Safer WITH, or WITHOUT, Gun Control? USA -vs- UK

Guns are not a solution or problem to anything, they're just a means of dealing with an existing reality. If you know how to fix society so no one has to worry about being raped, mugged, stabbed, shot, robbed, ect tonight, we'd like to know it.

 

Mad

All you’ve just said there is that the desire for a gun for protection is a symptom born out of a perceived threat, to you the solution to the threat is a gun.

To you ‘reality’ is the constant fear that you may be a victim of rape, being mugged, stabbed, shot, or robbed.

A symptom of this fear is a desire to have a gun to protect you, your solution to the perceived threat is having a gun.

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What I’ve been saying is that if people didn’t have such high levels of fear they wouldn’t feel that they needed guns for protection.

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As to fixing society overnight, I’ve just been through that at length – I’ve never said there is an instantaneous fix, the issues are complex and any solutions are likely to take time to take effect.

What I fear is that many pro-gunners are less interested in making there society better than they are in having guns to protect them from their society’s ills.

 

The problems run deep.

Many movies promote a "I ain't no bitch, time to fight!!" macho-mentality that belongs in the caveman era. Rap glorifies many negative things in life, and people become worshippers of "evil". The capitalistic system of today leads to a mentality of scarcity, where you hoard dollars and you have to hoard resources because you have no security. People are taught to repress emotions instead of express, leading to a constant tainted expression of their being. The "village to raise a child" mentality is gone, so people leave secretive isolated lives where the individual truth of each being is not readily integrated into the world. The media is bullshit. The gvt. is bullshit, and the way we choose to allocate resources is bullshit. People don't take the time to look deeply into themselves and realize their minds create their realities. People are addicted to candy bars and t.v. We spend billions of dollars on the military complex and medical treatment when we could use that money in other ways. We have a bullshit fiat money system. Bs drug policies that CREATE drug gangs because of the black market, and then they convince the people to believe drugs are the problem instead of understanding basic economic principles. We don't live according to nature's balance, and so ultimately the imbalance is reflected in our poor water quality, air quality, and food quality (Nature doesn't provide filet mignon to every person on the globe. We try to take shortcuts to make Nature work our way, but we always lose that battle)

The list goes on for eternity, and IMO its not simply one thing or another. It's a very complex interaction of ideas which form to create an all-around imprisoned and negative mentality for the general population, while those up high who manipulate the system are free from it. Purposely made that way so that those above the system can manipulate those below for their benefit. The inability to understand the Self is the only reason we have problems today. If people understood the Self in relation to everything in the above paragraph, they would be able to consciously choose to either accept that world or change it. IMO any solution to Balbus' stated problems starts with helping people to understand the Self.

 

RIGHT ON!!!:cheers2:

 

Maybe you are actually posting in the wrong category. I think this should be in a psychology forum...

 

Well, of course not. That even goes without saying. And does not address REALITY in the PRESENT DAY.

What makes it "seem" that way to you? Oh, I forgot, you don't answer questions, sorry.

So, I'll just address this idea. Can you take reality? Because reality is that "people" (in general taken as a whole) are egocentric, selfish, violent assholes. We, "generally speaking" are barely out of the baboon mentality. "People" usually take the easy, downhill path to destruction. "People" don't have the intellect to figure out how to simply get along and help each other.

OK, so, that said, it's obvious that not ALL people are like this. And those that aren't have a way of being fodder for those who are. Because those that are could give a damn if they are doing something bad. And those who aren't like that are alot of times NON-VIOLENT. Well, a stop sign could be seen as non violent, but that won't stop a car coming at it 100 mph....

Ah, so all your ranting comes down to you FEAR.

And it seems you are afraid of people having guns.

Did something traumatic happen to you in the past?...

 

everyone sane is afraid of guns. guns are bought for use, and using a gun is per definition dangerous.

if something traumatic happened in his past, would this be a reason for you to make fun of him? :toetap05:

 

A society where people have any free will will always have some level of crime. There's no evidence that I've seen that the crimes you've just listed are any less prevalent in the States, where civilian gun ownership is fairly widespread, than they are in the UK, where it is not.

I'm not against guns in themselves, since there are plenty of countries where gun ownership is if anything higher than it is in the States - Switzerland having I believe slightly more guns than people, Canada being roughly the same as the US - which have significantly less gun crime and crime in general. But the idea that gun ownership has a hope of lowering the US's crime rate is just unsupported by reality.

