There are far better ways to handle things than with firearms, and I fear that there's always going to be a fascination with them as long as mass media continues to fetishize their use, but it's worth bearing in mind that there's more accidental shootings, and needless loss of life, in America because of firearms than there are in most advanced nations combined.
I remember a particularly annoying, abrasive officer, who loved to yell at little kids, getting dragged into a side-street and getting the utter shit kicked out of him, back when I was a teen. He never raised his voice to any children again, and seemed - for a while, anyway - to have learned a little something about community from that incident. Something like that couldn't happen in the US, which is why so many officers there act like they are above the law.
I'm not saying that Britain is better, by any means, but we sort things out the right way, when the need is pressing enough.
For the record, I wish what Britain has done was possible in the US, but it would require such an enormous cultural transformation, and the literal collection and removal of more than a billion guns already in circulation, that I just don't think it is.
And I'll never argue that a world without guns wouldn't be a better world.
But while we can (and must) loudly and persistently decry gun violence, and exert constant social pressure to de-fetishize guns, I adamantly don't want to live in a country where the only people who possess guns are operatives of the state. We don't need to look any further than the blood-soaked history of the 20th century to learn what a mistake it is to grant too much unilateral power to any sovereign government. And anyone who thinks, "yeah, but it wouldn't happen in my country," needs to make a more careful study of that history, and of human nature itself. We tend toward tyranny. It takes long and tireless effort to keep it at bay. And the costs of our freedom from tyranny will always be high.
Some of them, like domestic gun violence and mass shootings, might be avoidable, and so it is incumbent upon us to avoid them. Even so, we must not trade those costs for a greater imbalance of power between the government and the governed. That faustian bargain is always on the table, and we take it far too often (read: post 9/11 expansion of the NSA, as just one example).
I live in Utah. The mountains are just 20 minutes away. I own a .22 rifle and I love to go shooting, especially out in the country. We also have plenty of shooting ranges, indoors and outdoors.
Gun ownership isn't fraught in other first world democracies, or even in non democratic countries.
We don't own guns. We're not at risk of tanks rolling out or at risk of a totalitarian government. We don't have mass shootings. Ever. Not since the first and last one , nearly 30 years ago, after which the government took barely days to pass legislation for a gun buy back, ban automatic firearms, and to change gun ownership laws. Individual shootings, rare, are invariably adults, not children. Never children. Never children at school.
People do have guns. Farmers, hunters, criminals, police.
In Britain, even police don't routinely carry guns. Weird, but true. I guess they just use their words to address crime.
America is singular in the world for its culture of gun ownership and gun crime.
The only person putting your democracy at risk is that guy who gets away with everything, and he doesn't even have a gun.
Dude archery is also where it’s at
Oh man I wish there were SO many more archery ranges.
There are far better ways to handle things than with firearms, and I fear that there's always going to be a fascination with them as long as mass media continues to fetishize their use, but it's worth bearing in mind that there's more accidental shootings, and needless loss of life, in America because of firearms than there are in most advanced nations combined.
I remember a particularly annoying, abrasive officer, who loved to yell at little kids, getting dragged into a side-street and getting the utter shit kicked out of him, back when I was a teen. He never raised his voice to any children again, and seemed - for a while, anyway - to have learned a little something about community from that incident. Something like that couldn't happen in the US, which is why so many officers there act like they are above the law.
I'm not saying that Britain is better, by any means, but we sort things out the right way, when the need is pressing enough.
For the record, I wish what Britain has done was possible in the US, but it would require such an enormous cultural transformation, and the literal collection and removal of more than a billion guns already in circulation, that I just don't think it is.
I love that story.
And I'll never argue that a world without guns wouldn't be a better world.
But while we can (and must) loudly and persistently decry gun violence, and exert constant social pressure to de-fetishize guns, I adamantly don't want to live in a country where the only people who possess guns are operatives of the state. We don't need to look any further than the blood-soaked history of the 20th century to learn what a mistake it is to grant too much unilateral power to any sovereign government. And anyone who thinks, "yeah, but it wouldn't happen in my country," needs to make a more careful study of that history, and of human nature itself. We tend toward tyranny. It takes long and tireless effort to keep it at bay. And the costs of our freedom from tyranny will always be high.
Some of them, like domestic gun violence and mass shootings, might be avoidable, and so it is incumbent upon us to avoid them. Even so, we must not trade those costs for a greater imbalance of power between the government and the governed. That faustian bargain is always on the table, and we take it far too often (read: post 9/11 expansion of the NSA, as just one example).
I live in Utah. The mountains are just 20 minutes away. I own a .22 rifle and I love to go shooting, especially out in the country. We also have plenty of shooting ranges, indoors and outdoors.
Gun ownership isn't fraught in other first world democracies, or even in non democratic countries.
We don't own guns. We're not at risk of tanks rolling out or at risk of a totalitarian government. We don't have mass shootings. Ever. Not since the first and last one , nearly 30 years ago, after which the government took barely days to pass legislation for a gun buy back, ban automatic firearms, and to change gun ownership laws. Individual shootings, rare, are invariably adults, not children. Never children. Never children at school.
People do have guns. Farmers, hunters, criminals, police.
In Britain, even police don't routinely carry guns. Weird, but true. I guess they just use their words to address crime.
America is singular in the world for its culture of gun ownership and gun crime.
The only person putting your democracy at risk is that guy who gets away with everything, and he doesn't even have a gun.