"Gun town U.S.A." Not a murder in 25 years!!!

Hunting

This keeps coming up time after time and I keep pointing out (time after time) that this isn’t normally how pro-gunners usually frame the argument preferring fear of something - usually violent criminals or tyrannical government.

I think I understand why that would be – because if the question was just about hunting and sport then those that advocate gun control would say fine and frame legislation that would exclude anyone from owning a gun that wasn’t a registered hunter or member of a sports club and limit the type of guns sold to those that could be seen as hunting or sporting weapons.

(Hunting with guns still goes on in countries with much tougher gun laws that the US)

I think that is why ‘protection’ (fear of attack) is never far away in a pro-gun argument (followed soon after by the ‘rights’ argument).

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In 1945 around 25% of American men hunted, that figure was down to 7% in 1996 and according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service those numbers have fell again between 1996 and 2006 (to around 12.5 million)
(Hunting and the American imagination by D.J Herman and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Also according to the US census over 70% of Americans are designated as living in urban areas.

Now the BBC says “The United States has the largest number of guns in private hands of any country in the world with 60 million people owning a combined arsenal of over 200 million firearms.”

60 million gun owners minus 12.5 million hunters

Would make 47.5 million gun owners that are not hunters?

Now there could be those that are hunting illegally but 47.5 million?

The results of a 2004 national firearms survey extrapolated that some – “64% of gun owners or 16% of American adults reported owning at least one handgun” http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/13/1/15

16% of 300 million is 48 million.

Handguns are most commonly the gun bought for protection against perceived human threats rather than for hunting animals.

However it doesn’t seem to be straight forward as that because another survey by Gallup (of 1,012 adults from August 29-September 5, 2000; and 1,054 adults from February 8-9, 1999) concluded that the percentage of gun owners who own guns for protection against crime was 65 while the percentage of gun owners who own guns for hunting was 59.

This may mean that many gun owners ‘see’ themselves as hunters or hunt occasionally but are not ‘real’ hunters.

So anyway there’s likely be some cross over with hunters buying a gun out of fear of criminals and hunting or buying one type of gun (handgun) out of fear of criminals and another type (rifle) to go hunting.

But this indicates that large numbers of gun owners (bother hunters and not) buy guns because they fear criminals.

Now that would fit in with what I’ve seen on these forums.

 

i consider guns to be neither good nor bad for society's ills, so that's purely supposition on your part. and what's with "not even bother to try?" might as well slap me and call me a mindless blight on society. why do you think i read this stuff, even if i don't comment? and shouldn't taxes be dealt with in another thread?

 

mama

You’ve repeated over and over that you don’t know what to do about socio-economic or societal problems. You’re not saying – maybe I should think about it - or – I have this idea - are you?

You say you’re reading posts on the politics forum, you don’t say what you’ve learnt or if you’ve learnt anything. Are you learning anything if so what and if you’ve leant nothing, why do you think that is?

Thing is I do think you need a metaphorical slap, because just bleating ‘I don’t know’, ‘I haven’t a clue’ rather than using your perfectly good brain to think of something just seems like laziness or complacency.

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You said

This could mean that you were in favour of gun control just not ‘useless’ gun control but from the content and the tone of you previous posts I took it to mean that you were against gun control, you want guns to be part of US society and that you are in favour of guns, you think guns are good, a useful tool, on the whole a positive thing to you and American society.

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There have been hundreds of threads on taxation, have you ever given your views in any of them?

My point is that some people’s view of guns is based on a mentality and set of attitudes and beliefs that go beyond just the gun issue.

That the promoters of guns are trying to distract people from crucial problems their ideas have no answer for while use the subject as a way of crow baring those flawed ideas into peoples lives. In other words part of the American culture wars.

So far nearly everything the pro-gunners have said seems to back me up.

I said

This isn’t an unusual idea I’ve read and heard it a few times; the way individual gun ownership can be linked to the idea of lower taxes and many of the pro-gunners I’ve got to talk have seemed to favour low taxes

 

I beg you pardon perhaps you would be good enough to show me the posts where I’ve dismissed the US’s cultural heritage and some of the major themes in American history (independence, slavery, western expansion, industrialization) as irrelevances? Because in this thread I don’t believe I’ve commented on independence, slavery, western expansion or industrialization at all.