It is clear enough to me that guns are neither the cause of nor the solution to America's problems. Americans' attitude towards guns may, however, explain these things. Even accidental gun-related fatalities - the archetypal Little Junior getting into Daddy's gun cabinet - don't seem to be as prevalent in other countries as they are in the US.

I'm not offering a solution to all rape, murder and theft that ever happens, so I doubt that you'll be persuaded that everyone owning more guns is not a damn good start.

 

That sounds like a pretty persuasive reason to keep guns as far away from them as humanly possible. If people don't have the "intellect" to get along with each other (and I honestly think intellect has very little to do with this, and god knows Internet forums are a pretty good example of that), then surely the last thing you want is for them to be in possession of significant lethal force.

 

Many, many people must be insane than...

No, it would make it to where a body could at least understand where he is coming from.

 

But the prob is that it doesn't matter WHAT anyone wants.

I don't think there is one soul here who wouldn't rather live in a world that was non violent and where everyone got along and respected each other...

Prob is, we seem to be talking about what we WISH could be as opposed to what IS. And everyone doing most of the arguing for a world without guns has no power to do a damn thing about the reasons WHY people DO own guns. All they seem to be able to think of is having guns be "banned" or "illegal" which is a great way to invite "big brother" into your world and create more NANNY laws. AND a great way to arm the "bad guys". So basically arguing for something that CAN'T happen. Which could keep a body arguing "BUT WHAT IF...." forever...

 

You might be. I'm not. I'm well aware of the risks. The difference is, I don't think that those risks are unacceptable enough to warrant widespread gun ownership in the hope of reducing them.

Speaking purely from personal experience, I've been mugged and unprovokedly beaten up in the past. Whether you trust my judgment or not, I do not personally believe that, in those situations, owning a gun would not have made any difference. Here is why.

For starters, I would have had to have had it with me at the time. Sounds obvious, but on these occasions I was going to or from a night club, or getting home from work. I don't know what it's like in the US, but I can't imagine that, on those occasions, I would be carrying a gun with me even if I owned one.

Secondly, since these were unprovoked attacks, preventing them with a gun would have required me to have the time and foresight to pull it on the attacker. The attacker does not know that I have a gun, after all. Even if I was only intending to wave it at them to scare them, I doubt that I would have been able to do that.

I also doubt my readiness to do so even if I did have the opportunity, since I am not by my nature someone who enjoys threatening people. Apart from anything else, if I have a gun, there's a fair chance he has one too, right? And being the sort of person who'd beat up a stranger, rather than the sort of person who'd get beat up BY a stranger, I suspect he would have the advantage on me; pulling a gun in that situation seems more likely to get me shot than to prevent me from being harmed.

Fourthly, having been beaten up, it's not improbable that my attackers would then have taken my gun. So that would be one more firearm for the bad guys, and my good self still with a broken nose.

In short, in my entirely personal and entirely anecdotal experience, I do not believe that owning a gun would make me personally any less susceptible to crime.

That's one side. The other side is more obvious: how to measure the risks of crime. It has been my experience that people tend to overstate risks to justify doing or not doing things that they want to do anyway. People are very easy to manipulate when you're appealing to their fear and other negative instincts. As an example, a recent study showed that people in the UK believe the teen pregnancy rate to be about 40% on average - it's actually less than 1%! As such, without statistics, I tend not to trust people's assessment of risks. If one is looking for an excuse, just about any risk can be "unacceptable", even if it's infinitesimal. If the risk is nominal, you may gain little from halving it (from 1 in 20,000 to 1 in 10,000, say), and the fact that a criminal is more likely to be armed would carry with it its own risks. Get stabbed or punched, and you have far more chance of getting medical attention in time than if you get shot. I'd think that's pretty obvious.

It's patronising to assume that anyone who is opposed to widespread gun ownership must be somehow blind to reality. I know that the reality is that there is a risk of crime; you think that it's worth everyone owning a gun in the hope of reducing that risk, whereas I don't. If we cannot accept that someone who holds an opposing viewpoint is as smart and aware of the world as we are, we're no better than politicians think we are.

Speaking from a country where gun ownership is largely illegal, I don't see any evidence that I have any less rights (apart from that one, obviously) than you do. Nor do I see any evidence that I am more likely to be a victim of crime than if I lived in the US. If you want to present me with some, we might be able to go somewhere with this.

 

I bet things look differently depending on where you live...

 

oni

Well the Scandinavian countries have a capitalistic system, but resources are distributed in a more egalitarian way. More socialised and equality based systems are possible.

Can you be a little more specific.

