I wonder what would happen if the national news followed fatal car accidents with the same obsession they do these gun episodes -- which, incidentally, they probably promote by obsessing over, because it means attention for whatever creature it is this week. IN 2017, over 40,000 people were killed in the US by automobiles. In the same year, guns could only account for 14,000. To me, the automobile problem is far worse because 80% of American infrastructure is auto-oriented, and even school zones are built with wide, straight lanes that induce speeding.
40K is a lot. Too many. But when you consider overall millage and the number of vehicles involved it's probably a very small percentage. Plus the deaths related to cars are (generally) accidents caused by a whole host of things from bad vehicle design, poor road conditions, tiredness, alcohol and drugs and more. Cars are designed as a form of transport. Their primary function is not to kill. Cars have many safety features designed to reduce the chance of an accident and reduce the damage if an accident does occur. You have to pass a drivers test to get behind the wheel and be licenced to do so. Cars need to be certified as safe to be on the roads etc.....
The publicity given to gun crime *might* increase its occurrence. But not reporting it might easily be seen as a cover-up. It might be a good idea focusing on the victims rather than the perpetrator(s) to deny them that kind of oxygen. Greater publicity of car deaths might in fact increase the chance of legislation making driving that much safer.
In most places 14K dead from guns in a year would designate it a war zone. I do actually find the word 'only' preceding 14K dead rather disturbing to be honest. The US is, I believe, the only country in the world that tolerates this level of gun related death. I do struggle with the reason why. I for one, not being American, don't understand why having the right to own guns is so important compared to the obvious mayhem it causes on an all too regular basis. I find it WAY beyond strange that the recent Las Vegas shooting caused barely a ripple of concern. In any other country not actually engaged in a bloody Civil War such an act would have resulted in a national rethink of a fundamental nature. The fact that it didn't do any such thing is *deeply* disturbing. I wonder what it would take, what absolutely horrible event, to get something done. Honestly I can't decide between not being able to think that bad or or not wanting to be able to think that bad.
Americans are warped by John Wayne movies; it's a sort of national psychosis... but, "i have a dream" that we'll run out of oil and all the freeways and byways will be jammed up with... BICYCLES!
When it comes to guns, I think it's easy for people to talk past one another...especially given how different cultures can be. I had my hands on firearms before I was in first grade. (I fired one once, and it was so loud I didn't touch one again until after college, when I inherited a shotgun from my grandfather.) In the interest of establishing common ground, though, I'll say this: a gun culture can be dangerous if impulsive people have instant access to pistols and the like, and keeping known criminals and mentally disturbed people from having firearms is a good idea.
In defense of guns in the US, however: Guns are designed to expel small projectiles at great velocity. That's their primary function. It's people who decide how to direct that function. I can use the same bullet to scare off an invasive dog, shoot three burglars invading my house (that happened in Atlanta over the weekend), or They have safety mechanisms, as well. It's people who pick guns up, people who disengage the safety mechanism. Most gun crime is caused not by mentally unhealthy people going beserk, but is linked to urban crime. This map from CityLab.com, for instance, shows the geography of gun violence, and you can stick a major metro in the middle of each zone:
https://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/citylab/legacy/2012/12/01/gunmap.png (It's old data, from 2007, but most geography-of-violence maps do it by state.)
Part of this is because more people live in cities, but cities have major problems with drug and gang violence. My hometown, for instance, has one of the highest per capita murder rates in Alabama. One year we were even the 8th most dangerous city in America. It's not mass shootings: it's uniformly gang violence, fueled by crack cocaine, which often catches innocents in the crossfire. Gun legislation won't deprive guns from criminals any more than the war on drugs has deprived people of drugs. I am ALL for background checks, keeping mentally disturbed people from them, etc.
I don't know what the solution is to the urban problem. The war on drugs probably doesn't help it, making drugs more lucrative and making the control of them by gangs important enough that they'll resort to regular violence. I'm pretty sure a smarter media handling of mass shooters would make that lose some steam, but as far as urban gangs go...I can be glad I'm country boy.
Anyway, so ends the apologia. I hope it's not out of line.
@ Mudpuddle: Oh, I think there's much more going on than John Wayne movies. American culture is practically universal. American gun culture is (thankfully) very local!
@ Stephen: Thanks for your detailed response. I've had very little direct experience with guns. I've been paint-balling which I found rather tense. I've fired a .22 'match' rifle at a shooting range and turned out to be half decent shot. The Instructor (probably being kind) said that I was a natural. I've seen an AK-47 (when you could still legally own such things) up close when I visited the friend of a friend and the friends brother was field stripping it on his front step... But apart from that....
I think a guns primary function is to kill as efficiently as possible. What they end up killing is decided by the person pulling the trigger. The primary function of a handgun is to kill other people. We've pretty much perfected that aspect of things....
As to solutions... GOOD Question! I'm sure that better people and better informed people than me struggle with that one. Personally I'd just ban them completely. It'd probably take a generation (or two) to get rid of them completely but it could be done if the will was there. I'm guessing that it wouldn't be easy (or pretty) though!
Oh, and you're definitely not out of line. I think we sometimes forget that we live in VERY different cultures because we (almost) talk the same language. I believe that it's difficult at best and probably impossible for even two cultures this close to understand each other. But its interesting trying to find out.