My posts have consisted of smart arse remarks and rather pointless jibs? What do you consider these remarks, almost half of what you say in this post, to be?

Scream? Not hardly, I don’t get upset debating with people, because I learned long ago that getting upset is pointless, a waste of time and doesn’t improve your argument in the least. Something you might consider doing.

As for answering your question, is this the one you mean?

I believe my answer was in post #137 where I said:

I guess you don’t read my posts.

As for post #97 here it is unedited:

Now the only thing I can come up with as a possible answer to the question of what you believe to be a “healthy society’ is this:

Which seems to be a statement about what I believe or don’t believe, not what you believe, could it be this is what you are talking about as an answer to my question?

 

Sometimes I wonder if you even try to understand what people are trying to say to you or are you, like you say, just trying to score points

 

The argument for gun ownership has many facets and hunting and protection are only two of them.

See the question is not about just hunting or just about protection but both.

The reason it’s not far away is like I said protection is one of the facets of gun ownership.

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Nice work interpolating these figures for us. But the figures are a probably little skewed seeing as hunters tend to own multiple guns and collectors, who may not be hunters, tend to own even more.

This seems to be true but maybe not. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of plinking but it is a informal sport in the US where a couple of people will go out and shoot at cans and see who is the better shot, usually hand guns are used because they are light, easier carry and more difficult to hit something with.

You are probably right here, as was mentioned earlier, there is a culture of hunting in the US and many would like to think of themselves as hunters, whether they are or not.

You keep using the word fear and using it to cover a wide range of emotion. Normally when I think of fear I think of something like a phobia, like a fear of snakes, an almost irrational emotion that makes you make bad decisions. But when I think of protection, you could say fear but maybe worry or concern would be better terms. Much like saying; it might rain, I think I’ll take an umbrella with me, yes you could say I’m afraid it will it will rain but the feeling is more just a mild concern about getting wet.

 

http://www.nationmaster.com/cat/ter-terrorism

According to these NationMaster folks:

Germany ranked # 111, with 0.2 fatalities per act;

the USA ranked # 8, with 5.9 fatalities per act.

We've "been there, done that," with considerably more fatalities,

so pardon us for mourning our own, first and foremost,

because i'm not so sure the Germans dropped everything to mourn OUR loss, above their own,

especially since this time, it was catastrophic for them.

And your post IS a valid contribution???

No valid citations; no valid sources; no valid articles; just demands for answers that, when given, you don't seem to understand.

WE DO CARE ~ look at the monies, memorial gifts, prayers, etc., POURING into Samson for the victims and/or their families.

To tell you the truth, Balbus, your "attitude" is

"'very much like a shrug of the shoulders and an acceptance that ‘these things happen’ with a bit of - who cares what happens to Alabama thrown in."

You know, the America bashing is getting sort of old...

 

ive asked before! does any one think that an armed, scociaty would not, be a more polite society?
BALBUS,
you have postured that the u.s gun laws, are a result of fear?
i have to ask? who do you think the american pepole have to fear?

 

It seems to me that BALBUS feels that the word protection has a sense of fear to it and if someone buys a gun for "protection" that means they are in fear of what ever they need "protection" from. That means the gun was bought out of fear.

 

i honestly don't think a country which refuses to let i's police officers themselves carry guns, meanwhile the criminals have access to them via the blackmarket. has much room to criticise america's gun laws or it's culture surrounding guns. just because certain people misuse firearms, this doesn't mean every last one of us should be disarmed. i kind of wonder if it(balbus's antigun sentiments) has anything to do with the fact of guns being used to overturn british rule over americans.

 

OWB

Your replies don’t address anything I’ve said; its nit picking or assertions that I’m wrong without actually explaining why I’m wrong.

Anyway your main claim seems to be that fear is not involved in this matter, but you’re not explaining why so many pro-gunners use fear to promote guns (Fy has just begun another gun thread with fear at it’s core). Not hunting not sport, but virtually always something about violent crime and evil government desires (Rat’s over there banging that particular drum).

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As to comparing gun ownership to umbrella ownership, it just doesn’t work - to the point of being laughable.

