from category 1 does not get them out of the hands of categories 2 and 3 which are much more dangerous.</p>
<p>Frugal doc is making important points. Urban gun culture is very different than the sporting gun culture. Also there are places in this country where there isn’t a nearby police station or patrol car and where the issue is wild animals and not animalistic people. </p>
<p>Trying to make uniform gun laws is impractical. It would be like trying to make laws about the ocean from Kansas.</p>
<p>But one thing everyone ought to be able to agree on, IMHO, is that those who have demonstrated irresponsible behavior with a loaded weapon ought to lose the right to carry or own that weapon, much as happens to those who are irresponsible with cars or anything else.</p>
<p>I think alh nailed it. There are rational reasons for owning guns (as alh does.) But that’s not what is driving gun sales (and the votes Goldenpooch referred to.) What is driving current gun sales is people like alh’s rural neighbor - and all of his urban and suburban think-alikes. It’s not a rural thing, alh. My suburban California neighbors who own guns are driven by the same mentality. The fact that gun sales spiked when Obama was elected (after a political career of doing nothing in connection with guns) is pretty revealing. Fear of “the others” drives this trend. And it’s pretty easy to manipulate and capitalize on fear.</p>
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I always get squinty-eyed when people bring up the second amendment in a discussion over appropriate gun ownership policies. The Supreme Court has ruled that the second amendment grants a personal right to gun ownership (exact dimension as yet unspecified.) I had come to that conclusion after reading the literature on the subject and agree with the basic premise of that ruling as a simple matter of textual interpretation - albeit not all of the (superfluous) flights of fancy which embellished it in the majority opinion in Heller. I believe that the framers did design it as an individual right - but they did so in response to conditions which existed then and don’t, for the most part, exist now. </p>
<p>The second amendment was enacted over 200 years ago, in a social, political and martial environment which was far different than what we have today. We don’t defend our nation with militias anymore. Few of us deal with wild animals. The Indians lost. And most importantly, as noted above, most Americans do not live in rural environments anymore. The context of America in the 21st Century is far different than the context at the time of the enactment of the bill of rights. (Quick quiz: who can tell me what the 3rd amendment deals with? Why not?)</p>
<p>So when gun owners trot out the second amendment as a significant factor in the discussion I have to ask why. Is it due to an inability justify their position based on current reality, thus requiring reference to a quasi-religious appeal to authority? </p>
<p>The most extreme gun nuts insist that the framers of the Constitution wanted the second amendment to ensure “the people’s” right to violently overthrow the government the framers were creating. I don’t think so. (Some of them may have; it was designed by committee, after all, so unanimity of philosophy would not be expected.) I think the amendment was simply a response to concerns regarding a standing army (which we ended up with anyway, in spades.) I think that the framers would be shocked and appalled to see how the awkwardly worded provision has morphed into a perceived blessing from on high for hotheads to hoard semi-automatic weapons in their tract homes in order to shoot the phantom menaces they see lurking in the scary world, or parents of small children to keep loaded handguns in their bedstands.</p>
<p>Yeah. Given that most of them were slave owners I don’t think we need to attribute sainted status to horrified framers of the constitution one way or the other. </p>
<p>They’d be horrified by a lot of things for a lot of reasons including taxes. But one thing is for sure, after the revelations of what the patriot act has done to our privacy rights, attributing paranoia to those who don’t trust the government is as silly as believing we all need a bunker in Idaho. The truth, as with most things, is a bit more gray.</p>
<p>No matter what, common sense gun laws should be made at the local level. The issues around guns are local not national.</p>
<p>I am not worried about home invasion. This time of year I’m very cautious outside because it’s hunting season. I wear red. I am not worried about my neighbors, but we have a hunting club operating close by, with members from outside the community. It’s safer to just stay inside on the computer I may venture out to the mail box in a bit.</p>
<p>ETA: I am hoping for a huge reduction in the deer population this year. If the hunting club helps, it’s all good with me. The locals probably can’t kill enough legally to make a dent. The game warden has been round. Folks have been fined. They won’t be going over the official limit. We have so many deer, it is very dangerous out here for drivers. Much more dangerous than potential home invaders. Also ruins vegetable gardens.</p>
<p>It was reported that George Zimmerman and his wife Shelly first got their handguns and concealed weapons permits after being menaced by a neighbor’s pit bull dog in their apartment complex.</p>
<p>Why in the world should guns need to make us any safer? The right to keep and bear arms is explicitly laid out in the amendments to the Constitution. Indeed, it’s not some obscure amendment added hundreds of years after the nation’s founding; it’s included in the Bill of Rights, written by the founding fathers at the same time as the rest of the Constitution. Nor is it a minor footnote in the Bill of Rights, given towards the end as an afterthought or as part of a catch-all; it’s second only to the right of freedom of speech, and comes before rights to freedom from unlawful search and seizure, due process of law and speedy, public trials by jury.</p>
<p>Let’s be frank: the right to keep and bear arms isn’t to use them for hunting, or even to fight off home invaders. It’s to point them at the government if the government starts getting pushy. Isn’t that the point? Hasn’t that been the point all along?</p>
<p>aegrosomnia, by your logic the right not to have soldiers quartered in your house is also far more important than your right not to be executed without due process of law. Are you sure you’re making sense?</p>
<p>And, as noted above, in fact I don’t think the people who wrote and voted to include the second amendment were (for the most part) thinking that their purpose for doing so was to facilitate armed insurrection against the government they were creating, and if they did so, they failed in their intent, because we have standing army with tanks, missiles and nuclear weapons now. If push came to shove it would be U.S. Air Force 1, Green Mountain Boys 0, “Red Dawn” fantasies notwithstanding. </p>
<p>Your post merely reinforces the point I was making about the context in which the amendment was drafted and enacted, and the folly of looking at it today as if it were holy writ. It is a law, enacted to address concerns which existed at a specific point in time in a certain way. Once the nature of the concerns changed over time treating the text as if it should not be viewed rationally in light of current reality is a copout. America is not a theocracy, and the framers were not prophets.</p>
<p>Alh, as we push our residential area farther out into areas inhabited by wildlife, we have more encounters as well, with not only deer, but cougar & coyote.
Is the solution to reduce the populations?</p>
<p>I’m not a gun guy, but in light of poetgrl’s somewhat snarky remark, I thought I would add a historical footnote. The Republicans who drafted the Fourteenth Amendment (you know, those guys who spearheaded the war against slavery) considered the right of African-Americans to bear arms to be one of the important privileges and immunities of citizenship protected by the amendment.</p>
<p>That stat includes folks like my dad, who grew up shooting game for food, but grown and not living on a ranch anymore, haven’t owned a gun since.</p>
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<p>This just happened in our nearby city, a woman’s car broke down and she went onto a house’s porch to get help and the homeowner shot and killed her.</p>
I may venture out to the mail box in a bit.</p>