Gun control - US vs. rest of the world

[superluminal]

I would appreciate it if you indicated in what way you disagree with the description.

"Every American is an island".

We have no friends. No sense of community. We do not band together for our mutual benefit. We all live in the far reaches of Montana in shacks.

This is only some of what your favorite description implies. And by implication, other countries' populations live in interdependent, communistic bliss.

Absurd both ways.

 

[S.A.M.]

"Every American is an island".

We have no friends. No sense of community. We do not band together for our mutual benefit. We all live in the far reaches of Montana in shacks.

This is only some of what your favorite description implies. And by implication, other countries' populations live in interdependent, communistic bliss.

Absurd both ways.

I find the sense of community to be very scarce in the younger generation of Americans. Its very superficial and I'm pretty certain that most of them feel that welfare equals entitlement.

 

[superluminal]

“ Originally Posted by Pandaemoni
...

That said, i do not think owning firearms to defend yourself against the federal government is a good reason to own them. ...

The people who are planning for the revolution need to take off the tin foil hats and realize that, if that fight were ever to come, we've already lost. That so many people are irrational, paranoid and armed is a recipe for disaster.

I'm far more alarmed by the more real possibility that they may be monitoring my phone calls than I am of the farfetched possibility that they might someday try to make me a slave.

While I also generally agree with this, have we not had enough modern (20th century) instances of government oppression and genocide to make it slightly less than the fantasy you make it out to be?

But the reality certainly is that if push came to shove, the american military deployed against it's own citizens would be unconcerned by me and my neighbors 9mm and .22 weapons.

 

[superluminal]

I find the sense of community to be very scarce in the younger generation of Americans. Its very superficial and I'm pretty certain that most of them feel that welfare equals entitlement.

Ummm... ok. But what does welfare have to do with it???

 

[Oniw17]

While I also generally agree with this, have we not had enough modern (20th century) instances of government oppression and genocide to make it slightly less than the fantasy you make it out to be?

But the reality certainly is that if push came to shove, the american military deployed against it's own citizens would be unconcerned by me and my neighbors 9mm and .22 weapons.

Even the cops would be; they use automatic weapons...here at least.

 

[James R]

quadraphonics:

Riiiight. The reasons Americans disagree with you is because they're brainwashed and terrorized, not because reasonable people can differ on the subject.

Do you not think the NRA is unreasonably influential in determining gun policy in the United States?

Do you think the amount of violence in the American media does not contribute to creating a culture of fear?

No, really, tell me. I'm interested to hear your point of view on these issues.

First of all, I haven't seen it demonstrated that the changes in gun laws you proposed would "obviously benefit the populace as a whole."

You're right. I have not done that in this thread. I suggest you investigate this for yourself.

The fact is that America is a liberal democracy, and so the gun laws reflect the collective judgement of the American people on said cost-benefit analysis. There are plenty of gun-control types out there making the case for it, so it's not as if people aren't being exposed to both sides of the story.

I'm not so sure that both sides of the story get equal airing, as you claim.

It is pretty funny to see how vexed you get when 300 million people shrug off the conclusions you consider to be so self-evident though.

What gave you the idea I'm "vexed"? I'm getting exactly the reaction I expected here.

Perhaps a more plausible explanation is not that hundreds of millions of people suffer from some kind of conspiracy/personality deficiency, but that the policy prescriptions you offer are not nearly as self-evidently beneficial as you believe.

I never claimed their benefits were self-evident. Clearly, many Americans see no benefit, and much harm in gun control. At the very least, we can conclude that what is "self-evident" to many in other parts of the world is not at all self-evident to Americans. Which was basically my point.

We have a healthy ongoing national debate about guns (and everything else), to which you are not contributing in the least with your silly propaganda threads.

I do not believe I have posted any "propaganda" in this thread. There is no bias in the poll that I can see. Either you agree with the propositions or you disagree. I'm not forcing anything down your throat.

It would be nice if you'd at least tried to stack up *some* evidence before descending into derrogatory generalizations. Characterizing people for their presumed responses to an argument you don't bother to make in the first place is not exactly a great way to get through to them.

It's worth mentioning that this isn't the first thread on gun control we have had on sciforums. Perhaps if you do a brief search you might find some of the evidence you require. Some of it may even have been posted by me - you never know.

