I’m trying to figure out how to thread the needle on this. I know CC is not a debate forum, but rather a discussion one. To me, discussion is about trying to establish greater understanding, not necessarily about ‘being right.” I’m not trying to be coy. I genuinely want to understand how we got to where we are today. I would like to hear the voices of everyone wanting to engage in good faith discussion. Can we try this?
I would like to understand how America’s particular form of gun culture became what it is. I understand why the Founding Fathers feared tyranny from the British Monarchy, and why they felt it imperative that the citizenry of the newly formed colonies have the right to arm themselves against it. Tyranny was, after all, what they’d fled (often at the risk of tremendous personal peril), and what they feared most—rightfully so, as it turned out.
But what about today? I know fear of governmental tyranny is still sighted today by some gun rights activists as a primary reason they should have unfettered access to high powered guns, and ammunition, but do they also advocate for the right to access personal rocket launchers, missiles and armored vehicles? Apparently not. Surely a tyrannical government would not limit its muscle to mere assault weapons, if the citizenry it wished to subdue were also armed with such, would it?
Is fear of criminal victimization instead at the heart of staunch gun rights advocacy? Perhaps gun advocates want to make it unequivocally clear to inner city gangs and rouge criminals that they would not be easy targets should those elements take a notion to look for soft targets outside their own neighborhoods. What if there were a way to control criminals’ access to guns? Would that change the gun rights debate?
I just want to understand how we got to the place where gun deaths per capital became so high in this country, as opposed to other countries that also permit citizen’s access to guns. I don’t want to talk about banning guns. I want to understand the sociology. What’s at the heart of our love of guns? What can we do to greatly reduce gun deaths, yet retain a right to access them should we choose?
Back when I was kid you’d see rifles on the backs of trucks in the school parking lot and no one went on shooting rampages. Not just the in the news killings, but the city shootings that get no air time. We’ve changed as a society. I have no interest in being the next Venezuela.
Just delete me if I’m not allowed to say this, but we’ve lost sight of God and family. We also made a terrible mistake imo closing down mental hospitals in the 80’s.
Criminals don’t obey gun laws. Gun free zones just disarm the people we want to most protect.
And yes, I’m a gun owner, I’m trained and would do what I had to in an emergency.
Were those rifles from the backs of trucks in our youth as powerful as what is available and popular today?
If it is about a move away from religion, there are plenty of countries who are less religious than the USA yet don’t face this issue of so much gun violence/mass shootings.
@poetsheart “Is fear of criminal victimization instead at the heart of staunch gun rights advocacy?” My opinion only, but I’d say mean world syndrome has a role here. People who most stridently defend their rights to (expanded, high-powered) gun ownership sound shrill and weak to me. And an armed coward is a lethal, terrifying thing.
Desensitizing youth via violent video games may be a part of the problem.
Great thread idea, who knows if it will survive…
One of the immediate catalysts of the American Revolution was the attempt by Britain to disarm the public in the decade before Concord, so the roots of gun culture run deep.
Fast forward to today, the people I personally know who maintain weapons have first hand experience with how thin the line really is between civility and anarchy. Two phrases I hear often, “one guy with a rifle can keep 200 at distance” and “when seconds count, the police are just minutes away.”
People who have grown up comfortably middle or upper middle class often cannot relate.
We lived in a very rural area for nearly two decades. Almost everyone had guns. Hunting was a huge activity. Every single one of those gun owners supported tighter screenings, waiting periods, bans on multi-round weapons, penalties for those who don’t secure weapons in their homes, etc… IMO the issue is not a societal one, it’s a $ problem, where we allow our special interest groups to buy our elected officials and control policy.
@dropbox77177 What “200” are people you know referring to? (not sarcastic)
@HouseChatte - it’s really just an expression to emphasize how effective a defensive semiautomatic rifle can be. I’ll ask why “200” specifically. The person I’m thinking of who actually used that figure - I’ve heard many variants of the expression of course - is a retired police officer with 25 years’ experience in a major metro area.
“Fast forward to today, the people I personally know who maintain weapons have first hand experience with how thin the line really is between civility and anarchy.”
This seems kind of cryptic to me. Can you give more details regarding what you mean, more specifics? It doesn’t mesh with my world view or circle of friends that does include military and first responders.
Current homicide rate in the US is the lowest it has been since the mid 1960s, about half the level of the early 1990s. Yet people who grew up in the 1970s to the 1990s often fear that crime is worse than back then.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45236.pdf (see figure 2 on page 3)
Also, there were mass shootings in past decades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States
There was also significant domestic terrorism including homicides in the 1950s to 1960s, such as by Ku Klux Klan groups.
Most gun deaths in the US are suicides. If you look at the suicide rate from all causes, the US doesn’t seem that different from many other countries. The reported suicide rates for many countries is under-estimated because some data sources choose to artificially exclude euthanasia from the suicide rate. Most suicides in the Netherlands involve physician assistance.
I love this idea about bringing back mental institutions. Maybe, we should also bring back electroshock therapy too. After watching movies One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and the Fifth Floor when I was kid, I knew I never wanted to be anywhere near an insane asylum.
“We” can’t even manage our nursing homes properly, now, some folks want to bring back mental institutions? Where are we going to locate these mental institutions? How about “we” build one right next to “your” domicile? :lol:
@sushiritto How about “we” fund such institutions properly? I would be proud to pay more tax dollars to ensure resources for said institutions, and would happily live next to one.
And (I swear I’m not trying to increase my post count) I revere data but dread having numbers derail discussion of the larger question, which I take to be about the mindset involved. (please correct me if I misunderstood @poetsheart ) That’s what’s fascinating to me, in a sort of bunny-snake way – what people have to believe and tell themselves in order to swagger about having heavy firepower.
Well, currently, the “mental institutions” are the sidewalk or vacant lot or parking lot or hidden area of a park (any of which may be right next to “your” domicile), and police have taken on added social work responsibilities as part of their job. Not that the old mental institutions were that great either.
I agree that institutions of days passed were abhorrent and the term “mental institutions” evoke horrors for me too. That said, we could do a better job as a whole with providing more supportive environments for those citizens who are seriously ill, including better access to health care, affordable medications, and supports for families. IMO though, this is separate from the original topic.
Regarding suicide rates, it is interesting to note that countries with the highest rates of intentional homicide (e.g., Jamaica, Bahamas, Guatemala, etc.) tend to have some of the lowest rates of suicide.
I doubt availability of guns makes much of a difference as regards suicide rates. The United States suicide rate is below the average European rate, and is comparable with the average for all “high income” countries. Practically none of those countries has the ready availability of firearms that we do. And yet they kill themselves at roughly the same frequency. Note that gun free countries like Japan and South Korea have much higher rates of suicide than we do.
Intentional homicide rate by country with sortable data table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
Suicide rate by country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
There is a lot of stigma still in many countries/cultures re: suicide. Therefore, some countries statistics aren’t really accurate as suicidal deaths aren’t reported as such.
What we do know is that gun assisted suicide attempts in this country result in much more “success” and is many, many more times fatal than other methods of attempted suicide. It doesn’t allow for a last minute change of heart.
^Then, there’s places like the Netherlands, which has the highest suicide rate in the world after including physician assisted suicide.