Well I’ve already mentioned dangerous forms of individualism and that some people seem to promote fear and mistrust, it can be very hard for people to integrate when so many American seem to think their fellow citizens are “liars, cheats, incredibly self centered, money hungry, raping, weapon wielding, gang joining, drug using, murdering, sometimes mentally disturbed sons of bitches”

If people perceive their society as dangerous they are going to fear it.

But only if the money was reallocated – a lot of people enter the military because it provides things that they would have got anyway under a welfare state, education, healthcare, professional training etc.

So maybe the best thing to do is bring in a welfare system and slowly shifting the resources over to if from the military.

There have been a few discussions here with many good ideas on how to reform US drugs policies.

So we pursue policies that address that imbalance.

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And so on and so on. The thing is that there are many answers out there to these and many other issues.

The problem as I see it is that many Americans don’t seem to want change or don’t seem to think things can change.

As is highlighted by many of the pro-gunners attitudes and mentality.

 

Earthmother

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What I’ve been saying is that if people didn’t have such high levels of fear they wouldn’t feel that they needed guns for protection.

So why not think of ways to try and reduce that fear, so that the reality of the future is different that today’s?
What I’m highlighting is that many pro-gunners don’t seem to think things can change for the better and promote guns as a solution to their societies ills.
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What I’m asking is why are people seemingly turning to guns for personal protection rather than trying to work together to fix things for the better on a societal level?

Why do you indulge in this rather immature point scoring?
It’s not even vaguely true, I’m very happy to answer questions and in fact have answered the one you pose here many times (you’d know that if you’d read the threads I linked to earlier in this thread)
To put it simply
If you go into virtually any thread on this subject you will see fear mongering being used to sell guns.
It will be about violence and how guns are the only thing that can stand between a victim being violently abused, raped or murdered as if to say - ‘You should be afraid, very afraid…so get a gun’

It is about selling the view that guns are a solution to living in a violent society.

But are they?

Guns may or may not be of much use if something occurs but a gun can’t stop that thing from ever taking place.

So why not work toward trying to stop the something happening in the first place? By working to make a society where those things are a lot less likely to happen.

But that’s what you don’t seem to get from pro-gunners, many don’t seem to question the violence in their society (it is just the ‘reality’) and few seem to offer up solutions, or suggest things that could only make the situation worse.

They just seem to want to sell guns as a solution they don’t seem to be thinking about alternative solutions.

(It’s like some type of viral advertising campaign, consumerism as a way of dealing with social ills.)

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To repeat what I’ve said before
“it often seems to come down to two differing philosophies. One is divisive built on fear and mistrust and retribution, the other is about community and is built on hope, inclusiveness and redemption.”

And here again the ‘reality’ that people have little chance in changing (the implication being – so why bother) and the sowing of the seeds of fear and mistrust of other people (implying that the only way to be is armed).

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What I fear is that many pro-gunners are less interested in making there society better than they are in having guns to protect them from their society’s ills.

Oh dear, once more with the snide remarks.

I grew up in the countryside, where a lot of people had guns and was once a member of a gun club. But no of them had guns for the specific reason of protecting them against other people.

As to traumatic events, I’ve had a long life and there have been a number of traumatic events are you saying you haven’t. None have been in direct connection with guns although once hitch hiking in France I did have a shotgun pointed at my head by some drunken hunters but it wasn’t ‘traumatic’ they were just being stupid.

Now in regards to fear, well look at your own statements many seem soaked in fear of others, almost to the point of paranoia.

My fear is not of people but for people, I fear for the future of US society when so many Americans seem to have these divisive attitudes.

 

But I don’t think there are many here that think that ‘everyone’ being non-violent and respectful was possible. But it might be something worth aiming for, in other words improving things and possibly bringing about a society where fear was reduced to the point where people didn’t feel they needed deadly force to protect themselves from their fellow citizens.

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As I said earlier this is the conservative view that supports the status quo, if you don’t wish for change and just accept ‘what IS’ then nothing ever changes.

I’d rather work and hope from a better future rather than just wallow in the mire clutching a gun to my chest in fear.

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As pointed out the history of the US doesn’t point to guns stopping government suppression.

I’m not saying that law abiding citizens can’t own guns only that it would be a good thing for American society if people didn’t feel so afraid that they felt they needed a gun for protection. And most of that would involve policies that had nothing to do directly with guns.

But this is an example of the attitudes and mentality I’ve been trying to highlight. The belief that nothing much (or nothing) can be done to improve society so there is little or no point in trying. And if little or nothing can be done the only solution they see is guns.