The poll results speak for themselves, don't you think?

Yes, but they don't say what you seem to think they say. In order to read them as "America is out of step with the rest of the world," we'd have to presume that SciForums represents a meaningful sample of the world population, which it manifestly does not. Apart from the United States, posters here are overwhelmingly from Australia, Canada and the UK.

I wondered how long it would take somebody (an American, inevitably) to raise this objection.

Of course I'm not stupid enough to assume that 10 or 100 people on an internet forum speak for the entire world, or even entire parts of the world. My poll is a sample of the views of a certain (very small) sub-population of the United States and of elsewhere. That subpopulation is unrepresentative in many ways. The people who have access to the poll are affluent, mostly of above-average intelligence, presumably with some appreciation of the issue at hand, who are also interested enough to want to venture an opinion. They are people who know sciforums exists.

But what of that? No poll ever has perfect "random" selection. Look hard enough and you'll find biases in every poll sample.

You're smart enough to know what the results of a sciforums poll reflects, and what it does not. So are most of the other people reading it, I'm sure. But claiming that such a poll shows us nothing at all meaningful is as silly as claiming that it can be extrapolated to everyone everywhere.

Considering that these countries have a combined population that is less than half that of the United States, it would be more correct to ask why they're out of step with the United States.

That's very much a matter of your point of view, isn't it? Naturally, you see America as a leader and probably above reproach and beyond comparison. Maybe it is time you recognised that there is a world beyond the borders of the United States.

Of course, that framing wouldn't accord with your obvious bias, or satisfy your apparent need to speak from a position of presumed (and laughably unearned) authority...

What "authority" do you think I need to post this thread? What qualifications do you require?


superluminal:

"Every American is an island".

We have no friends. No sense of community. We do not band together for our mutual benefit. We all live in the far reaches of Montana in shacks.

This is only some of what your favorite description implies. And by implication, other countries' populations live in interdependent, communistic bliss.

Absurd both ways.

That's an exaggeration of what I meant. But then again, what I wrote was a bit of a rhetorical flourish, too, so your reaction is understandable.

It is worth considering to what extent the statement is true, though, don't you think, rather than simply dismissing it outright?

 

[superluminal]

That's an exaggeration of what I meant. But then again, what I wrote was a bit of a rhetorical flourish, too, so your reaction is understandable.

Yes.

It is worth considering to what extent the statement is true, though, don't you think, rather than simply dismissing it outright?

Of course. In another thread I stated that Americans are generallyconsidered to fit the stereotype of the "rugged individualist" in mentality. I suppose I was only taking exception the the extremity of the statement, and a certain persons (sam's) reaction to it.

 

[Buffalo Roam]

I graduated from high school in 1960. WWII was too recent to be covered in our classes. They didn't teach us about anything after the Civil War. They didn't believe in discussing current events with kids, that would have been a usurpation of parental rights. Sort of like how bad it would have been to arrest parents who beat their kids because they always had a really good reason.

Were Did you go to School, you weren't taught about WWII? I graduated in the 60tys to and WWII was part of the Main Stream Curriculum, a full quarter, we also had a quarter of WWII, in World Government we had a full quarter, the ramifications of the political lead up, and mistakes of WWII.

Nonetheless, from what I was able to learn by talking to older people, it seemed to me that in the 1930s America had already made it clear that it was an ally of Stalin and an enemy of Hitler. One of my aunts and her husband emigrated to the USSR in the 1930s and after her husband disappeared into a gulag she returned, and nobody thought anything of it. Hard as it is to believe today, Americans were pretty sanguine about what was going on in Russia.

Yes, there were certain People who thought that the Soviets were harmless, but it wasn't Government Policy, we sent troops to fight the Bolsheviks on the side of the White Russians as a matter of United States Policy.

You didn't pay very good attention to your Aunts Story, what don't you understand that your Uncle became a victim of the Soviet Secret Police, and the Communist System.

Not to demean Hilter's concentration camps--in which distant members of my own homogenized American family died--but virtually no Americans knew that it was going on. The abuses of Stalin--which my own aunt could attest to--were considered less reprehensible than the results of Woodrow Wilson's machinations at the end of WWI that are largely to blame for the rise of Nazism.