Are you saying that the possibility of being attacked by Mad’s ‘Psycho’ or hillbilly’s ‘knife wheeling rapist’ is the same as being rained on? That would be fear inducing to me since I live in London where it rains a lot (about 150 days a year).

Also rain isn’t usually threatening (unless its accompanied by a tornado, hurricane, risk of flooding etc) in normal circumstances, rain just gets you wet. It’s not trying to mug you or rape you or steal from your home.

And an umbrella isn’t going to stop the rain from falling as pulling gun is meant to stop an attacker for example. And an umbrella can’t kill or injure the rain if it doesn’t stop.

And although it often rains in the UK I hardly ever carry an umbrella because I’m not afraid of rain, I’m not even that concerned and to tell you the truth, on occasions I (as I know others do) like been out in the rain.

No OWB, owning a gun isn’t like owning an umbrella and the threat of rain isn’t like the threat pro-gunners use, like violent criminals and governments bent of tyranny.

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Flmkpr

Please read the posts.

I’ve already answered your question (many times).

This is what I’m getting time and again people who are not interested in actual debate (they would read the posts) but instead those that just want to score a point.

It’s heckling not contributing.

 

Right wing strategists of the conservative or neo-con persuasion used to want to keep debate on ‘god, guns and gays’ and away from ‘real’ societal problems.

They wanted that because things like the gun issue don’t really go anywhere, produce much more heat than light and distract from the very real social and economic problems of the US for which they have few or no answers.

Now I’m sure there are American ‘progressives’ that are pro-gun but on the whole the people that are most vocal and persistent in the promotion of guns are right leaning.

And the right don’t seem to have any idea how to tackle the US’s many problems and what policies the American right has, have failed and/or are very likely to make things worse.

So maybe the only way the right can ‘keep’ in the political game so to speak is by harking on and on about such things as guns?

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PS: the right wing libertarians have the same problem they might not have such a big thing about gods and gays but that means they only have conspiracy and guns.

 

Ummm, being a libertarian doesn't mean you believe in conspiracy theories, I constantly hate this place for the amount of conspiracy theories that goes around. I just don't believe in the nanny state.

 

Sorry Mad maybe I’m being a bit cruel but so many right wing libertarian people that come here do seem to like their conspiracy.

But libertarianism is right leaning and above all it’s free market policies would, in my opinion, only end in a plutocracy.

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=353336&f=36

So my theory would still seem to hold the right finds it difficult to talk about the very real social and economic problems of the US because it doesn’t seem to have any idea how to tackle them and what policies it does have, have failed and/or are very likely to make things worse.

So is bringing up cultural issues the only way it can ‘keep’ in the political game?

 

I think most of America's problems are social issues, aside from social issues what is there? Economically before everything went to shit we were better off then most of western Europe, yes there was a much higher disparity between rich and poor, but also generally much stronger growth and lower unemployment rates. We're a very large country that's a confederation of 50 different states with much different cultures, America's issues before the economy and the Iraq war are basically all social.

 

Once again, it would be nice if you actually tried to understand what people are saying.

I decided to add to this comment to show what I mean.
The umbrella illustration was not comparing an umbrella to a gun, something that you just spent half a page rambling on about, it was an illustration about the word fear and how it can have different levels of meaning, which in all of your rambling you didn't even touch on.

Debating 101 - at least try to understand what the other person is talking about so you don't look like a complete fool.

 

Nice description of what you're doing. does that mean you're going to start contributing now?

 

Once again the pot calling the kettle black. In other words it's nice to hear from someone who lives in a country that has solved all their social and economic problems and has condescended to bestow on us his wisdom.

 

OWB

You’re still just bitching and trying to score points rather than addressing what’s been said in any constructive way.

I am trying to understand you, but it’s hard to understand someone that isn’t saying much beyond telling me I’m wrong and he’s right, but seems unwilling or unable to explain why.

For example this whole umbrella illustration is farcical.

You seem to be implying that the level of fear a person should have at being told that they are likely to be attacked by a violent criminal, ‘psycho’ or ‘knife wheeling rapist’ should be, no is, the same level of fear they would have if told that they are likely to get caught of in a spot of rain.

Any sane person would see that as ridicules.

I tried to make that clear in my reply. Try emulating Mad and actually start debating rather than just endlessly trying to score a point.