To me it is that attitude that could be the real problem because it means little is likely to change except for the worst.

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I bet there are an awful lot of people doing just that. I know I am. Not just THINKING of ways, but actually DOING things towards the positive.

Yea, we know you are. Over and over again like a broken record. As if that was the be-all-and-end-all of the discussion. Which is is not.

I think you are putting too much stock in what a handfull of strangers on the internet "seem" to be saying in limited words and space on a politics forum. That does not make it an all encompassing fact across the board. It just means that maybe you need to get a wider perspective.

I don't get why you think nobody is doing anything towards the positive? Just because I wanna own a gun, just in case I need it, does NOT mean that I don't ACTIVELY do things EVERY DAY to make things better for my little corner of the universe. And I'm sure many many other gun owners feel the same. That's what I "see".

I think what you are not getting is that people have ALREADY thought about the alternatives for a long time and WISH the alternatives were available, but they are NOT YET, and so......

Yea, sure, and there is NO middle ground, right?

But the trouble is, when you get to the "implying" part, you are just making a judgment based on your imperfect understanding. Or maybe that is actually how YOU think and you just assume that all others think like YOU do....

Oh, this is exactly what I'm talking about. YOU see it as a snide remark, I see it as an honest question based upon your "seemingly" biased stance.

But, very strange. Because even tho I "seem" to be paranoid and afraid of people, I am actually a VERY SOCIAL ANIMAL who has, at various times, had upwards of 1500 "guests" residing on our farm at one time, most of them strangers. Why? Because I wanted to SHARE good food, good music, good vibes, and a whole lotta love and caring for others. Now, why on earth would someone totally afraid of people DO that???

And talking about "divisive attitudes", THAT is exactly why I hate placeing labels on people. It is ultimately divisive, and I would rather take individuals at face value, and take their stance on various issues on a case by case basis.

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But the prob is that it doesn't matter WHAT anyone wants.

I don't think there is one soul here who wouldn't rather live in a world that was non violent and where everyone got along and respected each other...

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Prob is, we seem to be talking about what we WISH could be as opposed to what IS.

Again, I really don't get where you got the impression that people who want to keep a gun are just sort of mindlessly "clutching" their guns. This reminds me of that thing Obama said about people clinging to their guns and their bibles... As if we are ALL just a bunch of stupid rednecks.

Yea, a very good thing. That too goes without saying...

But, the only one I see saying there is no point in trying is YOU, and you "seem to be" trying to place that feeling on others who would like to be free to own a gun... Really, you seem more to be arguing with yourself than anyone else. Nobody disagrees with your idea that IF things were better we wouldn't feel the need to have guns, and IF we don't work towards a better world, then that is all there will be is more violence, hunger, homelessness.......

It's just that you are still stuck in how WONDERFUL it WOULD be IF...... While most of us have gone past that place to one of WHAT TO DO IN THE MEANTIME. And a lot of us (and I'm talking about ALL people, not just the handfull on here), like MYSELF, are trying damn hard to improve things in our space with our limited abilities. Reality is a bitch when you can't stand to look at it.

 

I like how he gets a point by point breakdown and I get... what?

 

Ok, sure, why not?

But your post pretty much sums up one of the main reasons why you can't really just BAN guns. Because things ARE very different depending on where and how you live.

If you live in the city, is it in a "good" section, or the ghetto? What about "good" suburbs-vs-"bad"? Or urban versus rural. Or rural versus wilderness... And being that way, you cannot just make any kind of "blanket" laws. Things simply work differently depending. And your STATUS in society has a lot to do with it also. So, what's good for one group might not be applicable for another. I don't debate one single thing you said really. You live in a different place and culture. You take your philosophy from your experiences. So do I.

I went from living the first 20 years without locks on my doors and without a weapon of any kind. Then I moved, and only a couple states away. The FIRST THING that happened after I moved (much farther out in the sticks than before), within the first 2 days was I got ROBBED. Not once, but having been in the same state for almost 35 years, MANY times. Then, when I thought I finally had everything someone might want to steal "secured", the damn COPS showed up to steal as well...

Anyhoo, Lots of DIFFERENT people living in different places with different lifestyles CAN'T think or act or live just the same. I really think that the BEST thing to do under the circumstances is for people to ACCEPT this and if they wish to live in a "gunless society" they should FEEL FREE to search out like minded people and join them. And then the rest can FEEL FREE to either have or not have guns. And then EVERYONE can have their cake and eat it too.

 

when its comes to a difference of opinion, the guy with the gun wins