Not by most Americans, in my own family the Soviet Communist were a despised, pox ridden, bunch of bastards, only those who had the mistaken belief that the Soviet System was a benign governmental system, went to Soviet Russia, in their hundreds and there many just disappeared, into the vast Soviet Concentration Camps

The vast majority of Americans had no desire to form any alliance with the Russian Communist.

Hitler knew that if America were to enter the war we would fight on the side of the Allies, so after Pearl Harbor it was a given. Declaring on us was a mere formality. We were fighting with the Brits against the Japanese and we would have fought with them against the Germans. America always sides with Britain, no matter what.

We didn't fight with the Brits against the Japanese until the Japanese attacked us both, the Japanese Declared War on both the United States and Britain on Dec.7, 1941, before then there were no military actions between the Japanese and Britain.

I'm not really complaining, I love dear old England as much as any American. King Arthur, Shakespeare, the Beatles, James Bond. God save the Queen. But love is not rational and it often has dire consequences.

Still, I don't really know whether the world would have turned out better if WWII had gone the other way. But the way it did turn out was surely no better than it was before the war. Was it really worth sixty million deaths? The genie of nuclear weapons out of the bottle? A brand new Jewish nation built--in the stooopidest possible place? A billion people living under communism?

Sixty years later, it's as clear as ever that war is NEVER worth it. Clear to everyone except the selfish, corrupt morons who rule our countries.

Really? Sixty years of no Nazi Concentration Camps, remember it wasn't only Jews who disappeared into the Maw of the Camp System of the Nazi, and it was no summer camp, that they were sent to, there were as many as 6 million non-Jewish Poles, Jehovah Witness, Roma, Catholics and other Christians, Political Prisoners, Homosexuals, and Mentally Disabled, who died in the camps, and if the Germans had won, it would have never stopped.

Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Some three million non-Jewish Polish citizens perished during the course of the war, ... Some 100000 Poles passed through the Majdanek concentration camp in ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_crimes_against_ethnic_Poles

Really? Sixty years of not having to live under the Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere, were the only prosperity was to the Japanese, how many more millions would have died under the Japanese Feudal System, how many millions had Japan already killed in China, forced to be Comfort Girls, fancy name for forced prostitution, Nanking, .................

 

[superluminal]

For the record:

Ban all automatic weapons from private ownership.
Disagree.

Require the registration of ownership of all guns and ammunition.
Disagree.

Require a licence to own a gun privately.
Agree.


Require cause to be shown to obtain a gun licence (e.g. farmers, members of shooting clubs).
Disagree.

 

[iceaura]

“ Originally Posted by iceaura
An unarmed citizenry is subject to slavery at any time. But less dramatically, and more to the point, the procedures and intrusions involved in the disarmament of an unwilling and already armed citizenry require far more justification than some variable, multi-sourced level of street crime and gun violence. These intrusions are not compatible with civil liberties and ordinary freedoms. ”

More confirmation of the point I made above. Individual freedom is top of the list, even at the expense of community safety and wellbeing.

There is nothing in my quote there about "individual freedom" - and elsewhere in my posts here you will find community wellbeing as the touchstone, more important than the risks to individuals involved in widespread gun ownership.

Civil liberties and ordinary freedoms are community benefits. Even though I own no firearms, I would rather some do in my community. I certainly do not want a distant government restricting them and confiscating them from my neighbors - that would be a very bad sign.

Do you not think the NRA is unreasonably influential in determining gun policy in the United States?

Do you think the amount of violence in the American media does not contribute to creating a culture of fear?

Yes and yes, in my opinion.

But those are both far more recent phenomena than private firearms in America, and the stubborn insistence on keeping them. Those have other motives, and deeper roots.

I never claimed their benefits were self-evident. Clearly, many Americans see no benefit, and much harm in gun control. At the very least, we can conclude that what is "self-evident" to many in other parts of the world is not at all self-evident to Americans. Which was basically my point.

Your fourth poll question reveals an inability to see what is obvious to a high percentage of Americans. It seems as though a very high percentage of non-Americans here share this blind spot. That is an interesting phenomenon.

