Across the pond
The Big Question: Can America ever be weaned off its love affair with guns?
No. See, unlike the Brits, it would require weaning. In England, it happened despite their gun culture. Bear in mind that England is a country whose press is terrified by BB guns and knives. And check this out:
There’s no question that the gun culture – stemming back to the frontier spirit of the 19th century and justified, at least by gun-ownership advocates, by the Second Amendment of the Constitution – plays a major role in perpetuating the high numbers of violent deaths.
Err, no. The gun culture (of which I am part) plays no role in gun deaths. Criminals do.
October 4th, 2006 at 9:08 am
“stemming back to the frontier spirit of the 19th century ”
I’m sorry, I thought it stemmed back to the 18’th century when we kicked your limey asses up and down the east coast before we sent George III screaming to the sanitarium.
Mind your own country, we’re doing just fine.
October 4th, 2006 at 9:41 am
England has descended into barbarism where the law-abiding citizens are prosecuted for exercising the basic human right of armed self-defense. The result is that violent crime is becoming ever worse there.
Armed citizens are only a threat to criminals and tyrants–and only your enemy wants you disarmed.
October 4th, 2006 at 10:53 am
I’d say we play a role in violent deaths. I consider it a fairly ethical thing to do : killing a murder isn’t going to tug my heart strings even if I did know he was ‘only’ going to maim his current target.
Perpetuate, though, that we don’t do. As Kim Du Toit’s counter notes, we’re far more focused on ensuring to stop the cycle in the most effective way possible.
October 4th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
gattsuru wrote,
“I’d say we play a role in violent deaths. I consider it a fairly ethical thing to do.”
I agree and…
“… the act of a private citizen in striking down a criminal, who, by
raising himself above the law, has placed himself beyond the reach of legal
punishment or control, has been accounted by whole nations, and by some of the best
and wisest men, not a crime, but an act of exalted virtue.” –John Stuart Mill
“No law ever written has stopped any robber, rapist or killer, like the cold
blue steel in the the hands of their last intended victim.” –W. Emerson Wright