7 comments:
I wonder what would happen if the national news followed fatal car accidents with the same obsession they do these gun episodes -- which, incidentally, they probably promote by obsessing over, because it means attention for whatever creature it is this week. IN 2017, over 40,000 people were killed in the US by automobiles. In the same year, guns could only account for 14,000. To me, the automobile problem is far worse because 80% of American infrastructure is auto-oriented, and even school zones are built with wide, straight lanes that induce speeding.
Well, this is going to take some unpacking.....
40K is a lot. Too many. But when you consider overall millage and the number of vehicles involved it's probably a very small percentage. Plus the deaths related to cars are (generally) accidents caused by a whole host of things from bad vehicle design, poor road conditions, tiredness, alcohol and drugs and more. Cars are designed as a form of transport. Their primary function is not to kill. Cars have many safety features designed to reduce the chance of an accident and reduce the damage if an accident does occur. You have to pass a drivers test to get behind the wheel and be licenced to do so. Cars need to be certified as safe to be on the roads etc.....
The publicity given to gun crime *might* increase its occurrence. But not reporting it might easily be seen as a cover-up. It might be a good idea focusing on the victims rather than the perpetrator(s) to deny them that kind of oxygen. Greater publicity of car deaths might in fact increase the chance of legislation making driving that much safer.
In most places 14K dead from guns in a year would designate it a war zone. I do actually find the word 'only' preceding 14K dead rather disturbing to be honest. The US is, I believe, the only country in the world that tolerates this level of gun related death. I do struggle with the reason why. I for one, not being American, don't understand why having the right to own guns is so important compared to the obvious mayhem it causes on an all too regular basis. I find it WAY beyond strange that the recent Las Vegas shooting caused barely a ripple of concern. In any other country not actually engaged in a bloody Civil War such an act would have resulted in a national rethink of a fundamental nature. The fact that it didn't do any such thing is *deeply* disturbing. I wonder what it would take, what absolutely horrible event, to get something done. Honestly I can't decide between not being able to think that bad or or not wanting to be able to think that bad.
Americans are warped by John Wayne movies; it's a sort of national psychosis... but, "i have a dream" that we'll run out of oil and all the freeways and byways will be jammed up with... BICYCLES!
When it comes to guns, I think it's easy for people to talk past one another...especially given how different cultures can be. I had my hands on firearms before I was in first grade. (I fired one once, and it was so loud I didn't touch one again until after college, when I inherited a shotgun from my grandfather.) In the interest of establishing common ground, though, I'll say this: a gun culture can be dangerous if impulsive people have instant access to pistols and the like, and keeping known criminals and mentally disturbed people from having firearms is a good idea.
In defense of guns in the US, however:
Guns are designed to expel small projectiles at great velocity. That's their primary function. It's people who decide how to direct that function. I can use the same bullet to scare off an invasive dog, shoot three burglars invading my house (that happened in Atlanta over the weekend), or They have safety mechanisms, as well. It's people who pick guns up, people who disengage the safety mechanism. Most gun crime is caused not by mentally unhealthy people going beserk, but is linked to urban crime. This map from CityLab.com, for instance, shows the geography of gun violence, and you can stick a major metro in the middle of each zone:
https://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/citylab/legacy/2012/12/01/gunmap.png
(It's old data, from 2007, but most geography-of-violence maps do it by state.)
Part of this is because more people live in cities, but cities have major problems with drug and gang violence. My hometown, for instance, has one of the highest per capita murder rates in Alabama. One year we were even the 8th most dangerous city in America. It's not mass shootings: it's uniformly gang violence, fueled by crack cocaine, which often catches innocents in the crossfire. Gun legislation won't deprive guns from criminals any more than the war on drugs has deprived people of drugs. I am ALL for background checks, keeping mentally disturbed people from them, etc.
I don't know what the solution is to the urban problem. The war on drugs probably doesn't help it, making drugs more lucrative and making the control of them by gangs important enough that they'll resort to regular violence. I'm pretty sure a smarter media handling of mass shooters would make that lose some steam, but as far as urban gangs go...I can be glad I'm country boy.
Anyway, so ends the apologia. I hope it's not out of line.
@ Mudpuddle: Oh, I think there's much more going on than John Wayne movies. American culture is practically universal. American gun culture is (thankfully) very local!
@ Stephen: Thanks for your detailed response. I've had very little direct experience with guns. I've been paint-balling which I found rather tense. I've fired a .22 'match' rifle at a shooting range and turned out to be half decent shot. The Instructor (probably being kind) said that I was a natural. I've seen an AK-47 (when you could still legally own such things) up close when I visited the friend of a friend and the friends brother was field stripping it on his front step... But apart from that....
I think a guns primary function is to kill as efficiently as possible. What they end up killing is decided by the person pulling the trigger. The primary function of a handgun is to kill other people. We've pretty much perfected that aspect of things....
As to solutions... GOOD Question! I'm sure that better people and better informed people than me struggle with that one. Personally I'd just ban them completely. It'd probably take a generation (or two) to get rid of them completely but it could be done if the will was there. I'm guessing that it wouldn't be easy (or pretty) though!
Oh, and you're definitely not out of line. I think we sometimes forget that we live in VERY different cultures because we (almost) talk the same language. I believe that it's difficult at best and probably impossible for even two cultures this close to understand each other. But its interesting trying to find out.
What's that expression? Two cultures divided by a common language? ;-)
i still blame it on JW...
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