One reason Americans have what you claim is an unusual attitude toward that kind of gun control may be that Americans are almost unique in their history of firearm ownership. We have long cultural experience with widespread private gun ownership among all classes of society - not many other civilized cultures do. So we fear it less - neighbors with firearms are ordinary neighbors, not fearsome threats. We fear our government more than we fear our neighbors.

That's sensible. You do not fear your government enough, in our view. You are far too trusting. You seem to think the police will always be on your side, if you are a good citizen. Sooner or later, you will get bit in a way we have avoided for hundreds of years.

 

[2inquisitive]

James R,

Again, an interesting set of responses from the Americans since I last looked. So defensive.

I think the responses were entirely predictable, don't you James R? If you didn't expect these responses, then you are extremely naive. If you did expect these responses, then you were merely trolling. Isn't that correct James R?

I think the real problem American gun supporters have, aside from issues of being brainwashed by the NRA

I think the US Bill of Rights and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a little older than the NRA.

and living in a culture of fear

You do seem a little confused, James R. Remember your favorite term, 'homophobe', which you define as someone with a irrational fear of homosexuals? I think you and your philosophy is due to your being a 'gunphobe', someone with an irrational fear of guns.

Americans are generally unwilling to give up any individual freedom, even if doing so would obviously benefit the populace as a whole.

We do not believe giving up our freedoms will benefit the populace as a whole. So you believe it is an 'obvious benefit' for the populace to give up their freedoms? You obviously support a dictatorship. Enough said.

 

[Bells]

We fear our government more than we fear our neighbors.

That's sensible. You do not fear your government enough, in our view. You are far too trusting. You seem to think the police will always be on your side, if you are a good citizen. Sooner or later, you will get bit in a way we have avoided for hundreds of years.

I am curious about something. Do you think the reason your Government has not turned against you is because of the the citizen's right to arm themselves? Do you think your right to own a gun has resulted in the Police and the Government from not revolting against the citizens? Do you think it is your guns that ensure the Government and the Police tows the line? The reason I ask is because your statement above intrigues me.

 

[James R]

iceaura:

That's sensible. You do not fear your government enough, in our view. You are far too trusting. You seem to think the police will always be on your side, if you are a good citizen. Sooner or later, you will get bit in a way we have avoided for hundreds of years.

I doubt it.

I live in Australia. Personally, I trust our constitutional arrangements and parliamentary democracy to protect me from bad government, rather than owning a gun and trusting that I could protect myself if the government ordered the army, say, to come after me.

If we have a bad government in Australia, we vote them out. We don't conduct private gun-toting raids on the parliament.

I'm not sure why you don't trust your own political system. It seems very robust to me. There are built-in checks and balances in the separation of powers your Constitution enshrines. If a President tries to grab too much power, he will inevitably come into conflict with Congress and/or the Courts sooner or later. I can't see that the kind of vigilante justice advocated by opponents of gun control will ever be necessary in the United States.

 

[James R]

2inquisitive:

I think the responses were entirely predictable, don't you James R?

Yes. I've said as much at least twice, above.

If you didn't expect these responses, then you are extremely naive. If you did expect these responses, then you were merely trolling. Isn't that correct James R?

No, as I explained above at least twice. (Have you read the whole thread?)

I think the US Bill of Rights and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a little older than the NRA.

You're right. Be the refusal to see sense and move with the changing times is at least partly due to the NRA's influence, in my opinion. The Constitution is changeable, if the people want it. It is not set in stone forever. My question is: what prevents people changing their minds on this? And what is special in the American mindset, compared to the rest of the world?

You do seem a little confused, James R. Remember your favorite term, 'homophobe', which you define as someone with a irrational fear of homosexuals? I think you and your philosophy is due to your being a 'gunphobe', someone with an irrational fear of guns.

I think anybody who is does not have a healthy fear of guns has problems. I don't think my fear of guns is irrational. I think it is rational.

Notice, though, that I have not suggested a total ban on all guns for the purposes of this thread - merely some restrictions I consider reasonable.

We do not believe giving up our freedoms will benefit the populace as a whole. So you believe it is an 'obvious benefit' for the populace to give up their freedoms? You obviously support a dictatorship. Enough said.

What an extreme reaction. Interesting.

 

[2inquisitive]

“ If you didn't expect these responses, then you are extremely naive. If you did expect these responses, then you were merely trolling. Isn't that correct James R? ”

James R,

No, as I explained above at least twice. (Have you read the whole thread?)

Well, most of it. Is this your explanation?

It's worth mentioning that this isn't the first thread on gun control we have had on sciforums....
But claiming that such a poll shows us nothing at all meaningful is as silly as claiming that it can be extrapolated to everyone everywhere.

I assume the 'No' means you did expect the answers as you have had other threads that gave the same results. You say the poll shows us something meaningful. What new information did you gain that was meaningful? You, and almost everyone else, already knew what the poll would illustrate. You, and almost everyone else, knew the poll would result in controversy and argument. Again, what was the purpose of your poll?

The Constitution is changeable, if the people want it. It is not set in stone forever. My question is: what prevents people changing their minds on this? And what is special in the American mindset, compared to the rest of the world?

That is correct. The majority of the US population realize our country was founded on the principle of individual freedoms, which are guaranteed in our Constitution. We do not want to change our constitution. Show me evidence that 'the rest of the world' wants to change the basic principles in their constitutions.

I think anybody who is does not have a healthy fear of guns has problems. I don't think my fear of guns is irrational. I think it is rational.

I think mentally healthy individuals should have a respect for guns, not a fear. I think mentally healthy individuals should have a respect for homosexuals, not a fear.

Notice, though, that I have not suggested a total ban on all guns for the purposes of this thread - merely some restrictions I consider reasonable.

So you think it is reasonable that you can suggest to Americans that they should change their constitution? And you do not think that is a bit arrogant?

What an extreme reaction. Interesting.

It is an example of the sterotyping that you have made in this thread. You sterotype anyone who disagrees with you as 'gun nuts', 'brainwashed by the NRA', etc. I merely sterotyped you in the same manner.

 

[James R]

2inquisitive:

I assume the 'No' means you did expect the answers as you have had other threads that gave the same results.

No other thread has presented a poll similar to this one, that I can recall.

You say the poll shows us something meaningful. What new information did you gain that was meaningful? You, and almost everyone else, already knew what the poll would illustrate.

I suspected, but I did not know for sure. I was and am interested in the differences in mindset between the Americans on sciforums and the people of other nationalities when it comes to this particular issue.

I think the discussion this has generated has been quite interesting. Don't you?

You, and almost everyone else, knew the poll would result in controversy and argument. Again, what was the purpose of your poll?

To highlight the controversy and perhaps provoke argument.

The majority of the US population realize our country was founded on the principle of individual freedoms, which are guaranteed in our Constitution. We do not want to change our constitution. Show me evidence that 'the rest of the world' wants to change the basic principles in their constitutions.

Actually, I'm not sure that implementing the measures I suggested in the opening post would require an amendment of the US Constitution. Perhaps they would, perhaps they wouldn't. It doesn't really matter. I'm interested in the in-principle support or disagreement with the suggested measures, not the practicalities of changing the laws.

As far as general questions regarding the changing of constitutions go, we've actually having discussions about that in another thread right now, not directly related to gun control (thread title is something like "Israel has no constitution"). From time to time, most countries do amend their constitutions to a greater or lesser degree. It has happened in the US in the past, and there's no reason to expect it won't happen in the future.

I think mentally healthy individuals should have a respect for guns, not a fear. I think mentally healthy individuals should have a respect for homosexuals, not a fear.

I think most people react differently when a homosexual is pointed at them compared to when a gun is pointed at them.

So you think it is reasonable that you can suggest to Americans that they should change their constitution? And you do not think that is a bit arrogant?

Not at all. I'm as entitled to express my opinion as anybody else. Feel free to join in the chorus of your countrymen who are telling me I don't know "shit" about America, if it makes you feel better.

It is an example of the sterotyping that you have made in this thread. You sterotype anyone who disagrees with you as 'gun nuts', 'brainwashed by the NRA', etc. I merely sterotyped you in the same manner.

Fair enough.

 

[James R]

Poll update:

Americans: 80% against the gun-control measures suggested in the OP.
Rest of the world: 85% in favour.

Quite a difference of opinion.

 

[iceaura]

I am curious about something. Do you think the reason your Government has not turned against you is because of the the citizen's right to arm themselves?[1] Do you think your right to own a gun has resulted in the Police and the Government from not revolting against the citizens? [2] Do you think it is your guns that ensure the Government and the Police tows the line? [3]

1] Partly. And "turned against us" is not the image - creeping authoritarian privilege accumulating to intrusive dominance of daily life is the worry.
2] No.
3] Toe the line. Yes, in certain ways.

Example: If the only recourse of the average citizen is appeal to distant courts, or writing their Congressman, some US police will just walk into private homes and toss stuff. They'll gradually get out of the habit of knocking, obtaining warrants, etc - criminals get away, after all, when courtesies are observed. That's how some have in fact acted against disenfranchised people - such as black people in some areas, in the recent past - who could not safely resist them.

Eventually, as things are, police who do that will get shot. And they know it. It keeps everyone honest. They have to take home invasion seriously - bulletproof vests, many police and backups, advance preparation, warrants and proper records and so forth. And so a man's home is his castle, even if he is poor and powerless, and has been for hundreds of years through many governments and great changes. That is not true of, say, a Japanese home. Or an Australian home.

But that's not the main issue, in modern times in the US. The main issue is the sorts of intrusions and violations that would be necessary to impose the sorts of gun regulations other countries have. We are an armed citizenry in the first place - that cannot be changed without major application of force.

I live in Australia. Personally, I trust our constitutional arrangements and parliamentary democracy to protect me from bad government, rather than owning a gun and trusting that I could protect myself if the government ordered the army, say, to come after me.

Well, good luck to you and your neighbors. It's not the army you need to worry about initially, though, if history is any guide - the bad news from the army is usually the last step.

 

[S.A.M.]

Is home invasion a serious concern in countries which are also democratic but have more restricted gun laws?

 

[geistkiesel]

There is a very clear reason for the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution

A quick poll of sciforums members.

Please answer whether you are for or against the following specific measures:

• Ban all automatic weapons from private ownership.
• Require the registration of ownership of all guns and ammunition.
• Require a licence to own a gun privately.
• Require cause to be shown to obtain a gun licence (e.g. farmers, members of shooting clubs).

That will do for the purposes of this poll.

If you disagree with any of the above measures, vote disagree. If you agree in principle (even if you think certain details might need tweaking) vote agree.

While the American public and the rest of the world in general may be unfamiliar with the background of the 2nd Amendment, the framers of the US Constitutuion had a very sane and reasoned intention when including this most important provision as part of the "supreme law of the land".

In general the framers and the politicians of all political spectra had a universal understanding that denying the people of the right to keep and bear arms would leave the country in a state of despotism and tyranny. It was the armed populace that would keep an armed "army" run by the politicians of course, on the straight and narrow.

Some examples:
"The supreme power ibn America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops" Noah Webster 1787

"American need not fear the federal government because they enjoy the advantage of being armed, which you possess over the people of almost any other nation" James Madison 1788

"I ask sir, what is the militia? Ity is the whole people. To disarm them is the best and most effective way to enslave them" Richard Henry Lee 1788


"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep amd bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in their government." Thomas Jefferson


"Both the oligarch and Tyrant mistrust the people, amnd therefore deprive them of their arms." Aristotle

"If I were an American, as I am an Emglishman, while a foreigh troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms --never--never--never." William Pitt 1777

"If the Constitution is to be construed to mean what the majority at any given period in history wish the Constitution to mean, why a written Constitution?" Frank J. Hogan President of the American Bar Association 1939

"If the people are deprived of the right to keep and bear arms, then crimes, including murder and robbery, would be perpetrated with knives, clubs, poisons and 'illegally' manufactured or acquired "arms". Even the law abiding would secretly keep and bear arms, if for no other reason than to protect themselves, their family and community, from any armed, or threat of armed, intrusion." Geistkiesel 2007

"The criminaliziing of conduct that is legal and constitutes fundamental rights, such as the inalienable right to keep and bear arms, never results in social order, the opposite is true. Such criminalizing of lawful conduct on such a wide scale merely inflates the prison population which then becomes a state manufactured source of an ever growing criminal population." Geistkiesel 2007 :shrug:​